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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12)
+
+Author: G. Maspero
+
+Editor: A.H. Sayce
+
+Translator: M.L. McClure
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2005 [EBook #17328]
+Last Updated: September 8, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT, CHALDÆA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Spines]
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
+
+By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen’s
+College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of
+France
+
+Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
+
+Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
+Exploration Fund
+
+
+CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Volume VIII.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+THE GROLIER SOCIETY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg Frontispiece]
+
+     Arab Family at Dinner
+
+[Illustration: Titlepage]
+
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+_SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)_
+
+_THE STRUGGLE OF SENNACHERIB WITH JUDÆA AND EGYPT--DESTRUCTION OF
+BABYLON_
+
+_The upheaval of the entire Eastern world on the accession of
+Sennacherib--Revolt of Babylon: return of Merodach-baladan and his
+efforts to form a coalition against Assyria; the battle of Kish (703
+B.C.)--Belibni, King of Babylon (702-699 B.C.)--Sabaco, King of Egypt,
+Amenertas and Pionkhi, Shàbî-toku--Tyre and its kings after Ethbaal II.:
+Phoenician colonisation in Libya and the foundation of Carthage--The
+Kingdom of Tyre in the time of Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon:
+Elulai--Judah and the reforms of Hezekiah; alliance of Judah and Tyre
+with Egypt, the downfall of the Tyrian kingdom (702 B.C.)--The battle of
+Altaku and the siege of Jerusalem: Sennacherib encamped before Lachish,
+his Egyptian expedition, the disaster at Pelusium._
+
+_Renewed revolt of Babylon and the Tabal (699 B.C.); flight of the
+people of Bît-Yakîn into Elamite territory; Sennacherib’s fleet and
+descent on Nagitu (697-696 B.C.)--Khalludush invades Karduniash
+(695 B.C.); Nirgal-ushezib and Mushesîb-marduk at Babylon (693-689
+B.C.)--Sennacherib invades Elam (693 B.C.): battle of Khalulê (692
+B.C.), siege and destruction of Babylon (689 B.C.)--Buildings of
+Sennacherib at Nineveh: his palace at Kouyunjik; its decoration with
+battle, hunting, and building scenes._
+
+[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)
+
+_The struggle of Sennacherib with Judæa and Egypt--Destruction of
+Babylon._
+
+
+Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father’s good fortune, or
+lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the
+energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against
+him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the
+adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage
+successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway.
+
+     * The two principal documents for the reign of Sennacherib
+     are engraved on cylinders: the Taylor Cylinder and the
+     Bellino Cylinder, duplicates of which, more or less perfect,
+     exist in the collections of the British Museum. The Taylor
+     Cylinder, found at Kouyunjik or Usebi-Yunus, contains the
+     history or the first eight years of this reign; the Bellino
+     Cylinder treats of the two first years of the reign.
+
+He lacked the wisdom to conciliate the vanquished, or opportunely to
+check his own repressive measures; he destroyed towns, massacred entire
+tribes, and laid whole tracts of country waste, and by failing to
+repeople these with captive exiles from other nations, or to import
+colonists in sufficient numbers, he found himself towards the end of
+his reign ruling over a sparsely inhabited desert where his father had
+bequeathed to him flourishing provinces and populous cities. His was
+the system of the first Assyrian conquerors, Shalmaneser III. and
+Assur-nazir-pal, substituted for that of Tiglath-pileser III. and
+Sargon. The assimilation of the conquered peoples to their conquerors
+was retarded, tribute was no longer paid regularly, and the loss of
+revenue under this head was not compensated by the uncertain increase
+in the spoils obtained by war; the recruiting of the army, rendered more
+difficult by the depopulation of revolted districts, weighed heavier
+still on those which remained faithful, and began, as in former times,
+to exhaust the nation. The news of Sargon’s murder, published throughout
+the Eastern world, had rekindled hope in the countries recently
+subjugated by Assyria, as well as in those hostile to her. Phoenicia,
+Egypt, Media, and Elam roused themselves from their lethargy and
+anxiously awaited the turn which events should take at Nineveh and
+Babylon. Sennacherib did not consider it to his interest to assume the
+crown of Chaldæa, and to treat on a footing of absolute equality a
+country which had been subdued by force of arms: he relegated it to the
+rank of a vassal state, and while reserving the suzerainty for himself,
+sent thither one of his brothers to rule as king.*
+
+     * The events which took place at Babylon at the beginning of
+     Sennacherib’s reign are known to us from the fragments of
+     Berosus, compared with the Canon of Ptolemy and Pinches’
+     Babylonian Canon. The first interregnum in the Canon of
+     Ptolemy (704-702 B.C.) is filled in Pinches’ Canon by three
+     kings who are said to have reigned as follows: Sennacherib,
+     two years; Marduk-zâkir-shumu, one month; Merodach-baladan,
+     nine months. Berosus substitutes for Sennacherib one of his
+     brothers, whose name apparently he did not know; and this is
+     the version I have adopted, in agreement with most modern
+     historians, as best tallying with the evident lack of
+     affection for Babylon displayed by Sennacherib throughout
+     his reign.
+
+The Babylonians were indignant at this slight. Accustomed to see their
+foreign ruler conform to their national customs, take the hands of Bel,
+and assume or receive from them a new throne-name, they could not resign
+themselves to descend to the level of mere tributaries: in less than
+two years they rebelled, assassinated the king who had been imposed upon
+them, and proclaimed in his stead Marduk-zâkir-shumu,* who was merely
+the son of a female slave (704 B.C.).
+
+     * The servile origin of this personage is indicated in
+     Pinches’ Babylonian Canon; he might, however, be connected
+     through his father with a princely, or even a royal, family,
+     and thereby be in a position to win popular support. Among
+     modern Assyriologists, some suppose that the name Akises in
+     Berosus is a corruption of [Marduk-]zâkir[shumu]; others
+     consider Akises-Akishu as being the personal name of the
+     king, and Marduk-zâkir-shumu his throne-name.
+
+This was the signal for a general insurrection in Chaldæa and the
+eastern part of the empire. Merodach-baladan, who had remained in hiding
+in the valleys on the Elamite frontier since his defeat in 709 B.C.,
+suddenly issued forth with his adherents, and marched at once to
+Babylon; the very news of his approach caused a sedition, in the midst
+of which Marduk-zâkir-shumu perished, after having reigned for only one
+month. Merodach-baladan re-entered his former capital, and as soon as
+he was once more seated on the throne, he endeavoured to form alliances
+with all the princes, both small and great, who might create a diversion
+in his favour. His envoys obtained promises of help from Elam; other
+emissaries hastened to Syria to solicit the alliance of Hezekiah, and
+might have even proceeded to Egypt if their sovereign’s good fortune had
+lasted long enough.* But Sennacherib did not waste his opportunities in
+lengthy-preparations.
+
+     * 2 Kings xx. 12-19; Isa. xxxix. The embassy to Hezekiah has
+     been assigned to the first reign of Merodach-baladan, under
+     Sargon. In accordance with the information obtained from the
+     Assyrian monuments, it seems to me that it could only have
+     taken place during his second reign, in 703 B.C.
+
+The magnificent army left by Sargon was at his disposal, and summoning
+it at once into the field, he advanced on the town of Kîsh, where the
+Kaldâ monarch was entrenched with his Aramæan forces and the Elamite
+auxiliaries furnished by Shutruk-nakhunta. The battle issued in the
+complete rout of the confederate forces. Merodach-baladan fled almost
+unattended, first to Guzum-manu, and then to the marshes of the Tigris,
+where he found a temporary refuge; the troops who were despatched in
+pursuit followed him for five days, and then, having failed to secure
+the fugitive, gave up the search.*
+
+     * The detail is furnished by the _Bellino Cylinder_. Berosus
+     affirmed that Merodach-baladan was put to death by Belibni.
+
+His camp fell into the possession of the victor, with all its
+contents--chariots, horses, mules, camels, and herds of cattle belonging
+to the commissariat department of the army: Babylon threw open its gates
+without resistance, hoping, no doubt, that Sennacherib would at length
+resolve to imitate the precedent set by his father and retain the royal
+dignity for himself. He did, indeed, consent to remit the punishment for
+this first insurrection, and contented himself with pillaging the
+royal treasury and palace, but he did not deign to assume the crown,
+conferring it on Belibni, a Babylonian of noble birth, who had been
+taken, when quite a child, to Nineveh and educated there under the eyes
+of Sargon.*
+
+     * The name is transcribed Belibos in Greek, and it seems as
+     if the Assyrian variants justify the pronunciation Belibush.
+
+While he was thus reorganising the government, his generals were
+bringing the campaign to a close: they sacked, one after another,
+eighty-nine strongholds and eight hundred and twenty villages of
+the Kaldâ; they drove out the Arabian and Aramaean garrisons which
+Merodach-baladan had placed in the cities of Karduniash, in Urak, Nipur,
+Kuta, and Kharshag-kalamma, and they re-established Assyrian supremacy
+over all the tribes on the east of the Tigris up to the frontiers of
+Elam, the Tumuna, the Ubudu, the Gambulu, and the Khindaru, as also over
+the Nabataeans and Hagarenes, who wandered over the deserts of Arabia to
+the west of the mouths of the Euphrates. The booty was enormous: 208,000
+prisoners, both male and female, 7200 horses, 11,073 asses, 5230 camels,
+80,100 oxen, 800,500 sheep, made their way like a gigantic horde of
+emigrants to Assyria under the escort of the victorious army. Meanwhile
+the Khirimmu remained defiant, and showed not the slightest intention
+to submit: their strongholds had to be attacked and the inhabitants
+annihilated before order could in any way be restored in the country.
+The second reign of Merodach-baladan had lasted barely nine months.
+
+The blow which ruined Merodach-baladan broke up the coalition which he
+had tried to form against Assyria. Babylon was the only rallying-point
+where states so remote, and such entire strangers to each other as Judah
+and Elam, could enter into friendly relations and arrange a plan of
+combined action. Having lost Babylon as a centre, they were once more
+hopelessly isolated, and had no means of concerting measures against the
+common foe: they renounced all offensive action, and waited under
+arms to see how the conqueror would deal with each severally. The
+most threatening storm, however, was not that which was gathering over
+Palestine, even were Egypt to be drawn into open war: for a revolt of
+the western provinces, however serious, was never likely to lead to
+disastrous complications, and the distance from Pelusium to the Tigris
+was too great for a victory of the Pharaoh to compromise effectually
+the safety of the empire. On the other hand, should intervention on the
+part of Elam in the affairs of Babylon or Media be crowned with success,
+the most disastrous consequences might ensue: it would mean the loss
+of Karduniash, or of the frontier districts won with such difficulty by
+Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon; it would entail permanent hostilities
+on the Tigris and the Zab, and perhaps the appearance of barbarian
+troops under the walls of Calah or of Nineveh. Elam had assisted
+Merodach-baladan, and its soldiers had fought on the plains of Kish.
+Months had elapsed since that battle, yet Shutruk-nakhunta showed no
+disposition to take the initiative: he accepted his defeat at all events
+for the time, but though he put off the day of reckoning till a more
+favourable opportunity, it argued neither weakness nor discouragement,
+and he was ready to give a fierce reception to any Assyrian monarch
+who should venture within his domain. Sennacherib, knowing both the
+character and resources of the Elamite king, did not attempt to meet him
+in the open field, but wreaked his resentment on the frontier tribes
+who had rebelled at the instigation of the Elamites, on the Cossoans,
+on Ellipi and its king Ishpabara. He pursued the inhabitants into the
+narrow valleys and forests of the Khoatras, where his chariots were
+unable to follow: proceeding with his troops, sometimes on horseback,
+at other times on foot, he reduced Bît-kilamzak, Khardishpi, and
+Bît-kubatti to ashes, and annexed the territories of the Cossoans and
+the Yasubigallâ to the prefecture of Arrapkha. Thence he entered Ellipi,
+where Ishpabara did not venture to come to close quarters with him in
+the open field, but led him on from town to town. He destroyed the
+two royal seats of Marubishti and Akkuddu, and thirty-four of their
+dependent strongholds; he took possession of Zizirtu, Kummalu, the
+district of Bitbarru, and the city of Elinzash, to which he gave the
+name Kar-Sennacherib,--the fortress of Sennacherib,--and annexed them
+to the government of Kharkhar. The distant Medes, disquieted at his
+advance, sent him presents, and renewed the assurances of devotion they
+had given to Sargon, but Sennacherib did not push forward into
+their territory as his predecessors had done: he was content to have
+maintained his authority as far as his outlying posts, and to have
+strengthened the Assyrian empire by acquiring some well-situated
+positions near the main routes which led from the Iranian table-land to
+the plains of Mesopotamia. Having accomplished this, he at once turned
+his attention towards the west, where the spirit of rebellion was still
+active in the countries bordering on the African frontier. Sabaco, now
+undisputed master of Egypt, was not content, like Piônkhi, to bring
+Egypt proper into a position of dependence, and govern it at a distance,
+by means of his generals. He took up his residence within it, at least
+during part of every year, and played the rôle of Pharaoh so well that
+his Egyptian subjects, both at Thebes and in the Delta, were obliged to
+acknowledge his sovereignty and recognise him as the founder of a
+new dynasty. He kept a close watch over the vassal princes, placing
+garrisons in Memphis and the other principal citadels, and throughout
+the country he took in hand public works which had been almost
+completely interrupted for more than a century owing to the civil wars:
+the highways were repaired, the canals cleaned out and enlarged, and
+the foundations of the towns raised above the level of the inundation.
+Bubastis especially profited under his rule, and regained the ascendency
+it had lost ever since the accession of the second Tanite dynasty; but
+this partiality was not to the detriment of other cities. Several of the
+temples at Memphis were restored, and the inscriptions effaced by time
+were re-engraved. Thebes, happy under the government of Amenertas and
+her husband Piônkhi, profited largely by the liberality of its Ethiopian
+rulers. At Luxor Sabaco restored the decoration of the principal gateway
+between the two pylons, and repaired several portions of the temple of
+Amon at Karnak. History subsequently related that, in order to obtain
+sufficient workmen, he substituted forced labour for the penalty of
+death: a policy which, beside being profitable, would win for him a
+reputation for clemency. Egypt, at length reduced to peace and order,
+began once more to flourish, and to display that inherent vitality
+of which she had so often given proof, and her reviving prosperity
+attracted as of old the attention of foreign powers. At the beginning of
+his reign, Sabaco had attempted to meddle in the intrigues of Syria, but
+the ease with which Sargon had quelled the revolt of Ashdod had inspired
+the Egyptian monarch with salutary distrust in his own power; he had
+sent presents to the conqueror and received gifts in exchange, which
+furnished him with a pretext for enrolling the Asiatic peoples among
+the tributary nations whose names he inscribed on his triumphal lists.*
+Since then he had had some diplomatic correspondence with his powerful
+neighbour, and a document bearing his name was laid up in the archives
+at Calah, where the clay seal once attached to it has been discovered.
+Peace had lasted for a dozen years, when he died about 703 B.C., and his
+son Shabîtoku ascended the throne.**
+
+     * It was probably with reference to this exchange of
+     presents that Sabaco caused the bas-relief at Karnak to be
+     engraved, in which he represents himself as victorious over
+     both Asiatics and Africans.
+
+     ** One version of Manetho assigns twelve years to the reign
+     of Sabaco, and this duration is confirmed by an inscription
+     in Hammamât, dated in his twelfth year. Sabaco having
+     succeeded to the throne in 716-715 B.C., his reign brings us
+     down to 704 or 703 B.C., which obliges us to place the
+     accession of Shabî-toku in the year following the death of
+     Sargon.
+
+[Illustration: 011.jpg clay seal with cartouche of sabaco]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Layard.
+
+The temporary embarrassments in which the Babylonian revolution had
+plunged Sennacherib must have offered a tempting opportunity for
+interference to this inexperienced king. Tyre and Judah alone of all the
+Syrian states retained a sufficiently independent spirit to cherish any
+hope of deliverance from the foreign yoke. Tyre still maintained her
+supremacy over Southern Phoenicia, and her rulers were also kings of
+Sidon.* The long reign of Eth-baal and his alliance with the kings of
+Israel had gradually repaired the losses occasioned by civil discord,
+and had restored Tyre to the high degree of prosperity which it had
+enjoyed under Hiram. Few actual facts are known which can enlighten us
+as to the activity which prevailed under Eth-baal: we know, however,
+that he rebuilt the small town of Botrys, which had been destroyed in
+the course of some civil war, and that he founded the city of Auza in
+Libyan territory, at the foot of the mountains of Aures, in one of the
+richest mineral districts of modern Algeria.**
+
+     * Eth-baal II., who, according to the testimony of the
+     native historians, belonged to the royal family of Tyre, is
+     called King of the Sidonians in the Bible (1 Kings xvi. 31),
+     and the Assyrian texts similarly call Elulai King of the
+     Sidonians, while Menander mentions him as King of Tyre. It
+     is probable that the King of Sidon, mentioned in the Annals
+     of Shal-maneser III. side by side with the King of Tyre, was
+     a vassal of the Tyrian monarch.
+
+     ** The two facts are preserved in a passage of Menander. I
+     admit the identity of the Auza mentioned in this fragment
+     with the Auzea of Tacitus, and with the _Colonia Septimia
+     Aur. Auziensium_ of the Roman inscriptions the present
+     Aumale.
+
+In 876 B.C. Assur-nazir-pal had crossed the Lebanon and skirted the
+shores of the Mediterranean: Eth-baal, naturally compliant, had loaded
+him with gifts, and by this opportune submission had preserved his
+cities and country from the horrors of invasion.*
+
+     * The King of Tyre who sent gifts to Assur-nazir-pal is not
+     named in the Assyrian documents: our knowledge of Tyrian
+     chronology permits us with all probability to identify him
+     with Eth-baal.
+
+Twenty years later Shalmaneser III. had returned to Syria, and had come
+into conflict with Damascus. The northern Phoenicians formed a league
+with Ben-hadad (Adadidri) to withstand him, and drew upon themselves the
+penalty of their rashness; the Tynans, faithful to their usual policy,
+preferred to submit voluntarily and purchase peace. Their conduct
+showed the greater wisdom in that, after the death of Eth-baal, internal
+troubles again broke out with renewed fierceness and with even more
+disastrous results. His immediate successor was Balezor (854-846 B.C.),
+followed by Mutton I. (845-821 B.C.), who flung himself at the feet of
+Shalmaneser III., in 842 B.c., in the camp at Baalirasi, and renewed
+his homage three years later, in 839 B.C. The legends concerning the
+foundation of Carthage blend with our slight knowledge of his history.
+They attribute to Mutton I. a daughter named Elissa, who was married
+to her uncle Sicharbal, high priest of Melkarth, and a young son named
+Pygmalion (820-774 B.c.). Sicharbal had been nominated by Mutton as
+regent during the minority of Pygmalion, but he was overthrown by
+the people, and some years later murdered by his ward. From that time
+forward Elissa’s one aim was to avenge the murder of her husband.
+She formed a conspiracy which was joined by all the nobles, but being
+betrayed and threatened with death, she seized a fleet which lay ready
+to sail in the harbour, and embarking with all her adherents set sail
+for Africa, landing in the district of Zeugitanê, where the Sidonians
+had already built Kambê. There she purchased a tract of land from
+larbas, chief of the Liby-phoenicians, and built on the ruins of the
+ancient factory a new town, Qart-hadshat, which the Greeks called
+Carchedo and the Romans Carthage. The genius of Virgil has rendered
+the name of Dido illustrious: but history fails to recognise in the
+narratives which form the basis of his tale anything beyond a legendary
+account fabricated after the actual origin (814-813 B.C.) of the great
+Punic city had been forgotten. Thus weakened, Tyre could less than ever
+think of opposing the ambitious designs of Assyria: Pygmalion took no
+part in the rebellions of the petty Syrian kings against Samsî-rammân,
+and in 803 B.C. he received his suzerain Rammân-nirâri with the
+accustomed gifts, when that king passed through Phoenicia before
+attacking Damascus. Pygmalion died about 774 B.C., and the names of his
+immediate successors are not known;* it may be supposed, however, that
+when the power of Nineveh temporarily declined, the ties which held Tyre
+to Assyria became naturally relaxed, and the city released herself from
+the burden of a tribute which had in the past been very irregularly
+paid.
+
+     * The fragment of Menander ‘which has preserved for us the
+     list of Tyrian kings from Abî-baal to Pygmalion, was only
+     quoted by Josephus, because, the seventh year of Pygmalion’s
+     reign corresponding to the date of the foundation of
+     Carthage,--814--813 B.C. according to the chronological
+     system of Timssus,--the Hebrew historian found in it a fixed
+     date which seemed to permit of his establishing the
+     chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah on a trustworthy
+     basis between the reign of Pygmalion and Hiram I., the
+     contemporary of David and Solomon.
+
+The yoke was reassumed half a century later, at the mere echo of the
+first victories of Tiglath-pileser III.; and Hiram II., who then reigned
+in Tyre, hastened to carry to the camp at Arpad assurances of his
+fidelity (742 B.C.). He gave pledges of his allegiance once more in 738
+B.C.; then he disappears, and Mutton II. takes his place about 736 B.C.
+This king cast off, unhappily for himself, his hereditary apathy, and as
+soon as a pretext offered itself, abandoned the policy of neutrality to
+which his ancestors had adhered so firmly. He entered into an alliance
+in 734 B.C. with Damascus, Israel and Philistia, secretly supported
+and probably instigated by Egypt; then, when Israel was conquered and
+Damascus overthrown, he delayed repairing his error till an Assyrian
+army appeared before Tyre: he had then to pay the price of his temerity
+by 120 talents of gold and many loads of merchandise (728 B.C.). The
+punishment was light and the loss inconsiderable in comparison with
+the accumulated wealth of the city, which its maritime trade was daily
+increasing:* Mutton thought the episode was closed,** but the peaceful
+policy of his house, having been twice interrupted, could not be
+resumed.
+
+     *[For a description of the trade carried on by Tyre, cf.
+     Ezelc. xxvi., xxvii., and xxviii.---Tr.]
+
+     ** Pygmalion having died about 774 B.C., and Hiram II. not
+     appearing till 742 B.C., it is probable that we should
+     intercalate between these two Kings at least one sovereign
+     whose name is still unknown.
+
+Southern Phoenicia, having once launched on the stream of Asiatic
+politics, followed its fluctuations, and was compelled henceforth to
+employ in her own defence the forces which had hitherto been utilised
+in promoting her colonial enterprises. But it was not due to the foolish
+caprice of ignorant or rash sovereigns that Tyre renounced her former
+neutral policy: she was constrained to do so, almost perforce, by the
+changes which had taken place in Europe. The progress of the Greeks, and
+their triumph in the waters of the Ægean and Ionian Seas, and the rapid
+expansion of the Etruscan navy after the end of the ninth century, had
+gradually restricted the Phoenician merchantmen to the coasts of the
+Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic: they industriously exploited
+the mineral wealth of Africa and Spain, and traffic with the barbarous
+tribes of Morocco and Lusitania, as well as the discovery and working of
+the British tin mines, had largely compensated for the losses occasioned
+by the closing of the Greek and Italian markets. Their ships, obliged
+now to coast along the inhospitable cliffs of Northern Africa and to
+face the open sea, were more strongly and scientifically built than any
+vessels hitherto constructed. The Egyptian undecked galleys, with stem
+and stern curving inwards, were discarded as a build ill adapted to
+resist the attacks of wind or wave. The new Phoenician galley had a long,
+low, narrow, well-balanced hull, the stern raised and curving inwards
+above the steersman, as heretofore, but the bows pointed and furnished
+with a sharp ram projecting from the keel, equally serviceable to cleave
+the waves or to stave in the side of an enemy’s ship. Motive power was
+supplied by two banks of oars, the upper ones resting in rowlocks on
+the gunwale, the lower ones in rowlocks pierced in the timbers of the
+vessel’s side. An upper deck, supported by stout posts, ran from stem to
+stern, above the heads of the rowers, and was reserved for the soldiers
+and the rest of the crew: on a light railing surrounding it were hung
+the circular shields of the former, forming as it were a rampart on
+either side.
+
+[Illustration: 017.jpg A PHOENICIAN GALLEY WITH TWO BANKS OF OARS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard. Sennacherib affirms
+     that vessels of this type had been constructed by Syrian
+     shipwrights, and were manned by Tyrian, Sidonian, and Ionian
+     sailors.
+
+The mast, passing through both decks, was firmly fixed in the keel, and
+was supported by two stays made fast to stem and stern. The rectangular
+sail was attached to a yard which could be hoisted or lowered at will.
+The wealth which accrued to the Tyrians from their naval expeditions
+had rendered the superiority of Tyre over the neighbouring cities so
+manifest that they had nearly all become her vassals. Arvad and Northern
+Phoenicia were still independent, as also the sacred city of Bylos, but
+the entire coast from the Nahr-el-Kelb to the headland formed by
+Mount Carmel was directly subject to Tyre,* comprising the two Sidons,
+Bît-zîti, and Sarepta, the country from Mahalliba to the fords of the
+Litâny, Ushu and its hinterland as far as Kana, Akzîb, Akko, and Dora;
+and this compact territory, partly protected by the range of Lebanon,
+and secured by the habitual prudence of its rulers from the invasions
+which had desolated Syria, formed the most flourishing, and perhaps also
+the most populous, kingdom which still existed between the Euphrates and
+the Egyptian desert.**
+
+     * The kings of Arvad and Byblos are still found mentioned at
+     the beginning of Sennacherib’s reign.
+
+     ** The extent of the kingdom of Tyro is indicated by the
+     passage in which Sennacherib enumerated the cities which he
+     had taken from Elulai. To these must be added Dor, to the
+     south of Carmel, which was always regarded as belonging to
+     the Tyrians, and whose isolated position between the
+     headland, the sea, and the forest might cause the Assyrians
+     to leave it unmolested.
+
+Besides these, some parts of Cyprus were dependent on Tyre, though
+the Achaean colonies, continually reinforced by fresh immigrants, had
+absorbed most of the native population and driven the rest into the
+mountains.
+
+[Illustration: 018.jpg MAP OF KINGDOM OF TYRE, THE CAMPAIGN OF
+SENNACHERIB]
+
+A hybrid civilisation had developed among these early Greek settlers,
+amalgamating the customs, religions, and arts of the ancient eastern
+world of Egypt, Syria, and Chaldoa in variable proportions: their script
+was probably derived from one of the Asianic systems whose monuments
+are still but partly known, and it consisted of a syllabary awkwardly
+adapted to a language for which it had not been designed. A dozen petty
+kings, of whom the majority were Greeks, disputed possession of the
+northern and eastern parts of the island, at Idalion, Khytros, Paphos,
+Soli, Kourion, Tamassos, and Ledron. The Phoenicians had given way at
+first before the invaders, and had grouped themselves in the eastern
+plain round Kition; they had, however, subsequently assumed the
+offensive, and endeavoured to regain the territory they had lost.
+Kition, which had been destroyed in one of their wars, had been rebuilt,
+and thus obtained the name of Qart-hadshat, “the new city.” *
+
+     * The name of this city, at first read as Amtikhadashti, and
+     identified with Ammokhostos or with Amathous,--_Amti-
+     Khadash_ would in this case be equivalent to _New
+     Amathous_,--is really Karti-Khadashti, as is proved by the
+     variant reading discovered by Schrader, and this is
+     identical with the native name of Carthage in Africa. This
+     new city must have been of some antiquity by the time of
+     Elulai, for it is mentioned on a fragment of a bronze vase
+     found in Cyprus itself: this fragment belonged to a King
+     Hiram, who according to some authorities would be Hiram II.,
+     according to others, Hiram I.
+
+Mutton’s successor, Elulai, continued, as we know, the work of defence
+and conquest: perhaps it was with a view to checking his advance that
+seven kings of Cyprus sent an embassy, in 709 B.C., to his suzerain,
+Sargon, and placed themselves under the protection of Assyria. If this
+was actually the case, and Elulai was compelled to suspend hostilities
+against these hereditary foes, one can understand that this grievance,
+added to the reasons for uneasiness inspired by the situation of his
+continental dominions, may have given him the desire to rid himself of
+the yoke of Assyria, and contributed to his resolution to ally himself
+with the powers which were taking up arms against her. The constant
+intercourse of his subjects with the Delta, and his natural anxiety to
+avoid anything which might close one of the richest markets of the world
+to the Tyrian trade, inclined him to receive favourably the overtures of
+the Pharaoh: the emissaries of Shabîtoku found him as much disposed
+as Hezekiah himself to begin the struggle. The latter monarch, who
+had ascended the throne while still very young, had at first shown no
+ambition beyond the carrying out of religious reforms. His father Ahaz
+had been far from orthodox, in spite of the influence exerted over him
+by Isaiah. During his visit to Tiglath-pileser at Damascus (729 B.C.) he
+had noticed an altar whose design pleased him. He sent a description
+of it to the high priest Urijah, with orders to have a similar one
+constructed, and erected in the court of the temple at Jerusalem: this
+altar he appropriated to his personal use, and caused the priests to
+minister at it, instead of at the old altar, which he relegated to an
+inferior position. He also effected changes in the temple furniture,
+which doubtless appeared to him old-fashioned in comparison with the
+splendours of the Assyrian worship which he had witnessed, and he made
+some alterations in the approaches to the temple, wishing, as far as we
+can judge, that the King of Judah should henceforth, like his brother of
+Nineveh, have a private, means of access to his national god.
+
+This was but the least of his offences: for had he not offered his own
+son as a holocaust at the moment he felt himself most menaced by the
+league of Israel and Damascus? Among the people themselves there were
+many faint-hearted and faithless, who, doubting the power of the God of
+their forefathers, turned aside to the gods of the neighbouring nations,
+and besought from them the succour they despaired of receiving from any
+other source; the worship of Jahveh was confounded with that of Moloch
+in the valley of the children of Hinnom, where there was a sanctuary or
+Tophet, at which the people celebrated the most horrible rites: a large
+and fierce pyre was kept continually burning there, to consume the
+children whose fathers brought them to offer in sacrifice.* Isaiah
+complains bitterly of these unbelievers who profaned the land with their
+idols, “worshipping the work of their own hands, that which their own
+fingers had made.” ** The new king, obedient to the divine command,
+renounced the errors of his father; he removed the fetishes with which
+the superstition of his predecessors had cumbered the temple, and which
+they had connected with the worship of Jahveh, and in his zeal even
+destroyed the ancient brazen serpent, the Nehushtan, the origin of which
+was attributed to Moses.***
+
+     * Isa. xxx. 33, where the prophet describes the Tophet
+     Jahveh’s anger is preparing for Assyria.
+
+     ** Isa. ii. 8.
+
+     *** 2 Kings xviii. 4. I leave the account of this religious
+     reformation in the place assigned to it in the Bible; other
+     historians relegate it to a time subsequent to the invasion
+     of Sennacherib.
+
+On the occasion of the revolt of Yamani, Isaiah counselled Hezekiah to
+remain neutral, and this prudence enabled him to look on in security at
+the ruin of the Philistines, the hereditary foes of his race. Under his
+wise administration the kingdom of Judah, secured against annoyance from
+envious neighbours by the protection which Assur freely afforded to its
+obedient vassals, and revived by thirty years of peace, rose rapidly
+from the rank of secondary importance which it had formerly been content
+to occupy. “Their land was full of silver and gold, neither was there
+any end of their treasures; their land also was full of horses, neither
+was there any end of their chariots.” *
+
+     * Isa. ii. 7, where the description applies better to the
+     later years of Ahaz or the reign, of Hezekiah than to the
+     years preceding the war against Pekah and Rezin.
+
+Now that the kingdom of Israel had been reduced to the condition of an
+Assyrian province, it was on Judah and its capital that the hopes of the
+whole Hebrew nation were centred.
+
+Tyre and Jerusalem had hitherto formed the extreme outwork of the Syrian
+states; they were the only remaining barrier which separated the empires
+of Egypt and Assyria, and it was to the interest of the Pharaoh to
+purchase their alliance and increase their strength by every means in
+his power. Negotiations must have been going on for some time between
+the three powers, but up to the time of the death of Sargon and
+the return of Merodach-baladan to Babylon their results had been
+unimportant, and it was possible that the disasters which had befallen
+the Kaldâ would tend to cool the ardour of the allies. An unforeseen
+circumstance opportunely rekindled their zeal, and determined them to
+try their fortune.
+
+[Illustration: 023.jpg MAP OF THE CAMPAIGN OF SENNACHERIB IN JUDEA]
+
+The inhabitants of Ekron, dissatisfied with Padî, the chief whom the
+Assyrians had set over them, seized his person and sent him in chains to
+Hezekiah.*
+
+     * The name of the city, written Amgarruna, is really
+     Akkaron-Ekron.
+
+To accept the present was equivalent to open rebellion, and a
+declaration of war against the power of the suzerain. Isaiah, as usual,
+wished Judah to rely on Jahveh alone, and preached against alliance
+with the Babylonians, for he foresaw that success would merely result in
+substituting the Kaldâ for the Ninevite monarch, and in aggravating the
+condition of Judah. “All that is in thine house,” he said to Hezekiah,
+“and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall
+be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy
+sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take
+away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon.”
+ Hezekiah did not pay much heed to the prediction, for, he reflected,
+“peace and truth shall be in my days,” and the future troubled him
+little.* When the overthrow of Merodach-baladan had taken place, the
+prophet still more earnestly urged the people not to incur the vengeance
+of Assyria without other help than that of Tyre or Ethiopia, and
+Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, spoke in the same strain; but Shebna, the
+prefect of the palace, declaimed against this advice, and the latter’s
+counsel prevailed with his master.**
+
+     * 2 Kings xx. 16-19.
+
+     ** This follows from the terms in which the prophet compares
+     the two men (Isa. xxii. 15-25).
+
+Hezekiah agreed to accept the sovereignty over Ekron which its
+inhabitants offered to him, but a remnant of prudence kept him from
+putting Padî to death, and he contented himself with casting him into
+prison. Isaiah, though temporarily out of favour with the king, ceased
+not to proclaim aloud in all quarters the will of the Almighty. “Woe to
+the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not
+of Me; and that cover with a covering (form alliances), but not of My
+spirit, that they may add sin to sin: that walk to go down into Egypt,
+and have not asked at My mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength
+of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the
+strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt
+your confusion. When your princes shall be at Tanis, and your messengers
+shall come to Heracleopolis,* [Heb. Hanes.--Tr.] you shall all be
+ashamed of a people that cannot profit you.... For Egypt helpeth in
+vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth
+still.” * He returned, unwearied and with varying imagery, to his theme,
+contrasting the uncertainty and frailty of the expedients of worldly
+wisdom urged by the military party, with the steadfast will of Jahveh
+and the irresistible authority with which He invests His faithful
+servants. “The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh,
+and not spirit; and when the Lord shall stretch out His hand, both he
+that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is holpen shall fall, and they
+shall all fail together. For thus saith the Lord unto me, Like as when
+the lion growleth, and the young lion over his prey, if a multitude of
+shepherds be called forth against him, he will not be dismayed at their
+voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of
+hosts come down to fight upon Mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof.
+As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem: He will
+protect and deliver it. Turn ye unto Him from whom ye have deeply
+revolted, O children of Israel.” **
+
+     * Isa. xxx. 1-5, 7. In verses 4, 5, the original text
+     employs the third person; I have restored the second person,
+     to avoid confusion.
+
+     ** Isa. xxxi. 3-6.
+
+No one, however, gave heed to his warnings, either king or people; but
+the example of Phoenicia soon proved that he was right. When Sennacherib
+bestirred himself, in the spring of 702 B.C., either the Ethiopians were
+not ready, or they dared not advance to encounter him in Coele-Syria,
+and they left Elulai to get out of his difficulties as best he might.
+He had no army to risk in a pitched battle; but fondly imagined that his
+cities, long since fortified, and protected on the east by the range of
+Lebanon, would offer a resistance sufficiently stubborn to wear out
+the patience of his assailant. The Assyrians, however, disconcerted his
+plans. Instead of advancing against him by the pass of Nahr-el-Kebir,
+according to their usual custom, they attacked him in flank, descending
+into the very midst of his positions by the _col_ of Legnia or one of
+the neighbouring passes.* They captured in succession the two Sidons,
+Bît-zîti, Sarepta, Mahalliba, Ushu, Akzîb, and Acco: Elulai, reduced
+to the possession of the island of Tyre alone, retreated to one of his
+colonies in Cyprus, where he died some years later, without having set
+foot again on the continent. All his former possessions on the mainland
+were given to a certain Eth-baal, who chose Sidon for his seat of
+government, and Tyre lost by this one skirmish the rank of metropolis
+which she had enjoyed for centuries.** This summary punishment decided
+all the Syrian princes who were not compromised beyond hope of pardon to
+humble themselves before the suzerain. Menahem of Samsi-muruna,***
+
+     * This follows from the very order in which the cities were
+     taken in the course of this campaign.
+
+     ** The Assyrian text gives for the name of the King of Sidon
+     a shortened form Tu-baal instead of Eth-baal, paralleled by
+     Lulia for Elulai.
+
+     *** Several of the early Assyriologists read Usi-muruna, and
+     identified the city bearing this name with Samaria. The
+     discovery of the reading Samsi-muruna on a fragment of the
+     time of Assur-bani-pal no longer permits of this
+     identification, and obliges us to look for the city in
+     Phoenicia.
+
+Abdiliti of Arvad, Uru-malîk of Byblos, Puduîlu of Amnion, Chemosh-nadab
+of Moab, Malîk-rammu of Edom, Mitinti of Ashdod, all brought their
+tribute in person to the Assyrian camp before Ushu: Zedekiah of Ashkelon
+and Hezekiah of Judah alone persisted in their hostility. Egypt had at
+length been moved by the misfortunes of her allies, and the Ethiopian
+troops had advanced to the seat of war, but they did not arrive in time
+to save Zedekiah: Sennacherib razed to the ground all his strongholds
+one after another, Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and Hazor,* took him
+prisoner at Ascalon, and sent him with his family to Assyria, setting
+up Sharludarî, son of Bukibti, in his stead. Sennacherib then turned
+against Ekron, and was about to begin the siege of the city, when the
+long-expected Egyptians at length made their appearance. Shabîtoku
+did not command them in person, but he had sent his best troops--the
+contingents furnished by the petty kings of the Delta, and the sheikhs
+of the Sinaitic peninsula, who were vassals of Egypt. The encounter
+took place near Altaku,** and on this occasion again, as at Raphia,
+the scientific tactics of the Assyrians prevailed over the stereotyped
+organisation of Pharaoh’s army: the Ethiopian generals left some of
+their chariots in the hands of the conqueror, and retreated with the
+remnants of their force beyond the Isthmus.
+
+     * These are the cities attributed to the tribes of Dan and
+     Judah in Josh. xv. 25, 41; xix. 45. Beth-dagon is now Bêt-
+     Dejân; Azuru is Yazûr, to the south-east of Joppa; Beni-
+     barak is Ibn-Abrak, to the north-east of the same town.
+
+     ** Altaku is certainly Eltekeh of Dan (Josh. xix. 44), as
+     was seen from the outset; the site, however, of Eltekeh
+     cannot be fixed with any certainty. It has been located at
+     Bêt-Lukkieh, in the mountainous country north-west of
+     Jerusalem, but this position in no way corresponds to the
+     requirements of the Assyrian text, according to which the
+     battle took place on a plain large enough for the evolutions
+     of the Egyptian chariots, and situated between the group of
+     towns formed by Beth-dagon, Joppa, Beni-barak, and Hazor,
+     which Sennacherib had just captured, and the cities of
+     Ekrbn, Timnath, and Eltekeh, which he took directly after
+     his victory: a suitable locality must be looked for in the
+     vicinity of Ramleh or Zernuka.
+
+Altaku capitulated, an example followed by the neighbouring fortress of
+Timnath, and subsequently by Ekron itself, all three being made to feel
+Sennacherib’s vengeance. “The nobles and chiefs who had offended, I
+slew,” he remarks, “and set up their corpses on stakes in a circle
+round the city; those of the inhabitants who had offended and committed
+crimes, I took them prisoners, and for the rest who had neither offended
+nor transgressed, I pardoned them.”
+
+
+[Illustration: 028.jpg THE PASS OF LEGNIA, IN LEBANON]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph given in Lortet.
+
+[Illustration: 028b.jpg Esneh--Principal Abyssinian Trading Village]
+
+We may here pause to inquire how Hezekiah was occupied while his fate
+was being decided on the field of Altaku. He was fortifying Jerusalem,
+and storing within it munitions of War, and enrolling Jewish soldiers
+and mercenary troops from the Arab tribes of the desert. He had suddenly
+become aware that large portions of the wall of the city of David had
+crumbled away, and he set about demolishing the neighbouring houses to
+obtain materials for repairing these breaches: he hastily strengthened
+the weak points in his fortifications, stopped up the springs which
+flowed into the Gibon, and cut off the brook itself, constructing a
+reservoir between the inner and outer city walls to store up the waters
+of the ancient pool. These alterations* rendered the city, which from
+its natural position was well defended, so impregnable that Sennacherib
+decided not to attack it until the rest of the kingdom had been
+subjugated: with this object in view he pitched his camp before Lachish,
+whence he could keep a watch over the main routes from Egypt where they
+crossed the frontier, and then scattered his forces over the land of
+Judah, delivering it up to pillage in a systematic manner. He took
+forty-six walled towns, and numberless strongholds and villages,
+demolishing the walls and leading into captivity 200,150 persons of all
+ages and conditions, together with their household goods, their horses,
+asses, mules, camels, oxen, and sheep;** it was a war as disastrous in
+its effects as that which terminated in the fall of Samaria, or which
+led to the final captivity in Babylon.***
+
+     * Isa. xxii. 8-11.
+
+     * An allusion to the sojourn of Sennacherib near Lachish is
+     found in 2 Kings xviii. 14-17; xix. 8, and in Isa. xxxvi. 2;
+     xxxvii. 8
+
+     *** It seems that the Jewish historian Demetrios considered
+     the captivities under Nebuchadrezzar and Sennacherib to be
+     on the same footing.
+
+The work of destruction accomplished, the Rabshakeh brought up all his
+forces and threw up a complete circle of earthworks round Jerusalem:
+Hezekiah found himself shut up in his capital “like a bird in a cage.”
+ The inhabitants soon became accustomed to this isolated life, but
+Isaiah was indignant at seeing them indifferent to their calamities, and
+inveighed against them with angry eloquence: “What aileth thee now,
+that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops? O thou that art full of
+shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; thy slain are not slain
+with the sword, neither are they dead in battle. All thy rulers fled
+away together, they are made prisoners without drawing the bow; they are
+come hither from afar for safety, and all that meet together here shall
+be taken together.” *
+
+     * [The R.V. gives this passage as follows: “They were bound
+     by the archers: all that were found of thee were bound
+     together, they fled afar off.”--TR.]
+
+The danger was urgent; the Assyrians were massed in their entrenchments
+with their auxiliaries ranged behind them to support them: “Elam bare
+the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the
+shield (for the assault). And it came to pass that thy choicest valleys
+were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at thy
+gate, and he took away the covering of Judah.”
+
+[Illustration: 029.jpg SENNACHERIB RECEIVING THE SUBMISSIONS OF THE
+JEWS]
+
+In those days, therefore, Jahveh, without pity for His people, called
+them to “weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with
+sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep,
+eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+shall die. And the Lord of hosts revealed Himself in mine ears, Surely
+this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the
+Lord, the Lord of Hosts.” * The prophet threw the blame on the courtiers
+especially Shebna, who still hoped for succour from the Egyptians, and
+kept up the king’s illusions on this point. He threatened him with the
+divine anger; he depicted him as seized by Jahveh, rolled and kneaded
+into a lump, “and tossed like a ball into a large country: there shalt
+thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of
+thy lord’s house. And I will thrust thee from thy office, and from thy
+station he shall pull thee down!”** Meanwhile, day after day elapsed,
+and Pharaoh did not hasten to the rescue. Hezekiah’s eyes were opened;
+he dismissed Shebna, and degraded him to the position of scribe, and set
+Eliakim in his place in the Council of State.***
+
+     * Isa. xxii. 1-14.
+
+     ** Isa. xxii. 15-19.
+
+     ***In the duplicate narrative of these negotiations with the
+     Assyrian generals, Shebna is in fact considered as a mere
+     scribe, while Eliakim is the prefect of the king’s house (2
+     Kings xviii. 18, 37; xix. 2: Isa. xxxvi. 3, 22; xxxvii. 2).
+
+Isaiah’s influence revived, and he persuaded the king to sue for peace
+while yet there was time.
+
+Sennacherib was encamped at Lachish; but the Tartan and his two
+lieutenants received the overtures of peace, and proposed a parley near
+the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller’s field.
+Hezekiah did not venture to go in person to the meeting-place; he sent
+Eliakirn, the new prefect of the palace, Shebna, and the chancellor
+Joah, the chief cupbearer, and tradition relates that the Assyrian
+addressed them in severe terms in his master’s name: “Now on whom dost
+thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? Behold, thou trustest upon
+the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean,
+it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh, King of Egypt,
+to all that trust on him.” Then, as he continued to declaim in a loud
+voice, so that the crowds gathered on the wall could hear him, the
+delegates besought him to speak in Aramaic, which they understood, but
+“speak not to us in the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people that
+are on the wall!” Instead, however, of granting their request, the
+Assyrian general advanced towards the spectators and addressed them in
+Hebrew: “Hear ye the words of the great king, the King of Assyria.
+Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he shall not be able to deliver you:
+neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will
+surely deliver us: this city shall not be given into the hand of the
+King of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the King of
+Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat ye every
+one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one
+the waters of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a
+land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and
+vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will
+deliver us!” The specified conditions were less hard than might have
+been feared.*
+
+     * The Hebrew version of these events is recorded in 2 Kings
+     xviii. 13-37; xix., and in Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii., with only
+     one important divergence, namely, the absence from Isaiah of
+     verses 14-16 of 2 Kings xviii. This particular passage, in
+     which the name of the king has a peculiar form, is a
+     detached fragment of an older document, perhaps the official
+     annals of the kingdom, whose contents agreed with the facts
+     recorded in the Assyrian text. The rest is borrowed from the
+     cycle of prophetic narratives, and contains two different
+     versions of the same events. The first comprises 2 Kings
+     xviii. 13, 17-37; xix. l-9a, 36&-37, where Sennacherib is
+     represented as despatching a verbal message to Hezekiah by
+     the Tartan and his captains. The second consists merely of 2
+     Kings xix. 96-36a, and in this has been inserted a long
+     prophecy of Isaiah’s (xix. 21-31) which has but a vague
+     connection with the rest of the narrative. In this
+     Sennacherib defied Hezekiah in a letter, which the Jewish
+     king spread before the Lord, and shortly afterwards received
+     a reply through the prophet. The two versions were combined
+     towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth
+     century, by the compiler of the _Book of Kings_, and passed
+     thence into the collection of the prophecies attributed to
+     Isaiah.
+
+The Jewish king was to give up his wives and daughters as hostages,
+to pledge himself to pay a regular tribute, and disburse immediately a
+ransom of thirty talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver:
+he could only make up this large sum by emptying the royal and sacred
+treasuries, and taking down the plates of gold with which merely a short
+while before he had adorned the doors and lintels of the temple. Padî
+was released from his long captivity, reseated on his throne, and
+received several Jewish towns as an indemnity: other portions of
+territory were bestowed upon Mitinti of Ashdod and Zillibel of Graza as
+a reward for their loyalty.*
+
+     * The sequence of events is not very well observed in the
+     Assyrian text, and the liberation of Padî is inserted in 11.
+     8-11, before the account of the war with Hezekiah. It seems
+     very unlikely that the King of Judah would have released his
+     prisoner before his treaty with Sennacherib; the Assyrian
+     scribe, wishing to bring together all the facts relating to
+     Ekron, anticipated this event. Hebrew tradition fixed the
+     ransom at the lowest figure, 300 talents of silver instead
+     of the 800 given in the Assyrian document (2 Kings xviii.
+     14), and authorities have tried to reconcile this divergence
+     by speculating on the different values represented by a
+     talent in different countries and epochs.
+
+Hezekiah issued from the struggle with his territory curtailed and his
+kingdom devastated; the last obstacle which stood in the way of the
+Assyrians’ victorious advance fell with him, and Sennacherib could
+now push forward with perfect safety towards the Nile. He had, indeed,
+already planned an attack on Egypt, and had reached the isthmus, when a
+mysterious accident arrested his further progress. The conflict on
+the plains of Altaku had been severe; and the army, already seriously
+diminished by its victory, had been still further weakened during the
+campaign in Judæa, and possibly the excesses indulged in by the soldiery
+had developed in them the germs of one of those terrible epidemics which
+had devastated Western Asia several times in the course of the century:
+whatever may have been the cause, half the army was destroyed by
+pestilence before it reached the frontier of the Delta, and Sennacherib
+led back the shattered remnants of his force to Nineveh.*
+
+     * The Assyrian texts are silent about this catastrophe, and
+     the sacred books of the Hebrews seem to refer it to the camp
+     at Libnah in Palestine (2 Kings xix. 8-35); the Egyptian
+     legend related by Herodotus seems to prove that it took
+     place near the Egyptian frontier. Josephus takes the king as
+     far as Pelusium, and describes the destruction of the
+     Assyrian army as taking place in the camp before this town.
+     He may have been misled by the meaning “mud,” which attaches
+     to the name of Libnah as well as to that of Pelusium. Oppert
+     upheld his opinion, and identified the Libnah of the
+     biblical narrative with the Pelusium of Herodotus. It is
+     probable that each of the two nations referred the scene of
+     the miracle to a different locality.
+
+The Hebrews did not hesitate to ascribe the event to the vengeance of
+Jahveh, and to make it a subject of thankfulness. They related that
+before their brutal conqueror quitted the country he had sent a parting
+message to Hezekiah: “Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive
+thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the King of
+Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to
+all lands, by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? Have
+the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed,
+Gozan and Haran and Rezepk, and the children of Eden which were in
+Telassar? Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the
+King of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?” Hezekiah, having
+received this letter of defiance, laid it in the temple before Jahveh,
+and prostrated himself in prayer: the response came to him through the
+mouth of Isaiah. “Thus saith the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, He
+shall not come unto this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall
+he come before it with a shield, nor cast a mount against it. By the way
+that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come unto
+this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for
+Mine own sake and for My servant David’s sake. And it came to pass that
+night, that the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp
+of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and five thousand: and when men
+arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” *
+
+     * 2 Kings xix. 8-35; Isa. xxxvii. 8-36; this is the second
+     tradition of which mention has been made, but already
+     amalgamated with the first to form the narrative as it now
+     stands.
+
+The Egyptians considered the event no less miraculous than did the
+Hebrews, and one of their popular tales ascribed the prodigy to Phtah,
+the god of Memphis. Sethon, the high priest of Phtah, lived in a time of
+national distress, and the warrior class, whom he had deprived of some
+of its privileges, refused to take up arms in his behalf. He repaired,
+therefore, to the temple to implore divine assistance, and, falling
+asleep, was visited by a dream. The god appeared to him, and promised
+to send him some auxiliaries who should ensure him success. He enlisted
+such of the Egyptians as were willing to follow him, shopkeepers,
+fullers, and sutlers, and led them to Pelusium to resist the threatened
+invasion. In the night a legion of field-mice came forth, whence no one
+knew, and, noiselessly spreading throughout the camp of the Assyrians,
+gnawed the quivers, the bowstrings, and the straps of the bucklers in
+such a way that, on the morrow, the enemy, finding themselves disarmed,
+fled after a mere pretence at resistance, and suffered severe losses. A
+statue was long shown in the temple at Memphis portraying this Sethon:
+he was represented holding a mouse in his hand, and the inscription bade
+men reverence the god who had wrought this miracle.*
+
+     * The statue with which this legend has been connected, must
+     have represented a king offering the image of a mouse
+     crouching on a basket, like the cynocephalus on the
+     hieroglyphic sign which denotes centuries, or the frog of
+     the goddess Hiqît. Historians have desired to recognise in
+     Sethon a King Zêt of the XXIIIth dynasty, or even Shabîtoku
+     of the XXVth dynasty; Krall identified him with Satni in the
+     demotic story of Satni-Umois.
+
+The disaster was a terrible one: Sennacherib’s triumphant advance was
+suddenly checked, and he was forced to return to Asia when the goal of
+his ambition was almost reached. The loss of a single army, however much
+to be deplored, was not irreparable, since Assyria could furnish her
+sovereign with a second force as numerous as that which lay buried in
+the desert on the road to Egypt, but it was uncertain what effect the
+news of the calamity and the sight of the survivors might have on the
+minds of his subjects and rivals. The latter took no immediate action,
+and the secret joy which they must have experienced did not blind them
+to the real facts of the case; for though the power of Assyria was
+shaken, she was still stronger than any one of them severally, or even
+than all of them together, and to attack her or rebel against her now,
+was to court defeat with as much certainty as in past days. The Pharaoh
+kept himself behind his rivers; the military science and skill which had
+baffled his generals on the field of Altaku did not inspire him with any
+desire to reappear on the plains of Palestine. Hezekiah, King of Judah,
+had emptied his treasury to furnish his ransom, his strongholds had
+capitulated one by one, and his territory, diminished by the loss of
+some of the towns of the Shephelah, was little botter than a waste of
+smoking ruins. He thought himself fortunate to have preserved his power
+under the suzerainty of Assyria, and his sole aim for many years was
+to refill his treasury, reconstitute his army, and re-establish his
+kingdom. The Philistine and Nabatasan princes, and the chiefs of Moab,
+Ammon, and Idumsea, had nothing to gain by war, being too feeble to have
+any chance of success without the help of Judah, Tyre, and Egypt. The
+Syrians maintained a peaceful attitude, which was certainly their wisest
+policy; and during the following quarter of a century they loyally
+obeyed their governors, and gave Sennacherib no cause to revisit them.
+It was fortunate for him that they did so, for the peoples of the North
+and East, the Kaldâ, and, above all, the Elamites, were the cause of
+much trouble, and exclusively occupied his attention during several
+years. The inhabitants of Bît-Yakîn, urged on either by their natural
+restlessness or by the news of the misfortune which had befallen their
+enemy, determined once more to try the fortunes of war. Incited by
+Marduk-ushezlb,* one of their princes, and by Merodach-baladan, these
+people of the marshes intrigued with the courts of Babylon and Susa,
+and were emboldened to turn against the Assyrian garrisons stationed
+in their midst to preserve order. Sennacherib’s vengeance fell first on
+Marduk-ushezîb, who fled from his stronghold of Bîttutu after sustaining
+a short siege. Merodach-baladan, deserted by his accomplice, put the
+statues of his gods and his royal treasures on board his fleet, and
+embarking with his followers, crossed the lagoon, and effected a landing
+in the district of Nagîtu, in Susian territory, beyond the mouth of
+the Ulaî.** Sennacherib entered Bît-Yakîn without striking a blow, and
+completed the destruction of the half-deserted town; he next proceeded
+to demolish the other cities one after the other, carrying off into
+captivity all the men and cattle who fell in his way.
+
+     * Three kings of Babylon at this period bore very similar
+     names--Marduk-ushezîb, Nergal-ushezîb, and Mushezîb-marduk.
+     Nergal-ushezîb is the elder of the two whom the texts call
+     Shuzub, and whom Assyriologists at first confused one with
+     another.
+
+     ** Nagîtu was bounded by the Nar-Marratum and the Ulaî,
+     which allows us to identify it with the territory south of
+     Edrisieh.
+
+The Elamites, disconcerted by the rapidity of his action, allowed him to
+crush their allies unopposed; and as they had not openly intervened, the
+conqueror refrained from calling them to account for their intrigues.
+Babylon paid the penalty for all: its sovereign, Belibni, who had failed
+to make the sacred authority of the suzerain respected in the city, and
+who, perhaps, had taken some part in the conspiracy, was with his
+family deported to Nineveh, and his vacant throne was given to
+Assur-nadin-shumu, a younger son of Sargon (699 B.C.).*
+
+     * Berosus, misled by the deposition of Belibni, thought that
+     the expedition was directed against Babylon itself; he has
+     likewise confounded Assur-nâdin-shumu with Esar-haddon, and
+     he has given this latter, whom he calls Asordancs, as the
+     immediate successor of Belibni. The date 699 B.C. for these
+     events is indicated in _Pinches’ Babylonian Chronicle_,
+     which places them in the third year of Belibni.
+
+Order was once more restored in Karduniash, but Sennacherib felt that
+its submission would be neither sincere nor permanent, so long as
+Merodach-baladan was hovering on its frontier possessed of an army, a
+fleet, and a supply of treasure, and prepared to enter the lists as soon
+as circumstances seemed favourable to his cause. Sennacherib resolved,
+therefore, to cross the head of the Persian Gulf and deal him such a
+blow as would once for all end the contest; but troubles which broke out
+on the Urartian frontier as soon as he returned forced, him to put off
+his project. The tribes of Tumurru, who had placed their strongholds
+like eyries among the peaks of Nipur, had been making frequent descents
+on the plains of the Tigris, which they had ravaged unchecked by any
+fear of Assyrian power. Sennacherib formed an entrenched camp at the
+foot of their mountain retreat, and there left the greater part of his
+army, while he set out on an adventurous expedition with a picked
+body of infantry and cavalry. Over ravines and torrents, up rough and
+difficult slopes, they made their way, the king himself being conveyed
+in a litter, as there were no roads practicable for his royal chariot;
+he even deigned to walk when the hillsides were too steep for his
+bearers to carry him; he climbed like a goat, slept on the bare rocks,
+drank putrid water from a leathern bottle, and after many hardships at
+length came up with the enemy. He burnt their villages, and carried
+off herds of cattle and troops of captives; but this exploit was more
+a satisfaction of his vanity than a distinct advantage gained, for the
+pillaging of the plains of the Tigris probably recommenced as soon as
+the king had quitted the country. The same year he pushed as far as
+Dayaîni, here similar tactics were employed. Constructing a camp in the
+neighbourhood of Mount Anara and Mount Uppa, he forced his way to the
+capital, Ukki, traversing a complicated network of gorges and forests
+which had hitherto been considered impenetrable. The king, Manîya,
+fled; Ukki was taken by assault and pillaged, the spoil obtained from it
+slightly exceeding that from Tumurru (699 B.C.). Shortly afterwards the
+province of Tulgarimmê revolted in concert with the Tabal: Sennacherib
+overcame the allied forces, and led his victorious regiments through the
+defiles of the Taurus.*
+
+     * The dates of and connection between these two wars are not
+     determined with any certainty. Some authorities assign them
+     both to the same year, somewhere between 699 and 696 B.C.,
+     while others assign them to two different years, the first
+     to 699 or 696 B.C., the second to 698 or 695 B.C.
+
+[Illustration: 042.jpg A RAID AMONG THE WOODS AND MOUNTAINS.]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layahd, Monuments of Nineveh,
+     vol. i. pi. 70.
+
+Greek pirates or colonists having ventured from time to time to ravage
+the seaboard, he destroyed one of their fleets near the mouth of the
+Saros, and took advantage of his sojourn in this region to fortify
+the two cities of Tarsus and Ankhialê, to defend his Cilician frontier
+against the peoples of Asia Minor.*
+
+     * The encounter of the Assyrians with the Greeks is only
+     known to us from a fragment of Berosus. The foundation of
+     Tarsus is definitely attributed to Sennacherib in the same
+     passage; that of Ankhialc is referred to the fabulous
+     Sardanapalus, but most historians with much probability
+     attribute the foundation to Sennacherib.
+
+This was a necessary precaution, for the whole of Asia Minor was just
+then stirred by the inrush of new nations which were devastating the
+country, and the effect of these convulsions was beginning to be felt
+in the country to the south of the central plain, at the foot of the
+Taurus, and on the frontiers of the Assyrian empire. Barbarian hordes,
+attracted by the fame of the ancient Hittite sanctuaries in the upper
+basin of the Euphrates and the Araxes, had descended now and again to
+measure their strength against the advanced posts of Assyria or Urartu,
+but had subsequently withdrawn and disappeared beyond the Halys. Their
+movements may at this time have been so aggressive as to arouse
+serious anxiety in the minds of the Ninevite rulers; it is certain
+that Sennacherib, though apparently hindered by no revolt, delayed the
+execution of the projects he had formed against Merodach-baladan for
+three years; and it is possible his inaction may be attributed to the
+fear of some complication arising on his north-western frontier. He did
+not carry out his scheme till 695 B.C., when all danger in that quarter
+had passed away. The enterprise was a difficult one, for Nagîtu and
+the neighbouring districts were dependencies of Susa, and could not be
+reached by land without a violation of Blamite neutrality, which would
+almost inevitably lead to a conflict. Shutruk-nakhunta was no longer
+alive. In the very year in which his rival had set up Assur-nâdin-shumu
+as King of Karduniash, a revolution had broken out in Elam, which was in
+all probability connected with the events then taking place in Babylon.
+His subjects were angry with him for having failed to send timely
+succour to his allies the Kaldâ, and for having allowed Bît-Yakîn to be
+destroyed: his own brother Khalludush sided with the malcontents, threw
+Shutruk-nakhunta into prison, and proclaimed himself king. This time the
+Ninevites, thinking that Elam was certain to intervene, sought how they
+might finally overpower Merodach-baladan before this interference
+could prove effectual. The feudal constitution of the Blamite monarchy
+rendered, as we know, the mobilisation of the army at the opening of
+a war a long and difficult task: weeks might easily elapse before the
+first and second grades of feudatory nobility could join the royal
+troops and form a combined army capable of striking an important
+blow. This was a cause of dangerous inferiority in a conflict with the
+Assyrians, the chief part of whose forces, bivouacking close to the
+capital during the winter months, could leave their quarters and set
+out on a campaign at little more than a day’s notice; the kings of Elam
+minimised the danger by keeping sufficient troops under arms on their
+northern and western frontiers to meet any emergency, but an attack by
+sea seemed to them so unlikely that they had not, for a long time past,
+thought of protecting their coast-line. The ancient Chaldæan cities,
+Uru, Bagash, Uruk, and Bridu had possessed fleets on the Persian Gulf;
+but the times were long past when they used to send to procure stone and
+wood from the countries of Magan and Melukhkha, and the seas which they
+had ruled were now traversed only by merchant vessels or fishing-boats.
+Besides this, the condition of the estuary seemed to prohibit all attack
+from that side. The space between Bît-Yakîn and the long line of dunes
+or mud-banks which blocked the entrance to it was not so much a gulf as
+a lagoon of uncertain and shifting extent; the water flowed only in
+the middle, being stagnant near the shores; the whole expanse was
+irregularly dotted over with mud-banks, and its service was constantly
+altered by the alluvial soil brought down by the Tigris, the Euphrates,
+the Ulaî, and the Uknu. The navigation of this lagoon was dangerous,
+for the relative positions of the channels and shallows were constantly
+shifting, and vessels of deep draught often ran aground in passing from
+one end of it to the other.*
+
+     * The condition I describe here is very similar to what
+     Alexander’s admirals found 350 years later. Arrian has
+     preserved for us the account of Nearchus’ navigation in
+     these waters, and his description shows such a well-defined
+     condition of the estuary that its main outline must have
+     remained unchanged for a considerable time; the only
+     subsequent alterations which had taken place must have been
+     in the internal configuration, where the deposit of alluvium
+     must have necessarily reduced the area of the lake since the
+     time of Sennacherib. The little map on the next page has no
+     pretension to scientific exactitude; its only object is to
+     show roughly what the estuary of the Euphrates was like, and
+     to illustrate approximately the course of the Assyrian
+     expedition.
+
+[Illustration: 048.jpg MAP THE NAR-MARRATUM IN THE TIME OF SENNACHERIB]
+
+Sennacherib decided to march his force to the mouth of the Euphrates,
+and, embarking it there, to bring it to bear suddenly on the portion
+of Elamite territory nearest to Nagîtu: if all went well, he would thus
+have time to crush the rising power of Merodach-baladan and regain his
+own port of departure before Khalludush could muster a sufficient army
+to render efficient succour to his vassal.
+
+More than a year was consumed in preparations. The united cities of
+Chaldæa being unable to furnish the transports required to convey such
+a large host across the Nar-Marratum, it was necessary to construct
+a fleet, and to do so in such a way that the enemy should have no
+suspicion of danger. Sennacherib accordingly set up his dockyards at
+Tul-barsîp on the Euphrates and at Nineveh on the Tigris, and Syrian
+shipwrights built him a fleet of vessels after two distinct types.
+Some were galleys identical in build and equipment with those which the
+Mediterranean natives used for their traffic with distant lands. The
+others followed the old Babylonian model, with stem and stern both
+raised, the bows being sometimes distinguished by the carving of a
+horse’s head, which justified the name of _sea-horse_ given to a vessel
+of this kind. They had no masts, but propelling power was provided
+by two banks of oars one above the other, as in the galleys. The two
+divisions of the fleet were ready at the beginning of 694 B.C., and
+it was arranged that they should meet at Bît-Dakkuri, to the south of
+Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: 049.jpg THE FLEET OF SENNACHERIB ON THE NAR-MARRATUM]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+The fleet from Tul-barsîp had merely to descend the Euphrates to reach
+the meeting-place,* but that from Nineveh had to make a more complicated
+journey.
+
+     * The story of the preparations, as it has been transmitted
+     to us in Sennacherib’s inscriptions, is curiously similar to
+     the accounts given by the Greek historians of the vessels
+     Alexander had built at Babylon and Thap-sacus by Phoenician
+     workmen, which descended the Euphrates to join the fleet in
+     the Persian Gulf. This fleet consisted of quinquiremos,
+     according to Aristobulus, who was present at their
+     construction: Quintus-Curtius makes them all vessels with
+     seven banks of oars, but he evidently confuses the galleys
+     built at Thapsacus with those which came in sections from
+     Phoenicia and which Alexander had put together at Babylon.
+
+By following the course of the Tigris to its mouth it would have had
+to skirt the coast of Elam for a considerable distance, and would
+inevitably have aroused the suspicions of Khalludush; the passage of
+such a strong squadron must have revealed to him the importance of the
+enterprise, and put him on his guard. The vessels therefore stayed their
+course at Upi, where they were drawn ashore and transported on rollers
+across the narrow isthmus which separates the Tigris from the Arakhtu
+canal, on which they were then relaunched. Either the canal had not been
+well kept, or else it never had the necessary depth at certain places;
+but the crews managed to overcome all obstacles and rejoined their
+comrades in due time. Sennacherib was ready waiting for them with all
+his troops--foot-soldiers, charioteers, and horsemen--and with supplies
+of food for the men, and of barley and oats for the horses; as soon as
+the last contingent had arrived, he gave the signal for departure, and
+all advanced together, the army marching along the southern bank, the
+fleet descending the current, to the little port of Bab-Salimeti, some
+twelve miles below the mouth of the river.*
+
+     * The mouth of the Euphrates being at that time not far from
+     the site of Kornah, Bab-Salimeti, which was about twelve
+     miles distant, must have been somewhere near the present
+     village of Abu-Hatira, on the south bank of the river.
+
+There they halted in order to proceed to the final embarcation, but at
+the last moment their inexperience of the sea nearly compromised the
+success of the expedition. Even if they were not absolutely ignorant of
+the ebb and flow of the tide, they certainly did not know how dangerous
+the spring tide could prove at the equinox under the influence of a
+south wind. The rising tide then comes into conflict with the volume
+of water brought down by the stream, and in the encounter the banks are
+broken down, and sometimes large districts are inundated: this is what
+happened that year, to the terror of the Assyrians. Their camp was
+invaded and completely flooded by the waves; the king and his soldiers
+took refuge in haste on the galleys, where they were kept prisoners
+for five days “as in a huge cage.” As soon as the waters abated, they
+completed their preparations and started on their voyage. At the point
+where the Euphrates enters the lagoon, Sennacherib pushed forward to the
+front of the line, and, standing in the bows of his flag-ship, offered a
+sacrifice to Eâ, the god of the Ocean. Having made a solemn libation, he
+threw into the water a gold model of a ship, a golden fish, and an
+image of the god himself, likewise in gold; this ceremony performed, he
+returned to the port of Bab-Salimeti with his guard, while the bulk
+of his forces continued their voyage eastward. The passage took place
+without mishap, but they could not disembark on the shore of the
+gulf itself, which was unapproachable by reason of the deposits of
+semi-liquid mud which girdled it; they therefore put into the mouth
+of the Ulaî, and ascended the river till they reached a spot where the
+slimy reed-beds gave place to firm ground, which permitted them to draw
+their ships to land.*
+
+     * Billerbeck recognises in the narrative of Sennacherib the
+     indication of two attempts at debarcation, of which the
+     second only can have been successful; I can distinguish only
+     one crossing.
+
+The inhabitants assembled hastily at sight of the enemy, and the news,
+spreading through the neighbouring tribes, brought together for their
+defence a confused crowd of archers, chariots, and horsemen. The
+Assyrians, leaping into the stream and climbing up the bank, easily
+overpowered these undisciplined troops.
+
+[Illustration: 052.jpg A SKIRMISH IN THE MARSHES]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+They captured at the first onset Nagîtu, Nagîtu-Dibîna, Khilmu, Pillatu,
+and Khupapânu; and raiding the Kaldâ, forced them on board the
+fleet with their gods, their families, their flocks, and household
+possessions, and beat a hurried retreat with their booty.
+Merodach-baladan himself and his children once more escaped their
+clutches, but the State he had tried to create was annihilated, and
+his power utterly crushed. Sennacherib received his generals with great
+demonstrations of joy at Bab-Salimeti, and carried the spoil in triumph
+to Nineveh. Khalludush, exasperated by the affront put upon him,
+instantly retaliated by invading Karduniash, where he pushed forward
+as far as Sippara, pillaging and destroying the inhabitants without
+opposition. The Babylonians who had accompanied Merodach-baladan into
+exile, returned in the train of the Elamites, and, secretly stealing
+back to their homes, stirred up a general revolt: Assur-nâdin-shumu,
+taken prisoner by his own subjects, was put in chains and despatched to
+Susa, his throne being bestowed on a Babylonian named Nergal-ushezîb,*
+who at once took the field (694 B.C.).
+
+     * This is the prince whom the Assyrian documents name
+     Shuzub, and whom we might call Shuzub the Babylonian, in
+     contradistinction to Mushezib-marduk, who is Shuzub the
+     Kaldu.
+
+His preliminary efforts were successful: he ravaged the frontier along
+the Turnât with the help of the Elamites, and took by assault the city
+of Nipur, which refused to desert the cause of Sennacherib (693 B.C.).
+Meanwhile the Assyrian generals had captured Uruk (Erech) on the 1st of
+Tisri, after the retreat of Khalludush; and having sacked the city, were
+retreating northwards with their spoil when they were defeated on the
+7th near Nipur by Nergal-ushezîb. He had already rescued the statues of
+the gods and the treasure, when his horse fell in the midst of the fray,
+and he could not disengage himself. His vanquished foes led him captive
+to Nineveh, where Sennacherib exposed him in chains at the principal
+gateway of his palace: the Babylonians, who owed to him their latest
+success, summoned a Kaldu prince, Mushezîb-marduk, son of Gahut, to
+take command. He hastened to comply, and with the assistance of Blamite
+troops offered such a determined resistance to all attack, that he was
+finally left in undisturbed possession of his kingdom (692 B.C.): the
+actual result to Assyria, therefore, of the ephemeral victory gained by
+the fleet had been the loss of Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: 054.jpg THE HORSE OF NERGAL-USHEZÎB FALLING IN THE
+BATTLE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+A revolution in Elam speedily afforded Assyria an opportunity for
+revenge. When Nergal-ushezîb was taken prisoner, the people of Susa,
+dissatisfied with the want of activity displayed by Khalludush,
+conspired to depose him: on hearing, therefore, the news of the
+revolutions in Chaldæa, they rose in revolt on the 26th of Tisri, and,
+besieging him in his palace, put him to death, and elected a certain
+Kutur-nakhunta as his successor. Sennacherib, without a moment’s
+hesitation, crossed the frontier at Durîlu, before order was
+re-established at Susa, and recovered, after very slight resistance,
+Baza and Bît-khaîri which Shutruk-nakhunta had taken from Sargon. This
+preliminary success laid the lower plain of Susiana at his mercy, and he
+ravaged it pitilessly from Baza to Bît-bunaki. “Thirty-four strongholds
+and the townships depending on them, whose number is unequalled, I
+besieged and took by assault, their inhabitants I led into captivity, I
+demolished them and reduced them to ashes: I caused the smoke of their
+burning to rise into the wide heaven, like the smoke of one great
+sacrifice.” Kutur-nakhunta, still insecurely seated on the throne of
+Susa, retreated with his army towards Khaîdalu, in the almost unexplored
+regions which bordered the Banian plateau,* and entrenched himself
+strongly in the heart of the mountains.
+
+     * Khaîdalu is very probably the present Dis Malkân.
+
+The season was already well advanced when the Assyrians set out on this
+expedition, and November set in while they were ravaging the plain:
+but the weather was still so fine that Sennacherib determined to take
+advantage of it to march upon Madaktu. Hardly had he scaled the heights
+when winter fell upon him with its accompaniment of cold and squally
+weather. “Violent storms broke out, it rained and snowed incessantly,
+the torrents and streams overflowed their banks,” so that hostilities
+had to be suspended and the troops ordered back to Nineveh. The effect
+produced, however, by these bold measures was in no way diminished:
+though Kutur-nakhunta had not had the necessary time to prepare for the
+contest, he was nevertheless discredited among his subjects for failing
+to bring them out of it with glory, and three months after the retreat
+of the Assyrians he was assassinated in a riot on the 20th of Ab, 692
+B.C.*
+
+     * The Assyrian documents merely mention the death of Kutur-
+     nakhunta less than three months after the return of
+     Sennacherib to Nineveh. Pinches’ _Babylonian Chronicle_ only
+     mentions the revolution in which he perished, and informs us
+     that he had reigned ten months. It contracts Ummân-minânu,
+     the name of the Elamite king, to Minânu.
+
+His younger brother, Ummân-minânu, assumed the crown, and though his
+enemies disdainfully refused to credit him with either prudence or
+judgment, he soon restored his kingdom to such a formidable degree of
+power that Mushezîb-marduk thought the opportunity a favourable one for
+striking a blow at Assyria, from which she could never recover. Elam had
+plenty of troops, but was deficient in the resources necessary to pay
+the men and their chiefs, and to induce the tribes of the table-land
+to furnish their contingents. Mushezîb-marduk, therefore, emptied the
+sacred treasury of E-sagilla, and sent the gold and silver of Bel and
+Zarpanit to Ummân-minânu with a message which ran thus: “Assemble thine
+army, and prepare thy camp, come to Babylon and strengthen our hands,
+for thou art our help.” The Elamite asked nothing better than to avenge
+the provinces so cruelly harassed, and the cities consumed in the course
+of the last campaign: he summoned all his nobles, from the least to the
+greatest, and enlisted the help of the troops of Parsuas, Ellipi, and
+Anzân, the Aramaean Puqudu and Gambulu of the Tigris, as well as
+the Aramæans of the Euphrates, and the peoples of Bît-Adini and
+Bît-Amukkâni, who had rallied round Sam una, son of Merodach-baladan,
+and joined forces with the soldiers of Mushezîb-marduk in Babylon.
+“Like an invasion of countless locusts swooping down upon the land, they
+assembled, resolved to give me battle, and the dust of their feet rose
+before me, like a thick cloud which darkens the copper-coloured dome of
+the sky.” The conflict took place near the township of Khalulê, on the
+banks of the Tigris, not far from the confluence of this river with the
+Turnât.*
+
+     * Haupt attributes to the name the signification _holes,
+     bogs_, and this interpretation agrees well enough with the
+     state of the country round the mouths of the Dîyala, in the
+     low-lying district which separates that river from the
+     Tigris; he compares it with the name Haulâyeh, quoted by
+     Arab geographers in this neighbourhood, and with that of the
+     canton of Hâleh, mentioned in Syrian texts as belonging to
+     the district of Râdhân, between the Adhem and the Dîyala.
+
+At this point the Turnât, flowing through the plain, divides into
+several branches, which ramify again and again, and form a kind of delta
+extending from the ruins of Nayân to those of Reshadeh. During the whole
+of the day the engagement between the two hosts raged on this unstable
+soil, and their leaders themselves sold their lives dearly in the
+struggle. Sennacherib invoked the help of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nebo,
+Bel, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, and the gods heard
+his prayers. “Like a lion I raged, I donned my harness, I covered my
+head with my casque, the badge of war; my powerful battle-chariot, which
+mows down the rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart;
+the strong bow which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the
+javelin, destroyer of life, I grasped it: the whole host of obdurate
+rebels I charged, shining like silver or like the day, and I roared as
+Kammân roareth.” Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one
+of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him,
+“of those who wore golden daggers at their belts, and bracelets of
+gold on their wrists.” They fell one after the other, “like fat bulls
+chained” for the sacrifice, or like sheep, and their blood flowed on the
+broad plain as the water after a violent storm: the horses plunged in it
+up to their knees, and the body of the royal chariot was reddened with
+it. A son of Merodach-baladan, Nabu-shumishkun, was taken prisoner, but
+Ummân-minânu and Mushezîb-marduk escaped unhurt from the fatal field. It
+seems as if fortune had at last decided in favour of the Assyrians, and
+they proclaimed the fact loudly, but their success was not so evident as
+to preclude their adversaries also claiming the victory with some show
+of truth. In any case, the losses on both sides were so considerable as
+to force the two belligerents to suspend operations; they returned each
+to his capital, and matters remained much as they had been before the
+battle took place.*
+
+     * _Pinches’ Babylonian Chronicle_ attributes the victory to
+     the Elamites, and says that the year in which the battle was
+     fought was unknown. The testimony of this chronicle is so
+     often marred by partiality, that to prefer it always to that
+     of the Ninevite inscriptions shows deficiency of critical
+     ability: the course of events seems to me to prove that the
+     advantage remained with the Assyrians, though the victory
+     was not decisive. The date, which necessarily falls between
+     692 and 689 B.C., has been decided by general considerations
+     as 691 B.C., the very year in which the _Taylor Cylinder_
+     was written.
+
+Years might have elapsed before Sennacherib could have ventured to
+recommence hostilities: he was not deluded by the exaggerated estimate
+of his victory in the accounts given by his court historians, and he
+recognised the fact that the issue of the struggle must be uncertain
+as long as the alliance subsisted between Elam and Chaldæa. But fortune
+came to his aid sooner than he had expected. Ummân-minânu was not
+absolute in his dominions any more than his predecessors had been,
+and the losses he had sustained at Khalulê, without obtaining any
+compensating advantages in the form of prisoners or spoil, had lowered
+him in the estimation of his vassals; Mushezîb-marduk, on the other
+hand, had emptied his treasuries, and though Karduniash was wealthy,
+it was hardly able, after such a short interval, to provide further
+subsidies to purchase the assistance of the mountain tribes.
+Sennacherib’s emissaries kept him well informed of all that occurred
+in the enemy’s court, and he accordingly took the field again at the
+beginning of 689 B.C., and on this occasion circumstances seemed likely
+to combine to give him an easy victory.*
+
+     * The Assyrian documents insert the account of the capture
+     of Babylon directly after the battle of Khalulê, and modern
+     historians therefore concluded that the two events took
+     place within a few months of each other. The information
+     afforded by _Pinches’ Babylonian Chronicle_ has enabled us
+     to correct this mistake, and to bring down the date of the
+     taking of Babylon to 689 B.C.
+
+Mushezîb-marduk shut himself up in Babylon, not doubting that the
+Elamites would hasten to his succour as soon as they should hear of his
+distress; but his expectation was not fulfilled. Ummân-minânu was struck
+down by apoplexy, on the 15th of Nisân, and though his illness did not
+at once terminate fatally, he was left paralysed with distorted mouth,
+and loss of speech, incapable of action, and almost unfit to govern.
+His seizure put a stop to his warlike preparations: and his ministers,
+preoccupied with the urgent question of the succession to the throne,
+had no desire to provoke a conflict with Assyria, the issue of which
+could not be foretold: they therefore left their ally to defend his own
+interests as best he might. Babylon, reduced to rely entirely on its
+own resources, does not seem to have held out long, and perhaps the
+remembrance of the treatment it had received on former occasions may
+account for the very slight resistance it now offered. The Assyrian
+kings who had from time to time conquered Babylon, had always treated
+it with great consideration. They had looked upon it as a sacred city,
+whose caprices and outbreaks must always be pardoned; it was only with
+infinite precautions that they had imposed their commands upon it, and
+even when they had felt that severity was desirable, they had restrained
+themselves in using it, and humoured the idiosyncrasies of the
+inhabitants. Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V., and Sargon had all
+preferred to be legally crowned as sovereigns of Babylon instead
+of remaining merely its masters by right of conquest, and though
+Sennacherib had refused compliance with the traditions by which his
+predecessors had submitted to be bound, he had behaved with unwonted
+lenity after quelling the two previous revolts. He now recognised that
+his clemency had been shown in vain, and his small stock of patience was
+completely exhausted just when fate threw the rebellious city into his
+power. If the inhabitants had expected to be once more let off easily,
+their illusions were speedily dissipated: they were slain by the sword
+as if they had been ordinary foes, such as Jews, Tibarenians, or Kaldâ
+of Bît-Yakîn, and they were spared none of the horrors which custom then
+permitted the stronger to inflict upon the weaker. For several days the
+pitiless massacre lasted. Young and old, all who fell into the hands of
+the soldiery, perished by the sword; piles of corpses filled the streets
+and the approaches to the temples, especially the avenue of winged bulls
+which led to E-sagilla, and, even after the first fury of carnage had
+been appeased, it was only to be succeeded by more organised pillage.
+Mushezîb-marduk was sent into exile with his family, and immense convoys
+of prisoners and spoil followed him. The treasures carried off from
+the royal palace, the temples, and the houses of the rich nobles were
+divided among the conquerors: they comprised gold, silver, precious
+stones, costly stuffs, and provisions of all sorts. The sacred edifices
+were sacked, the images hacked to pieces or carried off to Nineveh:
+Bel-Marduk, introduced into the sanctuary of Assur, became subordinate
+to the rival deity amid a crowd of strange gods. In the inmost recess
+of a chapel were discovered some ancient statues of Kammân and Shala
+of E-kallati, which Marduk-nâdin-akhê had carried off in the time of
+Tiglath-pileser I., and these were brought back in triumph to their own
+land, after an absence of four hundred and eighteen years. The buildings
+themselves suffered a like fate to that of their owners and their gods.
+“The city and its houses, from foundation to roof, I destroyed them,
+I demolished them, I burnt them with fire; walls, gateways, sacred
+chapels, and the towers of earth and tiles, I laid them all low and cast
+them into the Arakhtu.” The incessant revolts of the people justified
+this wholesale destruction. Babylon, as we have said before, was too
+powerful to be reduced for long to the second rank in a Mesopotamian
+empire: as soon as fate established the seat of empire in the districts
+bordering on the Euphrates and the middle course of the Tigris,
+its well-chosen situation, its size, its riches, the extent of its
+population, the number of its temples, and the beauty of its palaces,
+all conspired to make it the capital of the country. In vain Assur,
+Calah, or Nineveh thrust themselves into the foremost rank, and by a
+strenuous effort made their princes rulers of Babylon; in a short time
+Babylon replenished her treasury, found allies, soldiers, and leaders,
+and in spite of reverses of fortune soon regained the upper hand. The
+only treatment which could effectually destroy her ascendency was that
+of leaving in her not one brick upon another, thus preventing her from
+being re-peopled for several generations, since a new city could not
+at once spring up from the ashes of the old; until she had been utterly
+destroyed her conquerors had still reason to fear her. This fact
+Sennacherib, or his councillors, knew well. If he merits any reproach,
+it is not for having seized the opportunity of destroying the city which
+Babylon offered him, but rather for not having persevered in his design
+to the end, and reduced her to a mere name.
+
+In the midst of these costly and absorbing wars, we may well wonder how
+Sennacherib found time and means to build villas or temples; yet he is
+nevertheless, among the kings of Assyria, the monarch who has left us
+the largest number of monuments. He restored a shrine of Nergal in the
+small town of Tarbizi; he fortified the village of Alshi; and in 704
+B.C. he founded a royal residence in the fortress of Kakzi, which
+defended the approach to Calah from the south-east. He did not reside
+much at Dur-Sharrukîn, neither did he complete the decoration of his
+father’s palace there: his pride as a victorious warrior suffered
+when his surroundings reminded him of a more successful conqueror than
+himself, and Calah itself was too full of memories of Tiglath-pileser
+III. and the sovereigns of the eighth century for him to desire to
+establish his court there. He preferred to reside at Nineveh, which
+had been much neglected by his predecessors, and where the crumbling
+edifices merely recalled the memory of long-vanished splendours.
+
+[Illustration: 063.jpg THE MOUNDS OF NINEVEH SEEN FROM THE TERRACE OF A
+HOUSE IN MOSUL]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a lithograph in Layard.
+
+He selected this city as his residence at the very beginning of his
+reign, perhaps while he was still only crown prince, and began by
+repairing its ancient fortifications; later on, when the success of
+his earlier campaigns had furnished him with a sufficient supply of
+prisoners, he undertook the restoration of the whole city, with its
+avenues, streets, canals, quays, gardens, and aqueducts: the labour of
+all the captives brought together from different quarters of his empire
+was pressed into the execution of his plans--the Kaldâ, the Aramæans,
+the Mannai, the people of Kuî, the Cilicians, the Philistines, and
+the ïyrians; the provinces vied with each other in furnishing him with
+materials without stint,--precious woods were procured from Syria,
+marbles from Kapri-dargîla, alabaster from Balad, while Bît-Yakîn
+provided the rushes to be laid between the courses of brickwork. The
+river Tebilti, after causing the downfall of the royal mausolea and
+“displaying to the light of day the coffins which they concealed,” had
+sapped the foundations of the palace of Assur-nazir-pal, and caused it
+to fall in: a muddy pool now occupied the north-western quarter,
+between the court of Ishtar and the lofty ziggurât of Assur. This pool
+Sennacherib filled up, and regulated the course of the stream, providing
+against the recurrence of such-accidents in future by building a
+substructure of masonry, 454 cubits long by 289 wide, formed of large
+blocks of stone cemented together by bitumen. On this he erected a
+magnificent palace, a Bît-Khilâni in the Syrian style, with woodwork of
+fragrant cedar and cypress overlaid with gold and silver, panellings
+of sculptured marble and alabaster, and friezes and cornices in glazed
+tiles of brilliant colouring: inspired by the goddess Nin-kurra, he
+caused winged bulls of white alabaster and limestone statues of the gods
+to be hewn in the quarries of Balad near Nineveh. He presided in person
+at all these operations--at the raising of the soil, the making of the
+substructures of the terrace, the transport of the colossal statues or
+blocks and their subsequent erection; indeed, he was to be seen at every
+turn, standing in Ids ebony and ivory chariot, drawn by a team of men.
+When the building was finished, he was so delighted with its beauty that
+he named it “the incomparable palace,” and his admiration was shared
+by his contemporaries; they were never wearied of extolling in glowing
+terms the twelve bronze lions, the twelve winged bulls, and the
+twenty-four statues of goddesses which kept watch over the entrance,
+and for the construction of which a new method of rapid casting had been
+invented.
+
+[Illustration: 065.jpg KING SENNACHERIB WATCHING THE TRANSPORT OF A
+COLOSSAL STATUE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+Formerly the erection of such edifices cost much in suffering to
+the artificers employed on them, but Sennacherib brought his great
+enterprise to a prompt completion without extravagant outlay or
+unnecessary hardship inflicted on his workmen. He proceeded to annex
+the neighbouring quarters of the city, relegating the inhabitants to the
+suburbs while he laid out a great park on the land thus cleared; this
+park was well planted with trees, like the heights of Amanus, and in
+it flourished side by side all the forest growths indigenousnto the
+Cilician mountains and the plains of Chaldæa. A lake, fed by a canal
+leading from the Khuzur, supplied it with water, which was conducted in
+streams and rills through the thickets, keeping them always fresh and
+green. Vines trained on trellises afforded a grateful shade during the
+sultry hours of the day; birds sang in the branches, herds of wild boar
+and deer roamed through the coverts, in order that the prince might
+enjoy the pleasures of the chase without quitting his own private
+grounds.
+
+[Illustration: 066.jpg ASSYRIAN BAS-RELIEFS AT BAVIAN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+The main part of these constructions was finished about 700 B.C., but
+many details were left incomplete, and the work was still proceeding
+after the court had long been in residence on the spot. Meanwhile a
+smaller palace, as well as barracks and a depot for arms and provisions,
+sprang up elsewhere. Eighteen aqueducts, carried across the country,
+brought the water from the Muzri to the Khuzur, and secured an adequate
+supply to the city; the Ninevites, who had hitherto relied upon
+rain-water for the replenishing of their cisterns, awoke one day to
+find themselves released from all anxiety on this score. An ancient and
+semi-subterranean canal, which Assur-nazir-pal had constructed nearly
+two centuries before, but which, owing to the neglect of his successors,
+had become choked up, was cleaned out, enlarged and repaired, and made
+capable of bringing water to their doors from the springs of Mount Tas,
+in the same year as that in which the battle of Khalulê took place.* At
+a later date, magnificent bas-reliefs, carved on the rock by order of
+Esar-haddon, representing winged bulls, figures of the gods and of the
+king, with explanatory inscriptions, marked the site of the springs,
+and formed a kind of monumental façade to the ravine in which they took
+their rise.**
+
+     * Mount Tas is the group of hills enclosing the ravine of
+     Bavian. These works were described in the Bavian
+     inscription, of which they occupy the whole of the first
+     part.
+
+     ** The Bavian text speaks of six inscriptions and statues
+     which the king had engraved on the Mount of Tas, at the
+     source of the stream.
+
+It would be hard to account for the rapidity with which these great
+works were completed, did one not remember that Sargon had previously
+carried out extensive architectural schemes, in which he must have
+employed all the available artists in his empire. The revolutions which
+had shattered the realm under the last descendants of Assur-nazir-pal,
+and the consequent impoverishment of the kingdom, had not been without a
+disastrous effect on the schools of Assyrian sculpture.
+
+[ Illustration: 068.jpg UNKNOWN SUBJECTS FROM THE FIFTH TOMB]
+
+[Illustration: 069.jpg GREAT ASSYRIAN STELE AT BAVIAÎT.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudior, from Layard.
+
+Since the royal treasury alone was able to bear the expense of those
+vast compositions in which the artistic skill of the period could have
+free play, the closing of the royal workshops, owing to the misfortunes
+of the time, had the immediate effect of emptying the sculptors’
+studios. Even though the period of depression lasted for the space of
+two or three generations only, it became difficult to obtain artistic
+workmen; and those who were not discouraged from the pursuit of art by
+the uncertainty of employment, no longer possessed the high degree of
+skill attained by their predecessors, owing to lack of opportunity to
+cultivate it. Sculpture was at a very low ebb when Tiglath-pileser
+III. desired to emulate the royal builders of days gone by, and the
+awkwardness of composition noticeable in some of his bas-reliefs, and
+the almost barbaric style of the stelae erected by persons of even so
+high a rank as Belharrân-beluzur, prove the lamentable deficiency of
+good artists at that epoch, and show that the king had no choice but to
+employ all the surviving members of the ancient guilds, whether good,
+bad, or indifferent workmen. The increased demand, however, soon
+produced an adequate supply of workers, and when Sargon ascended the
+throne, the royal guild of sculptors had been thoroughly reconstituted;
+the inefficient workmen on whom Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser had been
+obliged to rely had been eliminated in course of time, and many of the
+sculptures which adorned the palace at Khorsabad display a purity of
+design and boldness of execution comparable to that of the best Egyptian
+art. The composition still shows traces of Chaldæan stiffness, and
+the exaggerated drawing of the muscles produces an occasionally
+unpleasing-heaviness of outline, but none the less the work as a whole
+constitutes one of the richest and most ingenious schemes of decoration
+ever devised, which, while its colouring was still perfect, must have
+equalled in splendour the great triumphal battle-scenes at Ibsambul or
+Medinet-Habu. Sennacherib found ready to his hand a body of well-trained
+artists, whose number had considerably increased during the reign of
+Sargon, and he profited by the experience which they had acquired and
+the talent that many of them had developed. What immediately strikes the
+spectator in the series of pictures produced under his auspices, is the
+great skill with which his artists covered the whole surface at their
+disposal without overcrowding it. They no longer treated their subject,
+whether it were a warlike expedition, a hunting excursion, a sacrificial
+scene, or an episode of domestic life, as a simple juxtaposition of
+groups of almost equal importance ranged at the same elevation along
+the walls, the subject of each bas-relief being complete in itself and
+without any necessary connection with its neighbour. They now selected
+two or three principal incidents from the subjects proposed to them for
+representation, and round these they grouped such of the less important
+episodes as lent themselves best to picturesque treatment, and scattered
+sparingly over the rest of the field the minor accessories which seemed
+suitable to indicate more precisely the scene of the action. Under the
+auspices of this later school, Assyrian foot-soldiers are no longer
+depicted attacking the barbarians of Media or Elam on backgrounds of
+smooth stone, where no line marks the various levels, and where the
+remoter figures appear to be walking in the air without anything to
+support them. If the battle represented took place on a wooded slope
+crowned by a stronghold on the summit of the hill, the artist, in order
+to give an impression of the surroundings, covered his background with
+guilloche patterns by which to represent the rugged surface of the
+mountains; he placed here and there groups of various kinds of trees,
+especially the straight cypresses and firs which grew upon the slopes of
+the Iranian table-land: or he represented a body of lancers galloping in
+single file along the narrow woodland paths, and hastening to surprise
+a distant enemy, or again foot-soldiers chasing their foes through the
+forest or engaging them in single combat; while in the corners of the
+picture the wounded are being stabbed or otherwise despatched, fugitives
+are trying to escape through the undergrowth, and shepherds are pleading
+with the victors for their lives. It is the actual scene the sculptor
+sets himself to depict, and one is sometimes inclined to ask, while
+noting the precision with which the details of the battle are rendered,
+whether the picture was not drawn on the spot, and whether the conqueror
+did not carry artists in his train to make sketches for the decorators
+of the main features of the country traversed and of the victories won.
+The masses of infantry seem actually in motion, a troop of horsemen rush
+blindly over uneven ground, and the episodes of their raid are unfolded
+in all their confusion with unfailing animation.
+
+[Illustration: 073.jpg AN ASSYRIAN CAVALRY RAID THROUGH THE WOODS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+For the first time a spectator can realise Assyrian warfare with its
+striking contrasts of bravery and unbridled cruelty; he is no longer
+reduced to spell out laboriously a monotonous narrative of a battle, for
+the battle takes place actually before his eyes. And after the return
+from the scene of action, when it is desired to show how the victor
+employed his prisoners for the greater honour of his gods and his own
+glory, the picture is no less detailed and realistic.
+
+[Illustration: 074.jpg (and 75) TRANSPORT OF A WINGED BULL ON A SLEDGE.]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+There we see them, the noble and the great of all the conquered nations,
+Chaldæans and Elamites, inhabitants of Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Judaea,
+harnessed to ropes and goaded by the whips of the overseers, dragging
+the colossal bull which is destined to mount guard at the gates of the
+palace: with bodies bent, pendant arms, and faces contorted with pain,
+they, who had been the chief men in their cities, now take the place of
+beasts of burden, while Sennacherib, erect on his state chariot, with
+steady glance and lips compressed, watches them as they pass slowly
+before him in their ignominy and misery.
+
+After the destruction of Babylon there is a pause in the history of
+the conqueror, and with him in that of Assyria itself. It seems as
+if Nineveh had been exhausted by the greatness of her effort, and
+was stopping to take breath before setting out on a fresh career of
+conquest: the other nations also, as if overwhelmed by the magnitude
+of the catastrophe, appear to have henceforth despaired of their own
+security, and sought only how to avoid whatever might rouse against them
+the enmity of the master of the hour. His empire formed a compact and
+solid block in their midst, on which no human force seemed capable of
+making any impression. They had attacked it each in turn, or all at
+once, Elam in the east, Urartu in the north, Egypt in the south-west,
+and their efforts had not only miserably failed, but had for the most
+part drawn down upon them disastrous reprisals. The people of Urartu
+remained in gloomy inaction amidst their mountains, the Elamites had
+lost their supremacy over half the Aramæan tribes, and if Egypt was as
+yet inaccessible beyond the intervening deserts, she owed it less to the
+strength of her armies than to the mysterious fatality at Libnah. In one
+half-century the Assyrians had effectually and permanently disabled
+the first of these kingdoms, and inflicted on the others such serious
+injuries that they were slow in recovering from them. The fate of these
+proud nations had intimidated the inferior states--Arabs, Medes, tribes
+of Asia Minor, barbarous Cimmerians or Scythians,--all alike were
+careful to repress their natural inclinations to rapine and plunder. If
+occasionally their love of booty overpowered their prudence, and they
+hazarded a raid on some defenceless village in the neighbouring border
+territory, troops were hastily despatched from the nearest Assyrian
+garrison, who speedily drove them back across the frontier, and pursuing
+them into their own country, inflicted on them so severe a punishment
+that they remained for some considerable time paralysed by awe and
+terror. Assyria was the foremost kingdom of the East, and indeed of the
+whole world, and the hegemony which she exercised over all the countries
+within her reach cannot be accounted for solely by her military
+superiority. Not only did she excel in the art of conquest, as many
+before her had done--Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Egyptians--but
+she did what none of them had been able to accomplish; she exacted
+lasting obedience from the conquered nations, ruling them with a firm
+hand, and accustoming them to live on good terms with one another in
+spite of diversity of race, and this with a light rein, with unfailing
+tact, and apparently with but little effort. The system of deportation
+so resolutely carried out by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon began to
+produce effect, and up to this time the most happy results only were
+discernible. The colonies which had been planted throughout the empire
+from Palestine to Media, some of them two generations previously, others
+within recent years, were becoming more and more acclimatised to their
+new surroundings, on which they were producing the effect desired by
+their conquerors; they were meant to hold in check the populations in
+whose midst they had been set down, to act as a curb upon them, and also
+to break up their national unity and thus gradually prepare them for
+absorption into a wider fatherland, in which they would cease to be
+exclusively Damascenes, Samaritans, Hittites, or Aramæans, since they
+would become Assyrians and fellow-citizens of a mighty empire. The
+provinces, brought at length under a regular system of government,
+protected against external dangers and internal discord, by a
+well-disciplined soldiery, and enjoying a peace and security they
+had rarely known in the days of their independence, gradually became
+accustomed to live in concord under the rule of a common sovereign, and
+to feel themselves portions of a single empire. The speech of Assyria
+was their official language, the gods of Assyria were associated with
+their national gods in the prayers they offered up for the welfare of
+the sovereign, and foreign nations with whom they were brought into
+communication no longer distinguished between them and their conquerors,
+calling their country Assyria, and regarding its inhabitants as
+Assyrians. As is invariably the case, domestic peace and good
+administration had caused a sudden development of wealth and commercial
+activity. Although Nineveh and Calah never became such centres of trade
+and industry as Babylon had been, yet the presence of the court and the
+sovereign attracted thither merchants from all parts of the world.
+
+[Illustration: 079.jpg SENNACHERIB]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+The Medes, reaching the capital by way of the passes of Kowândîz and
+Suleimaniyeh, brought in the lapis-lazuli, precious stones, metals,
+and woollen stuffs of Central Asia and the farthest East, while
+the Phoenicians and even Greeks, who were already following in their
+foot steps, came thither to sell in the à bazaars of Assyria the most
+precious of the wares brought back by their merchant vessels from the
+shores of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the farthest West. The
+great cities of the triangle of Assyria were gradually supplanting all
+the capitals of the ancient world, not excepting Memphis, and becoming
+the centres of universal trade; unexcelled for centuries in the arts of
+war, Assyria was in a fair way to become mistress also in the arts of
+peace. A Jewish prophet thus described the empire at a later date: “The
+Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing
+shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick clouds.
+The waters nourished him, the deep made him grow: therefore his stature
+was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were
+multiplied, and his branches became long by reason of many waters, when
+he shot them forth. All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his
+boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring
+forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus
+was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his
+root was by many waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide
+him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane trees were
+not as his branches; nor was any tree like unto him in beauty: so that
+all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.”
+ (Ezek. xxxi. 3-9).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS ZENITH; ESARHADDON AND
+ASSUR-BANI-PAL
+
+
+_THE MEDES AND CIMMERIANS: LYDIA--THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT, OP ARABIA, AND
+OF ELAM._
+
+_Last years of Sennacherib--New races appear upon the scene--The Medes:
+Deiokes and the foundation of Ecbatana, the Bit-Dayaukku and their
+origin--The races of Asia Minor--The Phrygians, their earliest rulers,
+their conquests, and their religion--Last of the Heraclidæ in Lydia,
+trade and constitution of their kingdom--The Tylonidæ, and Mermnadæ--The
+Cimmerians driven back into Asia by the Scythians--The Treves._
+
+_Murder of Sennacherib and accession of Esarhaddon: defeat of Sharezer
+(681 B.C.)--Campaigns against the Kaldd, the Cimmerians, the tribes
+of Cilicia, and against Sidon (680-679 B.C.); Cimmerian and Scythian
+invasions, revolt of vie Mannai, and expeditions against the Medes;
+submission of the northern Arabs (678-676 B.C.)--Egyptian
+affairs; Taharqa (Tirhakah), his building operations, his Syrian
+policy--Disturbances on the frontiers of Elam and Urartu._
+
+_First invasion of Egypt and subjection of the country to Nineveh (670
+B.C.)--Intrigues of rival claimants to the throne, and division of
+the Assyrian empire between Assùr-bani-pal and Shamash shumukîn (668
+B.C.)--Revolt of Egypt and death of Esarhaddon (668 B.C.); accession
+of Assur-bani-pal; his campaign against Kirbît; defeat of Taharqa and
+reconstitution of the Egyptian province (667 B.C.)--Affairs of Asia
+Minor: Gyges (693 B.C.), his tears against the Greeks and Cimmerians; he
+sends ambassadors to Nineveh (664 B.C.)._
+
+_Tanuatamanu reasserts the authority of Ethiopia in Egypt (664 B.C.),
+and Tammaritu of Elam invades Karduniash; reconquest of the Said
+and sack of Thebes--Psammetichus I. and the rise of the XXVIth
+dynasty--Disturbances among the Medes and Mannai--War against Teumman
+and the victory of Tulliz (660 B.C.): Elam yields to the Assyrians for
+the first time--Shamash-shumukin at Babylon; is at first on good terms
+with his brother, then becomes dissatisfied, and forms a coalition
+against the Ninevite supremacy._
+
+_The Uruk incident and outbreak of the war between Karduniash, Elam,
+and Assyria; Elam disabled by domestic discords--Siege and capture of
+Babylon; Assur-bani-pal ascends the throne under the name of Kandalanu
+(648-646 B.C.)--Revolt of Egypt: defeat and death of Gyges (642 B.C.
+): Ardys drives out the Cimmerians and Dugdamis is killed in
+Cilicia--Submission of Arabia._
+
+_Revolution in Elam--Attack on Indabigash--Tammaritu restored to
+power--Pillage and destruction of Susa--Campaign against the Arabs of
+Kedar and the Nabatæans: suppression of the Tyrian rebellion
+--Dying struggles of Elam--Capture of Madaktu and surrender of
+Khumban-khaldash--The power of Assyria reaches its zenith._
+
+[Illustration: 083.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS ZENITH; ESARHADDON AND
+ASSUR-BANI-PAL
+
+_The Medes and Cimmerians: Lydia--The conquest of Egypt, of Arabia, and
+of Elam._
+
+
+As we have already seen, Sennacherib reigned for eight years after his
+triumph; eight years of tranquillity at home, and of peace with all
+his neighbours abroad. If we examine the contemporary monuments or the
+documents of a later period, and attempt to glean from them some details
+concerning the close of his career, we find that there is a complete
+absence of any record of national movement on the part of either Elam,
+Urartu, or Egypt.
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Layard. The vignette, also by
+     Faucher-Gudin, represents Taharqa in a kneeling attitude,
+     and is taken from a bronze statuette in the Macgregor
+     collection.
+
+The only event of which any definite mention is made is a raid across
+the north of Arabia, in the course of which Hazael, King of Adumu, and
+chief among the princes of Kedar, was despoiled of the images of his
+gods. The older states of the Oriental world had, as we have pointed
+out, grown weary of warfare which brought them nothing but loss of men
+and treasure; but behind these states, on the distant horizon to the
+east and north-west, were rising up new nations whose growth and
+erratic movements assumed an importance that became daily more and more
+alarming. On the east, the Medes, till lately undistinguishable from the
+other tribes occupying the western corner of the Iranian table-land, had
+recently broken away from the main body, and, rallying round a single
+leader, already gave promise of establishing an empire formidable alike
+by the energy of its people and the extent of its domain. A tradition
+afterwards accepted by them attributed their earlier successes to a
+certain Deïokes, son of Phraortes, a man wiser than his fellows, who
+first set himself to deal out justice in his own household. The men of
+his village, observing his merits, chose him to be the arbiter of all
+their disputes, and, being secretly ambitious of sovereign power, he did
+his best to settle their differences on lines of the strictest
+equity and justice. By these means he gained such credit with his
+fellow-citizens as to attract the attention of those who lived in the
+neighbouring villages, who had suffered from unjust judgments, so that
+when they heard of the singular uprightness of Deïokes and of the equity
+of his decisions they joyfully had recourse to him until at last they
+came to put confidence in no one else. The number of complaints brought
+before him continually increasing as people learnt more and more the
+justice of his judgments, Deïokes, finding himself now all-important,
+announced that he did not intend any longer to hear causes, and
+appeared no more in the seat in which he had been accustomed to sit and
+administer justice. “‘It was not to his advantage,’ he said, ‘to spend
+the whole day in regulating other men’s affairs to the neglect of his
+own.’ Hereupon robbery and lawlessness broke out afresh and prevailed
+throughout the country even more than heretofore; wherefore the Medes
+assembled from all quarters and held a consultation on the state of
+affairs. The speakers, as I think, were chiefly friends of Deïokes. ‘We
+cannot possibly,’ they said, ‘go on living in this country if things
+continue as they now are; let us, therefore, set a king over us, so that
+the land may be well governed, and we ourselves may be able to attend
+to our own affairs, and not be forced to quit our country on account
+of anarchy.’ After speaking thus, they persuaded themselves that they
+desired a king, and forthwith debated whom they should choose. Deïokes
+was proposed and warmly praised by all, so they agreed to elect him.”
+ Whereupon Deïokes had a great palace built, and enrolled a bodyguard
+to attend upon him. He next called upon his subjects to leave their
+villages, and “the Medes, obedient to his orders, built the city now
+called Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength,
+rising in circles one within the other. The walls are concentric, and
+so arranged that they rise one above the other by the height of their
+battlements. The nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favoured
+this arrangement. The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace
+and the treasuries standing within the last. The circuit of the outer
+wall is very nearly the same as that of Athens. Of this wall the
+battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the
+fourth blue, of the fifth orange. The two last have their battlements
+coated respectively with silver and gold. All these fortifications
+Deïokes caused to be raised for himself and his own palace; the people
+he required to dwell outside the citadel. When the town was finished,
+he established a rule that no one should have direct access to the king,
+but that all communications should pass through the hands of messengers.
+It was declared to be unseemly for any one to see the king face to face,
+or to laugh or spit in his presence. This ceremonial Deïokes established
+for his own security, fearing lest his compeers who had been brought up
+with him, and were of as good family and parts as he, should be vexed at
+the sight of him and conspire against him: he thought that by rendering
+himself invisible to his vassals they would in time come to regard him
+as quite a different sort of being from themselves.”
+
+Two or three facts stand out from this legendary background. It is
+probable that Deïokes was an actual person; that the empire of the Medes
+first took shape under his auspices; that he formed an important kingdom
+at the foot of Mount Elvend, and founded Ecbatana the Great, or, at at
+any rate, helped to raise it to the rank of a capital.*
+
+     * The existence of Deïokes has been called in question by
+     Grote and by the Rawlinsons. Most recent historians,
+     however, accept the story of this personage as true in its
+     main facts; some believe him to have been merely the
+     ancestor of the royal house which later on founded the
+     united kingdom of the Medes.
+
+Its site was happily chosen, in a rich and fertile valley, close to
+where the roads emerge which cross the Zagros chain of mountains and
+connect Iran with the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, almost on the
+border of the salt desert which forms and renders sterile the central
+regions of the plateau. Mount Elvend shelters it, and feeds with its
+snows the streams that irrigate it, whose waters transform the whole
+country round into one vast orchard. The modern town has, as it were,
+swallowed up all traces of its predecessor; a stone lion, overthrown and
+mutilated, marks the site of the royal palace.
+
+[Illustration: 087.jpg STONE LION AT HAMADÂN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Plandin and Coste.
+
+The chronological reckoning of the native annalists, as handed down
+to us by Herodotus, credits Deïokes with a reign of fifty-three years,
+which occupied almost the whole of the first half of the seventh
+century, i.e. from 709 to 656, or from 700 to 647 B.C.*
+
+     * Herodotus expressly attributes a reign of fifty-three
+     years to his Deïokes, and the total of a hundred and fifty
+     years which we obtain by adding together the number of years
+     assigned by him to the four Median kings (53 + 22 + 40 +
+     35) brings us back to 709-708, if we admit, as he does, that
+     the year of the proclamation by Cyrus as King of Persia
+     (559-558) was that in which Astyages was overthrown; we get
+     700-699 as the date of Deiokes’ accession, if we separate
+     the two facts, as the monuments compel us to do, and reckon
+     the hundred and fifty years of the Median empire from the
+     fall of Astyages in 550-549.
+
+The records of Nineveh mention a certain Dayaukku who was governor of
+the Mannai, and an ally of the Assyrians in the days of Sargon, and was
+afterwards deported with his family to Hamath in 715; two years later
+reference is made to an expedition across the territory of Bît-Dayaukku,
+which is described as lying between Ellipi and Karalla, thus
+corresponding to the modern province of Hamadân. It is quite within
+the bounds of possibility that the Dayaukku who gave his name to this
+district was identical with the Deiokes of later writers.*
+
+     * The form Deïokes, in place of Daïokes, is due to the Ionic
+     dialect employed by Herodotus. Justi regards the name as an
+     abbreviated form of the ancient Persian _Dahyaupati_--“the
+     master of a province,” with the suffix _-ha_.
+
+[Illustration: 088.jpg VIEW OF HAMADÂN AND MOUNT ELVEND IN WINTER]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan.
+
+He was the official ancestor of a royal house, a fact proved by the way
+in which his conqueror uses the name to distinguish the country over
+which he had ruled; moreover, the epoch assigned to him by contemporary
+chroniclers coincides closely enough with that indicated by tradition
+in the case of Deïokes. He was never the august sovereign that posterity
+afterwards made him out to be, and his territory included barely half of
+what constituted the province of Media in classical times; he contrived,
+however--and it was this that gained him universal renown in later
+days--to create a central rallying-point for the Median tribes around
+which they henceforth grouped themselves. The work of concentration
+was merely in its initial stage during the lifetime of Sennacherib, and
+little or nothing was felt of its effects outside its immediate area of
+influence, but the pacific character ascribed to the worthy Deïokes by
+popular legends, is to a certain extent confirmed by the testimony of
+the monuments: they record only one expedition, in 702, against Ellipi
+and the neighbouring tribes, in the course of which some portions of the
+newly acquired territory were annexed to the province of Kharkhar, and
+after mentioning this the annals have nothing further to relate during
+the rest of the reign. Sennacherib was too much taken up with his
+retaliatory measures against Babylon, or his disputes with Blam, to
+think of venturing on expeditions such as those which had brought
+Tiglath-pileser III. or Sargon within sight of Mount Bikni; while the
+Medes, on their part, had suffered so many reverses under these two
+monarchs that they probably thought twice before attacking any of the
+outposts scattered along the Assyrian frontier: nothing occurred
+to disturb their tranquillity during the early years of the seventh
+century, and this peaceful interval probably enabled Deïokes to
+consolidate, if not to extend, his growing authority. But if matters
+were quiet, at all events on the surface, in this direction, the nations
+on the north and north-west had for some time past begun to adopt a more
+threatening attitude. That migration of races between Europe and Asia,
+which had been in such active progress about the middle of the second
+millennium before our era, had increased twofold in intensity after the
+rise of the XXth Egyptian dynasty, and from thenceforward a wave of new
+races had gradually spread over the whole of Asia Minor, and had either
+driven the older peoples into the less fertile or more inaccessible
+districts, or else had overrun and absorbed them.
+
+[Illustration: 090.jpg ASIA MINOR IN THE 7TH CENTURY]
+
+Many of the nations that had fought against Ramses II. and Ramses III.,
+such as the Uashasha, the Shagalasha, the Zakkali, the Danauna, and
+the Tursha, had disappeared, but the Thracians, whose appearance on the
+scene caused such consternation in days gone by, had taken root in the
+very heart of the peninsula, and had, in the course of three or four
+generations, succeeded in establishing a thriving state. The legend
+which traced the descent of the royal line back to the fabulous hero
+Ascanius proves that at the outset the haughty tribe of the Ascanians
+must have taken precedence over their fellows;* it soon degenerated,
+however, and before long the Phrygian tribe gained the upper hand and
+gave its name to the whole nation.
+
+     * The name of this tribe was retained by a district
+     afterwards included in the province of Bithynia, viz.
+     Ascania, on the shores of the Ascanian lake: the
+     distribution of place and personal names over the face of
+     the country makes it seem extremely probable that Ascania
+     and the early Ascanians occupied the whole of the region
+     bounded on the north by the Propontis; in other words, the
+     very country in which, according to Xanthus of Lydia, the
+     Phry gians first established themselves after their arrival
+     in Asia.
+
+Phrygia proper, the country first colonised by them, lay between Mount
+Dindymus and the river Halys, in the valley of the Upper Sangarios and
+its affluents: it was there that the towns and strongholds of their most
+venerated leaders, such as Midaion, Dorylaion, Gordiaion, Tataion, and
+many others stood close together, perpetuating the memory of Midas,
+Dorylas, Gordios, and Tatas. Its climate was severe and liable to
+great extremes of temperature, being bitterly cold in winter and almost
+tropical during the summer months; forests of oak and pine, however, and
+fields of corn flourished, while the mountain slopes favoured the growth
+of the vine; it was, in short, an excellent and fertile country, well
+fitted for the development of a nation of vinedressers and tillers of
+the soil. The slaying of an ox or the destruction of an agricultural
+implement was punishable by death, and legend relates that Gordios,
+the first Phrygian king, was a peasant by birth. His sole patrimony
+consisted of a single pair of oxen, and the waggon used by him in
+bringing home his sheaves after the harvest was afterwards placed as an
+offering in the temple of Cybele at Ancyra by his son Midas; there was
+a local tradition according to which the welfare of all Asia depended on
+the knot which bound the yoke to the pole being preserved intact.
+Midas did not imitate his father’s simple habits, and the poets, after
+crediting him with fabulous wealth, tried also to make out that he was a
+conqueror. The kingdom expanded in all directions, and soon included the
+upper valley of the Masander, with its primeval sanctuaries, Kydrara,
+Colossæ, and Kylsenæ, founded wherever exhalations of steam and boiling
+springs betrayed the presence of some supernatural power. The southern
+shores of the Hellespont, which formed part of the Troad, and was
+the former territory of the Ascania, belonged to it, as did also the
+majority of the peoples scattered along the coast of the Euxine between
+the mouth of the Sangarios and that of the Halys; those portions of the
+central steppe which border on Lake Tatta were also for a time subject
+to it, Lydia was under its influence, and it is no exaggeration to say
+that in the tenth and eleventh centuries before our era there was a
+regular Phrygian empire which held sway, almost without a rival, over
+the western half of Asia Minor.
+
+[Illustration: 095.jpg MONUMENT COMMEMORATIVE OF MIDAS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a plate in Perrot and Chipiez.
+
+It has left behind it so few relics of its existence, that we can only
+guess at what it must have been in the days of its prosperity. Three or
+four ruined fortresses, a few votive stelae, and a dozen bas-reliefs cut
+on the faces of cliffs in a style which at first recalls the Hittite and
+Asianic carvings of the preceding age, and afterwards, as we come down
+to later times, betrays the influence of early Greek art. In the midst
+of one of their cemeteries we come upon a monument resembling the façade
+of a house or temple cut out of the virgin rock; it consists of a low
+triangular pediment, surmounted by a double scroll, then a rectangle
+of greater length than height, framed between two pilasters and a
+horizontal string-course, the centre being decorated with a geometrical
+design of crosses in a way which suggests the pattern of a carpet; a
+recess is hollowed out on a level with the ground, and filled by a blind
+door with rebated doorposts. Is it a tomb? The inscription carefully
+engraved above one side of the pediment contains the name of Midas, and
+seems to show that we have before us a commemorative monument, piously
+dedicated by a certain Ates in honour of the Phrygian hero.
+
+[Illustration: 096.jpg A PHRYGIAN GOD]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Ramsay.
+
+Elsewhere we come upon the outlines of a draped female form, sometimes
+alone, sometimes accompanied by two lions, or of a man clothed in a
+short tunic, holding a sort of straight sceptre in his hand, and we
+fancy that we have the image of a god before our eyes, though we cannot
+say which of the deities handed down by tradition it may represent.
+The religion of the Phrygians is shrouded in the same mystery as their
+civilisation and their art, and presents a curious mixture of European
+and Asianic elements. The old aboriginal races had worshipped from time
+immemorial a certain mother-goddess, Ma, or Amma, the black earth,
+which brings forth without ceasing, and nourishes all living things. Her
+central place of worship seems, originally, to have been in the region
+of the Anti-taurus, and it was there that her sacred cities--Tyana,
+Venasa, and the Cappadocian Comana--were to be found as late as Roman
+times; in these towns her priests were regarded as kings, and thousands
+of her priestesses spent lives of prostitution in her service; but her
+sanctuaries, with their special rites and regulations, were scattered
+over the whole peninsula. She was sometimes worshipped under the form
+of a meteoric stone, or betyle similar to those found in Canaan;* more
+frequently she was represented in female shape, with attendant lions, or
+placed erect on a lion in the attitude of walking.
+
+     * E.g. at Mount Dindymus and at Pessinus, which latter place
+     was supposed to possess the oldest sanctuary of Cybele. The
+     Pessinus stone, which was carried off to Rome in 204 B.C.,
+     was small, irregular in shape, and of a dark colour. Another
+     stone represented Ida.
+
+[Illustration: 097.jpg THE MOTHER-GODDESS BETWEEN LIONS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Ramsay.
+
+A moon-god, Men, shared divine honours with her, and with a goddess
+Nana whose son Atys had been the only love of Ma and the victim of her
+passion. We are told that she compelled him to emasculate himself in
+a fit of mad delirium, and then transformed him into a pine tree:
+thenceforward her priests made the sacrifice of their virility with
+their own hands at the moment of dedicating themselves to the service of
+the goddess.*
+
+     * Nana was made out to be the daughter of the river
+     Sangarios. She is said to have conceived Atys by placing in
+     her bosom the fruit of an almond tree which sprang from the
+     hermaphrodite Agdistis. This was the form--extremely ancient
+     in its main features--in which the legend was preserved at
+     Pessinus.
+
+[Illustration: 098.jpg THE MOTHER-GODDESS AND ATYS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre. One of
+     the bas-reliefs at Iasilikiaia, to which we shall have
+     occasion to refer later on in Chapter III. of the present
+     volume.
+
+The gods introduced from Thrace by the Phrygians showed a close affinity
+with those of the purely Asianic peoples. Precedence was universally
+given to a celestial divinity named Bagaios, Lord of the Oak, perhaps
+because he was worshipped under a gigantic sacred oak; he was king of
+gods and men, then-father,* lord of the thunder and the lightning, the
+warrior who charges in his chariot.
+
+     * In this capacity he bore the surname Papas.
+
+He, doubtless, allowed a queen-regent of the earth to share his throne,*
+but Sauazios, another, and, at first, less venerable deity had thrown
+this august pair into the shade.
+
+     * The existence of such a goddess may be deduced from the
+     passage in which Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that
+     Manes, first king of the Phrygians, was the son of Zeus and
+     Demeter.
+
+[Illustration: 099.jpg THE GOD MEN ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUN AND OTHER
+DEITIES]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Perdrizet. The
+     last figure on the left is the god Men; the Sun overlooks
+     all the rest, and a god bearing an axe occupies the extreme
+     right of the picture. The shapes of these ancient aboriginal
+     deities have been modified by the influence of Græco-Roman
+     syncretism, and I merely give these figures, as I do many
+     others, for lack of better representations.
+
+The Greeks, finding this Sauazios at the head of the Phrygian Pantheon,
+identified him with their Zeus, or, less frequently, with the Sun; he
+was really a variant of their Dionysos. He became torpid in the autumn,
+and slept a death-like sleep all through the winter; but no sooner did
+he feel the warmth of the first breath of spring, than he again awoke,
+glowing with youth, and revelled during his summer in the heart of the
+forest or on the mountain-side, leading a life of riot and intoxication,
+guarded by a band of Sauades, spirits of the springs and streams, the
+Sileni of Greek mythology. The resemblances detected by the new-comers
+between the orgies of Thrace and those of Asia quickly led to confusion
+between the different dogmas and divinities. The Phrygians adopted Ma,
+and made her their queen, the Cybele who dwells in the hills, and takes
+her title from the mountain-tops which she inhabits--Dindymêne on Mount
+Dindymus, Sipylêne on Mount Sipylus. She is always the earth, but the
+earth untilled, and is seated in the midst of lions, or borne through
+her domain in a car drawn by lions, accompanied by a troop of Corybantes
+with dishevelled locks. Sauazios, identified with the Asianic Atys,
+became her lover and her priest, and Men, transformed by popular
+etymology into Manes, the good and beautiful, was looked upon as the
+giver of good luck, who protects men after death as well as in life.
+This religion, evolved from so many diverse elements, possessed a
+character of sombre poetry and sensual fanaticism which appealed
+strongly to the Greek imagination: they quickly adopted even its most
+barbarous mysteries, those celebrated in honour of the goddess and Atys,
+or of Sauazios. They tell us but little of the inner significance of
+the symbols and doctrines taught by its votaries, but have frequently
+described its outward manifestations. These consisted of aimless
+wanderings through the forests, in which the priest, incarnate
+representative of his god, led after him the ministers of the temple,
+who were identified with the Sauades and nymphs of the heavenly host.
+Men heard them passing in the night, heralded by the piercing notes
+of the flute provoking to frenzy, and by the clash of brazen cymbals,
+accompanied by the din of uproarious ecstasy: these sounds were broken
+at intervals by the bellowing of bulls and the roll of drums, like the
+rambling of subterranean thunder.
+
+[Illustration: 101.jpg MIDAS OF PHRYGIA]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the _Cabinet des
+     Médailles_. It is a bronze coin from Prymnessos in Phrygia,
+     belonging to the imperial epoch.
+
+A Midas followed a Gordios, and a Gordios a Midas, in alternate
+succession, and under their rule the Phrygian empire enjoyed a period
+of prosperous obscurity. Lydia led an uneventful existence beside them,
+under dynasties which have received merely passing notice at the hands
+of the Greek chroniclers. They credit it at the outset with the almost
+fabulous royal line of the Atyadæ, in one of whose reigns the Tyrseni
+are said to have migrated into Italy. Towards the twelfth century the
+Atyadæ were supplanted by a family of Heraclido, who traced their
+descent to a certain Agrôn, whose personality is only a degree less
+mythical than his ancestry; he was descended from Heracles through
+Alcseus, Belus, and Ninus. Whether these last two names point to
+intercourse with one or other of the courts on the banks of the
+Euphrates, it is difficult to say. Twenty-one Heraclido, each one the
+son of his predecessor, are said to have followed Agrôn on the throne,
+their combined reigns giving a total of five hundred years.* Most of
+these princes, whether Atyadæ or Heraclidæ, have for us not even a
+shadowy existence, and what we know of the remainder is of a purely
+fabulous nature. For instance, Kambles is reported to have possessed
+such a monstrous appetite, that he devoured his own wife one night,
+while asleep.**
+
+     * The number is a purely conventional one, and Gutschmid has
+     shown how it originated. The computation at first comprised
+     the complete series of 22 Heraclidæ and 5 Mermnadæ,
+     estimated reasonably at 4 kings to a century, i.e. 27 X 25 =
+     675 years, from the taking of Sardes to the supposed
+     accession of Agrôn. As it was known from other sources that
+     the 5 Mermnadæ had reigned 170 years, these were subtracted
+     from the 675, to obtain the duration of the Heraclidæ alone,
+     and by this means were obtained the 505 years mentioned by
+     Herodotus.
+
+     ** Another version, related by Nicolas of Damascus, refers
+     the story to the time of Lardanos, a contemporary of
+     Hercules; it shows that the Lydian chronographers considered
+     Kambles or Kamblitas as being one of the last of the Atyad
+     kings.
+
+The concubine of Meles, again, is said to have brought forth a lion,
+and the oracle of Telmessos predicted that the town of Sardes would be
+rendered impregnable if the animal were led round the city walls; this
+was done, except on the side of the citadel facing Mount Tmolus, which
+was considered unapproachable, but it was by that very path that
+the Persians subsequently entered the town. Alkimos, we are told,
+accumulated immense treasures, and under his rule his subjects enjoyed
+unequalled prosperity for fourteen years. It is possible that the story
+of the expedition despatched into Palestine by a certain Akiamos, which
+ended in the foundation of Ascalon, is merely a feeble echo of the raids
+in Syrian and Egyptian waters made by the Tyrseni and Sardinians in the
+thirteenth century B.C. The spread of the Phrygians, and the subsequent
+progress of Greek colonisation, must have curtailed the possessions
+of the Heraclidas from the eleventh to the ninth centuries, but the
+material condition of the people does not appear to have suffered
+by this diminution of territory. When they had once firmly planted
+themselves in the ports along the Asianic littoral--at Kymê, at Phocæ,
+at Smyrna, at Clazomenæ, at Colophon, at Ephesus, at Magnesia, at
+Miletus--the Æolians and the Ionians lost no time in reaping the
+advantages which this position, at the western extremities of the great
+high-road through Asia Minor, secured to them. They overran all the
+Lydian settlements in Phrygia--Sardes, Leontocephalos, Pessinus,
+Gordioon, and Ancyra. The steep banks and the tortuous course of
+the Halys failed to arrest them; and they pushed forward beyond the
+mysterious regions peopled by the White Syrians, where the ancient
+civilisation of Asia Minor still held its sway. The search for precious
+metals mainly drew them on--the gold and silver, the copper, bronze, and
+above all iron, which the Chalybæ found in their mountains, and which
+were conveyed by caravans from the regions of the Caucasus to the sacred
+towns of Teiria and Pteria.*
+
+     * The site of Pteria has been fixed at Boghaz-keui by
+     Texier, an identification which has been generally adopted;
+     Euyuk is very probably Teiria, a town of the Lcucosyrians,
+     mentioned by Hecatsous of Miletus in his work.
+
+The friendly relations into which they entered with the natives on these
+journeys resulted before long in barter and intermarriage, though their
+influence made itself felt in different ways, according to the character
+of the people on whom it was brought to bear.
+
+[Illustration: 104.jpg THE STEEP BANKS OF THE HALYS FAILED TO ARREST
+THEM]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by A. Boissier.
+     The road leading from Angora to Yuzgat crosses the river not
+     far from the site shown here, near the spot where the
+     ancient road crossed.
+
+They gave as a legacy to Phrygia one of their alphabets, that of Kymê,
+which soon banished the old Hittite syllabary from the monuments,
+and they borrowed in exchange Phrygian customs, musical instruments,
+traditions, and religious orgies. A Midas sought in marriage Hermodikê,
+the daughter of Agamemnon the Kymsoan, while another Midas, who
+had consulted the oracle of Delphi, presented to the god the
+chryselephantine throne on which he was wont to sit when he dispensed
+justice.
+
+[Illustration: 105.jpg VIEW OVEK THE PLAIN OF SARDES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+
+This interchange of amenities and these alliances, however, had a merely
+superficial effect, and in no way modified the temperament and life
+of the people in inner Asia Minor. They remained a robust, hardworking
+race, attached to their fields and woods, loutish and slow of
+understanding, unskilled in war, and not apt in defending themselves in
+spite of their natural bravery. The Lydians, on the contrary, submitted
+readily to foreign influence, and the Greek leaven introduced among them
+became the germ of a new civilisation, which occupied an intermediate
+place between that of the Greek and that of the Oriental world. About
+the first half of the eighth century B.C. the Lydians had become
+organised into a confederation of several tribes, governed by hereditary
+chiefs, who were again in their turn subject to the Heraclidæ occupying
+Sardes.* This town rose in terraces on the lower slopes of a detached
+spur of the Tmolus running in the direction of the Hermos, and was
+crowned by the citadel, within which were included the royal palace,
+the treasury, and the arsenals. It was surrounded by an immense plain,
+bounded on the south by a curve of the Tmolus, and on the west by the
+distant mountains of Phrygia Katake-kaumenê. The Mæonians still claimed
+primacy over the entire race, and the family was chosen from among their
+nobles. The king, who was supposed to be descended from the gods, bore,
+as the insignia of his rank, a double-headed axe, the emblem of his
+divine ancestors. The Greeks of later times said that the axe was that
+of their Heracles, which was wrested by him from the Amazon Hippolyta,
+and given to Omphalê.**
+
+     * Gelzer was the first, to my knowledge, to state that Lydia
+     was a feudal state, and he defined its constitution. Radet
+     refuses to recognise it as feudal in the true sense of the
+     term, and he prefers to see in it a confederation of states
+     under the authority of a single prince.
+
+     ** Gelzer sees in the legend about the axe related by
+     Plutarch, a reminiscence of a primitive gynocracy. The axe
+     is the emblem of the god of war, and, as such, belongs to
+     the king: the coins of Mylasa exhibit it held by Zeus
+     Labraundos.
+
+[Illustration: 106.jpg THE AXE BORNE BY ZEUS LABRAUNDOS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des
+     Médailles.
+
+The king was the supreme head of the priesthood, as also of the vassal
+chiefs and of the army, but he had as a subordinate a “companion” who
+could replace him when occasion demanded, and he was assisted in the
+exercise of his functions by the counsel of “Friends,” and further still
+in extraordinary circumstances by the citizens of the capital assembled
+in the public square. This intervention of the voice of the populace
+was a thing unknown in the East, and had probably been introduced in
+imitation of customs observed among the Greeks of Æolia or Ionia; it was
+an important political factor, and might possibly lead to an outbreak or
+a revolution. Outside the pale of Sardes and the province of Mæonia, the
+bulk of Lydian territory was distributed among a very numerous body of
+landowners, who were particularly proud of their noble descent. Many of
+these country magnates held extensive fiefs, and had in their pay small
+armies, which rendered them almost independent, and the only way for
+the sovereign to succeed in ruling them was to conciliate them at all
+hazards, and to keep them in perpetual enmity with their fellows. Two of
+these rival families vied with each other in their efforts to secure
+the royal favour; that of the Tylonidæ and that of the Mermnadæ, the
+principal domain of which latter lay at Teira, in the valley of the
+Cayster, though they had also other possessions at Dascylion, in
+Hellespontine Phrygia. The head sometimes of one and sometimes of the
+other family would fill that post of “companion” which placed all the
+resources of the kingdom at the disposal of the occupant.
+
+The first of the Mermnadæ of whom we get a glimpse is Daskylos, son of
+Gyges, who about the year 740 was “companion” during the declining years
+of Ardys, over whom he exercised such influence that Adyattes, the
+heir to the throne, took umbrage at it, and caused him to be secretly
+assassinated, whereupon his widow, fearing for her own safety, hastily
+fled into Phrygia, of which district she was a native. On hearing of the
+crime, Ardys, trembling with anger, convoked the Assembly, and as his
+advanced age rendered walking difficult, he caused himself to be carried
+to the public square in a litter. Having reached the place, he laid the
+assassins under a curse, and gave permission to any who could find them
+to kill them; he then returned to his palace, where he died a few years
+later, about 730 B.C. Adyattes took the name of Meles on ascending the
+throne, and at first reigned happily, but his father’s curse weighed
+upon him, and before long began to take effect. Lydia having been laid
+waste by a famine, the oracle declared that, before appeasing the gods,
+the king must expiate the murder of the Mermnad noble, by making every
+atonement in his power, if need be by an exile of three years’ duration.
+Meles submitted to the divine decree. He sought out the widow of his
+victim, and learning that during her flight she had given birth to a
+son, called, like his father, Daskylos, he sent to entreat the young
+man to repair immediately to Sardes, that he might make amends for the
+murder; the youth, however, alleged that he was as yet unborn at the
+hour of his father’s death, and therefore not entitled to be a party
+to an arrangement which did not personally affect him, and refused
+to return to his own country. Having failed in this attempt, Meles
+entrusted the regency of his kingdom to Sadyattes, son of Kadys, one of
+the Tylonidas, who probably had already filled the post of companion
+to the king for some time past, and set out for Babylon. When the three
+years had elapsed, Sadyattes faithfully handed over to him the reins of
+government and resumed the second place. Myrsos succeeded Meles about
+716,* and his accession immediately became the cause of uneasiness
+to the younger Daskylos, who felt that he was no longer safe from the
+intrigues of the Heraclidaî; he therefore quitted Phrygia and settled
+beyond the Italys among the White Syrians, one of whom he took in
+marriage, and had by her a son, whom he called Gyges, after his
+ancestor. The Lydian chronicles which have come down to us make no
+mention of him, after the birth of this child, for nearly a quarter of a
+century. We know, however, from other sources, that the country in which
+he took refuge had for some time past been ravaged by enemies coming
+from the Caucasus, known to us as the Cimmerians.**
+
+     * The lists of Eusebius give 36 years to Ardys, 14 years to
+     Meles or Adyattes, 12 years to Myrsos, and 17 years to
+     Candaules; that is to say, if we place the accession of
+     Gyges in 687, the dates of the reign of Candaules are 704-
+     687, of that of Mysros 716-704, of that of Meles 730-716, of
+     that of Ardys I. 766-730. Oelzer thinks that the double
+     names each represent a different Icing; Radet adheres to the
+     four generations of Eusebius.
+
+     ** I would gladly have treated at length the subject of the
+     Cimmerians with its accompanying developments, but lack of
+     space prevents me from doing more than summing up here the
+     position I have taken. Most modern critics have rejected
+     that part of the tradition preserved by Herodotus which
+     refers to the itinerary of the Cimmerians, and have confused
+     the Cimmerian invasion with that of the Thracian tribes. I
+     think that there is reason to give weight to Herodotus’
+     statement, and to distinguish carefully between two series
+     of events: (1) a movement of peoples coming from Europe into
+     Asia, by the routes that Herodotus indicates, about the
+     latter half of the eighth century B.C., who would be more
+     especially the Cimmerians; (2) a movement of peoples coming
+     from Europe into Asia by the Thracian Bosphorus, and among
+     whom there was perhaps, side by side with the Treres, a
+     remnant of Cimmerian tribes who had been ousted by the
+     Scythians. The two streams would have had their confluence
+     in the heart of Asia Minor, in the first half of the seventh
+     century.
+
+[Illustration: 110.jpg A CONFLICT WITH TWO GRIFFINS.]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the reliefs on the crown
+     of the Great Blinitza.
+
+Previous to this period these had been an almost mythical race in the
+eyes of the civilised races of the Oriental world. They imagined them as
+living in a perpetual mist on the confines of the universe: “Never
+does bright Helios look upon them with his rays, neither when he rises
+towards the starry heaven, nor when he turns back from heaven towards
+the earth, but a baleful night spreads itself over these miserable
+mortals.” *
+
+     * Odyssey, xi. 14-19. It is this passage which Ephorus
+     applies to the Cimmerians of his own time who were
+     established in the Crimea, and which accounts for his saying
+     that they were a race of miners, living perpetually
+     underground.
+
+Fabulous animals, such as griffins with lions’ bodies, having the neck
+and ears of a fox, and the wings and beak of an eagle, wandered over
+their plains, and sometimes attacked them; the inhabitants were forced
+to defend themselves with axes, and did not always emerge victorious
+from these terrible conflicts.
+
+[Illustration: 111.jpg SCYTHIANS ARMED FOR WAR]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the reliefs on the silver vase
+     of Kul-Oba.
+
+The few merchants who had ventured to penetrate into their country had
+returned from their travels with less fanciful notions concerning the
+nature of the regions frequented by them, but little continued to be
+known of them, until an unforeseen occurrence obliged them to quit their
+remote steppes. The Scythians, driven from the plains of the Iaxartes by
+an influx of the Massagetæ, were urged forwards in a westerly direction
+beyond the Volga and the Don, and so great was the terror inspired by
+the mere report of their approach, that the Cimmerians decided to quit
+their own territory. A tradition current in Asia three centuries later,
+told how their kings had counselled them to make a stand against the
+invaders; the people, however, having refused to listen to their advice,
+their rulers and those who were loyal to them fell by each other’s
+hands, and their burial-place was still shown near the banks of the
+Tyras. Some of their tribes took refuge in the Chersonesus Taurica, but
+the greater number pushed forward beyond the Mæotio marshes; a body of
+Scythians followed in their track, and the united horde pressed onwards
+till they entered Asia Minor, keeping to the shores of the Black Sea.*
+This heterogeneous mass of people came into conflict first with
+Urartu; then turning obliquely in a south-easterly direction, their
+advance-guard fell upon the Mannai. But they were repulsed by Sargon’s
+generals; the check thus administered forced them to fall back speedily
+upon other countries less vigorously defended. The Scythians, therefore,
+settled themselves in the eastern basin of the Araxes, on the frontiers
+of Urartu and the Mannai, where they formed themselves into a kind of
+marauding community, perpetually quarrelling with their neighbours.**
+The Cimmerians took their way westwards, and established themselves
+upon the upper waters of the Araxes, the Euphrates, the Halys, and the
+Thermodon,*** greatly to the vexation of the rulers of Urartu.
+
+     * The version of Aristaeas of Proconnesus, as given by
+     Herodotus and by Damastes of Sigsea, attributes a more
+     complex origin to this migration, i.e. that the Arimaspes
+     had driven the Issedonians before them, and that the latter
+     had in turn driven the Scythians back on the Cimmerians.
+
+     ** The Scythians of the tradition preserved by Herodotus
+     must have been the Ashguzai or Ishkuzai of the cuneiform
+     documents. The original name must have been Skuza, Shkuza,
+     with a sound in the second syllable that the Greeks have
+     rendered by _th_, and the Assyrians by _z_: the initial
+     vowel has been added, according to a well-known rule, to
+     facilitate the pronunciation of the combination sk, sine. An
+     oracle of the time of Esarhaddon shows that they occupied
+     one of the districts really belonging to the Mannai: and it
+     is probably they who are mentioned in a passage of Jer. li.
+     27, where the traditional reading _Aschenaz_ should be
+     replaced by that of Ashkuz.
+
+     *** It is doubtless to these events that the tradition
+     preserved by Pompeius Trogus, which is known to us through
+     his abbreviator Justin, or through the compilers of a later
+     period, refers, concerning the two Scythian princes Ylinus
+     and Scolopitus: they seem to have settled along the coast,
+     on the banks of the Thermodon and in the district of
+     Themiscyra.
+
+They subsequently felt their way along the valleys of the Anti-Taurus,
+but finding them held by Assyrian troops, they turned their steps
+towards the country of the White Syrians, seized Sinôpê, where the
+Greeks had recently founded a colony, and bore down upon Phrygia. It
+would appear that they were joined in these regions by other hordes from
+Thrace which had crossed the Bosphorus a few years earlier, and among
+whom the ancient historians particularly make mention of the Treres;*
+the results of the Scythian invasion had probably been felt by all the
+tribes on the banks of the Dnieper, and had been the means of forcing
+them in the direction of the Danube and the Balkans, whence they drove
+before them, as they went, the inhabitants of the Thracian peninsula
+across into Asia Minor. It was about the year 750 B.C. that the
+Cimmerians had been forced to quit their first home, and towards 720
+that they came into contact with the empires of the East; the Treres had
+crossed the Bosphorus about 710, and the meeting of the two streams of
+immigration may be placed in the opening years of the seventh century.**
+
+     * Strabo says decisively that the Treres were both
+     Cimmerians and Thracians; elsewhere he makes the Treres
+     synonymous with the Cimmerians. The Treres were probably the
+     predominating tribe among the people which had come into
+     Asia on that side.
+
+     ** Gelzer thinks that the invasion by the Bosphorus took
+     place about 705, and Radet about 708; and their reckoning
+     seems to me to be so likely to be correct, that I do not
+     hesitate to place the arrival of the Treres in Asia about
+     the time they have both indicated--roughly speaking, about
+     710 B.C.
+
+The combined hordes did not at once attack Phrygia itself, but spread
+themselves along the coast, from the mouths of the Ehyndakos to those of
+Halys, constituting a sort of maritime confederation of which Heraclea
+and Sinôpê were the chief towns. This confederation must not be regarded
+as a regularly constituted state, but rather as a vast encampment in
+which the warriors could leave their families and their spoil in safety;
+they issued from it nearly every year to spread themselves over the
+neighbouring provinces, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
+another. The ancient sanctuaries of Pteria and the treasures they
+contained excited their cupidity, but they were not well enough equipped
+to undertake the siege of a strongly fortified place, and for want
+of anything better were content to hold it to ransom. The bulk of the
+indigenous population lived even then in those subterranean dwellings so
+difficult of access, which are still used as habitations by the tribes
+on the banks of the Halys, and it is possible that they helped to
+swell the marauding troops of the new-comers. In the declining years of
+Sennacherib, it would appear that the Ninevite provinces possessed
+an irresistible attraction for these various peoples. The fame of the
+wealth accumulated in the regions beyond the Taurus and the Euphrates,
+in Syria and Mesopotamia, provoked their cupidity beyond all bounds, and
+the time was at hand when the fear alone of the Assyrian armies would no
+longer avail to hold them in check.
+
+The last years of Sennacherib had been embittered by the intrigues which
+usually gathered around a monarch enfeebled by age and incapable of
+bearing the cares of government with his former vigour. A fierce rivalry
+existed between those of his sons who aspired to the throne, each of
+whom possessed his following of partisans, both at court and among the
+people, who were ready to support him, if need be even with the sword.
+
+[Illustration: 115.jpg INHABITED CAVES ON THE BANKS OF THE HALYS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph sent by Alfred Boissier.
+
+One of these princes, probably the eldest of the king’s remaining
+sons,* named Assur-akhê-iddin, called by us Esarhaddon, bad already been
+nominated his successor, and had received the official investiture of
+the Babylonian kingdom under the name of Assur-etilmukîn-pal.**
+
+     * The eldest was perhaps that Assur-nadin-shumu who reigned
+     in Babylon, and who was taken prisoner to Elam by King
+     Khalludush.
+
+     ** The idea of an enthronisation at Babylon in the lifetime
+     of Sennacherib, put forward by the earlier Assyriologists,
+     based on an inscription on a lion’s head discovered at
+     Babylon, has been adopted and confirmed by Winckler. It was
+     doubtless on this occasion that Esarhaddon received as a
+     present from his father the objects mentioned in the
+     document which Sayce and Budge have called, without
+     sufficient reason, _The Will of Sennacherib_.
+
+The catastrophe of 689 had not resulted in bringing about the ruin of
+Babylon, as Sennacherib and his ministers had hoped. The temples, it
+is true, had been desecrated and demolished, the palaces and public
+buildings razed to the ground, and the ramparts thrown down, but, in
+spite of the fact that the city had been set on fire by the conquerors,
+the quarters inhabited by the lower classes still remained standing,
+and those of the inhabitants who had escaped being carried away captive,
+together with such as had taken refuge in the surrounding country or
+had hidden themselves in neighbouring cities, had gradually returned
+to their desolated homes. They cleared the streets, repaired the damage
+inflicted during the siege, and before long the city, which was believed
+to be hopelessly destroyed, rose once more with the vigour, if not with
+the wealth, which it had enjoyed before its downfall. The mother of
+Esarhaddon was a Babylonian, by name Nakïa; and as soon as her son came
+into possession of his inheritance, an impulse of filial piety moved him
+to restore to his mother’s city its former rank of capital. Animated
+by the strong religious feeling which formed the groundwork of his
+character, Esarhaddon had begun his reign by restoring the sanctuaries
+which had been the cradle of the Assyrian religion, and his intentions,
+thus revealed at the very outset, had won for him the sympathy of the
+Babylonians;* this, indeed, was excited sooner than he expected, and
+perhaps helped to secure to him his throne. During his absence from
+Nineveh, a widespread plot had been formed in that city, and on the 20th
+day of Tebeth, 681, at the hour when Sennacherib was praying before the
+image of his god, two of his sons, Sharezer and Adarmalik (Adrammelech),
+assassinated their father at the foot of the altar.**
+
+     * A fragment seems to show clearly that the restoration of
+     the temples was begun even in the lifetime of Sennacherib.
+
+     ** We possess three different accounts of the murder of
+     Sennacherib: 1. In the _Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_. 2.
+     In the Bible (2 Kings xix. 36, 37; cf. Isa. xxxvii. 37, 38;
+     2 Chron. xxxii. 21). 3. In Berosus. The biblical account
+     alone mentions both murderers; the _Chronicle_ and Berosus
+     speak of only one, and their testimony seems to prevail with
+     several historians. I believe that the silence of the
+     _Chronicle_ and of Berosus is explained by the fact that
+     Sharezer was chief in the conspiracy, and the one among the
+     sons who aspired to the kingdom: the second murderer merely
+     acted for his brother, and consequently had no more right to
+     be mentioned by name than those accomplices not of the
+     blood-royal who shared in the murder. The name Sharezer is
+     usually considered as an abbreviation of the Assyrian name
+     Nergal-sharuzur, or Assur-sharuzur. Winckler thinks that he
+     sees in it a corruption of Sharitir, abbreviated from
+     Sharitir-assur, which he finds as a royal name on a fragment
+     in the British Museum; he proposes to recognise in this
+     Sharitir-assur, Sharezer enthroned after his father’s death.
+
+One half of the army proclaimed Sharezer king; the northern provinces
+espoused his cause; and Esarhaddon must for the moment have lost all
+hope of the succession. His father’s tragic fate overwhelmed him with
+fear and grief; he rent his clothes, groaned and lamented like a lion
+roaring, and could be comforted only by the oracles pronounced by
+the priests of Babylon. An assurance that the gods favoured his cause
+reached him even from Assyria, and Nineveh, after a few weeks of
+vacillation, acknowledged him as its sovereign, the rebellion being
+mercilessly crushed on the 2nd of Adar.*
+
+     * The Bible alone tells us that Sharezer retired to Urartu
+     (2 Kings xix. 37). To explain the plan of this campaign, it
+     is usually supposed that at the time of his father’s death
+     Esarhaddon was either beyond Mount Taurus or else on the
+     Armenian frontier; the sequence of the dates in the
+     _Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_, compels me to revert to
+     the opinion that Esarhaddon marched from Babylon against the
+     rebels, and pursued them as far as Mount Taurus, and beyond
+     it to Khanigalbat.
+
+Although this was a considerable advantage to Esarhaddon’s cause,
+it could not be considered as decisive, since the provinces of the
+Euphrates still declared for Sharezer; the gods, therefore, once more
+intervened. Ishtar of Arbela had long been considered as the recognised
+patroness and oracle of the dynasty. Whether it were a question of a
+foreign expedition or a rebellion at home, of a threatened plague or
+invasion, of a marriage or an alliance with some powerful neighbour, the
+ruling sovereign would invariably have recourse to her, always with the
+same formula, to demand counsel of her for the conduct of affairs in
+hand, and the replies which she vouchsafed in various ways were
+taken into consideration; her will, as expressed by the mouth of her
+ministers, would hasten, suspend, or modify the decisions of the king.
+Esarhaddon did not neglect to consult the goddess, as well as Assur and
+Sin, Shamash, Bel, Nebo, and Nergal; and their words, transcribed upon
+a tablet of clay, induced him to act without further delay: “Go, do not
+hesitate, for we march with thee and we will cast down thine enemies!”
+ Thus encouraged, he made straight for the scene of danger without
+passing through Nineveh, so as to prevent Sharezer and his party having
+time to recover. His biographers depict Esarhaddon hurrying forward,
+often a day or more in advance of his battalions, without once turning
+to see who followed him, and without waiting to allow the horses of his
+baggage-waggons to be unharnessed or permitting his servant^ to pitch
+his tent; he rested merely for a few moments on the bare ground,
+indifferent to the cold and nocturnal frosts of the month of Sebat. It
+would appear as if Sharezer had placed his hopes on the Cimmerians, and
+had expected their chiefs to come to the rescue. This hypothesis seems
+borne out by the fact that the decisive battle took place beyond the
+Euphrates and the Taurus, in the country of Khanigalbat. Esarhaddon
+attributed his success to Ishtar, the goddess of bravery and of combat;
+she alone had broken the weapons of the rebels, she alone had brought
+confusion into their lines, and had inclined the hearts of the survivors
+to submit. They cried aloud, “This is our king!” and Sharezer thereupon
+fled into Armenia. The war had been brought to a close with such
+rapidity that even the most unsettled of the Assyrian subjects and
+vassals had not had time to take advantage of it for their own purposes;
+the Kaldâ on the Persian Gulf, and the Sidonians on the Mediterranean,
+were the only two peoples who had openly revolted, and were preparing
+to enter on a struggle to preserve their independence thus once more
+regained. Yet the events of the preceding months had shaken the power
+of Nineveh more seriously than we should at first suppose. For the first
+time since the accession of Tiglath-pileser III. the almost inevitable
+troubles which accompany the change of a sovereign had led to an open
+war. The vast army of Sargon and Sennacherib had been split up, and the
+two factions into which it was divided, commanded as they were by
+able generals and composed of troops accustomed to conquer, must have
+suffered more keenly in an engagement with each other than in the course
+of an ordinary campaign against a common enemy. One part at least of the
+military staff had become disorganised; regiments had been decimated,
+and considerable contingents were required to fill the vacancies in the
+ranks. The male population of Assyria, suddenly called on to furnish the
+necessary effective force, could not supply the demand without drawing
+too great a proportion of men from the country; and one of those crises
+of exhaustion was imminent which come upon a nation after an undue
+strain, often causing its downfall in the midst of its success, and
+yielding it an easy prey to the wiles of its adversaries.*
+
+     * The information we possess concerning Esarhaddon is
+     gathered from: 1. _The Insertion of Cylinders A, B, C_, the
+     second of the three better known as the _Broken Cylinder_.
+     These texts contain a summary of the king’s wars, in which
+     the subject-matter is arranged geographically, not
+     chronologically: they cease with the _eponymy_ of Akhazilu,
+     i.e. the year 673. 2. Some mutilated fragments, of the
+     _Annals_. 3. _The Blade Stone of Aberdeen_, on which the
+     account of the rebuilding of Babylon is given. 4. _The Stele
+     of Zindjirli_. 5. The consultations of the god Shamash by
+     Esarhaddon in different circumstances of his reign. 6. A
+     considerable number of small inscriptions and some tablets.
+     The classification of the events of this reign presents
+     serious difficulties, which have been partly overcome by
+     passages in the _Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_.
+
+Esarhaddon was personally inclined for peace, and as soon as he was
+established on the throne he gave orders that the building works, which
+had been suspended during the late troubles, should be resumed and
+actively pushed forward; but the unfortunate disturbances of the
+times did not permit of his pursuing his favourite occupation without
+interruption, and, like those of his warlike predecessors, his life was
+passed almost entirely on the field of battle. Babylon, grateful for
+what he had done for her, tendered him an unbroken fidelity throughout
+the stormy episodes of his reign, and showed her devotion to him by an
+unwavering obedience. The Kaldâ received no support from that quarter,
+and were obliged to bear the whole burden of the war which they had
+provoked. Their chief, Nabu-zîru-kînish-lîshir, who had been placed
+over them by Sennacherib, now harassed the cities of Karduniash, and
+Ningal-shumiddin, the prefect of Uru, demanded immediate help from
+Assyria. Esarhaddon at once despatched such a considerable force that
+the Kaldu chief did not venture to meet it in the open field, and after
+a few unimportant skirmishes he gave up the struggle, and took refuge in
+Elam. Khumbân-khaldash, had died there in 680, a few months before
+the murder of Sennacherib, and his son, a second Khumbân-khaldash, had
+succeeded him; this prince appears either to have shared the peaceful
+tastes of his brother-king of Assyria, or more probably did not feel
+himself sufficiently secure of his throne to risk the chance of coming
+into collision with his neighbour. He caused Nabu-zîru-kînish-lîshir to
+be slain, and Nâîd-marduk, the other son of Merodach-baladan, who had
+shared his brother’s flight, was so terrified at his murder that he at
+once sought refuge in Nineveh; he was reinstated in his paternal
+domain on condition of paying a tribute, and, faithful to his oath of
+allegiance, he thenceforward came yearly in person to bring his dues and
+pay homage to his sovereign (679). The Kaldâ rising had, in short, been
+little more than a skirmish, and the chastisement of the Sidonians would
+have involved neither time nor trouble, had not the desultory movements
+of the barbarians obliged the Assyrians to concentrate their troops on
+several points which were threatened on their northern frontier.
+The Cimmerians and the Scythians had not suffered themselves to be
+disconcerted by the rapidity with which the fate of Sharezer had been
+decided, and after a moment’s hesitation they had again set out in
+various directions on their work of conquest, believing, no doubt, that
+they would meet with a less vigorous resistance after so serious an
+upheaval at Nineveh. The Cimmerians appear to have been the first to
+have provoked hostilities; their king Tiushpa, who ruled over their
+territory on the Black Sea, ejected the Assyrian garrisons placed on the
+Cappadocian frontier, and his presence in that quarter aroused all
+the insubordinate elements still remaining in the Cilician valleys.
+Esarhaddon brought him to a stand on the confines of the plain of Saros,
+defeated him in Khubushna,* and drove the remains of the horde back
+across the Halys.
+
+     * Several Assyriologists have thought that Khubushna might
+     be an error for Khubushkhia, and have sought the seat of war
+     on the eastern frontier of Assyria: in reality the context
+     shows that the place under discussion is a district in Asia
+     Minor, identified with Kamisene by Gelzcr, but left
+     unidentified by most authorities. Jensen has shown that the
+     name is mot with as early as the inscriptions of Tiglath-
+     pileser III., where we should read Khubishna, and he places
+     the country in Northern Syria, or perhaps further north in
+     the western part of Taurus. The determinative proves that
+     there was a town of this name as well as a district, and
+     this consideration encourages mo to recognise in Khubushna
+     or Khubishna the town of Kabissos-Kabessos, the Sis of the
+     kingdom of Lesser Armenia.
+
+Having thus averted the Cimmerian danger, he was able, without
+much difficulty, to bring the rebels of the western provinces into
+subjection.* His troops thrust back the Cilicians and Duha into the
+rugged fastnesses of the Taurus, and razed to the ground one and twenty
+of their strongholds, besides burning numberless villages and carrying
+the inhabitants away captive.**
+
+     * These expeditions are not dated in any of the documents
+     that deal with them: the fact that they are mentioned along
+     with the war against Tiushpa and Sidon makes me inclined to
+     consider them as being a result of the Cimmerian invasion.
+     They were, strictly speaking, the quelling of revolts caused
+     by the presence of the Cimmerians in that part of the
+     empire.
+
+     ** The Duua or Duha of this campaign, who are designated as
+     neighbours of the Tabal, lived in the Anti-taurus: the name
+     of the town, Tyana, _Tuana_, is possibly composed of their
+     name and of the suffix _-na_, which is met with in Asianio
+     languages.
+
+The people of Parnaki, in the bend of the Euphrates between Tel-Assur
+and the sources of the Balîkh, had taken up arms on hearing of the brief
+successes of Tiushpa, but were pitilessly crushed by Esarhaddon. The
+sheikh of Arzani, in the extreme south of Syria, close to the brook of
+Egypt, had made depredations on the Assyrian frontier, but he was seized
+by the nearest governor and sent in chains to Nineveh. A cage was built
+for him at the gate of the city, and he was exposed in it to the jeers
+of the populace, in company with the bears, dogs, and boars which the
+Ninevites were in the habit of keeping confined there. It would appear
+that Esarhaddon set himself to come to a final reckoning with Sidon and
+Phoenicia, the revolt of which had irritated him all the more, in that
+it showed an inexcusable ingratitude towards his family. For it was
+Sennacherib who, in order to break the power of Blulai, had not only
+rescued Sidon from the dominion of Tyre, but had enriched it with the
+spoils taken from its former rulers, and had raised it to the first
+rank among the Phoenician cities. Ethbaal in his lifetime had never been
+wanting in gratitude, but his successor, Abdimilkôt, forgetful of recent
+services, had chafed at the burden of a foreign yoke, and had recklessly
+thrown it off as soon as an occasion presented itself. He had thought
+to strengthen himself by securing the help of a certain Sanduarri,
+who possessed the two fortresses of Kundu and Sîzu, in the Cilician
+mountains;* but neither this alliance nor the insular position of his
+capital was able to safeguard him, when once the necessity for stemming
+the tide of the Cimmerian influx was over, and the whole of the Assyrian
+force was free to be brought against him.
+
+     * Some Assyriologists have proposed to locate these two
+     towns in Cilicia; others place them in the Lebanon, Kundi
+     being identified with the modern village of Ain-Kundiya. The
+     name of Kundu so nearly recalls that of Kuinda, the ancient
+     fort mentioned by Strabo, to the north of Anchialê, between
+     Tarsus and Anazarbus, that I do not hesitate to identify
+     them, and to place Kundu in Cilicia.
+
+Abdimilkôt attempted to escape by sea before the last attack, but he was
+certainly taken prisoner, though the circumstances are unrecorded,
+and Sanduarri fell into the enemy’s hands a short time after. The
+suppression of the rebellion was as vindictive as the ingratitude which
+prompted it was heinous. Sidon was given up to the soldiery and then
+burnt, while opposite to the ruins of the island city the Assyrians
+built a fortress on the mainland, which they called Kar-Esarhaddon. The
+other princes of Phoenicia and Syria were hastily convoked, and were
+witnesses of the vengeance wreaked on the city, as well as of the
+installation of the governor to whom the new province was entrusted.
+They could thus see what fate awaited them in the event of their showing
+any disposition to rebel, and the majority of them were not slow to
+profit by the lesson. The spoil was carried back in triumph to Nineveh,
+and comprised, besides the two kings and their families, the remains of
+their court and people, and the countless riches which the commerce of
+the world had brought into the great ports of the Mediterranean--ebony,
+ivory, gold and silver, purple, precious woods, household furniture,
+and objects of value from all parts in such quantities that it was long
+before the treasury at Nineveh needed any replenishing.* The reverses of
+the Cimmerians did not serve as a warning to the Scythians. Settled
+on the borders of Manna, partly, no doubt, on the territory formerly
+dependent on that state,** they secretly incited the inhabitants to
+revolt, and to join in the raids which they made on the valley of the
+Upper Zab, and they would even have urged their horses up to the very
+walls of Nineveh had the occasion presented itself.
+
+     * The importance of the event and the amount of the spoil
+     captured are apparent, if we notice that Esarhaddon does not
+     usually record the booty taken after each campaign; he does
+     so only when the number of objects and of prisoners taken
+     from the enemy is extraordinary. The _Babylonian Chronicle
+     of Pinches_ places the capture of Sidon in the second, and
+     the death of Abdimilkôt in the fifth year of his reign.
+     Hence Winckler has concluded that Abdimilkôt held out for
+     fully two years after the loss of Sidon. The general tenor
+     of the account, as given by the inscriptions, seems to me to
+     be that the capture of the king followed closely on the fall
+     of the town: Abdimilkôt and Sanduarri probably spent the
+     years between 679 and 676 in prison.
+
+     ** One of the oracles of Shamash speaks of the captives as
+     dwelling in a canton of the Mannai.
+
+Esarhaddon, warned of their intrigues by the spies which he sent among
+them, could not bring himself either to anticipate their attack or to
+assume the offensive, but anxiously consulted the gods with regard to
+them: “O Shamash,” he wrote to the Sun-god, “great lord, thou whom I
+question, answer me in sincerity! From this day forth, the 22nd day of
+this month of Simanu, until the 21st day of the month of Duzu of this
+year, during these thirty days and thirty nights, a time has been
+foreordained favourable to the work of prophecy. In this time thus
+foreordained, the hordes of the Scythians who inhabit a district of the
+Mannai, and who have crossed the Mannian frontier,--will they succeed in
+their undertaking? Will they emerge from the passes of Khubushkia at
+the towns of Kharrânia and Anîsuskia; will they ravage the borders
+of Assyria and steal great booty, immense spoil? that doth thy high
+divinity know. Is it a decree, and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O
+Shamash, great lord, ordained and promulgated? He who sees, shall he see
+it; he who hears, shall he hear it?” *
+
+     * The town of Anîsuskia is not mentioned elsewhere, but
+     Kharrânia is met with in the account of the thirty-first
+     campaign of Shalmaneser III. with Kharrâna as its variant.
+
+The god comforted his faithful servant, but there was a brief delay
+before his answer threw light on the future, and the king’s questions
+were constantly renewed as fresh couriers brought in further
+information. In 678 B.C. the Scythians determined to try their fortune,
+and their king, Ishpakai,* took the field, followed by the Mannai. He
+was defeated and driven back to the north of Lake Urumiah, the Mannai
+were reduced to subjection, and Assyria once more breathed freely.
+The victory, however, was not a final one, and affairs soon assumed as
+threatening an aspect as before. The Scythian tribes came on the scene,
+one after another, and allied themselves to the various peoples subject
+either directly or indirectly to Nineveh.** On one occasion it was
+Kashtariti, the regent of Karkashshi,*** who wrote to Mamitiarshu, one
+of the Median princes, to induce him to make common cause with himself
+in attacking the fortress of Kishshashshu on the eastern border of the
+empire. At another time we find the same chief plotting with the Mannai
+and the Saparda to raid the town of Kilmân, and Esarhaddon implores the
+god to show him how the place may be saved from their machinations.****
+
+     * This king’s name seems to be of Iranian origin. Justi has
+     connected it with the name Aspakos, which is read in a Greek
+     inscription of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; both forms have been
+     connected with the Sanskrit Açvalca.
+
+     ** This subdivision of the horde into several bodies seems
+     to be indicated by the number of different royal names among
+     the Scythians which are mentioned in the Assyrian documents.
+
+     *** The site of Karkashshi is unknown, but the list of
+     Median princes subdued by Sargon shows that it was situated
+     in Media. Kishshashshu is very probably the same as Kishisim
+     or Kishisu, the town which Sargon subdued, and which he
+     called Kar-nergal or Kar-ninib, and which is mentioned in
+     the neighbourhood of Parsuash, Karalla, Kharkhar, Media, and
+     Ellipi. I think that it would be in the basin of the Gave--
+     Rud; Billerbeck places it at the ruins of Siama, in the
+     upper valley of the Lesser Zab.
+
+     **** The people of Saparda, called by the Persians Sparda,
+     have been with good reason identified with the Sepharad of
+     the prophet Obadiah (ver. 20): the Assyrian texts show that
+     this country should be placed in the neighbourhood of the
+     Mannai of the Medes.
+
+He opens negotiations in order to gain time, but the barbarity of his
+adversary is such that he fears for his envoy’s safety, and speculates
+whether he may not have been put to death. The situation would indeed
+have become critical if Kashtariti had succeeded in bringing against
+Assyria a combined force of Medes, Scythians, Mannai, and Cimmerians,
+together with Urartu and its king, Eusas III.; but, fortunately, petty
+hatreds made the combination of these various elements an impossibility,
+and they were unable to arrive at even a temporary understanding.
+The Scythians themselves were not united as to the best course to be
+pursued, and while some endeavoured to show their hostility by every
+imaginable outrage and annoyance, others, on the contrary, desired to
+enter into friendly relations with Assyria. Esarhaddon received on
+one occasion an embassy from Bartatua,* one of their kings, who humbly
+begged the hand of a lady of the blood-royal, swearing to make a lasting
+friendship with him if Esarhaddon would consent to the marriage. It was
+hard for a child brought up in the harem, amid the luxury and comfort
+of a civilised court, to be handed over to a semi-barbarous spouse; but
+state policy even in those days was exacting, and more than one princess
+of the line of Sargon had thus sacrificed herself by an alliance which
+was to the interest of her own people.**
+
+     * Bartatua is, according to Winckler’s ingenious
+     observation, the Proto-thyes of Herodotus, the father of
+     Madyes. [The name should more probably be read Masta-tua--
+     Ed.]
+
+     ** Sargon had in like manner given one of his daughters in
+     marriage to Ambaris, King of Tabal, in order to attach him
+     to the Assyrian cause, but without permanent success.
+
+What troubled Esarhaddon was not the thought of sacrificing a sister
+or a daughter, but a misgiving that the sacrifice would not produce
+the desired result, and in his difficulty he once more had recourse to
+Shamash. “If Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, grants a daughter of the blood
+(royal) to Bartatua, the King of the Iskuza, who has sent an embassy
+to him to ask a wife, will Bartatua, King of the Iskuza, act loyally
+towards Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he honestly and faithfully
+enter into friendly engagements with Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will
+he observe the conditions (made by) Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he
+fulfil them punctually? that thy high divinity knoweth. His promises, in
+a decree and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash, great lord,
+are they decreed, promulgated?” It is not recorded what came of these
+negotiations, nor whether the god granted the hand of the princess to
+her barbarian suitor. All we know is, that the incursions and intrigues
+of the Scythians continued to be a perpetual source of trouble to the
+Medes, and roused them either to rebel against Assyria or to claim the
+protection of its sovereign. Esarhaddon, in the course of his reign,
+was more than once compelled to interfere in order to ensure peace and
+quietness to the provinces on the table-land of Iran, which Sargon had
+conquered and which Sennacherib had retained.*
+
+     * Several recent historians allege that Sennacherib did not
+     keep the territories that Sargon had conquered, and that the
+     Assyrian frontier became contracted on that side; whereas
+     the general testimony of the known texts seems to me to
+     prove the contrary, namely, that he preserved nearly all the
+     territory annexed by his father, and that Esarhaddon was far
+     from diminishing this inheritance. If these two kings
+     mention only insignificant deeds of arms in the western
+     region, it is because the population, exhausted by the wars
+     of the two preceding reigns, easily recognised the Ninevite
+     supremacy, and paid tribute to the Assyrian governors with
+     sufficient regularity to prevent any important military
+     expedition against them.
+
+He had first to carry his arms to the extreme edge of the desert, into
+the rugged country of Patusharra, lying at the foot of Demavend, rich
+in lapis-lazuli, and as yet untrodden by any king of Assyria.* Having
+reached his destination, he captured two petty kings, Eparna and
+Shîtirparna, and exiled them to Assyria, together with their people,
+their thoroughbred horses, and their two-humped camels,--in fine, all
+the possessions of their subjects. Shortly after this, three other
+Median chiefs, hitherto intractable--Uppis of Par-takka, Zanasana of
+Partukka,** Ramatea of Urakazabarna--came to Nineveh to present the king
+with horses and lapis-lazuli, the best of everything they possessed, and
+piteously entreated him to forgive their misdeeds.
+
+     * The country of Patusharra has been identified with that of
+     the Patischorians mentioned by Strabo in Persia proper, who
+     would have lived further north, not far from Demavend;
+     Sachau calls attention to the existence of a mountain chain
+     Patashwar-gar or Padishwar-gir, in front of Choarcnê, and he
+     places the country of Patusharra between Demavend and the
+     desert.
+
+     ** Partakka and Partukka seem to be two different
+     adaptations of the name Paraituka, the Parsetakênô of the
+     Greek geographers; Tiele thinks of Parthyênô. I think that
+     these two names designate the northern districts of
+     Partetakênô, the present Ashnakhor or the country near to
+     it.
+
+They represented that the whole of Media was torn asunder by countless
+strifes, prince against prince, city against city, and an iron will was
+needed to bring the more turbulent elements to order. Esarhaddon lent
+a favourable ear to their prayers; he undertook to protect them on
+condition of their paying an annual tribute, and he put them under
+the protection of the Assyrian governors who were nearest to their
+territory. Kharkhar, securely entrenched behind its triple ramparts,
+assumed the position of capital to these Iranian marches.
+
+It is difficult to determine the precise dates of these various events;
+we learn merely that they took place before 673, and we surmise that
+they must have occurred between the second and sixteenth year of the
+king’s reign.*
+
+     * The facts relating to the submission of Patusharra and of
+     Partukka are contained in Cylinder A, dated from the
+     eponymous year of Akhazilu, in 673. Moreover, the version
+     which this document contains seems to have been made up of
+     two pieces placed one at the end of the other: the first an
+     account of events which occurred during an earlier period of
+     the reign, and in which the exploits are classified in
+     geographical order, from Sidon in the west the Arabs
+     bordering on Chaldæa in the east; and the second consisting
+     of additional campaigns carried out after the completion of
+     the former--which is proved by the place which these
+     exploits occupy, out of their normal position in the
+     geographical series--and making mention of Partusharra and
+     Partuhka, as well as of Belikisha. The editor of the _Broken
+     Cylinder_ has tried to combine these latter elements with
+     the former in the order adopted by the original narrator. As
+     far as can be seen in what is left of the columns, he has
+     placed, after the Chaldsean events, the facts concerning
+     Partukka, then those concerning Patusharra, and finally the
+     campaign against Bazu, the extreme limit of Esarhaddon’s
+     activity in the south. Knowing that the campaign in the
+     desert and the death of Abdimilkôt took place in 676, and
+     that we find them already alluded to in the first part of
+     the narrative, as well as the events of 675 relating to the
+     revolt of Dakkuri, we may conclude that the submission of
+     Patusharra and that of Partukka occurred in 674, or at
+     latest in the beginning of 673.
+
+[Illustration: 131.jpg THE TOWN OF KHARKHAR WITH ITS TRIPLE RAMPART]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Flandin, in Botta.
+
+The outcome of them was a distinct gain to Assyria, in the acquisition
+of several new vassals. The recently founded kingdom of Ecbatana lacked
+as yet the prestige which would have enabled it to hold its own against
+Nineveh; besides which, Deïokes, the contemporary ruler assigned to
+it by tradition, was of too complaisant a nature to seek occasions of
+quarrel. The Scythians, after having declared their warlike intentions,
+seem to have come to a more peaceable frame of mind, and to have curried
+favour with Nineveh; but the rulers of the capital kept a strict watch
+upon them, since their numbers, their intrepid character, and instinct
+for rapine made them formidable enemies--the most dangerous, indeed,
+that the empire had encountered on its north-eastern frontier for nearly
+a century.
+
+This policy of armed _surveillance_, which proved so successful in
+these regions, was also carefully maintained by Esarhaddon on his
+south-eastern border against Assyria’s traditional enemy, the King
+of Susa. Babylon, far from exhibiting any restlessness at her present
+position, showed her gratitude for the favours which her suzerain had
+showered upon her by resigning herself to become the ally of Assyria.
+She regarded her late disaster as the punishment inflicted by Marduk for
+her revolts against Sargon and Sennacherib. The god had let loose the
+powers of evil against her, and the Arakhtu, overflowing among the
+ruins, had swept them utterly away; indeed, for the space of ten years,
+destruction and desolation seemed to have taken the place of her former
+wealth of temples and palaces. In the eleventh year, the divine wrath
+was suddenly appeased. No sooner had Esarhaddon mounted the throne, than
+he entreated Shamash, Rammân, and even Marduk himself, to reveal to him
+their will with regard to the city; whereupon the omens, interpreted
+by the seers, commanded him to rebuild Babylon and to raise again
+the temple of Ê-sagilla. For this purpose he brought together all the
+captives taken in war that he had at his disposal, and employed them in
+digging out clay and in brick-making; he then prepared the foundations,
+upon which he poured libations of oil, honey, palm-wine, and other wines
+of various kinds; he himself took the mason’s hod, and with tools of
+ebony, cypress wood, and oak, moulded a brick for the new sanctuary.
+The work was, indeed, a gigantic undertaking, and demanded years of
+uninterrupted labour, but Esarhaddon pushed it forward, sparing neither
+gold, silver, costly stone, rare woods, or plates of enamel in its
+embellishment. He began to rebuild at the same time all the other
+temples and the two city walls--Imgurbel and Nimittibel; to clear and
+make good the canals which supplied the place with water, and to replant
+the sacred groves and the gardens of the palace. The inhabitants were
+encouraged to come back to their homes, and those who had been dispersed
+among distant provinces were supplied with clothes and food for their
+return journey, besides having their patrimony restored to them. This
+rebuilding of the ancient city certainly displeased and no doubt alarmed
+her two former rivals, the Kaldâ and Elam, who had hoped one day to
+wrest her heritage from Assyria. Elam concealed its ill-feeling, but
+the Kaldâ of Bît-Dakkuri had invaded the almost deserted territory,
+and appropriated the lands which had belonged to the noble families of
+Babylon, Borsippa, and Sippara. When the latter, therefore, returned
+from exile, and, having been reinstituted in their rights, attempted to
+resume possession of their property, the usurpers peremptorily refused
+to relinquish it. Esarhaddon was obliged to interfere to ensure its
+restoration, and as their king, Shamash-ibni, was not inclined to comply
+with the order, Esarhaddon removed him from the throne, and substituted
+in his place a certain Nabushallim, son of Belesys, who showed more
+deference to the suzerain’s wishes. It is possible that about this
+time the Kaldâ may have received some support from the Aramaeans of the
+desert and the Arab tribes encamped between the banks of the Euphrates
+and Syria, or, on the other hand, the latter may have roused the wrath
+of Assyria by inroads of a more than usually audacious character.
+However this may be, in 676 Esarhaddon resolved to invade their
+desert territory, and to inflict such reprisals as would force them
+thenceforward to respect the neighbouring border provinces.
+
+His first relations with them had been of a courteous and friendly
+nature. Hazael of Adumu, one of the sheikhs of Kedar, defeated by
+Sennacherib towards the end of his reign, had taken the opportunity of
+the annual tribute to come to Nineveh with considerable presents, and
+to implore the restoration of the statues of his gods. Esarhaddon had
+caused these battered idols to be cleaned and repaired, had engraved
+upon them an inscription in praise of Assur, and had further married
+the suppliant sheikh to a woman of the royal harem, named Tabua. In
+consideration of this, he had imposed upon the Arab a supplementary
+tribute of sixty-five camels, and had restored to him his idols. All
+this took place, no doubt, soon after the king’s accession. A few years
+later, on the death of Hazael, his son Yauta solicited investiture, but
+a competitor for the chieftaincy, a man of unknown origin, named Uahab,
+treacherously incited the Arabs to rebel, and threatened to overthrow
+him. Esarhaddon caused Uahab to be seized, and exposed him in chains at
+the gate of Nineveh; but, in consideration of this service to the Arabs,
+he augmented the tribute which already weighed upon the people by a
+further demand for ten gold _minas_, one thousand precious stones, fifty
+camels, and a thousand measures of spicery. The repression of these
+Arabs of Kedar thus confirmed Esarhaddon’s supremacy over the extreme
+northern region of Arabia, between Damascus and Sippara or Babylon; but
+in a more southerly direction, in the wadys which unite Lower Chaldæa
+to the districts of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, there still remained
+several rich and warlike states--among others, Bazu,* whose rulers had
+never done homage to the sovereigns of either Assyria or Karduniash.
+
+     * The Bazu of this text is certainly the Buz which the
+     Hebrew books name among the children of Nahor (Gen. xxii.
+     21; Jer. xxv. 23). The early Assyriologists identified Khazu
+     with Uz, the son of Nahor; Delitzsch compares the name with
+     that of Hazo (Huz), the fifth son of Nahor (Gen. xxii. 22),
+     and his opinion is admitted by most scholars. For the site
+     of these countries I have followed the ideas of Delattro,
+     who identifies them with the oases of Jauf and Meskakeh, in
+     the centre of Northern Arabia. The Assyrians must have set
+     out by the Wady Haurân or by one of the wadys near to
+     Babylon, and have returned by a more southern wady.
+
+To carry hostilities into the heart of their country was a bold and even
+hazardous undertaking; it could be reached only by traversing miles
+of arid and rocky plains, exposed to the rays of a burning sun, vast
+extents of swamps and boggy pasture land, desolate wastes infested with
+serpents and scorpions, and a mountain range of blackish lava known as
+Khâzu. It would have been folly to risk a march with the heavy Assyrian
+infantry in the face of such obstacles. Esarhaddon probably selected for
+the purpose a force composed of cavalry, chariots, and lightly equipped
+foot-soldiers, and despatched them with orders to reach the Jauf by
+forced marches through the Wady Haurân. The Arabs, who were totally
+unprepared for such a movement, had not time to collect their forces;
+eight of their chiefs were taken by surprise and killed one after
+another--among them Kisu of Khaldili, Agbaru of Ilpiati, Mansaku of
+Magalani,--and also some reigning queens. La, the King of Yadi, at first
+took refuge in the mountains, but afterwards gave himself up to
+the enemy, and journeyed as far as Nineveh to prostrate himself at
+Esarhaddon’s feet, who restored to him his gods and his crown, on the
+usual condition of paying tribute. A vassal occupying a country so
+remote and so difficult of access could not be supposed to preserve an
+unbroken fidelity towards his suzerain, but he no longer ventured to
+plunder the caravans which passed through his territory, and that in
+reality was all that was expected of him.
+
+Esarhaddon thus pursued a prudent and unadventurous policy in the
+northern and eastern portions of his empire, maintaining a watchful
+attitude towards the Cimmerians and Scythians in the north, carrying on
+short defensive campaigns among the Medes in the east, preserving peace
+with Elam, and making occasional flying raids in the south, rather from
+the necessity for repressing troublesome border tribes than with any
+idea of permanent conquest.
+
+[Illustration: 137.jpg SHABITOKU, KING OF EGYPT]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
+
+This policy must have been due to a presentiment of danger from the
+side of Egypt, or to the inception of a great scheme for attacking the
+reigning Pharaoh. After the defeat of his generals at Altaku, Shabîtoku
+had made no further attempt to take the offensive; his authority over
+the feudal nobility of Egypt was so widely acknowledged that it causes
+us no surprise to meet with his cartouches on more than one ruin between
+Thebes and Memphis,* but his closing years were marred by misfortune.
+There was then living at Napata a certain Taharqa, one of those scions
+of the solar race who enjoyed the title of “Royal brothers,” and
+from among whom Anion of the Holy Mountain was wont to choose his
+representative to reign over the land of Ethiopia whenever the throne
+became vacant. It does not appear that the father of Taharqa ever held
+the highest rank; it was from his mother, Âkaluka, that he inherited his
+pretensions to the crown, and through her probably that he traced his
+descent from the family of the high priests. Tradition asserts that he
+did not gain the regal power without a struggle; having been proclaimed
+king in Ethiopia at the age of twenty, as the result of some revolution,
+he is said to have marched against Shabîtoku, and, coming up with him
+in the Delta, to have defeated him, taken him prisoner, and put him to
+death.** These events took place about 693 B.C.,*** and Taharqa employed
+the opening years of his reign in consolidating his authority over the
+double kingdom.
+
+     * His name or monuments of his erection have been discovered
+     at Karnak.
+
+     ** Eusebius, who cites the fact, had his information from a
+     trustworthy Greek source, perhaps from Manetho himself. The
+     inscription of Tanis seems to say that Taharqa was twenty
+     years old at the time of his revolt.
+
+     *** Most of the lists of kings taken from Manetho assign
+     twelve years to the reign of Sébikhos; one alone, that of
+     Africanus, assigns him fourteen years.
+
+He married the widow of Sabaco, Queen Dikahîtamanu, and thus assumed
+the guardianship of Tanuatamanu, her son by her first husband, and this
+marriage secured him supreme authority in Ethiopia.* That he regarded
+Egypt as a conquered country can no longer be doubted, seeing that he
+inserted its name on his monuments among those of the nations which he
+had vanquished.
+
+     * The text of several documents only mentioned that Tanuata-
+     manu was the “son of his wife,” which Opport interpreted to
+     mean son of Taharqa himself, while others see in him a son
+     of Kashto, a brother of Amenertas, or a son of Shabîtoku.
+
+[Illustration: 139.jpg TAHARQA AND HIS QUEEN DIKAHÎTAMANU]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured plate in Lepsius.
+
+He nevertheless felt obliged to treat it with consideration; he
+respected the rights of the feudal princes, and behaved himself in every
+way like a Pharaoh of the old royal line. He summoned his mother from
+Napatà, where he had left her, and after proclaiming her regent of the
+South and the North, he associated her with himself in the rejoicings
+at his coronation. This ceremony, celebrated at Tanis with the usages
+customary in the Delta, was repeated at Karnak in accordance with the
+Theban ritual, and a chapel erected shortly afterwards on the northern
+quay of the great sacred lake has preserved to us the memory of it.
+Akaluka, installed with the rank and prerogatives of the “Divine Spouse”
+ of Amon, presented her son to the deity, who bestowed upon him through
+his priests dominion over the whole world. She bent the bow, and let
+fly the arrows towards the four cardinal points, which she thereby
+symbolically delivered to him as wounded prisoners; the king, on
+his part, hurled against them bullets of stone, and by this attack
+figuratively accomplished their defeat. His wars in Africa were crowned
+with a certain meed of success,* and his achievements in this quarter
+won for him in after time so much popularity among the Egyptians,
+that they extolled him to the Greeks as one of their most illustrious
+conquering Pharaohs; they related that he had penetrated as far as
+the Pillars of Hercules in the west, and that he had invaded Europe in
+imitation of Sesostris.
+
+     * The list inscribed on the base of the statue discovered by
+     Mariette contains a large number of names belonging to
+     Africa. They are the same as those met with in the time of
+     the XVIIIth dynasty, and were probably copied from some
+     monument of Ramses II., who had himself perhaps borrowed
+     them from a document of the time of Thûtmosis III. A bas-
+     relief at Medinet-Habu shows him to us in the act of smiting
+     a group of tribes, among which figure the Tepa, Doshrît, and
+     “the humbled Kush;” this bas-relief was appropriated later
+     on by Nectanebo.
+
+What we know to be a fact is, that he secured to the valley of the Nile
+nearly twenty years of prosperity, and recalled the glories of the
+great reigns of former days, if not by his victories, at least by
+the excellence of his administration and his activity. He planned the
+erection at Karnak of a hypostyle hall in front of the pylons of Ramses
+II., which should equal, if not surpass, that of Seti I.*
+
+     * These columns have been looked upon as triumphal pillars,
+     designed to support statues or divine emblems. Mariette
+     thinks that they supported “an edifice in the architectural
+     style of the kiosk at Philæ and the small hypothral temple
+     on the roof of Denderah.” I am of opinion that the architect
+     intended to make a hypostyle hall, but that when the columns
+     were erected, he perceived that the great width of the aisle
+     they formed would render the strength of the roof very
+     doubtful, and so renounced the execution of his first
+     design.
+
+[Illustration: 142.jpg THE COLUMN OF TAHARQA, AT KARNAK]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
+
+The columns of the central aisle were disposed in two lines of six
+pillars each, but only one of these now remains standing in its original
+place; its height, which is the same as that of Seti’s columns, is
+nearly sixty-nine feet. The columns of the side aisles, like those which
+should have flanked the immense colonnade at Luxor, were never even
+begun, and the hall of Taharqa, like that of Seti I., remains unfinished
+to this day. He bestowed his favour on Nubia and Ethiopia, as well as
+on Egypt proper; even Napata owed to his munificence the most beautiful
+portions of its temples. The temple of Amon, and subsequently that of
+Mût, were enlarged by him; and he decorated their ancient halls with
+bas-reliefs, representing himself, accompanied by his mother and his
+wife, in attitudes of adoration before the deity. The style of the
+carving is very good, and the hieroglyphics would not disgrace the walls
+of the Theban temples. The Ethiopian sculptors and painters scrupulously
+followed the traditions of the mother-country, and only a few
+insignificant details of ethnic type or costume enable us to detect a
+slight difference between their works and those of pure Egyptian art. At
+the other extremity of Napata, on the western side of the Holy Mountain,
+Taharqa excavated in the cliff a rock-hewn shrine, which he dedicated to
+Hathor and Bîsû (Bes), the patron of jollity and happiness, and the god
+of music and of war.
+
+[Illustration: 143.jpg THE HEMISPEOS OP HÂTHOR AND BÎSÛ, AT
+GEBEL-BARKAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Caillaud.
+
+Bîsû, who was at first relegated to the lowest rank among the crowd of
+genii adored by the people, had gradually risen to the highest place
+in the hierarchy of the gods, and his images predominated in chapels
+destined to represent the cradle of the infant gods, and the sacred
+spots where goddesses gave birth to their divine offspring.
+
+[Illustration: 144.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE HEMISPEOS OF BÎSÛ (BES), AT
+GEBEL-BARKAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Caillaud.
+
+The portico erected in front of the pylon had a central avenue of
+pillars, against which stood monstrous and grinning statues of Bîsû,
+his hands on his hips, and his head crowned with a large bunch of
+lotus-flowers and plumes. Two rows of columns with Hathor-headed
+capitals flanked the central aisle, which led to a hall supported by
+massive columns, also with Hathor capitals, and beyond it again lay
+the actual shrine similarly excavated in the rocky hill; two statues of
+Bîsû, standing erect against their supporting columns, kept guard over
+the entrance, and their fantastic forms, dimly discernible in the gloom,
+must have appeared in ancient times to have prohibited the vulgar throng
+from approaching the innermost sanctuary. Half of the roof has fallen
+in since the building was deserted, and a broad beam of light falling
+through the aperture thus made reveals the hideous grotesqueness of the
+statues to all comers. The portraits of Taharqa represent him with
+a strong, square-shaped head, with full cheeks, vigorous mouth, and
+determined chin, such as belong to a man well suited to deal with that
+troubled epoch, and the knowledge we as yet possess of his conflict with
+Assyria fully confirms the character exhibited by his portrait statues.
+
+[Illustration: 145.jpg TAHARQA]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a cast of the fragment
+     preserved at Gizeh
+
+We may surmise that, when once absolute master of Egypt, he must have
+cast his eyes beyond the isthmus, and considered how he might turn to
+his own advantage the secret grudge borne by the Syrians against
+their suzerain at Nineveh, but up to the present time we possess no
+indications as to the policy he pursued in Palestine. We may safely
+assume, however, that it gave umbrage to the Assyrians, and that
+Esarhaddon resolved to put an end once for all to the uneasiness it
+caused him. More than half a century had elapsed since the day when the
+kings of Syria, alarmed at the earliest victories of Tiglath-pileser
+III., had conceived the idea of pitting their former conquerors against
+those of the day, and had solicited help from the Pharaohs against
+Assyria.
+
+None of the sovereigns to whom they turned had refused to listen to
+their appeals, or failed to promise subsidies and reinforcements; but
+these engagements, however definite, had for the most part been left
+unfulfilled, and when an occasion for their execution had occurred, the
+Egyptian armies had merely appeared on the fields of battle to beat
+a hasty retreat: they had not prevented the subjugation of Damascus,
+Israel, Tyre, the Philistines, nor, indeed, of any of the princes or
+people who trusted to their renown; yet, notwithstanding these numerous
+disappointments, the prestige of the Egyptians was still so great that
+insubordinate or rebel states invariably looked to them for support and
+entreated their help. The Assyrian generals had learnt by experience to
+meet them unmoved, being well aware that the Egyptian army was inferior
+to their own in organisation, and used antiquated weapons and methods
+of warfare; they were also well aware that the Egyptian and even the
+Ethiopian soldiery had never been able successfully to withstand a
+determined attack by the Assyrian battalions, and that when once the
+desert which protected Egypt had been crossed, she would, like Babylon,
+fall an easy prey to their arms. It would merely be necessary to guard
+against the possible danger of opposition being offered to the passage
+of the invading host by the Idumoan and Arab tribes sparsely scattered
+over the country between the Nile and the Gulf of Akabah, as their
+hostility would be a cause of serious uneasiness. An expedition, sent
+against Milukhkha* in 675 B.C., had taught the inhabitants to respect
+the power of Assyria; but the campaign had not been brought to a
+satisfactory conclusion, for the King of Elam, Khumbân-khaldash II.,
+seeing his rival occupied at the opposite extremity of his empire, fell
+unexpectedly upon Babylon, and pushing forward as far as Sippara, laid
+waste the surrounding country; and his hateful presence even prevented
+the god Shamash from making his annual progress outside the walls of the
+city. The people of Bît-Dakkuri seem to have plucked up courage at
+his approach, and invaded the neighbouring territory, probably that
+of Borsippa. Esarhaddon was absent on a distant expedition, and the
+garrisons scattered over the province were not sufficiently strong in
+numbers to risk a pitched battle: Khumbân-khaldash, therefore, marched
+back with his booty to Susa entirely unmolested. He died suddenly in his
+palace a few days after his return, and was succeeded by his brother,
+Urtaku, who was too intent upon seating himself securely on the throne
+to send his troops on a second raid in the following year.
+
+     * The name of Milukhkha, first applied to the countries in
+     the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, had been transferred
+     to the western coasts of Arabia, as well as that of Magan.
+
+Esarhaddon deferred his revenge to a more convenient season, and
+utilised the respite fate had accorded him on the Elamite border to
+hasten his attack on Egypt (673 B.C.). The expedition was a failure, and
+Taharqa was greatly elated at having issued with honour from this trial
+of strength. As most of the countries over which his enemy exercised
+his supremacy were those which had been ruled by his Theban ancestors
+in days gone by, Taharqa engraved on the base of his statue a list of
+nations and towns copied from one of the monuments of Ramses II. The
+Khâti, Carchemish, Mitanni, Arvad--in short, a dozen peoples already
+extinct or in their decline, and whose names were merely perpetuated
+in the stereotyped official lists,--were enumerated in the list of
+his vanquished foes side by side with Assyria. It was a mere piece of
+bravado, for never, even when victorious, did he set foot on Syrian
+soil; but all the same the victory had caused the invading host to
+retire, and the fame of this exploit, spreading throughout Asia, was not
+without its effect on the minds of the inhabitants. The island of Tyre
+had never officially recognised the Assyrian suzerainty. The Tyrians had
+lived in peace since the defeat of Elulai, and had maintained constant
+commercial relations with the continent without interfering in active
+politics: they had, perhaps, even been permitted to establish some
+settlements on the coast of the mainland. Their king, Bâal, now deemed
+the moment a propitious one for coming forward and recovering his lost
+territory, and since the Greek princes of Cyprus had ranged themselves
+under the hegemony of Assyria, he thought he could best counterbalance
+their influence by seeking support from Egypt, whose ancient greatness
+was apparently reviving. He therefore concluded an alliance with
+Taharqa,* and it would be no cause for astonishment if we should one day
+discover that Judah had followed his example.
+
+     * The alliance of Bâal with Taharqa is mentioned in the
+     fragment of the _Annals_, under the date of year X., and the
+     name Bâal is still decipherable amid the defaced linos which
+     contained the account of events which took place before that
+     year. I think we may reasonably assign the first
+     understanding between the two sovereigns, either to the
+     actual year of the first campaign or to the following year.
+
+Hezekiah had devoted his declining years to religious reformation, and
+the organisation of his kingdom under the guidance of Isaiah or the
+group of prophets of which Isaiah was the leader. Judah had increased
+in population, and had quickly recovered its prosperity; when Hezekiah
+died, about 686 B.C., it had entirely regained its former vigour, but
+the memory of the disasters of 701 was still sufficiently fresh in the
+minds of the people to prevent the change of sovereign being followed
+by a change of policy. Manasseh, who succeeded his father, though he
+did not walk, as Hezekiah had done, in the ways of the Lord, at least
+remained loyal to his Assyrian masters. It is, however, asserted that
+he afterwards rebelled, though his reason for doing so is not explained,
+and that he was carried captive to Babylon as a punishment for this
+crime: he succeeded, nevertheless, in regaining favour, and was
+reinstated at Jerusalem on condition of not repeating his offence. If
+this statement is true, as I believe it to be, it was probably after the
+Egyptian campaign of 673 B.C.* that his conspiracy with Baal took place.
+
+     * The fact of Manasseh’s captivity is only known to us from
+     the testimony of 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10-13, and most modern
+     critics consider it apocryphal. The moral development which
+     accompanies the narrative, and the conversion which follows
+     it, are certainly later additions, but the story may have
+     some foundation in fact; we shall see later on that Necho
+     I., King of Sais, was taken prisoner, led into captivity,
+     and received again into favour in the same way as Manasseh
+     is said to have been. The exile to Babylon, which at one
+     time appeared to demonstrate the unauthenticity of the
+     passage, would be rather in favour of its authenticity.
+     Esarhaddon was King of Babylon during the whole of his
+     reign, and the great works which he executed in that city
+     obliged him, we know, to transport thither a large
+     proportion of the prisoners whom he brought back from his
+     wars.
+
+The Assyrian governors of the neighbouring provinces easily crushed
+these attempts at independence, but, the islands of Tyre being secure
+from attack, they were obliged to be content with establishing a series
+of redoubts along the coast, and with prohibiting the Tyrians from
+having access to the mainland.
+
+The promptitude of their action quenched the hopes of the Egyptian party
+and prevented the spread of the revolt. Esarhaddon was, nevertheless,
+obliged to put off the fulfilment of his schemes longer than he desired:
+complications arose on his northern frontiers, near the sources of the
+Tigris, which distracted his attention from the intrigues taking place
+on the banks of the Nile. Urartu, hard pressed by the Cimmerians and
+Scythians, had lived for a quarter of a century in a condition of sullen
+peace with Assyria, and its kings avoided anything which could bring
+them into conflict with their hereditary rival. Argistis II. had been
+succeeded by one of his sons, Eusas IL, and both of them had been more
+intent upon strengthening their kingdom than on extending its area; they
+had rebuilt their capital, Dhuspas, on a magnificent scale, and from the
+security of their rocky home they watched the course of events without
+taking any part in it, unless forced to do so by circumstances. Andaria,
+chief of Lubdi, one of the remote mountain districts, so difficult of
+access that it always retained its independence in spite of frequent
+attacks, had seized Shupria, a province which had been from very early
+times subject to the sovereigns of Nineveh, and was the first to be
+colonised by them. The inhabitants, forgetful of their origin, had
+yielded voluntarily to Andaria; but this prince, after receiving their
+homage, was seized with alarm at his own audacity. He endeavoured to
+strengthen his position by an alliance with the Cimmerians,* and the
+spirit of insubordination which he aroused spread beyond the Euphrates;
+Mugallu of Milid, a king of the Tabal, resorted to such violent measures
+that Esarhaddon was alarmed lest the wild mountaineers of the Taurus
+should pour down upon the plain of Kuî and lay it waste. The
+danger would indeed have been serious had all these tribes risen
+simultaneously; but the Cimmerians were detained in Asia Minor by their
+own concerns,** and Mugallu, when he saw the Assyrian troops being
+concentrated to bring him to reason, remained quiet.
+
+     * This seems, indeed, to be proved by a tablet in which
+     Esarhaddon, addressing the god Shamash, asks him if the
+     Cimmerians or Urartians will unite with a certain prince who
+     can be no other than the King of Shupria.
+
+     ** It was about this time they were dealing the death-blow
+     to the kingdom of Phrygia.
+
+The extension of Lubdi was not likely to meet with favour in the eyes
+of Eusas; he did not respond to the advances made to him, and Esarhaddon
+opened his campaign against the rebels without having to dread the
+intervention of Urartu. Andaria, besieged in his capital of Ubbumi, laid
+aside his royal robes, and, assuming the ragged garments of a slave,
+appeared upon the ramparts and pleaded for mercy in a voice choked with
+tears: “Shupria, the country which has sinned against thee, will yield
+to thee of her own accord; place thy officers over her, she will vow
+obedience to thee; impose on her a ransom and an annual tribute for
+ever. I am a robber, and for the crime I have committed I will make
+amends fifty-fold.” Esarhaddon would listen to no terms before a breach
+had been effected in the city walls. This done, he pardoned the prince
+who had taken refuge in the citadel, but resumed possession of Shupria:
+its inhabitants were mercilessly punished, being condemned to slavery,
+and their lands and goods divided among new colonists. Many Urartians
+were numbered among the captives: these Esarhaddon separated from
+the rest, and sent back to Rusas as a reward for his having remained
+neutral. All this had barely occupied the space of one month, the month
+of Tebet. The first-fruits of the spoil reserved for Uruk had already
+reached that town by the month Kislev, and the year was not so far
+advanced as to render further undertakings impossible, when the death of
+the queen, on the 5th Adar, suspended all warlike enterprises. The last
+months of the year were given up to mourning, and the whole of 671 B.C.
+passed without further action. The Ethiopian king was emboldened by this
+inactivity on the part of his foe to renew his intrigues with Syria with
+redoubled energy; at one moment, indeed, the Philistines of Ashkelon,
+secretly instigated, seemed on the point of revolt.*
+
+     * Ashkelon is mentioned in two of the prayers in which
+     Esarhaddon consults Shamash on the subject of his intended
+     campaign in Egypt; he seems to fear lest that city and the
+     Bedâwin of the Idumoan desert should espouse the cause of
+     the King of Ethiopia.
+
+They held themselves, however, in check, and Esarhaddon, reassured as to
+their attitude, entered into negotiations with the sheikhs of the Arab
+tribes, and purchased their assistance to cross the desert of Sinai.
+He bade them assemble at Raphia, at the western extremity of Palestine,
+each chief bringing all the camels he could command, and as many skins
+of water as their beasts could carry: this precaution, a wise one at any
+time, might secure the safety of the army in case Taharqa should have
+filled up the wells which marked the stages in the caravan route.*
+When all was ready, Esarhaddon consulted the oracle of Shamash, and, on
+receiving a favourable reply from the god, left Nineveh in the beginning
+of the month Nisân, 670 B.C., to join the invading army in Syria.**
+
+     * This information is furnished by the fragment of the
+     _Annals_. The Assyrian text introduces this into the
+     narrative in such a manner that it would appear as if these
+     negotiations were carried on at the very commencement of the
+     campaign; it is, however, more probable that they were
+     concluded beforehand, as occurred later on, in the time of
+     Cambyses, when the Persians invaded Egypt.
+
+     ** The published texts refer to the second Egyptian campaign
+     of Esarhaddon. The reply of the god is not easy to
+     interpret, but it was certainly favourable, since the
+     expedition took place.
+
+He made a detour in order to inspect the lines of forts which his
+generals had established along the coast opposite Tyre, and strengthened
+their garrisons to prevent Bâal from creating a diversion in the rear
+of his base of operations; he then proceeded southwards to the
+neighbourhood of Aphek, in the territory of the tribe of Simeon. The
+news which there met him must doubtless have informed him that the
+Bedâwin had been won over in the interval by the emissaries of Taharqa,
+and that he would run great risk by proceeding with his campaign before
+bringing them back to a sense of their duty. On leaving Aphek* he
+consequently turned southwards, and plunged into the heart of the
+desert, as if he had renounced all designs upon Egypt for that season,
+and was bent only on restoring order in Milukhkha and Magân before
+advancing further. For six weeks he marched in short stages, without
+other water than the supply borne, in accordance with his commands, by
+the Arab camels, passing through tracts of desert infested by strange
+birds and double-headed serpents; when he had at length dispersed the
+bands which had endeavoured to oppose his advance, he suddenly turned in
+a north-westerly direction, and, following the dry bed of the torrent of
+Muzur, at length reached Raphia. From thence he did not select the usual
+route, which follows the coast-line and leads to Pelusium, a place which
+he may have feared was too well defended, but he again pressed forward
+across the sands of the desert, and in the first days of Tammuz reached
+the cultivated land of the Delta by way of the Wady Tumilât. The
+frontier garrisons, defeated on the 3rd of Tammuz near Ishkhupri,**
+retreated in good order.
+
+     * The defaced name of the country in which this Aphek was
+     situated was read as Samirina and translated “Samaria” by
+     the first editor. This interpretation has been adopted by
+     most historians, who have seen in Aphek the town of this
+     name belonging to the western portion of Manasseh. Budge
+     read it Samina, and this reading, verified by Craig, gave
+     Winckler the idea of identifying Samina or Simina with the
+     tribe of Simeon, and Aphek with the Aphckah (Josh. xv. 53)
+     in the mountains of Judah.
+
+     ** The text on the stele at Zinjirli gives a total of
+     fifteen days’ march from Ishkhupri to Memphis, while
+     Pinches’ Babyl. Chron. indicates three battles as having
+     been fought on the 3rd, 16th, and 18th of Tammuz, and the
+     taking of Memphis as occurring on the 22nd of the same
+     month. If fifteen days is precisely accurate for the length
+     of march, Esarhaddon would have reached Ishkhupri about the
+     27th of Sivan.
+
+Taharqa, hastening to their succour, disputed the ground inch by inch,
+and engaged the invaders in several conflicts, two at least of which,
+fought on the 16th and 18th of Tammuz, were regular pitched battles,
+but in every case the Assyrian tactics triumphed in spite of the dashing
+onslaught of the Egyptians; Memphis succumbed on the 22nd, after an
+assault lasting merely a few hours, and was mercilessly sacked. The
+Ethiopian king, with his army decimated and exhausted, gave up the
+struggle, and beat a hasty retreat southwards. The attack had been made
+with such rapidity that he had had no time to remove his court from the
+“palace of the White Wall” to the Said; the queen, therefore, together
+with other women of less exalted rank, fell into the hands of the
+conqueror, besides the crown-prince, Ushana-horu, several younger sons
+and daughters, and such of the children of Sabaco and Shabîtoku as
+resided at court. But the victory had cost the Assyrians dearly, and
+the enemy still appeared to them so formidable that Esarhaddon prudently
+abstained from pursuing him up the Nile Valley. He favourably received
+those feudal lords and petty kings who presented themselves to pay him
+homage, and confirmed them in possession of their fiefs, but he placed
+over them Assyrian governors and imposed new official names on their
+cities; thus Athribis was officially called Limir-pateshî-assur,
+and other cities received the names Assur-makan-tishkul,
+Bîfc-marduk-sha-assur-taru, Shaîmuk-assur. He further imposed on them
+a heavy annual tribute of more than six talents of gold and six hundred
+talents of silver, besides robes and woven stuffs, wine, skins, horses,
+sheep, and asses; and having accomplished this, he retraced his steps
+towards the north-east with immense booty and innumerable convoys of
+prisoners. The complete defeat of the Ethiopian power filled not only
+Esarhaddon himself but all Asia with astonishment. His return to Nineveh
+was a triumphal progress; travelling through Syria by short stages, he
+paraded his captives and trophies before the peoples and princes who had
+so long relied on the invincible power of the Pharaoh.
+
+[Illustration: 156.jpg SOUTHERN PROMONTORY AT THE MOUTH OF THE
+NAHR-EL-KELB]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph recently brought back by
+     Lortet.
+
+Esarhaddon’s predecessors had more than once inscribed the record of
+their campaigns on the rocks of the Nahr-el-Kelb, beside the bas-relief
+engraved there by Ramses II., and it had been no small gratification to
+their pride thus to place themselves on a footing of equality with one
+of the most illustrious heroes of the ancient Egyptian empire.
+
+[Illustration: 157.jpg STELE OF ESARHADDON AT THE NAHR-EL-KELB]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lortet.
+
+The footpath which skirts the southern bank of the river, and turning
+to the south is continued along the seashore, was bordered by the great
+stelæ in which, one after another, they had thought to immortalise
+their glory; following their example, Esarhaddon was in like manner
+pleased to celebrate his prowess, and exhibit the ancient lords of the
+world subjugated to his will. He erected numerous triumphal monuments
+along his route, and the stele which was discovered at one of the gates
+of Zinjirli is, doubtless, but an example of those which he erected in
+other important cities.
+
+[Illustration: 158.jpg STELE OF Zinjirli]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
+     the Berlin Museum.
+
+He is represented on the Zinjirli stele standing erect, while at his
+feet are two kneeling prisoners, whom he is holding by a bridle of
+cord fastened to metal rings passed through their lips; these figures
+represent Bâal of Tyre and Taharqa of Napata, the latter with the uraaus
+on his forehead. As a matter of fact, these kings were safe beyond his
+reach, one surrounded by the sea, the other above the cataracts, and
+the people were well aware that they did not form part of the band of
+prisoners which denied before their eyes; but they were accustomed to
+the vain and extravagant boastings of their conquerors, and these very
+exaggerations enabled them to understand more fully the extent of the
+victory. Esarhaddon thenceforward styled himself King of Egypt, King of
+the Kings of Egypt, of the Said and of Kush, so great was his pride at
+having trampled underfoot the land of the Delta. And, in fact, Egypt
+had, for a century, been the only one of the ancient Eastern states
+which had always eluded the grasp of Assyria. The Elamites had endured
+disastrous defeats, which had cost them some of their provinces; the
+Urartians had been driven back into their mountains, and no longer
+attempted to emerge from them; Babylon had nearly been annihilated
+in her struggles for independence; while the Khâti, the Phoenicians,
+Damascus, and Israel had been absorbed one after another in the gradual
+extension of Ninevehe supremacy. Egypt, although she had had a hand in
+all then-wars and revolutions, had never herself paid the penalty of
+her intrigues, and even when she had sometimes risked her troops on the
+battle-fields of Palestine, her disasters had not cost her more than the
+loss of a certain number of men: having once retired to the banks of the
+Nile, no one had dared to follow, and the idea had gained credence among
+her enemies as well as among her friends that Egypt was effectually
+protected by the desert from every attack. The victory of Esarhaddon
+proved that she was no more invulnerable than the other kingdoms of the
+world, and that before a bold advance the obstacles, placed by nature
+in the path of an invader, disappeared; the protecting desert had been
+crossed, the archers and chariots of Egypt had fled before the Assyrian
+cavalry and pikemen, her cities had endured the ignominy and misery of
+being taken by storm, and the wives and daughters of her Pharaohs had
+been carried off into servitude in common with the numerous princesses
+of Elam and Syria of that day. Esarhaddon filled his palaces with
+furniture and woven stuffs, with vases of precious metal and sculptured
+ivories, with glass ornaments and statuettes looted from Memphis: his
+workers in marble took inspiration from the sphinxes of Egypt to modify
+the winged, human-headed lions upon which the columns of their palaces
+rested, and the plans of his architects became more comprehensive at the
+mere announcement of such a vast amount of spoil. The palace they had
+begun to build at Nineveh, on the ruins of an ancient edifice, already
+surpassed all previous architectural efforts. The alabaster quarries of
+the Assyrian mountains and the forests of Phoenicia had alike been put
+under contribution to face the walls of its state apartments;
+twenty-two chiefs of the country of the Khâti, of Phoenicia, and of the
+Mediterranean littoral--among them the Greek kings of Cyprus--had vied
+with one another in supplying Esarhaddon with great beams of pine,
+cedar, and cypress for its construction. The ceilings were of cedar
+supported by pillars of cypress-wood encircled by silver and iron; stone
+lions and bulls stood on either side of the gates, and the doors were
+made of cedar and cypress, incrusted or overlaid with iron, silver and
+ivory. The treasures of Egypt enabled Esarhaddon to complete this palace
+and begin a new one at Calah, where the buildings erected somewhat
+hurriedly by Tiglath-pileser III. had already fallen into ruin. Some
+of the slabs on which the latter conqueror had engraved his Annals,
+and recounted the principal episodes of his campaigns, were removed and
+transferred to the site selected by Esarhaddon, and one of the surfaces
+of each was pared down in order to receive new pictures and fresh
+inscriptions. They had, however, hardly been placed in the stonemason’s
+hands when the work was interrupted.*
+
+     * The date of the building of the palace at Calah is
+     furnished by the inscriptions, in which Esarhaddon assumes
+     the title of King of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 161.jpg ASSYRIAN SPHINX IN EGYPTIAN STYLE SUPPORTING THE
+BASE OF A COLUMN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the alabaster sculpture reproduced by
+     Layard.
+
+It may have been that Esarhaddon had to suspend all his operations while
+putting down some conspiracy. At any rate, we know that in 669 B.C. many
+high personages of his court were seized and executed. The question of
+the succession to the throne was still undecided; Sinidina-bal, the son
+whom Esarhaddon had previously designated as his heir presumptive, was
+dead, and the people feared lest he should choose from among his other
+sons some prince who had not their interests at heart. The king’s
+affection for Babylon had certainly aroused jealousy and anxiety among
+his Assyrian subjects, and perhaps some further tokens of preference
+made them uneasy lest’ he should select Shamash-shumukîn, one of his
+children who manifested the same tendencies, and who was, moreover, the
+son of a Babylonian wife. Most of the nobles who had been led to join
+the conspiracy paid for their indiscretion with their heads, but their
+opposition gave the sovereign cause for reflection, and decided him to
+modify his schemes. Convinced that it was impossible to unite Babylon
+and Nineveh permanently under the same ruler, he reluctantly decided
+to divide his kingdom into two parts--Assyria, the strongest portion,
+falling naturally to his eldest son, Assur-bani-pal, while Babylonia was
+assigned to Shamash-shumukîn, on condition of his paying homage to his
+brother as suzerain.* The best method to ensure his wishes being carried
+into effect was to prepare their way for the fulfilment while he was
+still alive; and rebellions which broke out about this time beyond the
+isthmus afforded a good opportunity for so doing. Egypt was at this
+period divided into twenty states of various dimensions, very nearly the
+same as had existed a century before, when Piônkhi had, for the first
+time, brought the whole country under Ethiopian rule.** In the south,
+the extensive Theban province occupied both sides of the river from
+Assuan to Thinis and Khemmis.
+
+     * Winokler considers that Assur-bani-pal was the leader of
+     tha conspiracy, and that he obliged his father to recognise
+     him as heir to the crown of Assyria, and to associate him on
+     the throne.
+
+     ** The list of the principalities in the time of Esarhaddon
+     and Assur-bani-pal is found on the cylinders of Assur-bani-
+     pal.
+
+It was nominally governed by Amenertas or her daughter, Shapenuapît, but
+the administration was, as usual, entrusted to a member of the priestly
+college, at that time to Montumihâît, Count of Thebes, and fourth
+prophet of Anion.*
+
+     * The Assyrian name of this personage, spelt first
+     Mantimiankhi, has been more accurately transcribed
+     Mantimikhi. The identification with the Montumihâît of the
+     Theban documents, is now generally adopted.
+
+The four principalities of Thinis, Siut, Hermopolis, and Heracleopolis
+separated it from the small kingdom of Memphis and Sais, and each of the
+regions of the Delta was divided into one or two fiefs, according to the
+number and importance of the towns it contained. In the south, Thebes
+was too directly under the influence of Ethiopia to be able to exercise
+an independent policy with regard to the rest of the country. In the
+north, two families contested the supremacy more or less openly. One of
+them, whose hereditary domains included the Arabian, and parts of the
+surrounding nomes, was then represented by a certain Pakruru. He had
+united under his banner the numerous petty chiefs of the eastern side of
+the Delta, the heirs of the ancient dynasties of Tanis and Bubastis, and
+his energy or ability must have made a good impression on the minds of
+his contemporaries, for they handed down his memory to their successors,
+who soon metamorphosed him into a popular legendary hero, famed both for
+his valour and wisdom. The nobles of the western nomes acknowledged as
+their overlords the regents of Sais, the descendants of that Bocchoris
+who had for a short while brought the whole valley of the Nile under
+his sway. Sabaco, having put his rival to death, had installed in his
+hereditary domains an Ethiopian named Ammeris, but this Ammeris had
+disappeared from the scene about the same time as his patron, in 704
+B.C., and after him three princes at least had succeeded to the throne,
+namely, Stephinates, Nekhepsos, and Necho.* Stephinates had died about
+680 B.C., without accomplishing anything which was worth recording.
+Nekhepsos had had no greater opportunities of distinguishing himself
+than had fallen to the lot of his father, and yet legends grew up round
+his name as round that of Pakruru: he was reputed to have been a great
+soothsayer, astrologist, and magician, and medical treatises were
+ascribed to him, and almanacs much esteemed by the superstitious in the
+Roman period.**
+
+     * The lists of Eusebius give the series Ammeres,
+     Stephinates, Nekhepsos, Necho I., but Lepsius displaced
+     Ammeres and identified him with the queen Amenertas; others
+     have thought to recognise in him Miamun Piônkhi, or
+     Tanuatamanu, the successor of Taharqa. He must, however, be
+     left in this place in the list, and we may perhaps consider
+     him as the founder of the XXVIth dynasty. If the number of
+     seven years for the reign of Stephinates is adopted, we must
+     suppose either that Manetho passed over the name of a prince
+     at the beginning of the XXVIth dynasty, or that Ammeris was
+     only enthroned at Memphis after the death of Sabaco; but the
+     lists of the Syncellus and of Sothis assign 27 years to the
+     reign of Stephinates.
+
+     ** The astrological works of Nekhepsos are cited, among
+     others, by Pliny, and it is probably he whom a Greek papyrus
+     of the Salt Collection mentions under the name of Nekheus.
+
+Necho had already occupied the throne for three or four years when the
+invasion of 670 B.C. delivered him from the Ethiopian supremacy. He is
+represented as being brave, energetic, and enterprising, ready to hazard
+everything in order to attain the object towards which the ambition of
+his ancestors had been tending for a century past, namely, to restore
+unity to the ancient kingdom under the rule of the house of Sais. The
+extent of his realm, and, above all, the possession of Memphis, gave him
+a real superiority, and Esarhaddon did not hesitate to esteem him above
+his competitors; the Ninevite scribes placed him in the first rank, and
+he heads the list of the Egyptian vassals. He soon had an opportunity
+of proving his devotion to his foreign suzerain. Taharqa did not
+quietly accept his defeat, and Egypt looked to him to be revenged on the
+Assyrian as soon as he should have reorganised his army. He once more,
+accordingly, took the field in the middle of 669 B.C.; the barons of the
+Said rallied to his standard without hesitation, and he soon re-entered
+the “White Wall,” but there his advance was arrested. Necho and the
+neighbouring chiefs of the Delta, held in check by the presence of
+Semitic garrisons, did not venture to proclaim themselves on his
+side, and awaited under arms the arrival of Assyrian reinforcements.*
+Esarhaddon, in spite of failing health, assumed command of the troops,
+and before leaving home carried out the project to which the conspiracy
+of the preceding year had given rise; he assigned the government of
+Babylon to Shamash-shumukin, and solemnly designated Assur-bani-pal
+as the heir to Assyria proper, and to the suzerainty over the whole
+empire.**
+
+     * The first Egyptian campaign of Assur-bani-pal is also the
+     last campaign of Esarhaddon, and Assur-bani-pal appropriated
+     all the earlier incidents of it, some of which belong to the
+     sole reign of his father, and some to the few weeks in which
+     he shared the throne with him.
+
+     ** The association of Assur-bani-pal with his father on the
+     throne was pointed out by G. Smith, who thought he could fix
+     the date about 673 B.C., three or four years before the
+     death of Esarhaddon. Tielo showed that Assur-bani-pal was
+     then only made viceroy, and assigned his association in the
+     sovereignty to the year 671 or 670 B.C., about the time of
+     the second Egyptian campaign, while Hommel brought it down
+     to 669. Winckler has, with much reason, placed the date in
+     668 B.C. The Assyrian documents do not mention the
+     coronation of Shamash-shuniukîn, for Assur-bani-pal
+     afterwards affected to consider his brother a mere viceroy,
+     appointed by himself after the death of his father
+     Esarhaddon; but an examination of all the circumstances has
+     shown that the enthronement of Shamash-shumukîn at Babylon
+     was on a par with that of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh, and
+     that both owed their elevation to their father.
+
+On the 12th of Lyyar, 668 B.C., on the day of the feast of Gula, he
+presented their new lord to all the inhabitants of Assyria, both small
+and great, who had assembled to be present at the ceremony, which ended
+in the installation of the prince in the palace of Bîtriduti, reserved
+for the heirs-apparent. A few weeks later Esarhaddon set out for Egypt,
+but his malady became more serious on the journey, and he died on the
+10th of Arakhsamna, in the twelfth year of his reign.*
+
+     * Arakhsamna corresponds to the Jewish Marcheswân, and to
+     our month of May.
+
+When we endeavour to conjure up his image before us, we fancy we
+are right in surmising that he was not cast in the ordinary mould of
+Assyrian monarchs. The history of his campaigns shows that he was as
+active and resolute as Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., but he did
+not add to these good qualities their inflexible harshness towards their
+subjects, nor their brutal treatment of conquered foes. Circumstances
+in which they would have shown themselves merciless, he seized upon as
+occasions for clemency, and if massacres and executions are recorded
+among the events of his reign, at least he does not class them among
+the most important: the records of his wars do not continually speak of
+rebels flayed alive, kings impaled before the gates of their cities,
+and whole populations decimated by fire and sword. Of all the Assyrian
+conquerors, he is almost the only one for whom the historian can feel
+any regard, or from the study of whose reign he passes on with regret to
+pursue that of others in due course.
+
+As soon as Esarhaddon had passed away, the separation of the two parts
+of the empire which he had planned was effected almost automatically:
+Assur-bani-pal proclaimed himself King of Assyria, and Shamash-shumukîn,
+in like manner, King of Babylon. One fact, which seems insignificant
+enough to us when we read it in the Annals, but was decisive in the
+eyes of their contemporaries, sanctioned the transformation thus
+accomplished: Bel and the gods of Accad quitted Assur in the month of
+Iyyâr and returned to their resting-place in Babylon. The restoration
+of the images to their own country became necessary as soon as it was
+decided to have a king in Karduniash, even though he were an Assyrian.
+To enable him to exercise legitimate authority, he must have celebrated
+the rites and “taken the hands of Bel,” but it was a question whether
+this obligation could be fulfilled if Bel remained a prisoner in the
+neighbouring capital. Assur-bani-pal believed for a moment that this
+difficulty could be obviated, and consulted Shamash on this delicate
+question: “Shamash-shumukîn, the son of Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria,
+can he in this year take the hands of Bel, the mighty lord Marduk, in
+this very city, and then go to Babylon with the favour of Bel! If that
+would be pleasing to thy great divinity and to the mighty lord Marduk,
+thy great divinity must know it.” The reply was not favourable, and
+Shamash gave it as his opinion that Bel could not act as a sovereign
+lord while still languishing in prison in a city which was not his own.
+Assur-bani-pal had to resign himself to the release of his captive,
+and he did it with a good grace. He proceeded in pomp to the temple of
+Assur, where Marduk was shut up, and humbly entreated the exiled deity
+to vouchsafe to return to his own country.
+
+[Illustration: 168.jpg ASSUR-BANIPAL AS A BEARER OF OFFERINGS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in Lehmann.
+
+“Think on Babylon, which thou didst bring to nought in the rage of thy
+heart, and turn thy face towards the temple of E-sagilla, the lofty seat
+of thy divinity! Revisit thy city which thou hast forsaken to inhabit a
+place which is not worthy of thee, and do thou thyself, O Marduk, lord
+of the gods, give the command to return to Babylon.” The statue set out
+on its journey, and was escorted by a solemn procession headed by the
+two kings. The gods, by one accord, came forth from their cities
+and saluted the traveller as he passed by--Beltis of Agadê, Nebo of
+Borsippa, Shamash of Sippara, and Nirgal. At length he reached his
+beloved city, and entered E-sagilla in the midst of an immense throng
+of people. The kings headed the _cortège_, and the delighted multitude
+joined their two names with that of the god in their acclamations: it
+was a day never to be forgotten. Assur-bani-pal, in his capacity of
+suzerain, opened the sacred edifice, and then presented his brother, who
+thereupon “took the hands of Bel.”
+
+[Illustration: 169.jpg SIHAMASH-SHUMUKIN AS A BEARER OF OFFERINGS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in Lehmann.
+
+A quarter of a century had not passed since the victorious Sennacherib
+had, as he thought, inflicted a mortal blow on the one power which stood
+in the way of Assyria’s supremacy in Western Asia; already, in spite of
+his efforts, the city had sprung up from its ruins as vigorous as ever,
+and his sons and grandsons had felt themselves irresistibly drawn
+to resuscitate that which their ancestors had desired to annihilate
+irrevocably. Babylon had rebuilt her palaces, her walls, and her
+temples; she had received back her gods without a war, and almost
+without any agitation, by the mere force of the prestige she exercised
+over all around her, and even over her conquerors. As a matter of fact,
+she had not regained her former position, and was still depressed and
+enfeebled by the blow which had laid her low; in addition to this, her
+king was an Assyrian, and a vassal of Assyria, but nevertheless he
+was her own king, and hers alone. Her independence was already half
+regained. Shamash-shumukîn established his court at Babylon, and applied
+himself from the outset to restore, as far as he was able, the material
+and moral forces of his kingdom. Assur-bani-pal, on his side, met with
+no opposition from his subjects, but prudence cautioned him not to
+estrange them; the troubles of the preceding year were perhaps not
+so completely suppressed as to prevent the chiefs who had escaped
+punishment from being encouraged by the change of sovereign to renew
+their intrigues. The king, therefore, remained in Nineveh to inaugurate
+his rule, and confided to his generals the charge of conducting the
+expeditions which had been undertaken during his father’s lifetime.* One
+of these undertakings was unimportant. Tandaî of Kirbît, a petty chief,
+was continually engaged in harassing the inhabitants of Yamutbal; he
+bore down upon them every year, and, after dealing a blow, retreated to
+his hiding-place in the mountains. He was attacked in his stronghold,
+and carried away captive with all his people into Egypt, at the furthest
+extremity of the empire, to serve in Assyrian garrisons in the midst of
+the fellahîn.**
+
+     * In the numerous documents relating to the reign of Assur-
+     bani-pal the facts are arranged in geographical order, not
+     by the dates of the successive expeditions, and the
+     chronological order of the campaigns is all the more
+     difficult to determine accurately, as _Pinches’ Babylonian
+     Chronicle_ fails us after the beginning of this reign,
+     immediately after the mention of the above-mentioned war
+     with Kirbît. Even the _Eponym Canon_ is only accurate down
+     to 666 B.C.; in that year there is a break, and although we
+     possess for the succeeding period more than forty names of
+     eponyms, their classification is not at present absolutely
+     certain.
+
+     ** The expedition against Kirbît is omitted in certain
+     documents; it is inserted in the others in the fourth place,
+     between the wars in Asia Minor and the campaign against the
+     Mannai. The place assigned to it in the Bab. Chron. quite in
+     the beginning of the reign, is confirmed by a fragment of a
+     tablet quoted by Winckler. Perhaps it was carried out by a
+     Babylonian army: although Assur-bani-pal claimed the glory
+     of it, by reason of his suzerainty over Karduniash.
+
+Meanwhile, the army which Esarhaddon had been leading against Taharqa
+pursued its course under command of the Tartan.* Syria received it
+submissively, and the twenty-two kings who still possessed a shadow of
+autonomy in the country sent assurances of their devotion to the new
+monarch: even Yakînlu, King of Arvad, who had aroused suspicion by
+frequent acts of insubordination,** thought twice before rebelling
+against his terrible suzerain, and joined the rest in paying both
+homage and tribute. Cyprus and also Phoenicia remained faithful to their
+allegiance, and, what was of still more consequence, the states which
+lay nearest to Egypt--Philistia, Judah, Moab, and Ammon; the Assyrians
+were thus able to push forward to the Delta without losing time in
+repressing rebellions along their route. The Ethiopians had entrenched
+themselves at Karbanîti;*** they were, however, once more defeated, and
+left; so many of their soldiers dead upon the field, that Taharqa had
+not sufficient troops left to defend Memphis.
+
+     * The text of Tablet K 2675-K 228 of the Brit. Mus., states
+     distinctly that the Tartan commanded the first army.
+
+     ** Assur-bani-pal, acting in the name of his father,
+     Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, had consulted Shamash on the
+     desirability of sending troops against Arvad: the prince of
+     this city is called Ikkalu, which is a variant of Yakînlu.
+     Winckler concluded that the campaign against Arvad took
+     place before 668 B.C., in the reign of Esarhaddon. It seems
+     to me more natural to place it on the return from Egypt,
+     when the people of Arvad were demoralised by the defeat of
+     the Pharaoh whose alliance they had hoped for.
+
+     *** I had compared Karbanîti with the Qarbîna mentioned in
+     the _Great Harris Papyrus_, and this identification was
+     accepted by most Egyptologists, even after Brugsch
+     recognised in Qarbîna the name of Canopus or a town near
+     Canopus. It has been contested by Steindorf, and, in fact,
+     Karbanîti could not be identified with Canopus, any more
+     than the Qarbina of the Harris Papyrus; its site must be
+     looked for in the eastern or central part of the Delta.
+
+He retreated upon Thebes, where he strongly fortified himself; but the
+Tartan had not suffered less than his adversary, and he would have been
+unable to pursue him, had not reinforcements promptly reached him. The
+Bab-shakeh, who had been despatched from Nineveh with some Assyrian
+troops, had summoned to his aid the principal Syrian feudal chiefs, who,
+stimulated by the news of the victories achieved on the banks of the
+Nile, placed themselves unreservedly at his disposal. He ordered
+their vessels to proceed along the coast as far as the Delta, where
+he purposed to collect a fleet to ascend the river, while their
+troops augmented the force already under his command. The two Assyrian
+generals, the Tartan and the Rabshakeh, quitted Memphis, probably in the
+early part of 667 B.C., and, cautiously advancing southwards, covered
+the distance separating the two Egyptian capitals in a steady march
+of forty days. When the Assyrians had advanced well up the valley, the
+princes of the Delta thought the opportunity had arrived to cut them
+off by a single bold stroke. They therefore opened cautious negotiations
+with the Ethiopian king, and proposed an arrangement which should secure
+their independence: “We will divide the country between us, and neither
+of us shall exercise authority over the other.” However secretly these
+negotiations were conducted, they were certain to come to the knowledge
+of the Assyrian generals: the couriers were intercepted; and discovering
+from the despatches the extent of the danger, the Assyrians seized
+as many of the leaders of the league as they could. As a warning they
+sacked Sais, Mendes, and Tanis, demolishing the fortifications, and
+flaying or impaling the principal citizens before their city gates;
+they then sent two of the intriguing chiefs, Necho and Sharludari of
+Pelusium, bound hand and foot with chains, to Nineveh. Pakruru, of the
+Arabian nome, managed, however, to escape them. Taharqa, thus bereft of
+his allies, was no longer in a condition to repel the invader: he fled
+to Ethiopia, abandoning Thebes to its fate. The city was ransomed
+by despoiling the temple of Amon of half its treasures: Montumihâît
+transferred his allegiance unhesitatingly to Assur-bani-pal, and the
+whole of Egypt from the Mediterranean to the first cataract once
+more became Assyrian territory. The victory was so complete that
+Assur-bani-pal thought he might without risk show clemency to his
+prisoners. He summoned them to his presence, and there, instead of
+putting out their eyes or subjecting them to some horrible form of
+torture, he received them back into favour, and confirmed Necho in the
+possession of all the honours which Esarhaddon had conceded to him. He
+clothed him in a mantle of honour, and bestowed on him a straight-bladed
+sword with an iron scabbard ornamented with gold, engraved with his
+names and titles, besides rings, gold bracelets, chariots, horses, and
+mules; in short, all the appurtenances of royalty. Not content with
+restoring to him the cities of Sais and Memphis, he granted him the fief
+of Athribis for his eldest son, Psammetichus.
+
+[Illustration: 174.jpg MONTUMIHÂÎT, PRINCE OF THEBES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Miss Benson. It is
+     not quite certain that this statue represents Montumihâît,
+     as the inscription is wanting: the circumstances of the
+     discovery, however, render it very probable.
+
+Moreover, he neglected no measure likely to show his supremacy. Athribis
+received the new name of Limir-patesi-assur, _may the high priest of
+Assur be glorious_, and Sais that of Kar-bel-matâti, _the fortress of
+the lord of the countries_. Psammetichus was called Nebo-shezib-anni,
+_Nebo, deliver me_, and residents were installed at his court and that
+of his father, who were entrusted with the _surveillance_ of their
+conduct, and the task of keeping them to the path of duty: Necho, thus
+well guarded, thenceforward never faltered in his allegiance.
+
+The subjection of Egypt reacted on Syria and Asia Minor. Of the only two
+states still existing along the Phoenician seaboard, one, namely Tyre,
+had been in revolt for many years, and the other, Arvad, showed symptoms
+of disaffection.
+
+[Illustration: 175.jpg PSAMMETICHUS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the British
+     Museum.
+
+Esarhaddon, from lack of a sufficient fleet, had never been able to
+subdue the former, but he had interrupted the communications of the
+island with the mainland, and the blockade, which was constantly
+increasing in strictness, had already lasted for four years. On receipt
+of the news from Egypt, Bâal realised that further resistance was
+hopeless; he therefore delivered up to the victor his heir-apparent,
+Yahî-melek, and one of his daughters, together with other hostages,
+besides silver, gold, and wood, and intreated for pardon. Assur-bani-pal
+left him in possession of his kingdom on condition of paying the regular
+tribute, but Yakînlu, the King of Arvad, met with harsher treatment. In
+vain did he give up his sons, his daughters, and all his treasures; his
+intractability had worn out the patience of his suzerain: he was carried
+away captive to Nineveh, and replaced by Azîbaal, his eldest son.
+Two chiefs of the Taurus--Mugallu of Tabal, who had given trouble
+to Esarhaddon in the last years of his life, and Sanda-sarme of
+Cilicia--purchased immunity from the punishment due for various acts
+of brigandage, by gifts of horses, and by handing over each of them a
+daughter, richly dowered, to the harem of the king at Nineveh. But these
+were incidents of slight moment, and their very insignificance proves
+how completely resigned to foreign domination the nations of the
+Mediterranean coast had now become. Vassal kings, princes, cities,
+peasants of the plain or shepherds of the mountains, all who were
+subject directly or indirectly to Assyria, had almost ceased to imagine
+that a change of sovereign afforded them any chance of regaining their
+independence. They no longer considered themselves the subjects of a
+conqueror whose death might free them from allegiance; they realised
+that they were the subjects of an empire whose power did not depend on
+the genius or incapacity of one man, but was maintained from age to
+age in virtue of the prestige it had attained, whatever might be the
+qualities of the reigning sovereign. The other independent states had at
+length come to the same conclusion, and the news of the accession of a
+fresh Assyrian king no longer awakened among them hopes of conquest or,
+at all events, of booty; such an occasion was regarded as a suitable
+opportunity for strengthening the bonds of neighbourly feeling or
+conciliatory friendship which united them to Assyria, by sending an
+embassy to congratulate the new sovereign. One of these embassies, which
+arrived about 667 B.C., caused much excitement at the court of Nineveh,
+and greatly flattered the vanity of the king. Reports brought back
+by sailors or the chiefs of caravans had revealed the existence of a
+kingdom of Lydia in the extreme west of Asia Minor, at the place of
+embarcation for crossing the sea.*
+
+     * It is called _nagu sha nibirti tâmtim_, “the country of
+     the crossing of the sea,” or more concisely, “the country
+     this side the sea.”
+
+It was known to be celebrated for its gold and its horses, but no direct
+relations between the two courts had ever been established, and the
+Lydian kings had hitherto affected to ignore the existence of Assyria.
+A revolution had broken out in this province a quarter of a century
+previously, which had placed on the throne of the Heraclidse that family
+of the Mermnado whose previous history had been so tragic. Dascylus,
+who had made his home for a long time among the White Syrians, had no
+intention of abandoning his adopted country, when one day, about the
+year 698 B.C., a messenger arrived bidding him repair to Sardes without
+delay. His uncle Ardys, prince of Tyrrha, having no children, had
+applied to Sadyattes, beseeching him to revoke the sentence of
+banishment passed on his nephew. “My house is desolate,” said he, “and
+all my kinsfolk are dead; and furthermore, Dascylus and his house have
+already been pardoned by thine ancestors.” Sadyattes consented, but
+Dascylus, preferring not to return, sent his son Gyges, then about
+eighteen years of age, in his stead. Gyges was a tall and very beautiful
+youth, and showed unusual skill as a charioteer and in the use of
+weapons, so that his renown soon spread throughout the country.
+Sadyattes desired to see him, and being captivated by his bold
+demeanour, enrolled him in his bodyguard, loaded him with presents, and
+took him into his entire confidence. Gyges was clever enough to utilise
+the king’s favour in order to enlarge his domains and increase his
+riches, and thus win partisans among the people and the body of
+“Friends.” Carian mercenaries at that time formed one of the most
+vigorous and best disciplined contingents in the armies of the period.*
+The Carians were, above all, a military race, and are said to have
+brought the shield and helmet to their highest perfection; at Sardes
+they formed the garrison of the citadel, and their captains were in high
+favour with the king. Gyges formed a fast friendship with Arselis of
+Mylasa, one of the chief of these officers, and thus made sure of the
+support of the garrison, and of the possibility of recruiting a corps
+among the Carian clans who remained in their own country.** He thus
+incurred the bitter jealousy of the Tylonidag, whose chief, Lixos, was
+ready to adopt any measures which might damage his rival, even going so
+far as to simulate madness and run through the streets of Sardes crying
+out that Gyges, the son of Dascylus, was about to assassinate the king;
+but this stratagem did not succeed any better than his other treacherous
+devices. Meanwhile Sadyattes had sought the hand of Toudô,*** daughter
+of Arnossos of Mysia, and sent his favourite to receive his affianced
+bride at the hand of her father.
+
+     * Archilochus of Paros, a contemporary of Gyges, mentions
+     the Carian mercenaries, and later on Ephorus said of them,
+     that they had been the first to sell their services to
+     strangers.
+
+     ** The connection between Arselis and Gyges is mentioned by
+     Plutarch.
+
+     *** It is not certain whether the name is Toudô or Trydô.
+
+Gyges fell in love with her on the journey, and tried in vain to win
+her favour. She repulsed his advances with indignation, and on the very
+night of her marriage complained to her husband of the insult which
+had been offered her. Sadyattes swore that he would avenge her on the
+morrow; but Gyges, warned by a servant, slew the king before daybreak.
+Immediately after thus assassinating his sovereign, Gyges called
+together the “Friends,” and ridding himself of those who were hostile
+to him, induced the others by bribes to further his designs; then
+descending to the place of public assembly, he summoned the people to a
+conclave. After a long and stormy debate, it was decided to consult
+the oracle at Delphi, which, corrupted by the gold from the Pactolus,
+enjoined on the Lydians to recognise Gyges as their king. He married
+Toudô, and by thus espousing the widow of the Heraclid sovereign,
+obtained some show of right to the crown; but the decision of the oracle
+was not universally acceptable, and war broke out, in which Gyges was
+victorious, thanks to the bravery of his Carian mercenaries. His
+career soon served as the fabric on which the popular imagination was
+continually working fresh embroideries. He was reported at the outset to
+have been of base extraction, a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised
+himself by degrees to the highest posts and had finally supplanted his
+patron. Herodotus, following the poet Archilochus of Paros, relates
+how the last of the Heraclidas, whom he calls by his private name of
+Kandaules, and not his official name of Sadyattes,* forcibly insisted
+on exposing to the admiration of Gyges the naked beauty of his wife; the
+queen, thus outraged, called upon the favourite to avenge the insult to
+her modesty by the blood of her husband, and then bestowed on him her
+hand, together with the crown.
+
+     * Schubert considers that the names Sadyattes and Kandaules
+     belong to two distinct persons. Kandaules, according to him,
+     was probably a second son of Myrsos, who, after the murder
+     of Sadyattes, disputed the possession of the crown with
+     Gyges; in this case he was killed in battle by the Carian
+     commander, Arselis, as related by Plutarch, and Gyges was
+     not really king till after the death of Kandaules.
+
+Plato made this story the groundwork of a most fantastic tale. Gyges,
+according to him, was originally a shepherd, who, after a terrible
+storm, noticed a fissure in the ground, into which he crept; there he
+discovered an enormous bronze horse, half broken, and in its side the
+corpse of a giant with a gold ring on his finger. Chance revealed to him
+that this ring rendered its wearer invisible: he set out for the court
+in quest of adventures, seduced the queen, murdered the king and seized
+his crown, accomplishing all this by virtue of his talisman.*
+
+     * This version is curious, because it has preserved for us
+     one of the earliest examples of a ring which renders its
+     wearer invisible; it is well known how frequently such a
+     talisman appears in Oriental tales of a later period.
+
+According to a third legend, his crime and exaltation had been presaged
+by a wondrous prodigy. Two eagles of supernatural size had alighted on
+the roof of Toudô’s room while she was still dwelling in her father’s
+house, and the soothsayers who were consulted prognosticated that the
+princess would be the wife of two kings in a single night; and, in
+fact, Gyges, having stabbed Sadyattes when his marriage was but just
+consummated, forced Toudô to become his wife on the spot without waiting
+for the morrow. Other stories were current, in which the events were
+related with less of the miraculous element, and which attributed the
+success of Gyges to the unbounded fidelity shown him by the Carian
+Arselis. In whatever manner it was brought about, his accession marked
+the opening of a new era for Lydia. The country had always been noted
+for its valiant and warlike inhabitants, but the Heraclidse had not
+expended its abundant resources on foreign conquest, and none of the
+surrounding peoples suspected that it could again become the seat of a
+brilliant empire as in fabulous times.
+
+[Illustration: 181.jpg LYDIAN HORSEMEN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Lydian bas-relief now in the
+     British Museum.
+
+Gyges endeavoured to awaken the military instincts of his subjects. If
+he were not actually the first to organise that admirable cavalry corps
+which for nearly a century proved itself invincible on the field of
+battle, at least he enlarged and disciplined it, giving it cohesion
+and daring; and it was well he did so, for a formidable danger already
+menaced his newly acquired kingdom. The Cimmerians and Treres, so
+long as they did not act in concert, had been unable to overcome the
+resistance offered by the Phrygians; their raids, annually renewed, had
+never resulted in more than the destruction of a city or the pillaging
+of an ill-defended district. But from 690 to 680 B.C. the Cimmerians,
+held in check by the bold front displayed by Sennacherib and Esarhaddon,
+had at last broken away from the seductions of the east, and poured down
+in force on the centre of the peninsula. King Midas, after an heroic
+defence, at length gave way before their overwhelming numbers, and,
+rather than fall alive into the hands of the barbarians, poisoned
+himself by drinking the blood of a bull (676 B.C.).* The flower of his
+nobility perished with him, and the people of lower rank who survived
+were so terrified by the invasion, that they seemed in one day to lose
+entirely the brave and energetic character which had hitherto been their
+safeguard. The Cimmerians seized town after town;** they descended from
+the basin of the Sangarios into that of the Bhyndakos; they laid waste
+the Troad, and, about 670 B.C., they established themselves securely in
+the stronghold of Antandros, opposite the magnificent Æolian island of
+Lesbos, and ere long their advanced posts were face to face on all sides
+with the outposts of Lydia.
+
+     * The date of 676 B.C. has been borrowed from Julius
+     Africanus by the Christian chronologists of the Byzantine
+     period; these latter made the fall of the Phrygian kingdom
+     coincide with the reign of Amon in Judæa, and this date is
+     accepted by most modern historians.
+
+     ** One fact alone, probably taken from the Lydiaca of
+     Xanthus, is known to us concerning their operations in
+     Phrygia, namely, the taking of Syassos and the capture of
+     enormous stores of corn which were laid up in the silos in
+     that city.
+
+Gyges resolutely held his own, and successfully repulsed them; but
+the struggle was too unequal between their vast hordes, recruited
+incessantly from their reserves in Thrace or the Caucasus, and his
+scanty battalions of Lydians, Carians, and Creeks. Unaided, he had
+no chance of reopening the great royal highway, which the fall of the
+Phrygian monarchy had laid at the mercy of the barbarians along the
+whole of its middle course, and yet he was aware that a cessation of the
+traffic which passed between the Euphrates and the Hermos was likely
+to lead in a short time to the decay of his kingdom. If the numerous
+merchants who were wont to follow this ancient traditional route were
+once allowed to desert it and turn aside to one of the coast-roads
+which might replace it--either that of the Pontus in the north or of the
+Mediterranean in the south--they might not be willing to return to it
+even when again opened to traffic, and Lydia would lose for ever one of
+her richest sources of revenue.*
+
+     * Radet deserves credit for being the first to point out the
+     economic reasons which necessarily led Gyges to make his
+     attempt at forming an alliance with Assur-bani-pal. He has
+     thus definitely dismissed the objections which some recent
+     critics had raised against the authenticity of this episode
+     in order to defend classic tradition and diminish the
+     authority of the Assyrian texts.
+
+We may well conceive that Gyges, whose fortune and very existence was
+thus in jeopardy, would seek assistance against these barbarians from
+the sovereign whose interests appeared identical with his own. The
+renown of the Assyrian empire had penetrated far into the west; the
+Achæns of Cyprus who were its subjects, the Greek colonists of Cilicia,
+and the soldiers whom the exigencies of the coast-trade brought to
+Syrian ports, must all have testified to its splendour; and the fame
+of its conquests over the Tabal and the peoples on the Halys had spread
+abroad more than once during the previous century, and had reached as
+far as the western extremity of the peninsula of Asia Minor, by means of
+the merchants of Sardes or Ionia. The Cimmerians had harassed Assyria,
+and still continued to be a source of anxiety to her rulers; Gyges
+judged that participation in a common hatred or danger would predispose
+the king in his favour, and a dream furnished him with a pretext for
+notifying to the court of Nineveh his desire to enter into friendly
+relations with it. He dreamed that a god, undoubtedly Assur, had
+appeared to him in the night, and commanded him to prostrate himself
+at the feet of Assur-bani-pal: “In his name thou shalt overcome thine
+enemies.” The next morning he despatched horsemen to the great king,
+but when the leader of the embassy reached the frontier and met the
+Assyrians for the first time, they asked him, “Who, then, art thou,
+brother, thou from whose land no courier has as yet visited our
+country?” The language he spoke was unknown to them; they only gathered
+that he desired to be conducted into the presence of the king, and
+consequently sent him on to Nineveh under good escort. There the same
+obstacle presented itself, for none of the official interpreters at
+the court knew the Lydian tongue; however, an interpreter was at length
+discovered, who translated the story of the dream as best he could.
+Assur-bani-pal joyfully accepted the homage offered to him from such
+a far-off land, and from thenceforward some sort of alliance existed
+between Assyria and Lydia--an alliance of a very Platonic order, from
+which Gyges at least derived no sensible advantage. Some troops
+sent into the country of the White Syrians may have disquieted the
+Cimmerians, and, by causing a diversion in their rear, procured a
+respite for Lydia; but the caravan route across Asia Minor was only
+of secondary importance to the prosperity of Nineveh and the Syrian
+provinces, since the Phoenician navy provided sufficient outlets for
+their trade in the west. Assur-bani-pal lavished friendly speeches on
+the Lydians, but left them to bear the brunt of the attack alone, and
+devoutly thanked Assur for the security which their determined courage
+procured for the western frontier of his empire.
+
+The Cimmerian peril being, for the present at least, averted, there
+no longer remained any foe to trouble the peace of the empire on the
+northern or eastern frontier, Urartu, the Mannai, and the Medes having
+now ceased to be formidable. Urartu, incessantly exposed to the ravages
+of the barbarians, had drawn closer and closer to Assyria; and though
+not actually descending to the point of owning its rival’s superiority
+in order to obtain succour against these terrible foes, it yet carefully
+avoided all pretexts for war, and persistently maintained friendly
+relations with its powerful neighbour. Its kings, Eusas II. and his
+successor Erimenas, no longer meditated feats of arms and successful
+raids, but devoted themselves to building their city walls, erecting
+palaces and temples, and planning pleasant retreats in the mountain
+fastnesses, where they lived surrounded by gardens planted at great
+cost, watered by streams brought thither from distant springs. The
+Mannai submitted without a murmur to their Assyrian governors, and the
+Medes, kept in check by the garrisons of Parsua and Kharkhar, seemed
+to have laid aside much of their fierce and turbulent disposition.
+Esarhaddon had endeavoured to conciliate the good will of Elam by a
+signal service. He had supplied its inhabitants with corn, wine, and
+provisions of all sorts during a famine which had afflicted the country
+about 670 B.C.; nor had his good will ended there. He refused to bring
+into servitude those Elamite subjects who had taken refuge with their
+families on Assyrian territory to escape the scourge, although the
+rights of nations authorised him so to do, but having nourished them
+as long as the dearth lasted, he then sent them back to their
+fellow-citizens. Urtaku of Elam had thenceforward maintained a kind of
+sullen neutrality, entering only into secret conspiracies against the
+Babylonian prefects on the Tigris. The Aramaeans in the valleys of the
+Ulaî, indeed, were restless, and several of their chiefs, Bel-ikîsha
+of the G-ambula, and Nabo-shumirîsh, plotted in secret with
+Marduk-shumibni, the Elamite general in command on the frontier. But no
+hint of this had yet transpired, and peace apparently reigned there as
+elsewhere. Never had the empire been so respected; never had it united
+so many diverse nations under one sceptre--Egyptians, Syrians, tribes of
+the Taurus, and the mountain districts round the Tigris and Euphrates,
+Mannai, Medes, Babylonians, and Arabs; never, moreover, had it possessed
+greater resources wherewith to compel obedience from the provinces or
+defend them against foreign attack.
+
+[Illustration: 187.jpg ASSUR-BANI-PAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs from
+     Kouyunjik in the British Museum.
+
+Doubtless the population of Assyria proper, and the ancient districts
+whose contingents formed the nucleus of the army, were still suffering
+from the results of the civil war which had broken out more than fifteen
+years before, after the assassination of Sennacherib; but under the easy
+rule of Esarhaddon the natural increase of population, unchecked by any
+extraordinary call for recruits, must have almost repaired their losses.
+The Egyptian campaigns, partially carried out by Syrian auxiliaries,
+had not sensibly retarded this progress, and, provided that peace were
+maintained for some years longer, the time seemed at hand when the king,
+having repaired his losses, could call upon the nation to make fresh
+efforts in offensive or defensive warfare, without the risk of seeing
+his people melt and disappear before his eyes. It seems, indeed, as if
+Assur-bani-pal, either by policy or natural disposition, was inclined
+for peace. But this did not preclude, when occasion demanded, his
+directing his forces and fighting in person like any other Assyrian
+monarch; he, however, preferred repose, and when circumstances forced
+war upon him, he willingly delegated the conduct of the army to his
+generals. He would probably have renounced possession of Egypt if he
+could have done so with safety and such a course would not have been
+without wisdom, the retention of this newly acquired province being
+difficult and costly. Not to speak of differences in language, religion,
+and manners, which would prevent it from ever becoming assimilated to
+Assyria as Damascus, Hamath, and Samaria, and most of the Asiatic states
+had been, it was merely connected with the rest of the empire by the
+thin chain of rocks, desert, and marshes stretching between the Red Sea
+and the Mediterranean. A revolt of the cities of the Philistines, or
+of one of the Idumsean sheikhs, would have sufficed to isolate it, and,
+communications once interrupted, the safety of the numerous Assyrian
+officers and garrisons would be seriously jeopardised, all of whom must
+be maintained there if the country was to be permanently retained. The
+inclination to meddle in the affairs of Syria always displayed by the
+Pharaohs, and their obsolete claims to rule the whole country as far as
+the Euphrates, did not allow of their autonomy being restored to them at
+the risk of the immediate renewal of their intrigues with Tyre or Judah,
+and the fomenting of serious rebellions among the vassal princes of
+Palestine. On the other hand, Egypt was by its natural position so
+detached from the rest of the empire that it was certain to escape
+from the influence of Nineveh as soon as the pressure of circumstances
+obliged the suzerain to relax his efforts to keep it in subjection.
+Besides this, Ethiopia lay behind Egypt, almost inaccessible in the
+fabled realms of the south, always ready to provoke conspiracies or
+renew hostilities when the occasion offered. Montumihâît had already
+returned to Thebes on the retreat of the Assyrian battalions, and though
+Taharqa, rendered inactive, as it was said, by a dream which bade him
+remain at Napata,* had not reappeared north of the cataract, he had sent
+Tanuatamanu, the son of his wife by Sabaco, to administer the province
+in his name.** Taharqa died shortly after (666 B.C.), and his stepson
+was preparing to leave Thebes in order to be solemnly crowned at Gebel
+Barkal, when he saw one night in a dream two serpents, one on his right
+hand, the other on his left. The soothsayers whom he consulted on the
+matter prognosticated for him a successful career: “Thou holdest the
+south countries; seize thou those of the north, and let the crowns of
+the two regions gleam upon thy brow!” He proceeded at once to present
+himself before his divine father Amon of Napata, and, encountering no
+opposition from the Ethiopian priests or nobles, he was able to fulfil
+the prediction almost immediately after his coronation.***
+
+     * The legend quoted by Herodotus relates that Sabaco, having
+     slain Necho I., the father of Psammetichus, evacuated Egypt
+     which he had conquered, and retired to Ethiopia in obedience
+     to a dream. The name of Sabaco was very probably substituted
+     for that of Taharqa in the tradition preserved in Sais and
+     Memphis, echoes of which reached the Greek historian in the
+     middle of the fifth century B.C.
+
+     ** It appears, from the _Stele of the Dream_, that
+     Tanuatamanu was in the Thebaid at the time of his accession
+     to the throne.
+
+     *** Steindorff thinks that Tanuatamanu had been officially
+     associated with himself on the throne by Taharqa, and
+     Schsefer supposes that the dream dates from the first year
+     of their joint reign. The presence of Tanuatamanu beside
+     Taharqa, in the small Theban temple, the bas-reliefs of
+     which were published by Mariette, does not necessarily prove
+     that the two kings reigned conjointly: it may equally well
+     indicate that the one accomplished the work commenced by the
+     other.
+
+The Said hailed his return with joy, and the inhabitants, massed upon
+either bank of the river, acclaimed him as he glided past them on his
+boat: “Go in peace! mayest thou have peace! Restore life to Egypt!
+Rebuild the ruined temples, set up once more the statues and emblems
+of the deities! Reestablish the endowments raised to the gods and
+goddesses, even the offerings to the dead! Restore the priest to his
+place, that he may minister at all the rites!”
+
+The Assyrian officials and the princes of the north, with Necho at
+their head, were drawn up beneath the walls of Memphis to defy him. He
+overcame them, however, captured the city, and pushed on into the Delta
+in pursuit of the retreating foe. Necho either fell in a skirmish, or
+was taken prisoner and put to death: his son Psammetichus escaped to
+Syria, but the remaining princes shut themselves up, each in his own
+stronghold, to await reinforcements from Asia, and a series of tedious
+and interminable sieges began. Impatient at this dilatory method of
+warfare, Tanuatamanu at length fell back on Memphis, and there opened
+negotiations in the hope of securing at least a nominal submission,
+which might enable him to withdraw from the affair with honour.
+
+[Illustration: 190.jpg MURAL DECORATIONS FROM THE GROTTOES]
+
+The princes of the east received his overtures favourably, and consented
+to prostrate themselves before him at the White Wall under the auspices
+of Pakruru. “Grant us the breath of life, for he who acknowledges thee
+not cannot live, and we will be thy vassals, as thou didst declare at
+the beginning, on the day in which thou becamest king!”
+
+[Illustration: 191.jpg KING TANUATAMANU IN ADORATION BEFORE THE GODS OF
+THEBES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Legrain, taken in the
+     small temple at Thebes.
+
+The heart of his Majesty was filled with joy when he heard this
+discourse: he bestowed upon them in abundance bread, beer, and all
+manner of good things. After sojourning some days at the court of
+Pharaoh their lord, they said to him, “Why stay we here, O prince
+our master?” His Majesty replied, “Wherefore?” They answered then,
+“Graciously permit us to return to our own cities, that we may give
+commands to our subjects, and may bring thee our tribute offerings!”
+ They returned ere long, bringing the promised gifts, and the king
+withdrew to Napata loaded with spoil.* The Delta proper at once ceased
+to obey him, but Memphis, as well as Thebes, still acknowledged his sway
+for some two or three years longer.**
+
+     * Tanuatamanu was at first identified by Haigh with the
+     person whose name Assyriologists read as Urdamani, but the
+     impossibility of recognising the name _Tanuatamanu_ in
+     _Urdamani_ decided E. de Rougé, and subsequently others, to
+     admit an Urdamani different from Tanuatamanu. The discovery
+     of the right reading of the name _Tandamanu_ by Steindorff
+     has banished all doubts, and it is now universally admitted
+     that the person mentioned in the Assyrian documents is
+     identical with the king who erected the _Stele of the Dream_
+     at Gebel Barkal.
+
+     ** A monument still exists which was dedicated at Thebes in
+     the third year of Tanuatamanu.
+
+It was neither indolence nor fear which had kept Assur-bani-pal from
+marching to the succour of his subjects as soon as the movement under
+Tanuatamanu became manifest, but serious complications had arisen in
+the south-east which had for the moment obliged him to leave Egypt to
+itself. Elam had at last laid aside the mask, and Urtaku, yielding
+to the entreaties of the Aramæan sheikhs, who were urged on by
+Marduk-shumibni, had crossed the Tigris. Shamash-shumukîn, thus taken
+unawares, could only shut himself up in Babylon, and in all haste send
+information of his plight to his brother and suzerain. Assur-bani-pal,
+preoccupied with the events taking place on the Nile, was for a moment
+in doubt whether this incursion was merely a passing raid or the opening
+of a serious war, but the reports of his scouts soon left no doubt as to
+the gravity of the danger: “The Elamite, like a swarm of grasshoppers,
+covers the fields, he covers Accad; against Babylon he has pitched his
+camp and drawn out his lines.” The city was too strong to be taken by
+storm. The Assyrians hastened to relieve it, and threatened to cut off
+the retreat of the aggressors: the latter, therefore, gave up the siege,
+and returned to their own country, but their demeanour was still so
+undaunted that Assur-bani-pal did not cross the frontier in pursuit of
+them (665 B.C.). He doubtless fully expected that they would soon return
+in larger numbers, and perhaps his fear would not have proved unfounded
+had not fate suddenly deprived them of all their leaders. Bel-ikîsha
+was killed in hunting by a wild boar, Nabu-shumirîsh was struck down
+by dropsy, and Marduk-shumibni perished in a mysterious manner. Finally
+Urtaku succumbed to an attack of apoplexy, and the year which had been
+so fatal to his allies proved not less so to himself (664 B.C.). It
+now seemed as if Assur-bani-pal might breathe freely, and inflict his
+long-deferred vengeance on Tanuatamanu, but the death of Urtaku did not
+remove all causes of uneasiness. Peace was not yet concluded, and it
+depended on the new King of Elam whether hostilities would be renewed.
+Fortunately for the Assyrians, the transmission of power had rarely
+taken place at Susa for a century past without a disturbance, and Urtaku
+himself had gained the throne by usurpation, possibly accompanied by
+murder. As he had treated his elder brother Khumbân-khaldash and the
+children of the latter, so did his younger brother Tammaritu now treat
+his sons. Tammaritu was “a devil” incarnate, whose whole thoughts were
+of murder and rapine; at least, this was the idea formed of him by his
+Assyrian contemporaries, who declared that he desired to put to death
+the sons of his two predecessors out of sheer cruelty. But we do not
+need a very vivid imagination to believe that these princes were anxious
+to dethrone him, and that in endeavouring to rid himself of them he
+was merely forestalling their secret plots. They escaped his murderous
+designs, however, and fled to Assyria,--Khumbân-igash, Khumbân-appa,
+and Tammaritu, sons of Uxtaku, and Kuduru and Parru, sons of
+Khumbân-khaldash, followed by sixty other princes of royal blood,
+together with archers and servants--forming, in fact, a small army of
+Elamites. Assur-bani-pal received them with honour, for their defection
+furnished him with a powerful weapon against the usurper: by succouring
+them he could rouse half Elam and involve it in civil war, in which the
+pretenders would soon exhaust their resources. It was now a favourable
+moment to renew hostilities in Egypt, while Tammaritu, still insecure on
+his throne, would not venture to provoke a conflict.*
+
+     * The time of the war against Urtaku and the expedition
+     against Tanuatamanu is indicated by a passage in a cylinder
+     as yet unedited. There we read that the invasion of Urtaku
+     took place at the moment when Tanuatamanu ascended the
+     throne. These preliminary difficulties with Elam would thus
+     have coincided with the two years which elapsed between the
+     accession of Tanuatamanu and his conquest of Memphis, up to
+     the third year mentioned in the Berlin inscription; the
+     testimony of the Egyptian monuments would thus be in almost
+     complete accord with the Assyrian documents on this point.
+
+As a matter of fact, Tanuatamanu did not risk the defence of Memphis,
+but concentrated his forces at Thebes. Once more the Assyrian generals
+ascended the Nile, and, after a voyage lasting six weeks, at length
+reached the suburbs of the great city. Tanuatamanu had fled towards
+Kipkip, leaving Thebes at the mercy of the invaders. It was given up to
+pillage, its population was carried off into slavery, and its temples
+and palaces were despoiled of their treasures--gold, silver, metals,
+and precious stones, broidered and richly dyed stuffs, and horses of the
+royal stud.
+
+[Illustration: 195.jpg ASSYRIAN HELMET FOUND AT THEBES]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph by Pétrie.
+
+Two of the obelisks which adorned the temple of Amon were taken down
+from their pedestals and placed on rafts to be transported to Nineveh,
+and we shall perhaps unearth them some day from its ruins. This work of
+reprisal accomplished, the conquerors made their way northwards, and the
+bulk of the army recrossed the isthmus: Ethiopian rule had ceased north
+of the cataract, and Egypt settled down once more under the Assyrian
+yoke (663-662 B.C.).*
+
+     * The dates which I have adopted follow from the date of 666
+     B.C. given for the death of Taharqa and the accession of
+     Psammetichus I. The expedition against Thebes must have
+     taken place at the end of the third or beginning of the
+     fourth year of the reign of Tanuatamanu, shortly after the
+     inscription of the third year, and was engraved either in
+     663 or 662 B.C. at the latest.
+
+Impoverished and decayed as Thebes had now long since become, the
+nations whom she had afflicted so sorely in the days of her glory had
+retained for her feelings of respect and almost of awe: the rumour
+of her fall, spread through the Eastern world, filled them with
+astonishment and pity. The Hebrews saw in it the chastisement inflicted
+by their God on the tyrant who had oppressed their ancestors, and their
+prophets used it to impress upon the minds of their contemporaries the
+vanity of human prosperity. Half a century later, when Nineveh, menaced
+in her turn, was desperately arming herself to repel the barbarians,
+Nahum the Elkoshite demanded of her, amid his fierce denunciations,
+whether she vaunted herself to be better than “No-amon (city of Amon),
+that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about her;
+whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and
+Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite. Put and Lubim (Libya and
+the Nubians) came to her succour. Yet was she carried away, she went
+into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top
+of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all
+her great men were bound in chains.” Assur-bani-pal, lord of Egypt and
+conqueror of Ethiopia, might reasonably consider himself invincible;
+it would have been well for the princes who trembled at the name of
+Assur-bani-pal, if they had taken this lesson to heart, and had learned
+from the downfall of Tanuata-manu what fate awaited them in the event
+of their daring to arouse the wrath of Assyria by any kind of intrigue.
+Unfortunately, many of them either failed to see the warning or refused
+to profit by it. The Mannai had quickly recovered from the defeat
+inflicted on them by Esarhaddon, and their king, Akhsheri, in spite of
+his advancing years, believed that his own energy and resources were
+sufficient to warrant him in anticipating a speedy revenge. Perhaps
+a further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have
+induced him to venture on hostilities. For the king’s contemporaries had
+begun to realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation,
+he was by nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and
+luxury. When not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures
+of the harem, he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian
+plains, or in the extensive parks which had been laid out by himself or
+his predecessors in the vicinity of their summer palaces. Urus-stalking
+had become merely a memory of the past: these animals had been so
+persistently hunted for centuries that the species had almost become
+extinct; solitary specimens only were occasionally met with in remote
+parts of the forest or in out-of-the-way marshes. The wild ass was still
+to be found in large numbers, as well as the goat, the ostrich, and
+small game, but the lion was now rarely met with, and the beaters were
+no longer sure of finding him in his ancient haunts. Specimens had to be
+sought by the royal gamekeepers in the provinces, and when successfully
+trapped were forthwith despatched to one or other of the king’s country
+seats. The beast was often kept for several days in a cage while
+preparations were made for a fête, at which he was destined to form one
+of the chief attractions, and when the time came he was taken to the
+appointed place and let loose; the sovereign pursued him either in a
+chariot or on horseback, and did not desist from the chase till he had
+pierced his quarry with arrows or lance.
+
+[Illustration: 198.jpg A LION ISSUING FROM ITS CAGE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken from the
+     original in the British Museum.
+
+Frequently the beast would be turned loose in the park, and left there
+till accustomed to his surroundings, so that later on he might be
+run down under conditions somewhat resembling his native freedom.
+Assur-bani-pal did not shun a personal encounter with an infuriated
+lion; he displayed in this hazardous sport a bravery and skill which
+rivalled that of his ancestors, and he never relegated to another
+the task of leading the attack or dealing the final death-blow. This,
+however, was not the case when it was a question of starting on some
+warlike expedition; he would then leave to his Tartans, or to the
+Eabshakeh, or to some other chosen officer, the entire conduct of all
+operations.*
+
+     * We have seen, for example, that after the death of
+     Esarhaddon, the Egyptian campaign was conducted by one of
+     the Tartans and the Eabshakeh.
+
+This did not preclude the king from taking an interest in what was
+passing beyond the frontier, nor did he fail in his performance of the
+various religious duties which custom imposed on an Assyrian sovereign:
+he consulted the oracles of Shamash or Ishtar, he offered sacrifices, he
+fasted and humbled himself in the temples to obtain the success of his
+troops, and when they returned laden with spoil from the campaign, he
+attributed their victories no less to his prayers than to their courage
+or to the skill of their leaders. His generals, thoroughly equipped for
+their task, and well supported by their troops, had no need of the royal
+presence to ensure their triumph over any foe they might encounter;
+indeed, in the absence of the king they experienced a liberty of action
+and boldness in pressing their victories to the uttermost which they
+would not have enjoyed had he been in command. Foreigners, accustomed to
+see the sovereigns of Nineveh conduct their armies in person, as long
+as they were not incapacitated by age, thought that the indolence of
+Assur-bani-pal was the unconscious expression of weariness or of his
+feeble control of the empire, and Akhsheri determined to be one of the
+first to take advantage of it. Events proved that he was mistaken in his
+calculations. No sooner had his intentions become known, than a division
+of Assyrian troops appeared on his frontier, and prepared to attack him.
+Resolving to take the initiative, he fell one night unexpectedly upon
+the Assyrian camp, but fortune declared against him: he was driven back,
+and his broken ranks were closely pursued for a distance of twenty-three
+miles. Eight of his strongholds fell one after the other, and he was at
+length forced to abandon his capital of Izirtu, and flee precipitately
+to his fortress of Adrana in the heart of the mountains. Even there
+he did not find the security he desired, for the conqueror pursued him
+thither, methodically devastating by the way the districts through
+which he passed: he carried off everything--men, slaves, and herds of
+cattle--and he never retired from a city or village without previously
+setting it on fire. Paddir, Arsiyanîsh, and Eristiana were thus
+laid waste, after which the Assyrians returned to their camp, having
+re-established the authority of their master over several districts
+which had been lost to them for some generations previously. Akhsheri
+had shown no sign of yielding, but his people, weary of a hopeless
+resistance, put him to death, and hurling his corpse over the wall of
+Adrana, proclaimed his son Ualli as king. The new sovereign hastened to
+conclude a treaty with the Assyrians on reasonable terms: he gave up his
+eldest son, Erisinni, and one of his daughters as hostages, and promised
+to pay the former tribute augmented by an annual present of thirty
+horses; peace was not again disturbed on this side except by some
+unimportant skirmishes. In one of these, a Median chieftain, named
+Biriz-khadri, made an alliance with two princes of the people of the
+Sakhi, Sarâti, and Parikhia, sons of Gâgu,* to ravage the marches of
+the Greater Zab; but their territory was raided in return, and they
+themselves taken prisoners.
+
+     * The name of Biriz-khadri has an Iranian appearance. The
+     first element _Biriz_ recalls the Zend _bereza, berez_,
+     “tall, large;” the second, which appears in the names Bisi-
+     khadir and Khali-khadri, is of uncertain derivation, and has
+     been connected with _atar_, “fire,” or with _Ichwathra_,
+     “brilliance.” Gâgu, which is found as the name of a people
+     (Gagâti) in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, has been identified
+     from the first with the name of Gog, prince of Rosh,
+     Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix.) The name
+     of the country of Sakhi, which has not been met with
+     elsewhere, has been compared with that of the Sacaj, which
+     seems to have existed not only in the name of the province
+     of Sakascnô mentioned by the classical geographers, but in
+     that of Shake known to the old Armenian geographers; the
+     country itself, however, as it seems to me, cannot be sought
+     in the direction of Sakasenô, and consequently the proposed
+     identification cannot hold good.
+
+A little later, Andaria, prince of Lubdi, forgetful of his oath of
+allegiance to the aged Esarhad-don, made a night attack on the towns of
+Kullimir and Ubbumî: the inhabitants armed in haste, and he was not
+only defeated, but was taken captive, and his head cut off to be sent
+to Nineveh. The garrisons and military colonies along the north-east
+frontier were constantly required to be on the alert; but they usually
+had sufficient available resources to meet any emergency, and the
+enemies who molested them were rarely dangerous enough to necessitate
+the mobilisation of a regular army.
+
+This was not the case, however, in the south-west, where Tiummân,
+counting on the military strength of Elam, made continual hostile
+demonstrations. He was scarcely settled on his throne before he hastened
+to form alliances with those Aramæan states which had so often invoked
+the aid of his predecessors against the ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. The
+Kaldâ rejected his proposals, as did most of the tribes of the littoral;
+but the Gambulâ yielded to his solicitations, and their king, Dunânu,
+son of Bel-ikîsha, entered into an offensive and defensive alliance
+with Elam. Their defection left the eastern frontier of Karduniash
+unprotected, and, by opening to the Elamite the fords of the Tigris,
+permitted him to advance on Babylon unhindered by any serious obstacle.
+As soon as the compact was sealed, Tiummân massed his battalions on the
+middle course of the Uknu, and, before crossing the frontier, sent two
+of his generals, the Susian Khumba-darà and the Chaldean Nabu-damîq, as
+the bearers of an insolent ultimatum to the court of Nineveh: he offered
+the king the choice between immediate hostilities, or the extradition of
+the sons of Urtaku and Khumbân-khaldash, as well as of their partisans
+who had taken refuge in Assyria. To surrender the exiles would have been
+an open confession of inferiority, and such a humiliating acknowledgment
+of weakness promptly reported throughout the Eastern world might
+shortly have excited a general revolt: hence Assur-bani-pal disdainfully
+rejected the proposal of the Elamite sovereign, which had been made
+rather as a matter of form than with any hope of its acceptance, but the
+issue of a serious war with Susa was so uncertain that his refusal was
+accompanied with serious misgivings. It needed many favourable omens
+from the gods to encourage him to believe in his future success. The
+moon-god Sin was the first to utter his prediction: he suffered eclipse
+in the month of Tammuz, and for three successive days, at nightfall,
+showed himself in the sky surrounded by strange appearances which
+heralded the death of a king in Elam, and foretold calamity to that
+country. Then Assur and Ishtar struck Tiummân with violent convulsions;
+they caused his lips and eyes to be horribly distorted, but he despised
+their warning, and as soon as his seizure had passed, set out to assume
+command of his army. The news of his action reached Nineveh in the month
+of Ab, on the morning of the solemn festival of Ishtar. Assur-bani-pal
+was at Arbela, celebrating the rites in honour of the goddess, when the
+messenger appeared before him and repeated, together with the terms of
+the declaration of war, the scornful words which Tiummân had uttered
+against him and his patroness: “This prince whose wits have been crazed
+by Ishtar--I will let him escape no more, when once I have gone forth
+and measured my strength against him!” This blasphemy filled the
+Assyrian king with horror. That very evening he betook himself to the
+sanctuary, and there, prostrate before the image of the goddess,
+he poured forth prayers mingled with tears: “Lady of Arbela, I am
+Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, the creature of thy hands, the
+offspring of a father whom thou didst create! Behold now, this Tiummân,
+the King of Elam, who despises the gods of Assyria, hath sent forth his
+host and prepared himself for the conflict; he hath called for his arms
+to rush to attack Assyria. Do thou, O archer of the gods, like a bolt
+falling in the midst of the battle, overthrow him, and let loose upon
+him a tempest, and an evil wind!” Ishtar heard his prayer, and her voice
+sounded through the gloom: “Fear not,” said she, comforting him: “since
+thou hast raised thy hands to me in supplication, and thine eyes are
+bedewed with tears grant thee a boon!” Towards the end of that night,
+a seer slept in the temple and was visited by a dream. Ishtar of Arbela
+appeared to him, with a quiver on either side, a bow in one hand and a
+drawn sword in the other. She advanced towards the king, and spoke to
+him as if she had been his mother: “Make war boldly! whichever way thou
+turnest thy countenance, there will I go!” And the king replied to
+her, “Where thou goest, will I go with thee, sovereign lady!” But she
+answered, “Stay thou here. Dwell in this home of Nebo, eat thy food and
+drink thy wine, listen to joyful songs and honour my divinity, until I
+have gone and accomplished this work. Let not thy countenance grow pale,
+nor thy feet fail under thee, and expose not thyself to the danger of
+battle.” “And then, O king,” added the seer, “she hid thee in her bosom
+as a mother, and protected thy image. A flame shall spring forth before
+her, and shall spread abroad to destroy thine enemies: against Tiummân,
+King of Elam, who has angered her, has she set her face!” Like Mînephtah
+of old, in the days of the Libyan invasions of Egypt, Assur-bani-pal
+allowed himself to be readily convinced by the decision of the gods;
+he did not quit Arbela, but gave orders to his troops to proceed to the
+front. His generals opened the campaign in the month of Em, and directed
+the main body of their forces against the fortress of Durîlu, at the
+point on the frontier nearest to Susa. Tiummân was not expecting such
+a prompt and direct attack: he had reckoned doubtless on uniting his
+forces with those of Dunânu with a view to invading Karduniash, and
+suddenly realised that his adversary had forestalled him and was
+advancing on the heart of his empire. He slowly withdrew his advanced
+guard, and concentrated his forces round the town of Tullîz, a few
+leagues on this side of Susa, and there awaited the enemy’s attack.*
+
+     * The site of Tullîz is unknown. Billerbock considers, and
+     with reason, I think, that the battle took place to the
+     south of Susa, on the river Shavur, which would correspond
+     to the Ulaî, on the lowest spurs of the ridge of hills
+     bordering the alluvial plain of Susiana.
+
+His position was a strong one, flanked on the right by a wood and on the
+left by the Ulaî, while the flower of the Elamite nobility was ranged
+around him. The equipment of his soldiers was simpler than that of the
+enemy: consisting of a low helmet, devoid of any crest, but furnished
+with a large pendant tress of horsehair to shade the neck; a shield of
+moderate dimensions; a small bow, which, however, was quite as deadly a
+weapon as that of the Assyrians, when wielded by skilful hands; a lance,
+a mace, and a dagger. He had only a small body of cavalry, but the
+chariotry formed an important force, and presented several original
+features. The chariot did not follow the classic model, rounded in front
+and open at the back; it was a kind of light car, consisting of a square
+footboard placed flat on the axle of the wheels, and furnished with
+triangular side-pieces on two sides only, the vehicle being drawn by a
+pair of horses. Such chariots were easier to manage, better adapted for
+rapid motion, and must have been more convenient for a reconnaissance
+or for skirmishes with infantry; but when thrown in a mass against
+the heavy chariotry of the peoples of the Euphrates, they were far too
+slightly built to overthrow the latter, and at close quarters were of
+necessity crushed by the superior weight of the adversary.
+
+[Illustration: 206.jpg ITUNI BREAKS HIS BOW WITH A BLOW OF HIS SWORD,
+AND GIVES HIMSELF UP TO THE EXECUTIONER]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the original
+     in the British Museum.
+
+[Illustration: 206b.jpg THE BATTLE OF TULLIZ]
+
+Tiummân had not succeeded in collecting all his forces before the first
+columns of the Assyrian army advanced to engage his front line, but
+as he was expecting reinforcements, he endeavoured to gain time by
+despatching Ituni, one of his generals, with orders to negotiate a
+truce.
+
+The Assyrian commander, suspecting a ruse, would not listen to any
+proposals, but ordered the envoy to be decapitated on the spot: Ituni
+broke his bow with a blow of his sword, and stoically yielded his
+neck to the executioner. The issue of the battle was for a long time
+undecided, but the victory finally remained with the heavy regiments of
+Assyria. The left wing of the Susians, driven into the Ulaî, perished by
+drowning, and the river was choked with the corpses of men and horses,
+and the débris of arms and broken chariots. The right wing took to
+flight under cover of a wood, and the survivors tried to reach the
+mountains.
+
+[Illustration: 209.jpg URTAKU COUSIN OF TIUMMÂN, SURRENDERING TO AN
+ASSYRIAN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum.
+
+Urtaku, the cousin of Tiummân, was wounded by an arrow; perceiving
+an Assyrian soldier coming up to him, he told him who he was, and
+recommended him to carry his head to the general: “He will pay you
+handsomely for it,” he added. Tiummân had led in person several charges
+of his body-guard; and on being wounded, his son Tammaritu had succeeded
+in rescuing him from the thick of the fight: both seated together in a
+chariot, were in full flight, when one of the wheels caught against a
+tree and was shattered, the shock flinging the occupants to the ground.
+A large body of Assyrians were in close pursuit, led by one of the
+exiled Susian princes, a second Tam-maritu, son of Urtaku.
+
+[Illustration: 210.jpg THE LAST ARROW OF TIUMMÂN AND HIS SON]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+
+At the first discharge an arrow wounded Tiummân in the right side, and
+brought him to his knee. He felt that all was over, and desiring at
+all events to be revenged, he pointed out the deserter prince to his
+companion, crying indignantly, “Let fly at him.” The arrow missed its
+mark, and a flight of hostile darts stretched the young man on the
+ground: the traitor Tammaritu dealt the son his death-blow with his
+mace, while an Assyrian decapitated the father. The corpses were left on
+the field, but the head of the king, after being taken to the general
+in command, was carried through the camp on one of the chariots captured
+during the action, and was eventually sent to the palace of Arbela by
+the hand of a well-mounted courier.
+
+[Illustration: 211.jpg DEATH OF TIUMMÂN AND HIS SON]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+
+The day concluded with the making of an inventory of the spoil, and by
+an enumeration of the heads of the slain: prisoners from the rank
+and file were beaten to death according to custom, and several of the
+principal officers had their tongues torn out or were flayed alive.
+The news of the disaster was brought to Susa towards evening by the
+fugitives, and produced a revolution in the city. The partisans of the
+exiled princes, seizing the adherents of Tiummân, put them in chains,
+and delivered them up to the conqueror. The shattered remnants of the
+army rallied round them, and a throng of men and women in festal garb
+issued forth along the banks of the Ulai to meet the Assyrians. The
+priests and sacred singers marched to the sound of music, marking the
+rhythm with their feet, and filling the air with the noise of their
+harps and double flutes, while behind them came a choir of children,
+chanting a hymn under the direction of the consecrated eunuchs.
+The Tartan met them, and, acting in accordance with the orders of
+Assur-bani-pal, presented to the multitude Khumbân-igash, the eldest son
+of Urtaku, as their king. The people joyfully hailed the new sovereign,
+and the Assyrians, after exacting tribute from him and conferring the
+fief of Khaîdalu on his brother Tammaritu, withdrew, leaving to the new
+princes the task of establishing their authority outside the walls of
+Susa and Madaktu. As they returned, they attacked the Gambulâ, speedily
+reducing them to submission. Dunânu, besieged in his stronghold of
+Shapîbel, surrendered at discretion, and was carried away captive with
+all his family.
+
+[Illustration: 212.jpg Khumbân-igash Proclaimed King]
+
+Thus Assur-bani-pal had scrupulously obeyed the orders of Ishtar. While
+his generals were winning his victories he had been eating and drinking,
+hunting, dallying with his wives, and living in the open air. He was
+taking his pleasure with the queen in the palace garden when the head of
+Tiummân was brought to him: he caused it to be suspended from the
+branch of a pine tree in full view of the whole court, and continued his
+banquet to the sound of harps and singing. Rusas III., King of Urartu,
+died about this time, and his successor, Sharduris III., thought it
+incumbent on him to announce his accession at Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal
+received the embassy at Arbela, with the graciousness befitting a
+suzerain whom a faithful vassal honours by his dutiful homage, and in
+order to impress the Urartians still further with an idea of his power,
+he showed them the two Elamite delegates, Khumba-darâ and Nabu-damîq, in
+chains at his feet.*
+
+     * Belck and Lehmann have very ingeniously connected the
+     embassy, mentioned in the Assyrian documents, with the fact
+     of the accession of the king who sent it.
+
+[Illustration: 215.jpg THE HEAD OF THUMMAN SENT TO NINEVEH]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum. The chariot speeding along at a gallop in the
+     topmost series of pictures carries a soldier bearing the
+     head of Tiumraân in his hand; behind him, under a tent,
+     scribes are registering the heads which are brought in. In
+     the two lower bas-reliefs are displayed the closing scenes
+     of the battle.
+
+These wretched men had a more cruel ordeal yet in store for them: when
+the Assyrian army re-entered Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal placed them on the
+route along which the cortège had to pass, and made them realise to the
+full the humiliation of their country. Dunânu walked at the head of the
+band of captive chiefs, with the head of Tiummân, taken from its tree,
+suspended round his neck. When the delegates perceived it, they gave way
+to despair:
+
+Khumba-darâ tore out his beard by handfuls, and Nabu-damîq, unsheathing
+the dagger which hung from his belt, plunged it into his own breast.
+
+[Illustration: 216.jpg ASSUR-BANI-PAL BANQUETING WITH HIS QUEEN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum The head of Tiummân hangs on the second tree
+     on the left-hand side.
+
+The triumphal entry was followed by the usual tortures. The head of
+Tiummân was fixed over the gate of Nineveh, to rot before the eyes of
+the multitude. Dunânu was slowly flayed alive, and then bled like a
+lamb; his brother Shamgunu had his throat cut, and his body was divided
+into pieces, which were distributed over the country as a warning. Even
+the dead were not spared: the bones of Nabu-shumirîsh were disinterred
+and transported to Assyria, where his sons were forced to bray them in a
+mortar.* We may estimate the extent of the alarm which had been felt at
+Nineveh by the outburst of brutal joy with which the victory was hailed.
+
+     * The fullest text of all those which narrate the campaign
+     against Tiummân and Dunânu is that on _Cylinder B of the
+     British Museum_. It pretends, as usual, that the king led
+     the army in person, but the words which the seer places in
+     the mouth of Ishtar prove that the king remained at Arbela
+     by divine command, and the inscription on one of the bas-
+     reliefs, as well as _Tablet K 2674_, mentions, without
+     giving his name, the general who was sent against Susa.
+
+[Illustration: 217.jpg TWO ELAMITE CHIEFS FLAYED ALIVE AFTER THE BATTLE
+OF TULLÎZ]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+
+The experience of the past showed what a terrible enemy Assyria had
+in Elam, and how slight was the chance of a successful issue in a war
+against her. Her kings had often invaded Chaldæa, and had more than once
+brought it directly under their sway; they had ravaged its cities and
+pillaged its temples, and the sanctuary of Susa were filled with statues
+of the gods or with bas-reliefs which they had dedicated after their
+campaigns on the Euphrates. Although they had not been successful
+against Assyria to the same extent, they had at least always
+victoriously repelled her attacks: they had held their own against
+Sargon, given much trouble to Sennacherib, and defied the power of
+Esarhaddon with impunity. Never till now had an Assyrian army gained
+such an important victory over Elam, and though it was by no means
+decisive, we can easily believe that Assur-bani-pal was filled with
+pride and delight, since it was the first time that a king of Nineveh
+had imposed on Elam a sovereign of his own choice.
+
+Since homage was voluntarily rendered him by the rulers of foreign
+nations, Assur-bani-pal doubtless believed that he might exact it
+without hesitation from the vassal princes dependent on the empire; and
+not from the weaker only like those who were still to be found in Syria,
+but also from the more powerful, not excepting the lord of Karduniash.
+Shamash-shumukîn had fully risen to his position as King of Babylon, and
+the unbroken peace which he had enjoyed since the death of Urtaku had
+enabled him almost to complete the restoration of the kingdom begun
+under Esarhaddon. He had finished the rebuilding of the walls of
+Babylon, and had fortified the approaches to the city, thus rendering
+it capable of withstanding a long siege; he had repaired the temple of
+Sippara, which had never recovered from the Elamite invasion; and while
+unstintingly lavishing his treasures in honour of the gods and for the
+safety of his capital, he watched with jealous care over the interests
+of his subjects. He obtained for them the privilege of being treated
+on the same footing as the Assyrians throughout his father’s ancestral
+domains; they consequently enjoyed the right of trading without
+restriction throughout the empire, and met with the same degree of
+protection from the officials of Nineveh as from the magistrates of
+their own country. Assur-bani-pal had at the outset furthered the wishes
+of his brother to the utmost of his power: he had granted the privileges
+demanded, and whenever a Chaldæan of noble birth arrived at his court,
+he received him with special marks of favour. The two states enjoyed
+a nearly absolute equality during the opening years of his reign, and
+though the will of Esarhaddon had made Babylon dependent on Assyria, the
+yoke of vassalage was far from heavy. The suzerain reserved to himself
+the honour of dedicating the mighty works begun by his father, the
+restoration of the temple of Bel-Marduk and of the double wall of
+fortification; he claimed, in his inscriptions, the whole merit of the
+work, but he none the less respected his brother’s rights, and in no
+way interfered in the affairs of the city except in state ceremonies
+in which the assertion of his superior rank was indispensable. But with
+success his moderation gradually gave place to arrogance. In proportion
+as his military renown increased, he accentuated his supremacy, and
+accustomed himself to treat Babylon more and more as a vassal state.
+After the conquest of Elam his infatuated pride knew no bounds, and the
+little consideration he still retained for Shamash-shumukîn vanished
+completely. He thenceforward refused to regard him as being more than
+a prefect bearing a somewhat higher title than his fellows, a viceroy
+owing his crown, not to the will of their common father, but to the
+friendship of his brother, and liable to be deprived of it at any moment
+through the caprice of the sovereign. He affected to consider all that
+took place at Babylon as his own doing, and his brother as being merely
+his docile instrument, not deserving mention any more than the ordinary
+agents who carried out his designs; and if, indeed, he condescended to
+mention him, it was with an assumption of disdainful superiority. It is
+a question whether Shamash-Shumukîn at this juncture believed that his
+brother was meditating a design to snatch the reins of government from
+his hand, or whether he merely yielded to the impulse of wounded vanity
+in resolving to shake off a yoke which had become intolerable. Knowing
+that his power was not equal to that of Assur-bani-pal, he sought to
+enter into relations with foreign allies who shared the same fears, or
+nursed a similar feeling of bitterness. The nobles and priests of the
+ancient Sumerian and Accadian cities were already on his side, but the
+Aramaeans had shown themselves hostile at his accession, and had brought
+down on him the forces of Elam. He found means, however, to conciliate
+them, together with the tribes which dwelt on the Tigris and the Uknu,
+as well as those of the lower Euphrates and the Arabian desert. He won
+over to his projects Nabu-bêlzikri, the chief of the Kaldâ--grandson of
+that Merodach-baladan who had cherished invincible hatred against Sargon
+and Sennacherib--besides the lords of the Bit-Dakkuri and Bît-Amukkâni,
+and the sheikh of the Pukudu. Khumbân-igash ought to have remained
+loyal to the friend to whom he owed his kingdom, but he chafed at the
+patronage of Assyria, and Assur-bani-pal had just formulated a demand to
+which he, not unreasonably, hesitated to accede. The archaic statue of
+Nana, stolen from Uruk by Kutur-nakhunta sixteen centuries before,
+and placed by that prince in one of the temples of Susa, had become so
+naturalised in its new abode that the kings of Elam, not content with
+rendering it an official cult, were wont to send presents to Babylonia,
+to the image which had replaced it in its original sanctuary.
+Assur-bani-pal now required Khumbân-igash to give back the original
+statue, but the Elamite could not obey this mandate without imperilling
+both his throne and his person: he would thereby have risked incurring
+the displeasure both of the nobles, whose pride would have suffered at
+the loss of so precious a trophy, and of the common people, who would
+have thus been deprived of one of their most venerable objects of
+devotion. The messengers of Shamash-shumukîn, arriving at the moment
+when this question was agitating the court of Susa, found the way
+already prepared for a mutual understanding. Besides, they held in their
+hands an irresistible argument, the treasures of Bel-Marduk of Babylon,
+of Nebo of Borsippa, and of Nergal of Kuta, which had been confided to
+them by the priests with a view to purchasing, if necessary, the support
+of Elam. Khumbân-igash thereupon promised to send a detachment of troops
+to Karduniash, and to invade the provinces of Assyria the moment war
+should be declared. The tribes of Guti were easily won over, and were
+followed by the kings of Phoenicia and the Bedâwin of Melukhkha, and
+perhaps Egypt itself was implicated in the plot. The Prince of Kedar,
+Amuladdin, undertook to effect a diversion on the frontiers of Syria,
+and Uatê, son of Layali, one of the Arab kings who had paid homage to
+Esarhaddon, was not behindhand in furnishing his contingent of horsemen
+and wild native infantry. The coalition already extended from the
+shores of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf before
+Assur-bani-pal became aware of its existence. An unforeseen occurrence
+suddenly broke in upon his peace and revealed the extent of the peril
+which threatened him.*
+
+     * The chronology of this war has been determined by G. Smith
+     from the dates attached to the documents in the British
+     Museum, which give the names of three _limmi_, Assur-
+     durnzur, Zagabbu, and Bel-kharrân-shadua: these he assigned
+     respectively to the years 650, 649, and 648 B.C. Tiele has
+     shown that these three _limmi_ must be assigned to the years
+     652-650 B.C. Though these dates seem in the highest degree
+     probable, we must wait before we can consider them as
+     absolutely certain till chance restores to us the missing
+     parts of the Canon.
+
+Kudur, the Assyrian prefect of Uruk, learnt from Sin-tabnî-uzur,
+the governor of Uru, that certain emissaries of Shamash-shumukîn had
+surreptitiously entered that city and were secretly fomenting rebellion
+among the people. Sin-tabnî-uzur himself had been solicited to join the
+movement, but had absolutely refused to do so, and considering himself
+powerless to repress the disaffection with the few soldiers at his
+disposal, he had demanded reinforcements. Kudur first furnished him
+with five hundred men of his own troops, and subsequently sent some
+battalions which were under the command of the governors of Arrapkha
+and Amidi, but which were, for some unknown reason, encamped in the
+neighbourhood. It would appear that Shamash-shumukîn, finding his
+projects interfered with by this premature exposure, tried to counteract
+its effects by protestations of friendship: a special embassy was
+despatched to his brother to renew the assurances of his devotion, and
+he thus gained the time necessary to complete his armaments. As soon as
+he felt himself fully prepared, he gave up further dissimulation, and,
+throwing away the mask, proclaimed himself independent of Assyria, while
+at the same moment Khumbân-igash despatched his army to the frontier and
+declared war on his former protector. Assur-bani-pal was touched to the
+quick by what he truly considered the ingratitude of the Babylonians.
+“As for the children of Babylon, I had set them upon seats of honour,
+I had clothed them in robes of many colours, I had placed rings of gold
+upon their fingers; the children of Babylon had been established in
+Assyria, and were admitted into my presence. But Shamash-shumukîn, the
+false brother, he has not observed my ordinances, but has raised against
+me the peoples of Akkad, the Kaldâ, the Aramaeans, the peoples of the
+country of the sea, from Akabah to Bab-salimêti!” Nineveh was at first
+in a state of trepidation at this unexpected blow; the sacred oracles
+gave obscure replies, and presaged evil four times out of five. At last,
+one day, a seer slept and dreamed a dream, in which he saw this
+sentence written on the ground in the temple of Sin: “All those who are
+meditating evil against Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, and who
+are preparing themselves to fight with him, I will inflict on them
+a terrible death: by the swift sword, by flinging them into fire, by
+famine and by pestilence, will I destroy their lives!” The courage
+of the people being revived by this prophecy, Assur-bani-pal issued a
+proclamation to the Babylonians, in which he denounced his brother’s
+treason, and commanded them to remain quiet as they valued their lives,
+and, having done this, he boldly assumed the offensive (652 B.C.).*
+
+     * The proclamation is dated in the eponymous year of Assur-
+     duruzur, corresponding to 652 B.C.; the events which
+     immediately preceded the proclamation ought, very probably,
+     to be assigned to the same year.
+
+The only real danger came from the side of Elam; this state alone was
+in a condition to oppose him with as numerous and determined an army as
+that which he himself could put into the field; if Blam were disabled,
+it would be impossible for Babylon to be victorious, and its fall would
+be a mere question of time. The opening of the campaign was a difficult
+matter. Khumbân-igash, having sold his support dearly, had at all events
+spared no pains to satisfy his employer, and had furnished him with the
+flower of his nobility, comprising Undashi, one of the sons of Tiumman;
+Zazaz, prefect of Billatê; Parru, chief of Khilmu; Attamîtu, commanding
+the archers; and Nesu, commander-in-chief of his forces. In order to
+induce Undashi to serve under him, he had not hesitated to recall to his
+memory the sad fate of Tiumman: “Go, and avenge upon Assyria the murder
+of the father who begat thee!” The two opposing forces continued to
+watch one another’s movements without any serious engagement taking
+place during the greater part of the year 651 B.C.; though the Assyrians
+won some slight advantages, killing Attamîtu in a skirmish and sending
+his head to Nineveh, some serious reverses soon counterbalanced these
+preliminary successes. Nabo-bel-shumi had arrived on the scene with his
+Aramæan forces, and had compelled the troops engaged in the defence
+of Uruk and Uru to lay down their arms: their leaders, including
+Sin-tabni-uzur himself, had been forced to renounce the supremacy of
+Assyria, and had been enrolled in the rebel ranks.*
+
+     * The official accounts say nothing of the intervention of
+     Nabo-bel-shumi at this juncture, but the information
+     furnished by _Tablet K 159_ in the British Museum makes up
+     for their silence. The objection raised by Tielo to the
+     interpretation given by G. Smith that this passage cannot
+     refer to Assyrian deserters, falls to the ground if one
+     admits that the Assyrian troops led into Elam at a
+     subsequent period by Nabo-bel-shumi, were none other than
+     the garrisons of the Lower Euphrates which were obliged to
+     side with the insurgents in 651 B.C. The two despatches, _K
+     4696_ and _K 28_ in the British Museum, which refer to the
+     defection of Sin-tabni-uzur, are dated the 8th and 11th Abu
+     in the eponymous year of Zagabbu, corresponding to the year
+     651 B.C., as indicated by Tiele with very good reason.
+
+Operations seemed likely to be indefinitely prolonged, and
+Assur-bani-pal, anxious as to the issue, importunately besought the
+gods to intervene on his behalf, when discords breaking out in the royal
+family of Elam caused the scales of fortune once more to turn in his
+favour. The energy with which Khumbân-igash had entered on the present
+struggle had not succeeded in effacing the disagreeable impression left
+on the minds of the majority of his subjects, by the fact that he had
+returned to his country in the chariots of the stranger and had been
+enthroned by the decree of an Assyrian general. Tammaritu, of Khaîdalu,
+who had then fought at his side in the ranks of the invaders, was
+now one of those who reproached him most bitterly for his conduct. He
+frankly confessed that his hand had cut off the head of Tiummân, but
+denied that he did so in obedience to the hereditary enemies of
+his country; he had but avenged his personal injuries, whereas
+Khumbân-igash, following the promptings of ambition, had kissed the
+ground at the feet of a slave of Assur-bani-pal and had received the
+crown as a recompense for his baseness. Putting his rival to death,
+Tammaritu seized the throne, and in order to prove that he was neither
+consciously nor unconsciously an instrument of Ninevite policy, he at
+once sent reinforcements to the help of Babylon without exacting
+in return any fresh subsidy. The Assyrians, taking advantage of the
+isolated position of Shamash-shumukîn, had pressed forward one of their
+divisions as far as the districts on the sea coast, which they had
+recovered from the power of Nabo-bel-shumi, and had placed under the
+administration of Belibni, a person of high rank. The arrival of the
+Elamite force was on the point of further compromising the situation,
+and rekindling the flames of war more fiercely than ever, when a
+second revolution broke out, which shattered for ever the hopes of
+Shamash-shumukîn. Assur-bani-pal naturally looked upon this event as the
+result of his supplications and sacrifices; Assur and Ishtar, in answer
+to his entreaties, raised up Indabigash, one of the most powerful feudal
+lords of the kingdom of Susa, and incited him to revolt. Tarnmaritu fled
+to the marshes which bordered the Nâr-marratum, and seizing a vessel,
+put out to sea with his brothers, his cousins, seventeen princes of
+royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers: the ship, driven by
+the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the dethroned monarch,
+demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the confusion had
+not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried him safely to
+land across the mud. Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh with all his
+suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble himself before
+him, raised him from the ground, embraced him, and assigned to him
+apartments in the palace and a train of attendants befitting the dignity
+which he had enjoyed for a short time at Susa. Indabigash was too fully
+occupied with his own affairs to interfere again in the quarrel between
+the two brothers: his country, disorganised by the successive shocks
+it had sustained, had need of repose, for some years at least, before
+re-entering the lists, except at a disadvantage. He concluded no direct
+treaty with the Assyrian king, but he at once withdrew the troops which
+had entered Karduniash, and abstained from all hostile demonstrations
+against the garrisons of the border provinces: for the moment, indeed,
+this was all that was required of him (650 B.C.).
+
+Deprived of the support of Elam, Babylon was doomed to fall. The
+Aramaeans deserted her cause, and Nabu-bel-shumi, grandson of
+Merodach-baladan, despairing of ever recovering the heritage of his
+family, withdrew to his haunts among the reed beds of the Uknu, taking
+back with him as hostages the Assyrians whom he had forced to join his
+army at the beginning of the campaign. Shamash-shumukîn, however, was
+not disconcerted: he probably hoped that his distant allies might
+yet effect a diversion in his favour, and thus oblige his brother to
+withdraw half of the forces employed against him. Indeed, after the
+blockade had already begun, a band of Arabs under the two sheikhs
+Abiyatê and Aamu forced a way through the besieging lines and entered
+the city. This was the last succour which reached Babylon from without:
+for many long months all communication between her citizens and the
+outer world was completely cut off. The Assyrians laid waste the
+surrounding country with ruthless and systematic cruelty, burning the
+villages, razing to the ground isolated houses, destroying the trees,
+breaking down the dykes, and filling up the canals. The year 649 B.C.
+was spent in useless skirmishes; the city offered an energetic and
+obstinate resistance, and as the walls were thick and the garrison
+determined, it would not have succumbed had not the supply of provisions
+finally failed. Famine raged in the city, and the inhabitants devoured
+even their own children, while pestilence spreading among them mowed
+them down by thousands.
+
+[Illustration: 228.jpg THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE REIGN OF ASSUR-BANI-PAL]
+
+The Arab auxiliaries at this juncture deserted the cause of the
+defenders, and their sheikhs surrendered to Assur-bani-pal, who received
+and pardoned them; but the Babylonians themselves, knowing that they
+could expect no mercy, held out some time longer: at length, their
+courage and their strength exhausted, they rose against their chiefs,
+whose ambition or patriotic pride had brought them to such a pass, and
+determined to capitulate on any terms. Shamash-shumukm, not wishing to
+fall alive into the hands of his brother, shut himself up in his
+palace, and there immolated himself on a funeral pyre with his wives
+his children, his slaves, and his treasures at the moment when his
+conquerors were breaking down the gates and penetrating into the palace
+precincts.*
+
+     * G. Smith thought that the Babylonians, rendered furious by
+     their sufferings, had seized Shamash-shumukîn and burnt him
+     to death. It is, however, certain that Shamash-shumukîn
+     killed himself, according to the Eastern custom, to escape
+     the tortures which awaited him if he fell alive into the
+     hands of his enemies. The memory of this event, transferred
+     by the popular imagination to Assur-bani-pal, appears lu the
+     concluding portion of the legendary history of Sardanapalus.
+
+The city presented a terrible spectacle, and shocked even the Assyrians,
+accustomed as they were to horrors of this sort. Most of the numerous
+victims to pestilence or famine lay about the streets or in the public
+squares, a prey to the dogs and swine; such of the inhabitants and of
+the soldiery as were comparatively strong had endeavoured to escape into
+the country, and only those remained who had not sufficient strength
+left to drag themselves beyond the walls. Assur-bani-pal pursued the
+fugitives, and, having captured nearly all of them, vented on them the
+full fury of his vengeance. He caused, the tongues of the soldiers to
+be torn out, and then had them clubbed to death. He massacred the common
+folk in front of the great winged bulls which had already witnessed
+a similar butchery half a century before, under his grandfather
+Sennacherib; the corpses of his victims remained long unburied, a prey
+to all unclean beasts and birds. When the executioners and the king
+himself were weary of the slaughter, the survivors were pardoned; the
+remains of the victims were collected and piled up in specified
+places, the streets were cleansed, and the temples, purified by solemn
+lustrations, were reopened for worship.* Assur-hani-pal proclaimed
+himself king in his brother’s room: he took the hands of Bel, and,
+according to custom, his Babylonian subjects gave him a new name, that
+of Kandalanu, by which he was henceforth known among them.**
+
+     * The date of 648-647 B.C. for the taking of Babylon and the
+     death of Shamash-shumukîn is corroborated by the Canon of
+     Ptolemy and the fragments of Berosus, both of which
+     attribute twenty or twenty-one years to the reign of
+     Saosdukhm (Sammughes). Lehmann points out a document dated
+     in the XXth year of Shamash-shumukîn, which confirms the
+     exactitude of the information furnished by the Greek
+     chronologists.
+
+     ** The Canon of Ptolemy gives as the successor of Saosdukhm
+     a certain Kinêladan, who corresponds to Kandalanu, whose
+     date has been fixed by contemporary documents. The identity
+     of Kinêladan with Assur-bani-pal was known from the Greek
+     chronologists, for whereas Ptolemy puts Kinêladan after
+     Saosdukhm, the fragments of Berosus state that the successor
+     of Sammughes was his _brother_; that is to say, Sardanapalus
+     or Assur-bani-pal. This identification had been proposed by
+     G. Smith, who tried to find the origin of the form Kinêladan
+     in the name of Sinidinabal, which seems to be borne by
+     Assur-bani-pal in _Tablet K 195 of the British Museum_, and
+     which is really the name of his elder brother; it found
+     numerous supporters as soon as Pinches had discovered the
+     tablets dated in the reign of Kandalanu, and the majority of
+     Assyriologists and historians hold that Kandalanu and Assur-
+     bani-pal are one and the same person.
+
+Had he been wise, he would have completed the work begun by famine,
+pestilence, and the sword, and, far from creating, a new Babylon, he
+would have completed the destruction of the ancient city. The same
+religious veneration which had disarmed so many of his predecessors
+probably withheld him from giving free rein to his resentment, and
+not daring to follow the example of Sennacherib, he fell back on the
+expedient adopted by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon, adhering to their
+idea of two capitals for two distinct states, but endeavouring to unite
+in his own person the two irreconcilable sovereignties of Marduk
+and Assur. He delegated the administration of Babylonian affairs to
+Shamash-danâni, one of his high officers of State,* and re-entered
+Nineveh with an amount of spoil almost equalling that taken from Egypt
+after the sack of Thebes.
+
+     * Tin’s Shamash-danâni, who was _limmu_ in 644 B.C., was
+     called at that date prefect of Akkad, that is to say, of
+     Babylon. He probably entered on this office immediately
+     after the taking of the city.
+
+Kuta, Sippara, and Borsippa, the vassal states of Babylon, which had
+shared the misfortune of their mistress, were, like her, cleared of
+their ruins, rebuilt and repeopled, and were placed under the authority
+of Shamash-danâni: such was their inherent vitality that in the short
+space of ten or a dozen years they had repaired their losses and
+reattained their wonted prosperity. Soon no effect of their disaster
+remained except an additional incentive for hating Nineveh, and a
+determination more relentless than ever not to spare her when the day of
+her overthrow should come and they should have her in their power.
+
+It was impossible for so violent and so prolonged a crisis to take place
+without in some degree injuring the prestige of the empire. Subjects
+and allies of long standing remained loyal, but those only recently
+subjugated by conquest, as well as the neighbouring independent
+kingdoms, without hesitation threw off the yoke of suzerainty or of
+obligatory friendship under which they had chafed. Egypt freed herself
+from foreign domination as soon as the possibilities of war with Elam
+had shown themselves, and it was Psammetichus of Sais, son of Necho, one
+of the princes most favoured by the court of Nineveh, who set on foot
+this campaign against his former patron. He expelled the Assyrian
+garrisons, reduced the petty native princes to submission, and once
+more set up the kingdom of the Pharaohs from Elephantine to the Syrian
+desert, without Assur-bani-pal having been able to spare a single
+soldier to prevent him, or to bring him back to a sense of his duty. The
+details of his proceedings are unknown to us: we learn only that he owed
+his success to mercenaries imported from Asia Minor, and the Assyrian
+chroniclers, unaccustomed to discriminate between the different peoples
+dwelling on the shores of the Ægean, believed that these auxiliaries
+were supplied to the Pharaoh by the only sovereign with whom they had
+had any dealings, namely, Gyges, King of Lydia. That Gyges had had
+negotiations with Psammetichus and procured assistance for him has not
+yet been proved, but to assert that he was incapable of conceiving and
+executing such a design is quite a different matter. On the contrary,
+all the information we possess concerning his reign shows that he was
+daring in his political undertakings, and anxious to court
+alliances with the most distant countries. The man who tried to draw
+Assur-bani-pal into a joint enterprise against the Cimmerians would not
+have hesitated to ally himself with Psammetichus if he hoped to gain
+the least profit from so doing. Constant intercourse by sea took place
+between Ionia or Caria and Egypt, and no event of any importance
+could occur in the Delta without being promptly reported in Ephesus or
+Miletus. Before this time the Heraclid rulers of Sardes had lived on
+excellent terms with most of the Æolian or Ionian colonies: during the
+anxious years which followed his accession Gyges went still further, and
+entered into direct relations with the nations of Greece itself. It was
+no longer to the gods of Asia, to Zeus of Telmissos, that he addressed
+himself in order to legitimatise his new sovereignty, but, like Midas
+of Phrygia, he applied to the prophetic god of Hellas, to the Delphian
+Apollo and his priests.
+
+[Illustration: 235.jpg PSAMMETICHUS I.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+
+He recompensed them lavishly for pronouncing judgment in his favour:
+beside the silver offerings with which he endowed the temple at Delphi,
+he presented to it a number of golden vases, and, among others, six
+craters weighing thirty talents each, which, placed by the side of the
+throne of Midas, were still objects of admiration in the treasury of the
+Corinthians in the time of Herodotus. To these he added at various times
+such valuable gifts that the Pythian priestess, who had hitherto been
+poor, was in later times accounted to have owed to him her wealth.
+Having made sure of the good will of the immortals, Gyges endeavoured to
+extend his influence among the Greek colonies along the coast, and if he
+did not in every case gain a footing amongst them, his failure seems to
+have been due, not to his incapacity, but to the force of circumstances
+or to the ambiguous position which he happened to occupy with regard to
+these colonies. Ambition naturally incited him to annex them and make
+them into Lydian cities, but the bold disposition of their inhabitants
+and their impatience of constraint never allowed any foreign rule to
+be established over them: conquest, to be permanent, would have to be
+preceded by a long period of alliance on equal terms, and of discreet
+patronage which might insensibly accustom them to recognise in their
+former friend, first a protector, and then a suzerain imbued with
+respect for their laws and constitution. Gyges endeavoured to conciliate
+them severally, and to attach them to himself by treaties favourable
+to their interests or flattering to their vanity, and by timely and
+generous assistance in their internecine quarrels; and thus, secretly
+fostering their mutual jealousies, he was able to reduce some by force
+of arms without causing too much offence to the rest. He took Colophon,
+and also, after several fruitless campaigns, the Magnesia which lay
+near Sardes, Magnesia of Sipylos, tradition subsequently adorning
+this fortunate episode in his history with various amusing anecdotes.
+According to one account he had a favourite in a youth of marvellous
+beauty called Magnes, whom the Magnesians, as an act of defiance to
+Gryges, had mutilated till he was past recognition; and it was related
+that the king appealed to the fortune of war to avenge the affront. By
+a bold stroke he seized the lower quarters of Smyrna, but was unable to
+take the citadel,* and while engaged in the struggle with this city, he
+entered into a friendly understanding with Ephesus and Miletus.
+
+     * Herodotus mentions this war without entering into any
+     details. We know from Pausanias that the people of Smyrna
+     defended themselves bravely, and that the poet Mimnermus
+     composed an elegy on this episode in their history.
+
+Ephesus, situated at the mouth of the river Oayster, was the natural
+port of Sardes, the market in which the gold of Lydia, and the
+commodities imported from the East by the caravans which traversed the
+royal route, might be exchanged for the products of Hellas and of the
+countries of the West visited by the Greek mariners. The city was at
+this time under the control of a family of rich shipowners, of whom the
+head was called Melas: Gryges gave him his daughter in marriage, and
+by this union gained free access to the seaboard for himself and his
+successors. The reason for his not pushing his advantages further in
+this direction is not hard to discover; since the fall of the kingdom
+of Phrygia had left his eastern frontier unprotected, the attacks of the
+Cimmerians had obliged him to concentrate his forces in the interior,
+and though he had always successfully repulsed them, the obstinacy with
+which these inroads were renewed year after year prevented him from
+further occupying himself with the Greek cities. He had carefully
+fortified his vast domains in the basin of the Ehyndakos, he had
+reconquered the Troad, and though he had been unable to expel the
+barbarians from Adramyttium, he prevented them from having any inland
+communications. Miletus rendered vigorous assistance in this work of
+consolidating his power, for she was interested in maintaining a buffer
+state between herself and the marauders who had already robbed her
+of Sinope; and it was for this reason that Gyges, after mercilessly
+harassing her at the beginning of his reign, now preferred to enter into
+an alliance with her. He had given the Milesians permission to establish
+colonies along the Hellespont and the Propontid at the principal
+points where communication took place between Europe and Asia; Abydos,
+Lampsacus, Parium, and Cyzicus, founded successively by Milesian
+admirals, prevented the tribes which remained in Thrace from crossing
+over to reinforce their kinsfolk who were devastating Phrygia.
+
+Gryges had hoped that his act of deference would have obtained for him
+the active support of Assur-bani-pal, and during the following years he
+perseveringly continued at intervals to send envoys to Nineveh: on one
+occasion he despatched with the embassy two Cimmerian chiefs taken in
+battle, and whom he offered in token of homage to the gods of Assyria.
+Experience, however, soon convinced him that his expectations were vain;
+the Assyrians, far from creating a diversion in his favour, were
+careful to avoid every undertaking which might draw the attention of
+the barbarians on themselves. As soon as Gyges fully understood their
+policy, he broke off all connection with them, and thenceforth relied on
+himself alone for the protection of his interests. The disappointment he
+thus experienced probably stirred up his anger against Assyria, and
+if he actually came to the aid of Psammetichus, the desire of giving
+expression to a secret feeling of rancour no doubt contributed to his
+decision. Assur-bani-pal deeply resented this conduct, but Lydia was too
+far off for him to wreak his vengeance on it in a direct manner, and he
+could only beseech the gods to revenge what he was pleased to consider
+as base ingratitude: he therefore prayed Assur and Ishtar that “his
+corpse might lie outstretched before his enemies, and his bones be
+scattered far and wide.” A certain Tugdami was at that time reigning
+over the Cimmerians, and seems to have given to their hitherto
+undisciplined hordes some degree of cohesion and guidance.*; He gathered
+under his standard not only the Trêres, the Thracian kinsfolk of the
+Cimmerians, but some of the Asianic tribes, such as the Lycians,** who
+were beginning to feel uneasy at the growing prosperity of Gyges, and
+let them loose upon their Lydian quarry.
+
+     * The name Tugdami, mentioned in the hymn published by
+     Strong, has been identified by Sayce with the Cimmerian
+     chief mentioned by Strabo under the name of Lygdamis. The
+     opinion of Sayce has been adopted by other Assyriologists.
+     The inscription makes Tugdami a king of the Manda, and thus
+     overthrows the hypothesis that Lygdamis or Dygdamis was a
+     Lycian chief who managed to discipline the barbarian hordes.
+
+     ** The alliance of the Lycians with the Cimmerians and
+     Trêres is known from the evidence of Callisthenes preserved
+     for us by Strabo. It is probable that many of the marauding
+     tribes of the Taurus--Isaurians, Lycaonians, and
+     Painphylians--similarly joined the Cimmerians.
+
+Their heavy cavalry, with metal helmets and long steel swords, overran
+the peninsula from end to end, treading down everything under their
+horses’ hoofs. Gyges did his best to stand up against the storm, but
+his lancers quailed beneath the shock and fled in confusion: he himself
+perished in the flight, and his corpse remained in the enemy’s hands
+(652 B.C.). The whole of Lydia was mercilessly ravaged, and the lower
+town of Sardes was taken by storm.*
+
+     * Strabo states definitely that it was Lygdamis who took the
+     city. The account given by the same author of a double
+     destruction of Sardes in 652 and 682 B.C. is due to an
+     unfortunate borrowing from the work of Caliisthenes.
+
+[Illustration: 240.jpg BATTLE OF THE CIMMERIANS AGAINST THE GREEKS
+ACCOMPANIED BY THEIR DOGS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sarcophagus of Clazomenæ.
+
+Ardys, who had succeeded his father on the throne, was able, however,
+to save the citadel: he rallied around him the remnants of his army and
+once more took the field. The cities of Ionia made common cause with
+him; their hoplites issued victorious from more than one engagement, and
+their dogs, trained to harry fearlessly the horses of the enemy, often
+took an active part in the battle. City after city was attacked by the
+barbarians, and the suburbs plundered. Ephesus, on account of the wealth
+it contained, formed their chief attraction, but their forces dashed
+themselves fruitlessly against its walls; they avenged themselves for
+their failure by setting on fire the temple of Artemis which stood
+in the outskirts. This act of sacrilege profoundly stirred the whole
+Hellenic world, and when the first fury of pillage was exhausted, the
+barbarians themselves seemed to have been struck with superstitious
+horror at their crime: deadly fevers contracted in the marshes near the
+city thinned their ranks, and in the scourge which struck down their
+forces they recognised the chastisement of the goddess.*
+
+     * The invasion of Ionia by the Cimmerians is indicated in
+     general terms by Herodotus; the details of the attack on
+     Ephesus and the destruction of the temple of Artemis are
+     preserved in a passage of Callimachus, and in the fragments
+     quoted by Hesychius.
+
+The survivors abandoned the siege and withdrew in disorder towards the
+mountains of the interior. On their way they surprised Magnesia on the
+Mæander and entirely destroyed it, but this constituted their sole
+military success: elsewhere, they contented themselves with devastating
+the fields without venturing to attack the fortified towns. Scarcely had
+Ardys freed himself from their unwelcome presence, than, like his father
+before him, he tried to win the support of Assyria. He sent an envoy to
+Nineveh with a letter couched in very humble terms: “The king whom
+the gods acknowledge, art thou; for as soon as thou hadst pronounced
+imprecations against my father, misfortune overtook him. I am thy
+trembling servant; receive my homage graciously, and I will bear thy
+yoke!” Assur-bani-pal did not harden his heart to this suppliant who
+confessed his fault so piteously, and circumstances shortly constrained
+him to give a more efficacious proof of his favour to Ardys than he had
+done in the days of Gyges. On quitting Lydia, Tugdami, with his hordes,
+had turned eastwards, bent upon renewing in the provinces of the Taurus
+and the Euphrates the same destructive raids which he had made among
+the peoples of the Ægean seaboard; but in the gorges of Cilicia he came
+into contact with forces much superior to his own, and fell fighting
+against them about the year 645 B.C. His son Sanda-khshatru led the
+survivors of this disaster back towards the centre of the peninsula, but
+the conflict had been so sanguinary that the Cimmerian power never fully
+recovered from it. Assur-bani-pal celebrated the victory won by
+his generals with a solemn thanksgiving to Marduk, accompanied by
+substantial offerings of gold and objects of great value.*
+
+     * Strabo was aware, perhaps from Xanthus of Lyclia, that
+     Lygdamis had fallen in battle in Cilicia. The hymn to
+     Marduk, published by Strong, informs us that the Cimmerian
+     chief fell upon the Assyrians, and that his son Sanda-
+     khshatru carried on hostilities some time longer. Sanda-
+     khshatru is an Iranian name of the same type as that of the
+     Median king Uva-khshatra or Cyaxares.
+
+The tranquillity of the north-west frontier was thus for a time secured,
+and this success most opportunely afforded the king leisure to turn
+his attention to those of his vassals who, having thrown off their
+allegiance during the war against Shamash-shumukîn, had not yet returned
+to their obedience. Among these were the Arabs and the petty princes of
+Egypt. The contingents furnished by Yauta, son of Hazael, had behaved
+valiantly during the siege of Babylon, and when they thought the end
+was approaching, their leaders, Abiyatê and Aamu, had tried to cut a
+way through the Assyrian lines: being repulsed, they had laid down their
+arms on condition of their lives being spared. There now remained the
+bulk of the Arab tribes to be reduced to submission, and the recent
+experiences of Esarhaddon had shown the difficulties attending this
+task. Assur-bani-pal entrusted its accomplishment to his subjects in
+Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Haurân, and Damascus, since, dwelling on the
+very borders of the desert, they were familiar with the routes and the
+methods of warfare best suited to the country. They proved victorious
+all along the line. Yauta, betrayed by his own subjects, took refuge
+with the Nabatæans; but their king, Nadanu, although he did not
+actually deliver him up to the Assyrians, refused to grant him an
+asylum, and the unhappy man was finally obliged to surrender to his
+pursuers. His cousin Uatê, son of Birdadda, was made chief in his place
+by the Assyrians, and Yauta was sent to Nineveh, where he was exposed
+at one of the city gates, chained in a niche beside the watch-dogs.
+Amuladdin, the leading prince of Kedar, met with no better fate: he was
+overcome, in spite of the assistance rendered him by Adîya, the queen
+of a neighbouring tribe, and was also carried away into captivity. His
+defeat completed the discouragement of the tribes who still remained
+unsubdued. They implored mercy, which Assur-bani-pal granted to them,
+although he deposed most of their sheikhs, and appointed as their
+ruler that Abiyatê who had dwelt at his court since the capitulation of
+Babylon. Abiyatê took the oath of fidelity, and was sent back to Kedar,
+where he was proclaimed king of all the Arab tribes under the suzerainty
+of Assyria.*
+
+     * The _Cylinder B of the Brit. Mus._ attributes to the reign
+     of Assur-bani-pala whole series of events, comprising the
+     first submission of Yauta and the restitution of the statues
+     of Atarsamain, which had taken place under Esarhaddon. The
+     Assyrian annalists do not seem to have always clearly
+     distinguished between Yauta, son of Hazael, and Uatè, son of
+     Birdadda.
+
+
+Of all the countries which had thrown off their allegiance during the
+late troubles, Egypt alone remained unpunished, and it now seemed as
+if its turn had come to suffer chastisement for its rebellion. It was,
+indeed, not to be tolerated that so rich and so recently acquired
+a province should slip from the grasp of the very sovereign who had
+completed its conquest, without his making an effort on the first
+opportunity to reduce it once more to submission. Such inaction on his
+part would be a confession of impotence, of which the other vassals of
+the empire would quickly take advantage: Tyre, Judah, Moab, the petty
+kings of the Taurus, and the chiefs of Media, would follow the example
+of Pharaoh, and the whole work of the last three centuries would have to
+be done over again. There can be no doubt that Assur-bani-pal cherished
+the secret hope of recovering Egypt in a short campaign, and that he
+hoped to attach it to the empire by more permanent bonds than before,
+but as a preliminary to executing this purpose it was necessary to
+close and settle if possible the account still open against Elam. Recent
+events had left the two rival powers in such a position that neither
+peace nor even a truce of long duration could possibly exist between
+them. Elam, injured, humiliated, and banished from the plains of the
+Lower Euphrates, over which she had claimed at all times an almost
+exclusive right of pillage, was yet not sufficiently enfeebled by her
+disasters to be convinced of her decided inferiority to Assyria. Only
+one portion of her forces, and that perhaps the smallest, had taken the
+field and sustained serious reverses: she had still at her disposal,
+besides the peoples of the plain and the marshes who had suffered
+the most, those almost inexhaustible reserves of warlike and hardy
+mountaineers, whose tribes were ranged on the heights which bounded the
+horizon, occupying the elevated valleys of the Uknu, the Ulaî, and their
+nameless affluents, on the western or southern slopes or in the enclosed
+basins of the Iranian table-land. Here Elam had at her command at least
+as many men as her adversaries could muster against her, and though
+these barbarian contingents lacked discipline and systematic training,
+their bravery compensated for the imperfection of their military
+education. Elam not only refused to admit herself conquered, but she
+believed herself sure of final victory, and, as a matter of fact, it
+is not at all certain that Assur-bani-pal’s generals would ever have
+completely triumphed over her, if internal discords and treason had
+not too often paralysed her powers. The partisans of Khumbân-igash were
+largely responsible for bringing about the catastrophe in which Tiummân
+had perished, and those who sided with Tammaritu had not feared to
+provoke a revolt at the moment when Khumbân-igash was occupied in
+Chaldæa; Indabigash in his turn had risen in rebellion in the rear of
+Tammaritu, and his intervention had enabled the Assyrians to deal their
+final blow at Shamash-shumukîn. The one idea of the non-reigning members
+of the royal house was to depose the reigning sovereign, and they
+considered all means to this end as justifiable, whether assassination,
+revolt, desertion to the enemy, or defection on the very field of
+battle. As soon as one of them had dethroned another, hatred of the
+foreigner again reigned supreme in his breast, and he donned his armour
+with a firm determination to bring the struggle to an end, but the
+course he had pursued towards his predecessor was now adopted by one of
+his relatives towards himself; the enemy meanwhile was still under arms,
+and each of these revolutions brought him a step nearer to the goal of
+his endeavours, the complete overthrow of the Elamite kingdom and its
+annexation to the empire of Nineveh. Even before the struggle with
+Babylon was concluded, Assur-bani-pal had demanded of Indabigash the
+release of the Assyrians whom Nabo-bel-shumu had carried off in his
+train, besides the extradition of that personage himself. Indabigash
+had no desire for war at this juncture, but hesitated to surrender
+the Kaldâ, who had always served him faithfully: he entered into
+negotiations which were interminably prolonged, neither of the two
+parties being anxious to bring them to a close. After the fall of
+Babylon, Assur-bani-pal, who was tenacious in his hatred, summoned the
+Elamite ambassadors, and sent them back to their master with a message
+conceived in the following menacing terms: “If thou dost not surrender
+those men, I will go and destroy thy cities, and lead into captivity the
+inhabitants of Susa, Madaktu, and Khaidalu. I will hurl thee from
+thy throne, and will set up another thereon: as aforetime I destroyed
+Tiummân, so will I destroy thee.” A detachment of troops was sent to
+enforce the message of defiance, but when the messengers had reached the
+frontier town of Deri, Indabigash was no longer there: his nobles
+had assassinated him, and had elected Khumbân-khaldash, the son of
+Atta-mêtush, king in his stead. The opportunity was a favourable one to
+sow the seeds of division in the Elamite camp, before the usurper should
+have time to consolidate his power: Assur-bani-pal therefore threw
+himself into the cause of Tammaritu, supporting him with an army to
+which many malcontents speedily rallied. The Aramæans and the cities
+of the marsh-lands on the littoral, Khilmu, Billatê, Dummuku, Sulâa,
+Lakhiru, and Dibirîna, submitted without a struggle, and the invaders
+met with no resistance till they reached Bît-Imbi. This town had
+formerly been conquered by Sennacherib, but it had afterwards returned
+to the rule of its ancient masters, who had strongly fortified it. It
+now offered a determined resistance, but without success: its population
+was decimated, and the survivors mutilated and sent as captives into
+Assyria--among them the commander of the garrison, Imbappi, son-in-law
+of Khumbân-khaldash, together with the harem of Tiummân, with his sons
+and daughters, and all the members of his family whom his successors had
+left under guard in the citadel. The siege had been pushed forward so
+rapidly that the king had not been able to make any attempt to relieve
+the defenders: besides this, a pretender had risen up against him, one
+Umbakhabua, who had been accepted as king by the important district of
+Bubîlu. The fall of Bît-Imbi filled the two competitors with fear: they
+abandoned their homes and fled, the one to the mountains, the other to
+the lowlands on the shores of the Nar-Marratum. Tammaritu entered Susa
+in triumph and was enthroned afresh; but the insolence and rapacity of
+his auxiliaries was so ruthlessly manifested, that at the end of some
+days he resolved to rid himself of them by the sword. A traitor having
+revealed the design, Tammaritu was seized, stripped of his royal
+apparel, and cast into prison. The generals of Assur-bani-pal had no one
+whom they could proclaim king in his stead, and furthermore, the season
+being well advanced, the Elamites, who had recovered from their first
+alarm, were returning in a body, and threatened to cut off the Assyrian
+retreat: they therefore evacuated Susa, and regained Assyria with
+their booty. They burnt all the towns along the route whose walls were
+insufficient to protect them against a sudden escalade or an attack of
+a few hours’ duration, and the country between the capital and the
+frontier soon contained nothing but heaps of smoking ruins (647 e.g.).*
+
+     * The difficulty we experience in locating on the map most
+     of the names of Elamite towns is the reason why we cannot
+     determine with any certainty the whole itinerary followed by
+     the Assyrian army.
+
+The campaign, which had been so successful at the outset, had not
+produced all the results expected from it. The Assyrians had hoped
+henceforth to maintain control of Elam through Tammaritu, but in a short
+time they had been obliged to throw aside the instrument with which
+they counted on effecting the complete humiliation of the nation:
+Khumbân-khaldash had reoccupied Susa, following on the heels of the
+last Assyrian detachment, and he reigned as king once more without
+surrendering Nabo-bel-shumi, or restoring the statue of Nana, or
+fulfilling any of the conditions which had been the price of a title
+to the throne. Assur-bani-pal was not inclined to bear patiently this
+partial reverse; as soon as spring returned he again demanded the
+surrender of the Chaldæan and the goddess, under pain of immediate
+invasion. Khumbân-khaldash offered to expel Nabo-bel-shumi from Lakhiru
+where he had entrenched himself, and to thrust him towards the Assyrian
+frontier, where the king’s troops would be able to capture him. His
+offer was not accepted, and a second embassy, headed by Tammaritu, who
+was once more in favour, arrived to propose more trenchant terms.
+The Elamite might have gone so far as to grant the extradition of
+Nabo-bel-shumi, but if he had yielded the point concerning Nana, a
+rebellion would have broken out in the streets of Susa: he preferred
+war, and prepared in desperation to carry it on to the bitter end. The
+conflict was long and sanguinary, and the result disastrous for
+Elam. Bît-Imbi opened its gates, the district of Kashi surrendered at
+discretion, followed by the city of Khamanu and its environs, and the
+Assyrians approached Madaktu: Khumbân-khaldash evacuated the place
+before they reached it, and withdrew beneath the walls of Dur-Undasi,
+on the western bank of the Ididi. His enemies pursued him thither, but
+the stream was swift and swollen by rain, so that for two days they
+encamped on its bank without daring to cross, and were perhaps growing
+discouraged, when Ishtar of Arbela once more came to the rescue.
+Appearing in a dream to one of her seers, she said, “I myself go
+before Assur-bani-pal, the king whom my hands have created;” the army,
+emboldened by this revelation, overcame the obstacle by a vigorous
+effort, and dashed impetuously over regions as yet unvisited by any
+conqueror. The Assyrians burnt down fourteen royal cities, numberless
+small towns, and destroyed the cornfields, the vines, and the orchards;
+Khumbàn-khaldash, utterly exhausted, fled to the mountains “like a young
+dog.” Banunu and the districts of Tasarra, twenty cities in the country
+of Khumir, Khaîdalu, and Bashimu, succumbed one after another, and when
+the invaders at length decided to retrace their steps to the frontier,
+Susa, deserted by her soldiers and deprived of her leaders, lay before
+them an easy prey. It was not the first time in the last quarter of a
+century that the Assyrians had had the city at their mercy. They had
+made some stay in it after the battle of Tullîz, and also after the
+taking of Bît-Imbi in the preceding year; but on those occasions they
+had visited it as allies, to enthrone a king owing allegiance to their
+own sovereign, and political exigencies had obliged them to repress
+their pillaging instincts and their long-standing hatred. Now that
+they had come as enemies, they were restrained by no considerations of
+diplomacy: the city was systematically pillaged, and the booty found
+in it was so immense that the sack lasted an entire month. The royal
+treasury was emptied of its gold and silver, its metals and the valuable
+objects which had been brought to it from Sumir, Accad, and Karduniash
+at successive periods from the most remote ages down to that day, in
+the course of the successful invasions conducted by the princes of Susa
+beyond the Tigris; among them, the riches of the Babylonian temples,
+which Shamash-shumukîn had lavished on Tiumman to purchase his support,
+being easily distinguishable. The furniture of the palace was sent to
+Nineveh in a long procession; it comprised beds and chairs of ivory, and
+chariots encrusted with enamel and precious stones, the horses of
+which were caparisoned with gold. The soldiers made their way into the
+ziggurât, tore down the plates of ruddy copper, violated the sanctuary,
+and desecrated the prophetic statues of the gods who dwelt within it,
+shrouded in the sacred gloom, and whose names were only uttered by their
+devotees with trembling lips. Shumudu, Lagamar, Partikira, Ammankasibar,
+Udurân, Sapak, Aîpaksina, Bilala, Panintimri, and Kindakarpu, were now
+brought forth to the light, and made ready to be carried into exile
+together with their belongings and their priests.
+
+[Illustration: 251.jpg STATUES OF THE GODS CARRIED OFF BY ASSYRIAN
+SOLDIERY]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard, _The Monuments of
+     Nineveh_.
+
+Thirty-two statues of the kings, both ancient and modern, in silver,
+gold, bronze, and marble, escorted the gods on their exodus, among their
+number being those of Khumbânigash, son of Umbadarâ, Shutruk-nakhunta,
+and Tammaritu II., the sovereigns who had treated Assyria with
+the greatest indignity. The effigy of Khalludush was subjected to
+humiliating outrage: “his mouth, with its menacing smile, was mutilated;
+his lips, which breathed forth defiance, were slit; his hands, which
+had brandished the bow against Assur, were cut off,” to avenge, though
+tardily, the ill success of Sennacherib. The sacred groves shared the
+fate of the temples, and all the riches collected in them by generations
+of victors were carried off in cartloads. They contained, amongst
+other edifices, the tombs of the ancient heroes of Elam, who had feared
+neither Assur nor Ishtar, and who had often brought trouble on the
+ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. Their sepulchres were violated, their
+coffins broken open, their bones collected and despatched to Nineveh, to
+crumble finally into dust in the land of exile: their souls, chained to
+their mortal bodies, shared their captivity, and if they were
+provided with the necessary sustenance and libations to keep them from
+annihilation, it was not from any motives of compassion or pity, but
+from a refinement of vengeance, in order that they might the longer
+taste the humiliation of captivity.
+
+[Illustration: 252.jpg THE TUMULUS OF SUZA]
+
+The image of Nana was found among those of the native gods: it was now
+separated from them, and after having been cleansed from pollution by
+the prescribed ceremonies, it was conducted to Uruk, which it entered in
+triumph on the 1st of the month Kislev. It was reinstated in the temple
+it had inhabited of old: sixteen hundred and thirty-five years had
+passed since it had been carried off, in the reign of Kutur-nakhunta, to
+dwell as a prisoner in Susa.
+
+Assur-bani-pal had no intention of preserving the city of Susa from
+destruction, or of making it the capital of a province which should
+comprise the plain of Elam. Possibly it appeared to him too difficult to
+defend as long as the mountain tribes remained unsubdued, or perhaps the
+Elamites themselves were not so completely demoralised as he was pleased
+to describe them in his inscriptions, and the attacks of their irregular
+troops would have rendered the prolonged sojourn of the Assyrian
+garrison difficult, if not impossible. Whatever the reason, as soon as
+the work of pillage was fully accomplished, the army continued its
+march towards the frontier, carrying with it the customary spoil of the
+captured towns, and their whole population, or all, at least, who had
+not fled at the approach of the enemy. The king reserved for himself
+the archers and pikemen, whom he incorporated into his own bodyguard,
+as well as the artisans, smelters, sculptors, and stonemasons, whose
+talents he turned to account in the construction and decoration of his
+palaces; the remainder of the inhabitants he apportioned, like so many
+sheep, to the cities and the temples, governors of provinces, officers
+of state, military chiefs, and private soldiers. Khumbân-khaldash
+reoccupied Susa after the Assyrians had quitted it, but the misery there
+was so great that he could not endure it: he therefore transferred his
+court to Madaktu, one of the royal cities which had suffered least from
+the invasion, and he there tried to establish a regular government.
+Rival claimants to the throne had sprung up, but he overcame them
+without much difficulty: one of them, named Paê, took refuge in Assyria,
+joining Tammaritn and that little band of dethroned kings or pretenders
+to the throne of Susa, of whom Assur-bani-pal had so adroitly made
+use to divide the forces of his adversary. Khumbân-khaldash might well
+believe that the transportation of the statue of Nana and the sack of
+Susa had satisfied the vengeance of the Assyrians, at least for a time,
+and that they would afford him a respite, however short; but he had
+reckoned without taking into consideration the hatred which had pursued
+Nabo-bel-shumi during so many years: an envoy followed him as far as
+Madaktu, and offered Khumbân-khaldash once more the choice between the
+extradition of the Chaldean or the immediate reopening of hostilities.
+He seems to have had a moment’s hesitation, but when Nabo-bel-shumi was
+informed of the terms offered by the envoy, “life had no more value in
+his eyes: he desired death.” He ordered his shield-bearer to slay him,
+and when the man refused to do so, declaring that he could not live
+without his master, they stabbed each other simultaneously, and
+perished, as they had lived, together. Khumbân-khaldash, delivered by
+this suicide from his embarrassments, had the corpse of the master and
+the head of the faithful shield-bearer duly embalmed, and sent them to
+Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal mutilated the wretched body in order to render
+the conditions of life in the other world harder for the soul: he cut
+off its head, and forbade the burial of the remains, or the rendering to
+the dead of the most simple offerings.
+
+[Illustration: 256.jpg Prayer in the Desert After Painting by Gerome]
+
+About this time the inhabitants of Bît-Imbi, of Til-Khumba, and a
+dozen other small towns, who had fled for refuge to the woods of Mount
+Saladri, came forth from their hiding-places and cast themselves on
+the mercy of the conqueror: he deigned to receive them graciously, and
+enrolled them in his guard, together with the prisoners taken in the
+last campaign. He was contented to leave Elam to itself for the moment,
+as he was disquieted at the turn affairs were taking in Arabia. Abiyatê,
+scarcely seated on the throne, had refused to pay tribute, and had
+persuaded Uatê and Nadanu to join him in his contumacy; several cities
+along the Phoenician seaboard, led away by his example, shut their gates
+and declared themselves independent. Assur-bani-pal had borne all
+this patiently, while the mass of his troops were engaged against
+Khumbân-khaldash; but after the destruction of Susa, he determined to
+revenge himself. His forces left Nineveh in the spring of 642 B.C.,
+crossed the Euphrates, and the line of wooded hills which bordered the
+course of the river towards the west, provisioned themselves with water
+at the halting-place of Laribda, and plunged into the desert in search
+of the rebels. The Assyrians overran the country of Mash, from the town
+of Iarki to Azalla, where “there dwell no beasts of the field, where
+no bird of the sky builds its nest,” and then, after filling their
+water-skins at the cisterns of Azalla, they advanced boldly into the
+thirsty lands which extend towards Qurazite; they next crossed the
+territory of Kedar, cutting down the trees, filling up the wells,
+burning the tents, and reached Damascus from the north-east side,
+bringing in their train innumerable flocks of asses, sheep, camels,
+and slaves. The Bedâwin of the north had remained passive, but the
+Nabathæans, encouraged by the remoteness of their country and the
+difficulty of access to it, persisted in their rebellion. The Assyrian
+generals did not waste much time in celebrating their victory in the
+Syrian capital: on the 3rd of Ab, forty days after leaving the Chaldsean
+frontier, they started from Damascus towards the south, and seized
+the stronghold of Khalkhuliti, at the foot of the basaltic plateau
+overlooked by the mountains of the Haurân; they then destroyed all the
+fortresses of the country one after another, driving the inhabitants
+to take shelter in the rugged range of volcanic rocks, where they were
+blockaded, and finally reduced by famine: Abiyatê capitulated, Nadanu
+ransomed himself by a promise of tribute, and the whole desert between
+Syria and the Euphrates fell once more into the condition of an Assyrian
+province. Before returning to Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal’s generals
+inflicted chastisement on Akko and Ushu, the two chief Tyrian cities
+which had revolted, and this vigorous action confirmed the fidelity of
+the Assyrian vassals in Palestine. Uate’s life was spared, but his lip
+and cheek were pierced by the hand of the king himself, and he was led
+by a cord passed through the wounds, as if he had been a wild beast
+intended for domestication; a dog’s collar was riveted round his neck,
+and he was exposed in a cage at one of the gates of Nineveh. Aamu, the
+brother of Abiyatê, was less fortunate, for he was flayed alive before
+the eyes of the mob. Assyria was glutted with the spoil: the king, as
+was customary, reserved for his own service the able-bodied men for the
+purpose of recruiting his battalions, distributing the remainder among
+his officers and soldiers. The camels captured were so numerous that
+their market-value was for a long time much reduced; they were offered
+in the open market, like sheep, for a half-shekel of silver apiece, and
+the vendor thought himself fortunate to find a purchaser even at this
+price.
+
+The final ruin of Elam followed swiftly on the subjugation of Arabia.
+While one division of the army was scouring the desert, the remainder
+were searching the upland valleys of the Ulaî and the Uknu, and
+relentlessly pursuing Khumbân-khaldash. The wretched monarch was now in
+command of merely a few bands of tattered followers, and could no longer
+take the field; the approach of the enemy obliged him to flee from
+Madaktu, and entrench himself on the heights. Famine, misery, and
+probably also the treachery of his last adherents, soon drove him from
+his position, and, despairing of his cause, he surrendered himself to
+the officers who were in pursuit of him. He was the third king of Elam
+whom fate had cast alive into the hands of the conqueror: his arrival at
+Nineveh afforded the haughty Assur-bani-pal an occasion for celebrating
+one of those triumphal processions in which his proud soul delighted,
+and of going in solemn state to thank the gods for the overthrow of
+his most formidable enemy. On the day when he went to prostrate
+himself before Assur and Ishtar, he sent for Tammaritu, Paê, and
+Khumbân-khaldash, and adding to them Uatê, who was taken out of his cage
+for the occasion, he harnessed all four to his chariot of state, and
+caused himself to be drawn through Nineveh by this team of fallen
+sovereigns to the gate of the temple of Emashmash. And, indeed, at
+that moment, he might reasonably consider himself as having reached the
+zenith of his power. Egypt, it is true, still remained unpunished, and
+its renewed vitality under the influence of the Saïte Pharaohs allowed
+no hope of its being speedily brought back into subjection, but its
+intrigues no longer exerted any influence over Syria, and Tyre itself
+appeared to be resigned to the loss of its possessions on the mainland.
+Lydia under the rule of Ardys continued to maintain intermittent
+intercourse with its distant protector. The provinces of the Taurus,
+delivered from the terror inspired by the Cimmerians, desired peace
+above all things, and the Mannai had remained quiet since the defeat of
+Akhsheri. Babylon was rapidly recovering from the ills she had endured.
+She consoled herself for her actual servitude by her habitual simulation
+of independence; she called Assur-bani-pal Kandalanu, and this new name
+allowed her to fancy she had a separate king, distinct from the King
+of Assyria. Elam no longer existed. Its plains and marsh lands were
+doubtless occupied by Assyrian garrisons, and formed an ill-defined
+annexation to Nineveh; the mountain tribes retained their autonomy, and
+although still a source of annoyance to their neighbours by their raids
+or sudden incursions, they no longer constituted a real danger to the
+state: if there still remained some independent Elamite states, Elam
+itself, the most ancient, except Babylon, of all the Asiatic kingdoms,
+was erased from the map of the world. The memories of her actual history
+were soon effaced, or were relegated to the region of legend, where the
+fabulous Memnon supplanted in the memory of men those lines of hardy
+conquerors who had levied tribute from Syria in the day when Nineveh was
+still an obscure provincial town. Assyria alone remained, enthroned on
+the ruins of the past, and her dominion seemed established for all time;
+yet, on closer investigation, indications were not wanting of the cruel
+sufferings that she also had endured. Once again, as after the wars of
+Tiglath-pileser I. and those of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III.,
+her chiefs had overtaxed her powers by a long series of unremitting wars
+against vigorous foes. Doubtless the countries comprised within her
+wide empire furnished her with a more ample revenue and less restricted
+resources than had been at the command of the little province of ancient
+days, which had been bounded by the Khabur and the Zab, and lay on the
+two banks of the middle course of the Tigris; but, on the other hand,
+the adversaries against whom she had measured her forces, and whom she
+had overthrown, were more important and of far greater strength than
+her former rivals. She had paid dearly for humiliating Egypt and laying
+Babylon in the dust. As soon as Babylon was overthrown, she had, without
+pausing to take breath, joined issue with Elam, and had only succeeded
+in triumphing over it by drawing upon her resources to the utmost during
+many years: when the struggle was over, she realised to what an extent
+she had been weakened by so lavish an outpouring of the blood of her
+citizens. The Babylonian and Elamite recruits whom she incorporated
+into her army after each of her military expeditions, more or less
+compensated for the void which victory itself had caused in her
+population and her troops; but the fidelity of these vanquished foes of
+yesterday, still smarting from their defeat, could not be relied on, and
+the entire assimilation of their children to their conquerors was the
+work of at least one or two generations. Assyria, therefore, was on the
+eve of one of those periods of exhaustion which had so often enfeebled
+her national vitality and imperilled her very existence. On each
+previous occasion she had, it is true, recovered after a more or less
+protracted crisis, and the brilliancy of her prospects, though obscured
+for a moment, appeared to be increased by their temporary eclipse. There
+was, therefore, good reason to hope that she would recover from her
+latest phase of depression; and the only danger to be apprehended was
+that some foreign power, profiting by her momentary weakness, might rise
+up and force her, while still suffering from the effects of her heroic
+labours, to take the field once more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDÆAN EMPIRE
+
+
+_THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDÆAN AND MEDIAN
+EMPIRES--THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND
+NEBUCHADREZZAR._
+
+_The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of
+the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the
+Avesta--Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning
+of the Median empire--Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of
+Persia by the Medes--The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library
+of Kouyunjik--Phraortes defeated and slain by the Assyrians._
+
+_Cyaxares and his first attach on Nineveh--The Assyrian triangle and the
+defence of Nineveh: Assur-bani-pal summons the Scythians to his aid--The
+Scythian invasion--Judah under Manasseh and Amon: development in the
+conceptions of the prophets--The Scythians in Syria and on the borders
+of Egypt: they are defeated and driven back by Cyaxares--The last
+kings of Nineveh and Naliopolassar--Taking and, destruction of Nineveh:
+division of the Assyrian empire between the Chaldæans and the Medes (608
+B.C.)._
+
+_The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty--Psammetichus I. and the Ionian and Carian
+mercenaries; final retreat of the Ethiopians and the annexation of the
+Theban principality; the end of Egypt as a great power--First
+Greek settlements in the Delta; flight of the Mashauasha and the
+reorganisation of the army--Resumption of important works and the
+renaissance of art in Egypt--The occupation of Ashdod, and the Syrian
+policy of Psammetichus I._
+
+_Josiah, King of Judah: the discovery and public reading of the Book
+of the Covenant; the religious reform--Necho II. invades Syria: Josiah
+slain at Megiddo, the battle of Carchemish--Nebuchadrezzar II.: his
+policy with regard to Media--The conquests of Cyaxares and the struggles
+of the Mermnadæ against the Greek colonies--The war between Alyattes
+and Cyaxares: the battle of the Halys and the peace of 585 B.C.--Necho
+reorganises his army and his fleet: the circumnavigation of
+Africa--Jeremiah and the Egyptian party in Jerusalem: the revolt of
+Jehoiakim and the captivity of Jehoiachin._
+
+_Psammetichus I. and Zedekiah--Apries and the revolt of Tyre and of
+Judah: the siege and destruction of Jerusalem--The last convulsions
+of Judah and the submission of Tyre; the successes of Aprics in
+Phoenicia--The Greeks in Libya and the founding of Cyrene: the defeat of
+Irasa and the fall of Apries--Amasis and the campaign of Nebuchadrezzar
+against Egypt--Relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages--The
+fortifications of Babylon and the rebuilding of the Great Ziggurât--The
+successors of Nebuchadrezzar: Nabonidus._
+
+[Illustration: 263.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDÆAN EMPIRE
+
+
+_The fall of Nineveh and the rise of the Chaldæan and Median
+empires--The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty: Cyaxares, Alyattes, and
+Nebuchadrezzar._
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase of
+     Tchertomlitsk, now in the museum of the Hermitage. The
+     vignette is also drawn by Faucher-Gudin, and represents an
+     Egyptian torso in the Turin museum; the cartouche which is
+     seen upon the arm is that of Psammetichus I.
+
+The East was ever a land of kaleidoscopic changes and startling dramatic
+incidents. An Oriental empire, even when built up by strong hands and
+watched over with constant vigilance, scarcely ever falls to pieces in
+the slow and gradual process of decay arising from the ties that bind
+it together becoming relaxed or its constituent elements growing
+antiquated. It perishes, as a rule, in a cataclysm; its ruin comes like
+a bolt from the blue, and is consummated before the commencement of it
+is realised. One day it stands proud and stately in the splendour of its
+glory; there is no report abroad but that which tells of its riches,
+its industry, its valour, the good government of its princes and the
+irresistible might of its gods, and the world, filled with envy or with
+fear, deeming its good fortune immutable, never once applies to it, even
+in thought, the usual commonplaces on the instability of human things.
+Suddenly an ill wind, blowing up from the distant horizon, bursts upon
+it in destructive squalls, and it is overthrown in the twinkling of
+an eye, amid the glare of lightning, the resounding crash of thunder,
+whirlwinds of dust and rain: when the storm has passed away as quickly
+as it came, its mutterings heralding the desolation which it bears to
+other climes, the brightening sky no longer reveals the old contours
+and familiar outlines, but the sun of history rises on a new empire,
+emerging, as if by the touch of a magic wand, from the ruins which the
+tempest has wrought. There is nothing apparently lacking of all that, in
+the eyes of the many, invested its predecessor with glory; it seems in
+no wise inferior in national vigour, in the number of its soldiers,
+in the military renown of its chiefs, in the proud prosperity of its
+people, or in the majesty of its gods; the present fabric is as spacious
+and magnificent, it would seem, as that which has but just vanished into
+the limbo of the past. No kingdom ever shone with brighter splendour, or
+gave a greater impression of prosperity, than the kingdom of Assyria in
+the days succeeding its triumphs over Blam and Arabia: precisely at this
+point the monuments and other witnesses of its activity fail us, just
+as if one of the acts of the piece in which it had played a chief part
+having come to an end, the drop-curtain must be lowered, amid a flourish
+of trumpets and the illuminations of an apotheosis, to allow the actors
+a little breathing-space. Half a century rolls by, during which we have
+a dim perception of the subdued crash of falling empires, and of the
+trampling of armies in fierce fight; then the curtain rises on an
+utterly different drama, of which the plot has been woven behind the
+scenes, and the exciting _motif_ has just come into play. We no longer
+hear of Assyria and its kings; their palaces are in ruins; their last
+faithful warriors sleep in unhonoured graves beneath the ashes of
+their cities, their prowess is credited to the account of half a dozen
+fabulous heroes such as Ninus, Sardanapalus, and Semiramis--heroes whose
+names call up in the memory of succeeding generations only vague but
+terrible images, such as the phantasies of a dream, which, although but
+dimly remembered in the morning, makes the hair to stand on end with
+terror. The nations which erewhile disputed the supremacy with Assyria
+have either suffered a like eclipse--such as the Khâti, Urartu, the
+Cossæans, and Elam--or have fallen like Egypt and Southern Syria into
+the rank of second-rate powers. It is Chaldaea which is now in the van
+of the nations, in company with Lydia and with Media, whose advent to
+imperial power no one would have ventured to predict forty or fifty
+years before.
+
+The principality founded by Deïokes about the beginning of the seventh
+century B.C., seemed at first destined to play but a modest part; it
+shared the fortune of the semi-barbarous states with which the Ninevite
+conquerors came in contact on the western boundary of the Iranian
+plateau, and from which the governors of Arrapkha or of Kharkhar had
+extorted tribute to the utmost as often as occasion offered. According
+to one tradition, it had only three kings in an entire century: Deïokes
+up till 655 B.C., Phraortes from 655 to 633, and after the latter year
+Cyaxares, the hero of his race.* Another tradition claimed an earlier
+foundation for the monarchy, and doubled both the number of the kings
+and the age of the kingdom.**
+
+     * This is the tradition gleaned by Herodotus, probably at
+     Sardes, from the mouths of Persians residing in that city.
+
+     ** This is the tradition derived from the court of
+     Artaxerxes by Ctesias of Cnidus. Volney discovered the
+     principle upon which the chronology of his Median dynasty
+     was based by Ctesias. If we place his list side by side with
+     that of Herodotus--
+
+[Illustration: 268.jpg and 269.jpg TABLE OF MEDIAN DYNASTY]
+
+     We see that, while rejecting the names given by Herodotus,
+     Ctesias repeats twice over the number of years assigned by
+     the latter to the reigns of his kings, at least for the four
+     last generations--
+
+     At the beginning Herodotus gives before Deïokes an
+     interregnum of uncertain duration. Ctesias substituted the
+     round number of fifty years for the fifty-three assigned to
+     Deïokes, and replaced the interregnum by a reign which he
+     estimated at the mean duration of a human generation, thirty
+     years; he then applied to this new pair of numbers the
+     process of doubling he had employed for the couple mentioned
+     above--
+
+     The number twenty-eight has been attributed to the reign of
+     Arbakes, instead of the number thirty, to give an air of
+     truthfulness to the whole catalogue.
+
+This tradition ignored the monarchs who had rendered the second
+Assyrian empire illustrious, and substituted for them a line of inactive
+sovereigns, reputed to be the descendants of Ninus and Semiramis. The
+last of them, Sardanapalus, had, according to this account, lived a life
+of self-indulgence in his harem, surrounded by women, dressing himself
+in their garb, and adopting feminine occupations and amusements. The
+satrap of Media, Arbakes, saw him at his toilet, and his heart turned
+against yielding obedience to such a painted doll: he rebelled in
+concert with Belesys the Babylonian. The imminence of the danger thus
+occasioned roused Sardanapalus from his torpor, and revived in him the
+warlike qualities of his ancestors; he placed himself at the head of his
+troops, overcame the rebels, and was about to exterminate them, when his
+hand was stayed by the defection of some Bactrian auxiliaries. He shut
+himself up in Nineveh, and for two whole years heroically repulsed
+all assaults; in the third year, the Tigris, swollen by the rains,
+overflowed its banks and broke down the city walls for a distance of
+twenty stadia. The king thereupon called to mind an oracle which had
+promised him victory until the day when the river should betray him.
+Judging that the prediction was about to be accomplished, he resolved
+not to yield himself alive to the besieger, and setting fire to his
+palace, perished therein, together with his children and his treasures,
+about 788 B.C. Arbakes, thus rendered an independent sovereign, handed
+down the monarchy to his son Mandaukas, and he in his turn was followed
+successively by Sosarmos, Artykas, Arbianes, Artaios, Artynes, and
+Astibaras.* These names are not the work of pure invention; they are
+met with in more than one Assyrian text: among the petty kings who
+paid tribute to Sargon are enumerated some which bear such names as
+Mashdaku,** Ashpanda,*** Arbaku, and Khartukka,*** and many others, of
+whom traces ought to be found some day among the archives of princely
+families of later times.
+
+     * Oppert thought that the names given by Herodotus
+     represented “Aryanised forms of Turanian names, of which
+     Otesias has given the Persian translation.”
+
+     ** Mashdaku is identified by Post with the Mandaukas or
+     Maydaukas of Ctesias, which would then be a copyist’s error
+     for Masdaukas. The identification with Vashd[t]aku, Vashtak,
+     the name of a fabulous king of Armenia, is rejected by Rost;
+     Mashdaku would be the Iranian Mazdaka, preserved in the
+     Mazakes of Arrian.
+
+     *** Ashpanda is the Aspandas or Aspadas which Ctesias gives
+     instead of the Astyages of Herodotus.
+
+     **** The name of Artykas is also found in the secondary form
+     Kardikoas, which is nearer the Khartukka of the Assyrian
+     texts.
+
+There were in these archives, at the disposal of scribes and strangers
+inclined to reconstruct the history of Asia, a supply of materials of
+varying value--authentic documents inscribed on brick tablets, legends
+of fabulous exploits, epic poems and records of real victories and
+conquests, exaggerated in accordance with the vanity or the interest of
+the composer: from these elements it was easy to compile lists of Median
+kings which had no real connection with each other as far as their
+names, order of succession, or duration of reign were concerned. The
+Assyrian chronicles have handed down to us, in place of these dynasties
+which were alleged to have exercised authority over the whole territory,
+a considerable number of noble houses scattered over the country, each
+of them autonomous, and a rival of its neighbour, and only brought into
+agreement with one another at rare intervals by their common hatred of
+the invader. Some of them were representatives of ancient races akin
+to the Susians, and perhaps to the first inhabitants of Chaldæa; others
+belonged to tribes of a fresh stock, that of the Aryans, and more
+particularly to the Iranian branch of the Aryan family. We catch
+glimpses of them in the reign of Shalmaneser III., who calls them the
+Amadaî; then, after this first brush with Assyria, intercourse and
+conflict between the two nations became more and more frequent every
+year, until the “distant Medes” soon began to figure among the regular
+adversaries of the Ninevite armies, and even the haughtiest monarchs
+refer with pride to victories gained over them. Rammân-nirâri waged
+ceaseless war against them, Tiglath-pileser III. twice drove them
+before him from the south-west to the north-east as far as the foot
+of Demavend, while Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, during their
+respective reigns, kept anxious watch upon them, and endeavoured to
+maintain some sort of authority over the tribes which lay nearest to
+them. Both in the personal names and names of objects which have
+come down to us in the records of these campaigns, we detect
+Iranian characteristics, in spite of the Semitic garb with which the
+inscriptions have invested them: among the names of countries we find
+Partukka, Diristânu, Patusharra, Nishaîa, Urivzân, Abîruz, and Ariarma,
+while the men bear such names as Ishpabarra, Eparna, Shîtirparna,
+Uarzân, and Dayaukku. As we read through the lists, faint resemblances
+in sound awaken dormant classical memories, and the ear detects familiar
+echoes in the names of those Persians whose destinies were for a time
+linked with those of Athens and Sparta in the days of Darius and of
+Xerxes: it is like the first breath of Greek influence, faint and almost
+imperceptible as yet, wafted to us across the denser atmosphere of the
+East.
+
+The Iranians had a vague remembrance of a bygone epoch, during which
+they had wandered, in company with other nations of the same origin as
+themselves, in that cradle of the Aryan peoples, Aryanem-Vaêjô. Modern
+historians at first placed their mythical birthplace in the wilder
+regions of Central Asia, near the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and not far
+from the so-called table-land of Pamir, which they regarded as the
+original point of departure of the Indo-European races. They believed
+that a large body of these primitive Aryans must have descended
+southwards into the basin of the Indus and its affluents, and that
+other detachments had installed themselves in the oases of Margiana
+and Khorasmia, while the Iranians would have made their way up to the
+plateau which separates the Caspian Sea from the Persian Gulf, where
+they sought to win for themselves a territory sufficient for their
+wants. The compilers of the sacred books of the Iranians claimed to be
+able to trace each stage of their peregrinations, and to describe the
+various accidents which befell them during this heroic period of their
+history. According to these records, it was no mere chance or love of
+adventure which had led them to wander for years from clime to clime,
+but rather a divine decree. While Ahurômazdaô, the beneficent deity
+whom they worshipped, had provided them with agreeable resting-places,
+a perverse spirit, named Angrômaînyus, had on every occasion rendered
+their sojourn there impossible, by the plagues which he inflicted
+on them. Bitter cold, for instance, had compelled them to forsake
+Aryanem-Vaêjô and seek shelter in Sughdhâ and Mûru.* Locusts had driven
+them from Sughdhâ; the incursions of the nomad tribes, coupled with
+their immorality, had forced them to retire from Mûru to Bâkhdhî, “the
+country of lofty banners,” ** and subsequently to Nisaya, which lies to
+the south-east, between Mûru and Bâkhdhî. From thence they made their
+way into the narrow valleys of the Harôyu, and overran Vaêkereta, the
+land of noxious shadows.***
+
+     * Sughdhâ is Sogdiana; Mûru, in ancient Persian Margush, is
+     the modern Merv, the Margiana of classical geographers.
+
+     ** Bâkhdhî is identical with Bactriana, but, as Spiegel
+     points out, this Avestic form is comparatively recent, and
+     readily suggests the modern Balkh, in which the consonants
+     have become weakened.
+
+     *** The Avesta places Nisaya between Mûru and Bâkhdhî to
+     distinguish it from other districts of the same name to be
+     found in this part of Asia: Eugène Burnouf is probably
+     correct in identifying it with the Nêssea of Strabo and of
+     Ptolemy, which lay to the south of Margiana, at the junction
+     of the roads leading to Hyrcania in one direction and
+     Bactriana in the other.
+
+From this point forwards, the countries mentioned by their chroniclers
+are divided into two groups, lying in opposite directions: Arahvaiti,
+Haêtumant, and Haptahindu* on the east; and on the west, Urvâ,** Harôyu
+or Haraêva is the Greek Aria, the modern province of Herat.
+
+     * Arahvaiti, the Harauvatish of the Achsemenian
+     inscriptions, is the Greek Arachosia, and Haêtumant the
+     basin of their Etymander, the modern Helmend; in other
+     words, the present province of Seîstan. Hapta-Hindu is the
+     western part of the Indian continent, i.e. the Punjaub.
+
+     ** The Pehlevi commentators identify Urvâ with Mesônê,
+     mentioned by classical writers, at the confluence of the
+     Tigris and Euphrates, or perhaps the plain around Ispahan
+     which bore the name of Masân in the Sassanid period. Fr.
+     Lenormant had connected it with the name Urivzân, which is
+     applied in the Assyrian inscriptions to a district of Media
+     in the time of Tiglath-pileser III.
+
+[Illustration: 274.jpg MAP OF THE LANDS CREATED BY AHURA-MAZDA]
+
+The Pehlevi commentators identify Vaêkereta with Kabulistan, and also
+volunteer the following interpretation of the title which accompanies
+the name: “The shadow of the trees there is injurious to the body, or
+as some say, the shadow of the mountains,” and it produces fever
+there. Arguing from passages of similar construction, Lassen was led to
+recognise in the epithet _duzhako-shayanem_ a place-name, “inhabitant of
+Duzhakô,” which he identified with a ruined city in this neighbourhood
+called Dushak; Haug believed he had found a confirmation of this
+hypothesis in the fact that the Pairika Khnâthaiti created there by
+Angrô-maînyus recalls in sound, at any rate, the name of the people
+Parikani mentioned by classical writers, as inhabiting these regions.
+Khnenta-Vehrkâna,* Bhagâ,** and Chakhra,*** as far as the districts of
+Varena**** and the basin of the Upper Tigris.^ This legend was composed
+long after the event, in order to explain in the first place the
+relationship between the two great families into which the Oriental
+Aryans were divided, viz. the Indian and Iranian, and in the second
+to account for the peopling by the Iranians of a certain number of
+provinces between the Indus and the Euphrates. As a matter of fact, it
+is more likely that the Iranians came originally from Europe, and that
+they migrated from the steppes of Southern Russia into the plains of the
+Kur and the Araxes by way of Mount Caucasus.^^
+
+     * The name Khnenta seems to have been Hellenised into that
+     of Kharindas, borne by a river which formed the frontier
+     between Hyrcania and Media; according to the Pehlevi version
+     it was really a river of Hyrcania, the Djordjân. The epithet
+     Vehrkâna, which qualifies the name Khnenta, has been
+     identified by Burnouf with the Hyrcania of classical
+     geographers.
+
+     ** Raghâ is identified with Azerbaijan in the Pehlevi
+     version of the Vendidâd, but is, more probably, the Rhago of
+     classical geographers, the capital of Eastern Media.
+
+     *** Chakhra seems to be identical with the country of Karkh,
+     at the northwestern extremity of Khorassan.
+
+     **** Varena is identified by the Pehlevi commentators with
+     Patishkhvargâr, i.e. probably the Patusharra of the Assyrian
+     inscriptions.
+
+     ^ Haug proposed to identify this last station with the
+     regions situated on the shores of the Caspian, near the
+     south-western corner of that sea. But, as Garrez points out,
+     the Pehlevi commentators prove that it must be the countries
+     on the Upper Tigris.
+
+     ^^ Spiegel has argued that Aryanem-Vaôjô is probably Arrân,
+     the modern Kazabadagh, the mountainous district between the
+     Kur and the Aras, and his opinion is now gaining acceptance.
+     The settlement of the Iranians in Russia, and their entrance
+     into Asia by way of the Caucasus, have been admitted by
+     Rost. Classical writers reversed this order of things, and
+     derived the Sauromato and other Scythian tribes from Media.
+
+It is possible that some of their hordes may have endeavoured to wedge
+themselves in between the Halys and the Euphrates as far as the centre
+of Asia Minor. Their presence in this quarter would explain why we
+encounter Iranian personal names in the Sargonide epoch on the two spurs
+of Mount Taurus, such as that of the Kushtashpi, King of Kummukh, in
+the time of Tiglath-pileser III., and of the Kundashpi mentioned in the
+_Annals_ of Shalmaneser III. in the ninth century B.C.*
+
+     * The name Kushtashpi has been compared with that of
+     Vistâspa or Gushtâsp by Fr. Lenormant, the name Kundashpi
+     with that of Vindâspa by Gutschmid, and, later on, Ball has
+     added to these a long list of names in Egyptian and Assyrian
+     inscriptions which he looks upon as Iranian. Kundashpi
+     recalls at first sight Gundobunas, a name of the Sassanid
+     epoch, if this latter form be authentic. Tiele adopts the
+     identification of Kushtashpi with Vistâspa, and Justi has
+     nothing to say against it, nor against the identification of
+     Kundashpi with Vindâspa.
+
+The main body, finding its expansion southwards checked by Urartu,
+diverged in a south-easterly direction, and sweeping before it all the
+non-Aryan or Turanian tribes who were too weak to stem its progress,
+gradually occupied the western edge of the great plateau, where it soon
+became mainly represented by the two compact groups, the Persians to
+the south on the farthest confines of Elam, and the Medes between
+the Greater Zab, the Turnât, and the Caspian. It is probable that the
+kingdom founded by Deïokes originally included what was afterwards
+termed _Media Magna_ by the Græco-Roman geographers. This sovereignty
+was formed by the amalgamation under a single monarch of six important
+tribes--the Buzo, Paraatakeni, Struchatas, Arizanti, Budii, and Magi.
+It extended north-westwards as far as the Kiziluzôn, which formed the
+frontier between the Persians and the Mannai on this side. Northwards,
+it reached as far as Demavend; the salt desert that rendered Central
+Iran a barren region, furnished a natural boundary on the east; on both
+the south and west, the Assyrian border-lands of Ellipi, Kharkhar, and
+Arrapkha prevented it from extending to the chief ranges of the Zagros
+and Cordioan mountains. The soil, though less fertile than that of
+Chaldæa or of Egypt, was by no means deficient in resources. The
+mountains contained copper, iron, lead, some gold and silver,* several
+kinds of white or coloured marble,** and precious stones, such as topaz,
+garnets, emeralds, sapphires, cornelian, and lapis-lazuli, the latter
+being a substance held in the highest esteem by Eastern jewellers from
+time immemorial; Mount Bikni was specially celebrated for the fine
+specimens of this stone which were obtained there.*** Its mountains were
+in those days clothed with dense forests, in which the pine, the oak,
+and the poplar grew side by side with the eastern plane tree, the cedar,
+lime, elm, ash, hazel, and terebinth.****
+
+     * Rawlinson has collected traditions in reference to gold
+     and silver mining among the mountains in the neighbourhood
+     of Takht-i-Suleiman; one of these is still called _Zerreh-
+     Shardn_, the mount of the _gold-washers_.
+
+     ** The best known was the so-called Tauris marble quarried
+     from the hills in the neighbourhood of Lake Urumiyah.
+
+     *** The list of precious stones which Pliny tells us were
+     found in Media, contains several kinds which we are unable
+     to identify, _e.g_. the Zathênê, the gassinades and
+     narcissitis. Pliny calls lapis-lazuli _sapphirus_, and
+     declares that the bright specks of pyrites it contained
+     rendered it unsuitable for engraving. In the Assyrian
+     inscriptions Mount Bikni, the modern Demavend, is described
+     as a mountain of Uknu, or lapis-lazuli.
+
+     **** A large part of the mountains and plains is now
+     treeless, but it is manifest, both from the evidence of the
+     inscriptions and from the observations of travellers, that
+     the whole of Media was formerly well wooded.
+
+The intermediate valleys were veritable orchards, in which the
+vegetation of the temperate zones mingled with tropical growths. The
+ancients believed that the lemon tree came originally from Persia.*
+To this day the peach, pear, apple, quince, cherry, apricot, almond,
+filbert, chestnut, fig, pistachio-nut, and pomegranate still flourish
+there: the olive is easily acclimatised, and the vine produces grapes
+equally suitable for the table or the winepress.** The plateau presents
+a poorer and less promising appearance--not that the soil is less
+genial, but the rivers become lost further inland, and the barrenness
+of the country increases as they come to an end one after another. Where
+artificial irrigation has been introduced, the fertility of the country
+is quite as great as in the neighbourhood of the mountains;*** outside
+this irrigated region no trees are to be seen, except a few on the banks
+of rivers or ponds, but wheat, barley, rye, oats, and an abundance of
+excellent vegetables grow readily in places where water is present.
+
+     * The apple obtained from Media was known as the Modicum
+     malum, and was credited with the property of being a
+     powerful antidote to poison: it was supposed that it would
+     not grow anywhere outside Media.
+
+     ** In some places, as, for instance, at Kirmânshahàn, the
+     vine stocks have to be buried during the winter to protect
+     them from the frost.
+
+     *** Irrigation was effected formerly, as now, by means of
+     subterranean canals with openings at intervals, known as
+     _kanât_.
+
+The fauna include, besides wild beasts of the more formidable kinds,
+such as lions, tigers, leopards, and bears, many domestic animals,
+or animals capable of being turned to domestic use, such as the ass,
+buffalo, sheep, goat, dog, and dromedary, and the camel with two humps,
+whose gait caused so much merriment among the Ninevite idlers when
+they beheld it in the triumphal processions of their kings; there were,
+moreover, several breeds of horses, amongst which the Nisasan steed was
+greatly prized on account of its size, strength, and agility.* In
+short, Media was large enough and rich enough to maintain a numerous
+population, and offered a stable foundation to a monarch ambitious of
+building up a new empire.**
+
+     * In the time of the Seleucides, Media supplied nearly the
+     whole of Asia with these animals, and the grazing-lands of
+     Bagistana, the modern Behistun, are said to have supported
+     160,000 of them. Under the Parthian kings Media paid a
+     yearly tribute of 3000 horses, and the Nisæan breed was
+     still celebrated at the beginning of the Byzantine era.
+     Horses are mentioned among the tribute paid by the Medic
+     chiefs to the kings of Assyria.
+
+     ** The history of the Medes remains shrouded in greater
+     obscurity than that of any other Asiatic race. We possess no
+     original documents which owe their existence to this nation,
+     and the whole of our information concerning its history is
+     borrowed from Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, and from
+     the various legends collected by the Greeks, especially by
+     Herodotus and Ctesias, from Persian magnates in Asia Minor
+     or at the court of the Achæmenian kings, or from fragments
+     of vanished works such as the writings of Borosus. And yet
+     modern archaeologists and philologists have, during the last
+     thirty years, allowed their critical faculties, and often
+     their imagination as well, to run riot when dealing with
+     this very period. After carefully examining, one after
+     another, most of the theories put forward, I have adopted
+     those hypotheses which, while most nearly approximating to
+     the classical legends, harmonise best with the chronological
+     framework--far too imperfect as yet--furnished by the
+     inscriptions dealing with the closing years of Nineveh; I do
+     not consider them all to be equally probable, but though
+     they may be mere stop-gap solutions, they have at least the
+     merit of reproducing in many cases the ideas current among
+     those races of antiquity who had been in direct
+     communication with the Medes and with the last of their
+     sovereigns.
+
+[Illustration: 269.jpg NISÆAN HOUSES HARNESSED TO A ROYAL CHARIOT]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the bas-relief from
+     Persepolis now in the British Museum.
+
+The first person to conceive the idea of establishing one was, perhaps,
+a certain Fravartish, the Phraortes of the Greeks, whom Herodotus
+declares to have been the son and successor of Deiokes.*
+
+     * The ancient form of the name, Fravartish or Frawarti, has
+     been handed down to us by a passage in the great inscription
+     of Behistun; it means the man who proclaims faith in Ahura-
+     mazda, the believer.
+
+[Illustration: 280.jpg THE PERSIAN REALM]
+
+He came to the throne about 655 B.C. at a time when the styar of
+Assur-bani-pal was still in the ascendant, and at first does not seem
+to have thought of trying to shake off the incubus of Assyrian rule. He
+began very wisely by annexing such of the petty neighbouring states as
+had hitherto remained independent, and then set himself to attack the
+one other nation of Iranian blood which, by virtue of the number and
+warlike qualities of its clans, was in a position to enter into rivalry
+with his own people. The Persians, originally concentrated in the
+interior, among the steep valleys which divide the plateau on the south,
+had probably taken advantage of the misfortunes of Elam to extend their
+own influence at its expense. Their kings were chosen from among the
+descendants of a certain Akhâmanish, the Achæmenes of the Greeks, who at
+the time of the Iranian invasion had been chief of the Pasargadæ, one
+of the Persian clans. Achæmenes is a mythical hero rather than a real
+person; he was, we are told, fed during infancy by an eagle--that mighty
+eagle whose shadow, according to a Persian belief in mediaeval times,
+assured the sovereignty to him on whom it chanced to fall. Achæmenes
+would seem to have been followed by a certain Chaispi--or Teispes--a
+less fabulous personage, described in the legends as his son. It was,
+doubtless, during his reign that Assur-bani-pal, in hot pursuit of
+Tiummân and Khumbân-khaldash, completed the downfall of Susa; Chaispi
+claimed the eastern half of Elam as his share of the spoil, and on the
+strength of his victory styled himself King of Anshân--a title on
+which his descendants still prided themselves a hundred years after his
+death.*
+
+     * The fact that Teispes was the immediate successor of
+     Achæmenes, indicated by Herodotus, is affirmed by Darius
+     himself in the Behistun inscription. According to Billet-
+     beck, the Anzân (Anshân) of the early Achæmenidæ was merely
+     a very small part of the ancient Anzân (Anshân), viz. the
+     district on the east and south-east of Kuh-i-Dena, which
+     includes the modern towns of Yezdeshast, Abadeh, Yoklîd, and
+     Kushkiserd.
+
+Persia, as then constituted, extended from the mouths of the
+Oroatis--the modern Tab--as far as the entrance to the Straits of
+Ormuzd.* The coast-line, which has in several places been greatly
+modified since ancient times by the formation of alluvial deposits,
+consists of banks of clay and sand, which lie parallel with the shore,
+and extend a considerable distance inland; in some places the country
+is marshy, in others parched and rocky, and almost everywhere barren and
+unhealthy. The central region is intersected throughout its whole length
+by several chains of hills, which rise terrace-like, one behind the
+other, from the sea to the plateau; some regions are sterile, more
+especially in the north and east, but for the most part the country is
+well wooded, and produces excellent crops of cereals. Only a few
+rivers, such as the Oroatis, which forms the boundary between Persia and
+Susiana,** the Araxes, and the Bagradas succeed in breaking through the
+barriers that beset their course, and reach the Persian Gulf;*** most of
+the others find no outlet, and their waters accumulate at the bottom of
+the valleys, in lakes whose areas vary at the different seasons.
+
+     * Herodotus imagined Carmania and Persia Proper to be one
+     and the same province; from the Alexandrine period onwards
+     historians and geographers drew a distinction between the
+     two.
+
+     ** The form of the name varies in different writers. Strabo
+     calls it the Oroatis, Nearchus the Arosis; in Pliny it
+     appears as Oratis and Zarotis, and in Ammianus Marcellinus
+     as Oroates.
+
+     *** The Araxes is the modern Bendamîr. The Kyros, which
+     flowed past Persepolis, is now the Pulwar, an affluent of
+     the Bendamîr. The Bagradas of Ptolemy, called the Hyperis by
+     Juba, is the modern Nabend.
+
+[Illustration: 282.jpg SCENE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF PERSIA.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Costs and Flandin, _Voyage en Perse_,
+     vol. i. pl. xcvi.
+
+[Illustration: 285.jpg HEAD OF A PERSIAN ARCHER]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the Naksh-i-Rustem
+     bas-relief taken by Dieulafoy.
+
+The mountainous district is furrowed in all directions by deep ravines,
+with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents
+follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage
+grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to
+the sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep
+precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail
+and narrow that they seem likely to be swept away in the first gail that
+blows. No country could present greater difficulties to the movements
+of a regular army or lend itself more readily to a system of guerrilla
+warfare. It was unequally divided between some ten or twelve tribes:*
+chief among these were the Pasargadaa, from which the royal family took
+its origin; after them came the Maraphii and Maspii.
+
+     * Herodotus only mentions ten Persian tribes; Xenophon
+     speaks of twelve.
+
+The chiefs of these two tribes were elected from among the members
+of seven families, who, at first taking equal rank with that of the
+Pasargadaæ, had afterwards been reduced to subjection by the Achæmenidæ,
+forming a privileged class at the court of the latter, the members
+of which shared the royal prerogatives and took a part in the work
+of government. Of the remaining tribes, the Panthialad, Derusiæi, and
+Carmenians lived a sedentary life, while the Dai, Mardians, Dropici,
+and Sagartians were nomadic in their habits. Each one of these tribes
+occupied its own allotted territory, the limits of which were not always
+accurately defined; we know that Sagartia, Parseta-kônê, and Mardia
+lay towards the north, on the confines of Media and the salt desert,*
+Taokênê extended along the seaboard, and Carmania lay to the east.
+The tribes had constructed large villages, such as Armuza, Sisidôna,
+Apostana, Gogana, and Taôkê, on the sea-coast (the last named possessing
+a palace which was one of the three chief residences of the Achæmenian
+kings),** and Carmana, Persepolis, Pasargadæ, and Gabæ in the
+interior.***
+
+     * Parsetakênê, which has already been identified with the
+     Partukkanu (or Partakkanu) of the Assyrian inscriptions, is
+     placed by Ptolemy in Persia; Mardia corresponds to the
+     mountainous district of Bebahan and Kazrun.
+
+     ** The position of most of these towns is still somewhat
+     doubtful. Armuza is probably Ormuz (or Hormuz) on the
+     mainland, the forerunner of the insular Hormuz of the
+     Portuguese, as the French scholar d’Anville has pointed out;
+     Sisidôna has been identified with the modern village of
+     Mogu, near Ras-Jerd, Apostana with the town of Shewâr, the
+     name seeming to be perpetuated in that of the Jebel Asban
+     which rises not far from there. Gogana is probably Bender
+     Kongûn, and Taokô, at the mouth of the Granis, is either
+     Khor Gasseîr or Rohilla at the mouth of the Bishawer. The
+     palace, which was one of the three principal residences of
+     the Achæmenian kings, is probably mentioned by Strabo, and
+     possibly in Dionysius Periegetes.
+
+     *** Carmana is the modern Kermân; the exact position of
+     Gabæ, which also possesses a palace, is not known.
+
+[Illustration: 287.jpg A PERSIAN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of one of the bas-
+     reliefs at Persepolis, in Dieulafoy.
+
+The Persians were a keen-witted and observant race, inured to all kinds
+of hardships in their occupation as mountain shepherds, and they were
+born warriors. The type preserved on the monuments differs but little
+from that which still exists at the present day in the more remote
+districts. It was marked by a tall and slender figure, with sturdy
+shoulders and loins, a small head, with a thick shock of hair and
+curling beard, a straight nose, a determined mouth, and an eye steady
+and alert. Yet, in spite of their valour, Phraortes overpowered them,
+and was henceforward able to reckon the princes of Anshân among his
+vassals; strengthened by the addition of their forces to his own,
+he directed his efforts to the subjection of the other races of the
+plateau. If we may believe the tradition of the Hellenic epoch, he
+reduced them to submission, and, intoxicated by his success, ventured at
+last to take up arms against the Assyrians, who for centuries past had
+held rule over Upper Asia.
+
+This was about 635 B.C., or less than ten years after the downfall of
+Elam, and it does not seem likely that the vital forces of Assyria can
+have suffered any serious diminution within so short a space of time.*
+
+     * The date is indicated by the figures given by Herodotus in
+     regard to the Medic kings, based on the calculations of
+     himself or his authorities. Phraortes died in 634 B.C.,
+     after a reign of twenty-two years, and as the last year of
+     his reign coincides with the war against Assyria, the
+     preparations for it cannot have been much earlier than 635
+     or 636 B.C., a year or two before the catastrophe.
+
+Assur-bani-pal, weary of fighting, even though he no longer directed
+operations in person, had apparently determined to remain entirely on
+the defensive, and not to take the field, unless absolutely compelled
+to do so by rebellion at home or an attack from outside. In view of the
+growing need of rest for the Assyrian nation, he could not have arrived
+at a wiser decision, provided always that circumstances allowed of its
+being carried into effect, and that the tributary races and frontier
+nations were willing to fall in with his intentions. They did so at
+first, for the fate of Elam had filled even the most unruly among them
+with consternation, and peace reigned supreme from the Persian Gulf to
+the Mediterranean. Assur-bani-pal took advantage of this unexpected lull
+to push forward the construction of public works in the valleys of the
+Tigris and Euphrates. The palace of Sennacherib, though it had been
+built scarcely fifty years before, was already beginning to totter on
+its foundations; Assur-bani-pal entirely remodeled and restored it--a
+proceeding which gave universal satisfaction. The common people had, as
+usual, to make the bricks with their own hands and convey them to the
+spot, but as the chariots employed for this purpose formed part of the
+booty recently brought back from Elam, the privilege of using these
+trophies did something to lighten the burden of the tasks imposed on
+them. Moreover, they had the satisfaction of seeing at work among the
+squads of labourers several real kings, the Arabian chiefs who had been
+pursued and captured in the heart of the desert by Assur-bani-pal’s
+generals; they plodded along under their heavy baskets, stimulated by
+the crack of the whip, amid insults and jeers. This palace was one of
+the largest and most ornate ever built by the rulers of Assyria. True,
+the decoration does not reveal any novel process or theme; we find
+therein merely the usual scenes of battle or of the chase, but they are
+designed and executed with a skill to which the sculptor of Nineveh had
+never before attained. The animals, in particular, are portrayed with a
+light and delicate touch--the wild asses pursued by hounds, or checked
+while galloping at full speed by a cast of the lasso; the herds of goats
+and gazelles hurrying across the desert; the wounded lioness, which
+raises herself with a last dying effort to roar at the beaters. We are
+conscious of Egyptian influence underlying the Asiatic work, and the
+skilful arrangement of the scenes from the Elamite campaigns also
+reminds us of Egypt. The picture of the battle of Tullîz recalls, in
+the variety of its episodes and the arrangement of the perspective, the
+famous engagement at Qodshu, of which Ramses II. has left such
+numerous presentments on the Theban pylons. The Assyrians, led by the
+vicissitudes of invasion to Luxor and the Ramesseum, had, doubtless,
+seen these masterpieces of Egyptian art in a less mutilated state than
+that in which we now possess them, and profited by the remembrance when
+called upon to depict the private life of their king and the victories
+gained by his armies.
+
+[Illustration: 290.jpg A HERD OF WILD GOATS--A BAS-RELIEF OF THE TIME OF
+ASSUR-BANI-PAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch by Place.
+
+It was in this magnificent residence that Assur-bani-pal led an
+existence of indolent splendour, such as the chroniclers of a later
+age were wont to ascribe to all the Assyrian monarchs from the time of
+Semiramis onwards.*
+
+     * Stories of the effeminacy of Sardanapalus had been
+     collected by Ctesias of Cnidus; they soon grew under the
+     hands of historians in the time of Alexander, and were
+     passed on by them to writers of the Roman and Byzantine
+     epochs.
+
+[Illustration: 290b ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT IN HEIROGLYPHICS]
+
+We would gladly believe that he varied the monotony of his hunting
+expeditions, his banquets, and entertainments in the gardens in company
+with the women of the harem, by pleasures of a more refined nature, and
+that he took an unusual interest in the history and literature of the
+races who had become subject to his rule. As a matter of fact, there
+have been discovered in several of the ruined chambers of his palaces
+the remains of a regular library, which must originally have contained
+thousands of clay tablets, all methodically arranged and catalogued for
+his use. A portion of them furnish us at first-hand with the records
+of his reign, and include letters exchanged with provincial governors,
+augural predictions, consultation of oracles, observations made by the
+royal astrologers, standing orders, accounts of income and expenditure,
+even the reports of physicians in regard to the health of members of the
+royal family or of the royal household: these documents reveal to us the
+whole machinery of government in actual operation, and we almost seem
+to witness the secret mechanism by which the kingdom was maintained in
+activity. Other tablets contain authentic copies of works which were
+looked upon as classics in the sanctuaries of the Euphrates. Probably,
+when Babylon was sacked, Sennacherib had ordered the books which
+lay piled up in E-Sagilla and the other buildings of the city to
+be collected and carried away to Nineveh along with the statues and
+property of the gods. They had been placed in the treasury, and there
+they remained until Esarhaddon re-established the kingdom of Karduniash,
+and Assur-bani-pal was forced to deliver up the statue of Marduk and
+restore to the sanctuaries, now rebuilt, all the wealth of which his
+grandfather had robbed them: but before sending back the tablets, he
+ordered copies to be made of them, and his secretaries set to work to
+transcribe for his use such of these works as they considered worthy of
+reproduction. The majority of them were treatises compiled by the most
+celebrated adepts in the sciences for which Chaldæa had been famous
+from time immemorial; they included collections of omens, celestial and
+terrestrial, in which the mystical meaning of each phenomenon and
+its influence on the destinies of the world was explained by examples
+borrowed from the Annals of world-renowned conquerors, such as Naramsin
+and Sargon of Agade; then there were formulæ for exorcising evil spirits
+from the bodies of the possessed, and against phantoms, vampires, and
+ghosts, the recognised causes of all disease; prayers and psalms, which
+had to be repeated before the gods in order to obtain pardon for sin;
+and histories of divinities and kings from the time of the creation down
+to the latest date. Among these latter were several versions of the epic
+of Grilgames, the story of Etana, of Adapa, and many others; and we
+may hope to possess all that the Assyrians knew of the old Chaldæan
+literature in the seventh century B.C., as soon as the excavators have
+unearthed from the mound at Kouyunjik all the tablets, complete or
+fragmentary, which still lie hidden there. Even from the shreds of
+information which they have already yielded to us, we are able to piece
+together so varied a picture that we can readily imagine Assur-bani-pal
+to have been a learned and studious monarch, a patron of literature and
+antiquarian knowledge. Very possibly he either read himself, or had read
+to him, many of the authors whose works found a place in his library:
+the kings of Nineveh, like the Pharaohs, desired now and then to be
+amused by tales of the marvellous, and they were doubtless keenly alive
+to the delightful rhythm and beautiful language employed by the poets of
+the past in singing the praises of their divine or heroic ancestors.
+But the mere fact that his palace contained the most important literary
+collection which the ancient East has so far bequeathed to us, in no
+way proves that Assur-bani-pal displayed a more pronounced taste for
+literature than his predecessors; it indicates merely the zeal and
+activity of his librarians, their intelligence, and their respect and
+admiration for the great works of the past. Once he had issued his edict
+ordering new editions of the old masters to be prepared, Assur-bani-pal
+may have dismissed the matter from his mind, and the work would go on
+automatically without need for any further interference on his part.
+The scribes enriched his library for him, in much the same way as the
+generals won his battles, or the architects built his monuments: they
+were nothing more than nameless agents, whose individuality was eclipsed
+by that of their master, their skill and talent being all placed to his
+credit. Babylonia shared equally with Assyria in the benefits of his
+government. He associated himself with his brother Shamash-shumukin in
+the task of completing the temple of Ê-Sagilla; afterwards, when sole
+monarch, he continued the work of restoration, not only in Babylon, but
+in the lesser cities as well, especially those which had suffered most
+during the war, such as Uru, Uruk, Borsippa, and Cutha.*
+
+     He refers to the works at Borsippa and Kuta towards the end
+     of the account of his campaign against Shamash-shumukin, and
+     to those at Uruk in describing the war against Khumbân-
+     khaldash.
+
+He remodelled the temple of Bel at Nippur, the walls built there by him
+being even now distinguishable from the rest by the size of the bricks
+and the careful dressing of the masonry. From the shores of the Persian
+Gulf to the mountains of Armenia, Assyria and Karduniash were covered
+with building-yards just as they had been in the most peaceful days of
+the monarchy.
+
+[Illustration: 294.jpg REMAINS OF ASSUR-BANI-PAL’s WALL AT NIPPUR]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph published by
+     Peters.
+
+It was at this unique juncture of apparent grandeur and prosperity
+that Phraortes resolved to attack Assur-bani-pal. There is nothing to
+indicate that his action took place simultaneously with some movement on
+the part of other peoples, or with a serious insurrection in any of the
+Assyrian provinces. For my part, I prefer to set it down to one of those
+sudden impulses, those irresistible outbursts of self-confidence, which
+from time to time actuated the princes tributary to Nineveh or the kings
+on its frontier. The period of inactivity to which some previous defeat
+inflicted on them or on their predecessors had condemned them, allowed
+them to regain their strength, and one or two victories over less
+powerful neighbours served to obliterate the memory of former
+humiliation and disaster; they flew to arms full of hope in the result,
+and once more drew down defeat upon their heads, being lucky indeed if
+their abortive rising led to nothing worse than the slaughter of their
+armies, the execution of their generals, and an increase in the amount
+of their former tribute. This was the fate that overtook Phraortes;
+the conqueror of the Persians, when confronted by the veteran troops of
+Assyria, failed before their superior discipline, and was left dead upon
+the field of battle with the greater part of his army. So far the
+affair presented no unusual features; it was merely one more commonplace
+repetition of a score of similar episodes which had already taken place
+in the same region, under Tiglath-pileser III. or the early Sargonides;
+but Huvakshatara, the son of Phraortes, known to the Greeks as
+Cyaxares,* instead of pleading for mercy, continued to offer a stubborn
+resistance. Cyaxares belongs to history, and there can be no doubt that
+he exercised a decisive influence over the destinies of the Oriental
+world, but precise details of his exploits are wanting, and his
+personality is involved in such obscuring mists that we can scarcely
+seize it; the little we have so far been able to glean concerning him
+shows us, not so much the man himself, as a vague shadow of him seen
+dimly through the haze.
+
+     * The original form of the name is furnished by passages in
+     the Behistun inscription, where Chitrantakhma of Sagartia
+     and Fravartish of Media, two of the claimants for the throne
+     who rose against Darius, are represented as tracing their
+     descent from Huvakshatara.
+
+His achievements prove him to have been one of those perfect rulers of
+men, such as Asia produces every now and then, who knew how to govern as
+well as how to win battles--a born general and lawgiver, who could carry
+his people with him, and shone no less in peace than in war.*
+
+     * G. Rawlinson takes a somewhat different view of Cyaxares’
+     character; he admits that Cyaxares knew how to win
+     victories, but refuses to credit him with the capacity for
+     organisation required in order to reap the full benefits of
+     conquest, giving as his reason for this view the brief
+     duration of the Medic empire. The test applied by him does
+     not seem to me a conclusive one, for the existence of the
+     second Chaldæan empire was almost as short, and yet it would
+     be decidedly unfair to draw similar inferences touching the
+     character of Nabopolassar or Nebuchadrezzar from this fact.
+
+[Illustration: 297.jpg MEDIC AND PERSIAN FOOT-SOLDIERS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Coste and Flandin. The first
+     and third figures are Medes, the second and fourth Persians.
+
+The armies at the disposal of his predecessors had been little more than
+heterogeneous assemblies of feudal militia; each clan furnished its own
+contingent of cavalry, archers, and pikemen, but instead of all these
+being combined into a common whole, with kindred elements contributed
+by the other tribes, each one acted separately, thus forming a number of
+small independent armies within the larger one. Cyaxares saw that defeat
+was certain so long as he had nothing but these ill-assorted masses to
+match against the regular forces of Assyria: he therefore broke up the
+tribal contingents and rearranged the units of which they were composed
+according to their natural affinities, grouping horsemen with horsemen,
+archers with archers, and pikemen with pikemen, taking the Assyrian
+cavalry and infantry as his models.*
+
+* Herodotus tells us that Cyaxares was “the first to divide the Asiatics
+into different regiments, separating the pikemen from the archers and
+horsemen; before his time, these troops were all mixed up haphazard
+together.” I have interpreted his evidence in the sense which seems
+most in harmony with what we know of Assyrian military tactics. It
+seems incredible that the Medic armies can have fought pell-mell, as
+Herodotus declares, seeing that for two hundred years past the Medes
+had been frequently engaged against such well-drilled troops as those
+of Assyria: if the statement be authentic, it merely means that Cyaxares
+converted all the small feudal armies which had hitherto fought side
+by side on behalf of the king into a single royal army in which the
+different kinds of troops were kept separate.
+
+The foot-soldiers wore a high felt cap known as a tiara; they had long
+tunics with wide sleeves, tied in at the waist by a belt, and sometimes
+reinforced by iron plates or scales, as well as gaiters, buskins of soft
+leather, and large wickerwork shields covered with ox-hide, which they
+bore in front of them like a movable bulwark; their weapons consisted of
+a short sword, which depended from the belt and lay along the thigh,
+one or two light javelins, a bow with a strongly pronounced curve, and
+a quiver full of arrows made from reeds.* Their horsemen, like those of
+other warlike nations II of the East, used neither saddle nor stirrups,
+and though they could make skilful use of lance and sword, their
+favourite weapon was the bow.**
+
+     * Herodotus describes the equipment of the Persians in much
+     the same terms as I have used above, and then adds in the
+     following chapter that “the Medes had the same equipment,
+     for it is the equipment of the Medes and not that of the
+     Persians.”
+
+     ** Herodotus says that the Medic horsemen were armed in the
+     same manner as the infantry.
+
+[Illustration: 298.jpg A MEDIC HORSEMAN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a cast of the Medic intaglio in
+     the Cabinet des Médailles.
+
+Accustomed from their earliest childhood to all kinds of equestrian
+exercises, they seemed to sit their horses as though they actually
+formed part of the animal. They seldom fought in line, but, from the
+very beginning of an action, hung like a dense cloud on the front and
+flanks of the enemy, and riddled them with missiles, without, however,
+coming to close quarters. Like the Parthians of a later epoch, they
+waited until they had bewildered and reduced the foe by their ceaseless
+evolutions before giving the final charge which was to rout them
+completely. No greater danger could threaten the Assyrians than the
+establishment of a systematically organised military power within
+the borders of Media. An invader starting from Egypt or Asia Minor,
+even if he succeeded in overthrowing the forces sent out to meet him,
+had still a long way to go before he could penetrate to the heart of
+the empire. Even if Cilicia and Syria should be conquered, nothing was
+easier than to oppose a further advance at the barrier of the Euphrates;
+and should the Euphrates be crossed, the Khabur still remained, and
+behind it the desert of Singar, which offered the last obstacle between
+Nineveh and the invaders. The distances were less considerable in the
+case of an army setting out from Urartu and proceeding along the basin
+of the Tigris or its affluents; but here, too, the difficulties of
+transit were so serious that the invader ran a great risk of gradually
+losing the best part of his forces on the road. On the north-east and
+east, however, the ancient heritage of Assur lay open to direct and
+swift attack. An enemy who succeeded in destroying or driving back the
+garrisons stationed as outposts on the rim of the plateau, from Kharkhar
+to Parsua, if he ventured to pursue his advantage and descended into the
+plain of the Tigris, had no less than three routes to choose from--the
+Kirind road on the south, the Baneh road on the north, and the
+Suleimanych road between the two. The last was the easiest of all, and
+led almost straight to the fords of Altun-Keupri and the banks of the
+Lesser Zab, on the confines of Assyria proper, close under the walls of
+Arbela, the holy city of Ishtar.
+
+[Illustration: 300.jpg THE ASSYRIAN TRIANGLE]
+
+He needed but to win two victories, one upon leaving the mountains, the
+other at the passage of the Zab, and two or three weeks’ steady marching
+would bring him from Hamadân right up to the ramparts of Nineveh.
+Cyaxares won a victory over Assur-bani-pal’s generals, and for the first
+time in over a hundred years Assyria proper suffered the ignominy of
+foreign invasion. The various works constructed by twenty generations of
+kings had gradually transformed the triangle enclosed between the Upper
+Zab, the Tigris, and the Jebel-Makhlub into a regular fortified camp.
+The southern point of this triangle was defended by Calah from the
+attacks of Chaldoa or from foes coming down from Media by Iïolwân and
+Suleimanyeh, while Nineveh guarded it on the northeast, and several
+lines of walled cities--among which Dur-Sharrukîn and Imgur-Bel can
+still be identified--protected it on the north and east, extending from
+the Tigris as far as the G-hazîr and Zab. It was necessary for an enemy
+to break through this complex defensive zone, and even after this had
+been successfully accomplished and the walls of the capital had been
+reached, the sight which would meet the eye was well calculated to
+dismay even the most resolute invader. Viewed as a whole, Nineveh
+appeared as an irregular quadrilateral figure, no two sides of which
+were parallel, lying on the left bank of the Tigris.
+
+[Illustration: 301.jpg MAP OF NINEVEH]
+
+The river came right up to the walls on the west, and the two mounds of
+Kouyunjik and Nebi-Yunus, on which stood the palaces of the Sargonides,
+were so skilfully fortified that a single wall connecting the two
+sufficed to ward off all danger of attack on this side. The south
+wall, which was the shortest of the four, being only about 870 yards
+in length, was rendered inaccessible by a muddy stream, while the north
+wall, some 2150 yards long, was protected by a wide moat which could be
+filled from the waters of the Khuzur.
+
+[Illustration: 302.jpg PART OF THE FOSSE AT NINEVEH]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+The eastern front had for a long time depended for its safety on
+a single wall reinforced by a moat, but Sennacherib, deeming it
+insufficiently protected against a sudden attack, had piled up obstacles
+in front of it, so that it now presented a truly formidable appearance.
+It was skirted throughout its whole length by a main rampart, 5400 yards
+long, which described a gentle curve from north to south, and rose to a
+height of about 50 feet, being protected by two small forts placed close
+to the main gates. The fosse did not run along the foot of the wall, but
+at a distance of about fifty yards in front of it, and was at least some
+20 feet deep and over 150 feet in width. It was divided into two unequal
+segments by the Khuzur: three large sluice-gates built on a level with
+the wall and the two escarpments allowed the river to be dammed back, so
+that its waters could be diverted into the fosse and thus keep it full
+in case of siege. In front of each segment was a kind of demi-lune,
+and--as though this was not precaution enough--two walls, each over
+4300 yards long, were built in front of the demi-lunes, the ditch which
+separated them being connected at one end with the Khuzur, and allowed
+to empty itself into a stream on the south. The number of inhabitants
+sheltered behind these defences was perhaps 300,000 souls;* each
+separate quarter of the city was enclosed by ramparts, thus forming, as
+it were, a small independent town, which had to be besieged and captured
+after a passage had been cut through the outer lines of defence.
+
+     * Jones and G. Rawlinson credit Nineveh with a population of
+     not more than 175,000.
+
+Cyaxares might well have lost heart in the face of so many difficulties,
+but his cupidity, inflamed by reports of the almost fabulous wealth of
+the city, impelled him to attack it with extraordinary determination:
+the spoils of Susa, Babylon, and Thebes, in fact, of the whole of
+Western Asia and Ethiopia, were, he felt, almost within his reach,
+and would inevitably fall into his hands provided his courage and
+perseverance did not fail him. After shutting up the remnant of the
+Assyrian army inside Nineveh he laid patient siege to the city, and the
+fame of his victories being noised abroad on all sides, it awoke among
+the subject races that longing for revenge which at one time appeared to
+have been sent to sleep for ever. It almost seemed as though the moment
+was approaching when the city of blood should bleed in its turn, when
+its kings should at length undergo the fate which they had so long
+imposed on other monarchs. Nahum the Elkoshite,* a Hebrew born in the
+Assyrian province of Samaria, but at that time an exile in Judah, lifted
+up his voice, and the echo of his words still resounds in our ears,
+telling us of the joy and hope felt by Judah, and with Judah, by the
+whole of Asia, at the prospect. Speaking as the prophet of Jahveh,
+it was to Jahveh that he attributed the impending downfall of the
+oppressor: “Jahveh is a jealous God and avengeth; Jahveh avengeth and
+is full of wrath; Jahveh taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He
+reserveth wrath for His enemies. Jahveh is slow to anger and great in
+power, and will by no means clear the guilty; Jahveh hath His way in the
+whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He
+rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan
+languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.” * And,
+“Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.”
+ Then he goes on to unfold before the eyes of his hearers a picture of
+Nineveh, humiliated and in the last extremity.
+
+     * Elkosh is identified by Eusebius with Elkese, which St.
+     Jerome declares to have been in Galileo, the modern el-
+     Kauzeh, two and a half hours’ walk south of Tibnin. The
+     prophecy of Nahum has been taken by some as referring to the
+     campaign of Phraortes against Assyria, but more frequently
+     to the destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Chaldæans. It
+     undoubtedly refers to the siege interrupted by the Scythian
+     invasion.
+
+There she lies, behind her bastions of brick, anxiously listening for
+the approach of the victorious Medes. “The noise of the whip, and
+the noise of the rattling of wheels; and prancing horses and jumping
+chariots; the horsemen mounting, and the flashing sword, and the
+glittering spear; and a multitude of slain and a great heap of carcases:
+and there is no end of the corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
+because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot,
+the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms,
+and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith
+Jahveh of hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon they face; and I
+will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I
+will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set
+thee as a gazing-stock. And it shall come to pass that all they that
+look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who
+will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?” Thebes, the
+city of Amon, did not escape captivity; why then should Nineveh prove
+more fortunate? “All thy fortresses shall be like fig trees with the
+firstripe figs: if they be shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.
+Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; the gates of thy land
+are set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire hath devoured thy bars.
+Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses: go into the
+clay and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. There shall the
+fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off,... make thyself many as
+the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts. Thou hast multiplied
+thy merchants as the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth and flieth
+away. Thy crowned are as the locusts and thy marshals as the swarms of
+grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun
+ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
+Thy shepherds slumber, O King of Assyria: thy worthies are at rest: thy
+people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather
+them. There is no assuaging of thy hurt; thy wound is grievous: all that
+hear the bruit of thee clap the hands over thee; for upon whom hath not
+thy wickedness passed continually?”
+
+On this occasion Nineveh escaped the fate with which the prophet had
+threatened it, but its safety was dearly bought. According to the
+tradition accepted in Asia Minor two hundred years later, a horde of
+Scythians under King Madyes, son of Protothyes, setting out from the
+Bussian steppes in pursuit of the Cimmerians, made their appearance on
+the scene in the nick of time. We are told that they flung themselves
+through the Caspian Gates into the basin of the Kur, and came into
+contact with the Medes at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The defeat of the
+Medes here would necessarily compel them to raise the siege of Nineveh.
+This crisis in the history of Asia was certainly not determined by
+chance. For eighty years Assyria had been in contact with the Scythians,
+and the Assyrian kings had never ceased to keep an eye upon their
+movements, or lose sight of the advantage to which their bellicose
+temper might be turned in circumstances like the present. They had
+pitted them against the Cimmerians, then against the Medes, and probably
+against the kings of Urartu as well, and the intimacy between the two
+peoples came to be so close that the Scythian king Bartatua did not
+hesitate to demand one of the daughters of Bsarhaddon in marriage. From
+the very beginning of his reign Assur-bani-pal had shown them the
+utmost consideration, and when King Madyes, son of his ally Bartatua,
+intervened thus opportunely in the struggle, he did so, not by mere
+chance, as tradition would have us believe, but at the urgent request of
+Assyria. He attacked Media in the rear, and Cyaxares, compelled to raise
+the siege of Nineveh, hastened to join battle with him. The engagement
+probably took place on the banks of the Lower Araxes or to the north of
+Lake Urumiah, in the region formerly inhabited by the Mannai; but after
+defeating his foe and dictating to him the terms of submission, Madyes,
+carried away by the lust of conquest, did not hesitate to turn his arms
+against his ally. Exhausted by her recent struggle, Assyria lay at his
+mercy, her fortresses alone being able to offer any serious resistance:
+he overran the country from end to end, and though the walled cities
+withstood the fury of his attack, the rural districts were plundered
+right and left, and laid desolate for many a year to come. The Scythians
+of this epoch probably resembled those whom we find represented on the
+monuments of Greek art two centuries later. Tall fierce-looking men,
+with unkempt beards, their long and straggling locks surmounted by the
+_kyrbasis_, or pointed national cap of felt; they wore breeches and a
+blouse of embroidered leather, and were armed with lances, bows, and
+battle-axes. They rode bareback on untrained horses, herds of which
+followed their tribes about on their wanderings; each man caught the
+animal he required with the help of a lasso, put bit and bridle on him,
+and vaulting on to his back at a single bound, reduced him to a state
+of semi-obedience. No troops could stand their ground before the
+frantic charge of these wild horsemen; like the Huns of Roman times,
+the Scythians made a clean sweep of everything they found in their path.
+They ruined the crops, carried off or slaughtered the herds, and set
+fire to the villages from sheer love of destruction, or in order to
+inspire terror; every one who failed to fly to the mountains or take
+refuge in some fortress, was either massacred on the spot or led away
+into slavery.
+
+[Illustration: 308.jpg SCYTHIANS TENDING THEIR WOUNDED]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the reliefs on a silver vase
+     from Kul-Oba.
+
+Too ignorant of the arts of war to undertake a siege in the regular
+way, they usually contented themselves with levying ransoms on fortified
+towns; occasionally, however, when the wealth accumulated behind the
+walls held out a prospect of ample booty, they blockaded the place until
+famine compelled it to surrender. More than one ancient city which,
+thanks to the good government of its rulers and the industry of its
+citizens, had amassed treasure of inestimable value, was put to fire and
+sword, and more than one fertile and populous region left unfilled and
+deserted.* Most of the states which for the last three centuries had
+fought so stubbornly against the Assyrians for independence, went down
+before the storm, including the kingdoms of Urartu, of the Mushku, and
+of the Tabal,** the miserable end furnishing the Hebrew prophets full
+fifty years later with a theme of sombre rejoicing. “There is Meshech,
+Tubal, and all her multitude; her graves are round about her: all of
+them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in
+the land of the living. And they shall not lie with the mighty that
+are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their
+weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads,*** and
+their iniquities are upon their bones; for they were the terror of the
+mighty in the land of the living.” ****
+
+     * This may be deduced from the passage in Herodotus, where
+     he says that “ the Scythians were masters of Asia for
+     twenty-eight years, and overturned everything by their
+     brutality and stupidity: for, in addition to tribute, they
+     exacted from every one whatever they chose, and, moreover,
+     they prowled here and there, plundering as they thought
+     good.”
+
+     ** Strabo refers in general terms to the presence of
+     Scythians (or, as he calls them, Sacae) in Armenia,
+     Cappadocia, and on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+     *** This, doubtless, means that the Mushku and Tabal had
+     been so utterly defeated that they could not procure
+     honourable burial for their dead, i.e. with their swords
+     beneath their heads and their weapons on their bodies.
+
+     **** 1 Ezek. xxxii. 26, 27.
+
+The Cimmerians, who, since their reverses in Lydia and on Mount Taurus,
+had concentrated practically the whole of their tribes in Cappadocia
+and in the regions watered by the Halys and Thermodon, shared the good
+fortune of their former adversaries. At that time they lived under the
+rule of a certain Kôbos, who seems to have left a terrible reputation
+behind him; tradition gives him a place beside Sesostris among the
+conquerors of the heroic age, and no doubt, like his predecessor
+Dugdamis, he owed this distinction to some expedition or other against
+the peoples who dwelt on the shores of the Ægean Sea, but our knowledge
+of his career is confined to the final catastrophe which overtook him.
+After some partial successes, such as that near Zela, for instance, he
+was defeated and made prisoner by Madyes. His subjects, as vassals of
+the Scythians, joined them in their acts of brigandage,* and together
+they marched from province to province, plundering as they went; they
+overran the western regions of the Assyrian kingdom from Melitene
+and Mesopotamia to Northern Syria, from Northern Syria to Phoenicia,
+Damascus, and Palestine,** and at length made their appearance on the
+Judaean frontier.
+
+     * It seems probable that this was so, when we consider the
+     confusion between the Scythians or Sakse, and the Cimmerians
+     in the Babylonian and Persian inscriptions of the
+     Achsemenian epoch.
+
+     ** Their migration from Media into Syria and Palestine is
+     expressly mentioned by Herodotus.
+
+Since the day when Sennacherib had been compelled to return to Assyria
+without having succeeded in destroying Jerusalem, or even carrying it by
+storm, Judah had taken little or no part in external politics. Divided
+at first by a conflict between the party of prudence, who advised
+submission to Nineveh, and the more warlike spirits who advocated an
+alliance with Egypt, it had ended by accepting its secondary position,
+and had on the whole remained fairly loyal to the dynasty of Sargon.
+
+[Illustration: 311.jpg IRANIAN SOLDIER FIGHTING AGAINST THE SCYTHIANS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast of a cylinder given by
+     Cunningham. The cylinder is usually described as Persian,
+     but the dress is that of the Medes as well as of the
+     Persians.
+
+On the death of Hezekiah, his successor, Manasseh, had, as we know,
+been tempted to intervene in the revolutions of the hour, but the prompt
+punishment which followed his first attempt put an end for ever to his
+desire for independence. His successor, Amon, during his brief reign of
+two years,* had no time to desert the ways of his father, and Josiah,**
+who came to the throne in 638 B.C., at the age of eight, had so far
+manifested no hostility towards Assyria.
+
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 18-26; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 20-25. The reign
+     of fifty-five years attributed to Manasseh by the Jewish
+     annalists cannot be fitted into the chronology of the
+     period; we must either take off ten years, thus reducing the
+     duration of the reign to forty-five years, or else we must
+     assume the first ten of Manasseh to be synchronous with the
+     last ten of Hezekiah.
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxii. 1; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 1.
+
+Thus, for more than fifty years, Judah enjoyed almost unbroken peace,
+and led as happy and prosperous an existence as the barrenness of its
+soil and the unruly spirit of its inhabitants would permit.
+
+But though its political activity had been almost nothing during this
+interval, its spiritual life had seldom been developed with a greater
+intensity. The reverse sustained by Sennacherib had undoubtedly been
+a triumph for Isaiah, and for the religious party of which we are
+accustomed to regard him as the sole representative. It had served to
+demonstrate the power of Jahveh, and His aversion for all idolatrous
+worship and for all foreign alliances. In vain did the partisans of
+Egypt talk loudly of Pharaoh and of all those principalities of this
+world which were drawn round in Pharaoh’s orbit; Egypt had shown herself
+incapable of safeguarding her friends, and things had gone steadily from
+bad to worse so long as these latter held the reins of government;
+their removal from office had been, as it were, the signal for a welcome
+change in the fortunes of the Jews. Jahveh had delivered His city
+the moment when, ceasing to rely upon itself, it had surrendered its
+guidance into His hands, and the means of avoiding disaster in the
+future was clearly pointed out to it. Judah must be content to follow
+the counsels which Isaiah had urged upon it in the name of the Most
+High, and submissively obey the voice of its prophets. “Thine eyes shall
+see thy teachers: and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying,
+This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when
+ye turn to the left. And ye shall defile the over-laying of thy graven
+images of silver, and the plating of thy molten images of gold: thou
+shalt cast them away as an unclean thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get
+thee hence.” Isaiah seems to disappear after his triumph, and none of
+his later prophecies have come down to us: yet the influence of his
+teaching lasted throughout the reign of Hezekiah, and the court,
+supported by the more religious section of the people, not only abjured
+the worship of false gods, but forsook the high places and discontinued
+the practices which he had so strenuously denounced. The great bulk of
+the nation, however, soon returned to their idolatrous practices, if,
+indeed, they had ever given them up, and many of the royal advisers grew
+weary of the rigid observances which it was sought to impose upon them;
+rites abhorrent to Jahveh found favour even among members of the king’s
+own family, and on Hezekiah’s death, about 686 B.C., a reaction promptly
+set in against both his religious views and the material reforms he had
+introduced.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 2-7 (cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 2-7), where, in
+     spite of manifest recensions of the text, the facts
+     themselves seem to have been correctly set forth.
+
+Manasseh was only thirteen years old when he came to the throne, and his
+youth naturally inclined him towards the less austere forms of divine
+worship: from the very first he tolerated much that his father had
+forbidden, and the spirit of eclecticism which prevailed among his
+associates rendered him, later on, an object of special detestation to
+the orthodox historians of Jerusalem. Worshippers again began openly
+to frequent the high places; they set up again the prostrate idols,
+replanted the sacred groves, and even “built altars for all the host
+of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jahveh.” The chariots
+and horses of the sun reappeared within the precincts of the temple,
+together with the sacred courtesans. Baal and the Phoenician Astarte
+were worshipped on Mount Sion. The valley of Hinnom, where Ahaz had
+already burnt one of his children during a desperate crisis in the
+Syrian wars, was again lighted up by the flames of the sacred pyre.
+We are told that Manasseh himself set the example by passing his son
+through the flames; he also had recourse to astrologers, soothsayers,
+fortune-tellers, and sorcerers of the lowest type. The example of
+Assyria in matters of this kind exercised a preponderant influence on
+Jewish customs, and certainly it would have been a miracle if Jerusalem
+had succeeded in escaping it; did not Nineveh owe the lofty place it
+occupied to these occult sciences and to the mysterious powers of its
+gods? In thus imitating its conqueror, Judah was merely borrowing the
+weapons which had helped him to subdue the world. The partisans of the
+ancient religions who were responsible for these innovations must have
+regarded them as perfectly legitimate reforms, and their action was
+received with favour in the provinces: before long the latter contained
+as many sanctuaries as there were towns,* and by thus multiplying the
+centres of worship, they hoped that, in accordance with ancient belief,
+the ties which existed between Jahveh and His chosen people would also
+be increased.
+
+     * Jer. ii. 26-30. For the quotation see also Jer. xi. 13:
+     “For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O
+     Judah; and according to the number of the streets of
+     Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shameful thing, even
+     altars to burn incense unto Baal.”
+
+The fact that the provinces had been ravaged from end to end in the days
+of Sennacherib, while Jerusalem had been spared, was attributed to the
+circumstance that Hezekiah had destroyed the provincial sanctuaries,
+leaving the temple on Mount Sion alone standing. Wherever Jahveh
+possessed altars, He kept guard over His people, but His protection was
+not extended to those places where sacrifices were no longer offered to
+Him. The reaction was not allowed to take place without opposition on
+the part of the prophets and their followers. We are told that Manasseh
+“shed innocent blood very much till he had filled Jerusalem from one
+end to another;” there is even a Kabbinic tradition to the effect that,
+weary of the admonitions of the aged Isaiah, he put him to death by
+shutting him up in the hollow trunk of a tree, and causing him to be
+sawn in two.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 16. The tradition in regard to the fate of
+     Isaiah took its foundation in this text, and it is perhaps
+     indirectly referred to in Heb. xi. 37.
+
+For a long time after this no instance can be found of a prophet
+administering public affairs or directing the actions of the king
+himself; the priests and reformers, finding no outlet for their
+energy in this direction, fell back on private preaching and literary
+propaganda. And, above all, they applied themselves to the task of
+rewriting the history of Israel, which, as told by the chroniclers of
+the previous century, presented the national Deity in too material a
+light, and one which failed to harmonise with the ideals then obtaining.
+So long as there were two separate Hebrew kingdoms, the existence of the
+two parallel versions of the Elohist and Jahvist gave rise to but little
+difficulty: each version had its own supporters and readers, whose
+consciences were readily satisfied by the interpolation of a few new
+facts into the text as occasion arose. But now that Samaria had fallen,
+and the whole political and religious life of the Hebrew race
+was centred in Judah alone, the necessity for a double and often
+contradictory narrative had ceased to exist, and the idea occurred of
+combining the two in a single work. This task, which was begun in
+the reign of Hezekiah and continued under Manasseh, resulted in the
+production of a literature of which fragments have been incorporated
+into the historical books of our Bible.*
+
+The reign of Amon witnessed no alteration in the policy initiated by his
+predecessor Manasseh; but when, after less than two years’ rule, he was
+suddenly struck down by the knife of an assassin, the party of reform
+carried the day, and the views of Hezekiah and Isaiah regained their
+ascendency. Josiah had been king, in name at any rate, for twelve
+years,** and was learning to act on his own responsibility, when the
+Scythian danger appeared on the horizon.
+
+     * The scheme of the present work prevents me from doing more
+     than allude in passing to these preliminary stages in the
+     composition of the Priestly Code. I shall have occasion to
+     return briefly to the subject at the close of Volume IX.
+
+     ** The date is supplied by the opening passage of the
+     prophecy of Jeremiah, “to whom the word of Jehovah came in
+     the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, King of Judah, in the
+     thirteenth year of his reign” (i. 2). Volney recognised
+     that chaps, i., iv., v., and vi. of Jeremiah refer to the
+     Scythian invasion, and since his time it has been admitted
+     that, with the exception of certain interpolations in chaps,
+     i. and iii., the whole of the first six chapters date from
+     this period, but that they underwent slight modifications in
+     the recension which was made in the fourth year of
+     Jehoiachin in order to make them applicable to the
+     threatened Chaldæan invasion. The date is important, since
+     by using it as a basis we can approximately restore the
+     chronology of the whole period. If we assume the thirteenth
+     year of Josiah to have been 627-626 B.C., we are compelled
+     to place all the early Medic wars in the reign of Assur-
+     bani-pal, as I have done.
+
+This barbarian invasion, which burst upon the peace of Assyria like
+a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky, restored to the faithful that
+confidence in the omnipotence of their God which had seemed about
+to fail them; when they beheld the downfall of states, the sack of
+provinces innumerable, whole provinces in flames and whole peoples
+irresistibly swept away to death or slavery, they began to ask
+themselves whether these were not signs of the divine wrath, indicating
+that the day of Jahveh was at hand. Prophets arose to announce
+the approaching judgment, among the rest a certain Zephaniah, a
+great-grandson of Hezekiah:* “I will utterly consume all things from off
+the face of the ground, saith Jahveh. I will consume man and beast; I
+will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the
+stumbling-blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face
+of the earth, saith Jahveh. And I will stretch out My hand upon Judah,
+and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the
+remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarim with the
+priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops;
+and them that worship, which swear to Jahveh and swear by Malcham; and
+them that are turned back from following Jahveh; and those that have not
+sought Jahveh nor inquired after Him. Hold thy peace at the presence
+of the Lord Jahveh; for the day of Jahveh is at hand; for Jahveh hath
+prepared a sacrifice, He hath sanctified His guests.”
+
+     * Zephaniah gives his own genealogy at the beginning of his
+     prophecy (i. 1), though, it is true, he does not add the
+     title “King of Judah” after the name of his ancestor
+     Hezekiah.
+
+“That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of
+wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of
+clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm, against
+the fenced cities, and against the high battlements. And I will bring
+distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they
+have sinned against Jahveh: and their blood shall be poured out as dust,
+and their flesh as dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be
+able to deliver them in the day of Jahveh’s wrath; but the whole land
+shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy; for He shall make an end,
+yea, a terrible end, of all them that dwell in the land.” During this
+same period of stress and terror, there came forward another prophet,
+one of the greatest among the prophets of Israel--Jeremiah, son of
+Hilkiah. He was born in the village of Anathoth, near Jerusalem, being
+descended from one of those priestly families in which the faith had
+been handed down from generation to generation in all its original
+purity.*
+
+     * The descent and birthplace of Jeremiah are given at the
+     beginning of his prophecies (i. 1). He must have been quite
+     young in the thirteenth year of Josiah, as is evident from
+     the statement in i. 6. We are told in chap, xxxvi. that in
+     the fourth year of Jehoiakim he dictated a summary of all
+     the prophecies delivered by him from the thirteenth year of
+     Josiah up to the date indicated to his servant Baruch, and
+     that later on he added a number of others of the same kind.
+
+When Jahveh called him, he cried out in amazement, “Ah, Lord God!
+behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.” But Jahveh reassured him, and
+touching his lips, said unto him, “Behold, I have put My words in thy
+mouth: see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over
+the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to
+overthrow, to build and to plant.” Then the prophet perceived a seething
+cauldron, the face of which appeared from the north, for the Eternal
+declared to him that “Out of the north evil shall break out upon all the
+inhabitants of the land.” Already the enemy is hastening: “Behold, he
+shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind:
+his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled. O
+Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.
+How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee? For a voice
+declareth from Dan, and publisheth evil from the hills of Ephraim:
+make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem!” The
+Scythians had hardly been mentioned before they were already beneath the
+walls, and the prophet almost swoons with horror at the sound of their
+approach. “My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart: my heart
+is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because thou hast heard,
+O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon
+destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled, and my curtains in
+a moment. How long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the
+trumpet?” It would seem that the torrent of invasion turned aside
+from the mountains of Judah; it flowed over Galilee, Samaria, and the
+Philistine Shephelah, its last eddies dying away on the frontiers of
+Egypt. Psammetiehus is said to have bribed the barbarians to retire. As
+they fell back they plundered the temple of Derketô, near Ashkelon: we
+are told that in order to punish them for this act of sacrilege, the
+goddess visited them with a disease which caused serious ravages amongst
+them, and which the survivors carried back with them to their own
+country.*
+
+     * Herodotus calls the goddess Aphrodite Urania, by which we
+     must understand Derketô or Atargatis, who is mentioned by
+     several other classical authors, e.g. Xanthus of Lydia,
+     Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny. According to Justin, the
+     Scythians were stopped only by the marshes of the Delta. The
+     disease by which the Scythians were attacked is described by
+     Hippocrates; but in spite of what he tells us about it, its
+     precise nature has not yet been determined.
+
+There was, however, no need to introduce a supernatural agency in order
+to account for their rapid disappearance. The main body of invaders had
+never quitted Media or the northern part of the Assyrian empire, and
+only the southern regions of Syria were in all probability exposed to
+the attacks of isolated bands. These stragglers, who year after year
+embarked in one desperate adventure after another, must have found great
+difficulty in filling up the gaps which even victories made in their
+ranks; enervated by the relaxing nature of the climate, they could offer
+little resistance to disease, and excess completed what the climate had
+begun, the result being that most of them died on the way, and only
+a few survived to rejoin the main body with their booty. For several
+months the tide of invasion continued to rise, then it ebbed as quickly
+as it had risen, till soon nothing was left to mark where it had passed
+save a pathway of ruins, not easily made good, and a feeling of terror
+which it took many a year to efface. It was long before Judah forgot
+the “mighty nation, the ancient nation, the nation whose language thou
+knowest not, neither understandest thou what they say.” * Men could
+still picture in imagination their squadrons marauding over the plains,
+robbing the fellah of his crops, his bread, his daughters, his sheep and
+oxen, his vines and fig trees, for “they lay hold on bow and spear; they
+are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and
+they ride upon horses; every one set in array as a man to the battle,**
+against thee, O daughter of Sion. We have heard the fame thereof; our
+hands wax feeble; anguish hath taken hold of us, and pangs as of a woman
+in travail.” *** The supremacy of the Scythians was of short duration. It
+was said in after-times that they had kept the whole of Asia in a state
+of terror for twenty-eight years, dating from their defeat of Cyaxares;
+but the length of this period is exaggerated.****
+
+     * Jer. v. 15; it seems curious that the Hebrew prophet
+     should use the epithet “ancient,” when we remember that the
+     Scythians claimed to be the oldest nation in the world,
+     older than even the Egyptians themselves.
+
+     ** An obvious allusion to the regular formation adopted by
+     the Scythian squadrons.
+
+     *** Jer. v. 17; vi. 23, 24.
+
+     **** The authenticity of the number of years given in
+     Herodotus has been energetically defended by some modern
+     historians, and not less forcibly denied by others, who
+     reduce it, for example, in accordance with a doubtful
+     passage of Justin, to eight years. By assigning all the
+     events relating to the Scythian invaders to the mean period
+     of twenty years, we should obtain the length of time which
+     best corresponds to what is actually known of the general
+     history of this epoch.
+
+The Medes soon recovered from their disaster, but before engaging their
+foes in open conflict, they desired to rid themselves of the prince
+who had conquered them, and on whom the fortunes of the whole Scythian
+nation depended. Cyaxares, therefore, invited Madyes and his officers
+to a banquet, and after plying them to excess with meat and drink, he
+caused them all to be slain.*
+
+     * This episode is regarded as legendary by many modern
+     historians. Winckler even goes so far as to deny the defeat
+     of the Scythians: according to his view, they held
+     possession of Media till their chief, Astyages, was
+     overthrown by Cyrus; Rost has gone even further, deeming
+     even Cyaxares himself to have been a Scythian. For my part,
+     I see no reason to reject the tradition of the fatal
+     banquet. Without referring to more ancient illustrations,
+     Noldeke recalls the fact that in a period of only ten years,
+     from 1030 to 1040 a.d., the princes reigning over the
+     Iranian lands rid themselves by similar methods of the
+     Turcoman bands which harassed them. Such a proceeding has
+     never been repugnant to Oriental morality, and it is of a
+     kind to fix itself in the popular mind: far from wishing to
+     suppress it, I should be inclined to see in it the nucleus
+     of the whole tradition.
+
+The barbarians made a brave resistance, in spite of the treason which
+had deprived them of their leaders: they yielded only after a long and
+bloody campaign, the details of which are unknown to us. Iranian
+legends wove into the theme of their expulsion all kinds of fantastic or
+romantic incidents. They related, for instance, how, in combination
+with the Parthians, the Scythians, under the leadership of their queen
+Zarinsea, several times defeated the Medes: she consented at last to
+conclude a treaty on equal terms, and peace having been signed, she
+retired to her capital of Boxanakê, there to end her days. One body
+of the survivors re-entered Europe through the Caspian Gates, another
+wandered for some time between the Araxes and the Halys, seeking a
+country adapted to their native instincts and customs.* Cyaxares,
+relieved from the pressure put upon him by the Scythians, immediately
+resumed his efforts against Assyria, and was henceforward able to carry
+his plans to completion without encountering any serious obstacle. It
+would be incorrect to say that the Scythian invasion had overthrown the
+empire of the Sargonids: it had swept over it like a whirlwind, but
+had not torn from it one province, nor, indeed, even a single city. The
+nations, already exhausted by their struggles for independence, were
+incapable of displaying any energy when the barbarians had withdrawn,
+and continued to bow beneath the Ninevite yoke as much from familiarity
+with habitual servitude as from inability to shake themselves free.
+Assur-bani-pal had died about the year 625 B.C., after a reign of
+forty-two years, and his son Assur-etililâni had assumed the double
+crown of Assyria and Babylon without opposition.**
+
+     * Herodotus speaks of these Scythians as having lived at
+     first on good terms with Cyaxares.
+
+     ** The date of Assur-bani-pal’s death is not furnished by
+     any Assyrian monument, but is inferred from the Canon of
+     Ptolemy, where Saosduchîn or Shamash-shumukin and Chinaladan
+     or Assur-bani-pal each reigns forty-two years, from 668 or
+     667 to 626 or 625 B.C. The order of succession of the last
+     Assyrian kings was for a long time doubtful, and Sin-shar-
+     ishkun was placed before Assur-etililâni; the inverse order
+     seems to be now conclusively proved. The documents which
+     seemed at one time to prove the existence of a last king of
+     Assyria named Esarhaddon, identical with the Saracos of
+     classical writers, really belong to Esarhaddon, the father
+     of Assur-bani-pal. [Another king, Sin-sum-lisir, is
+     mentioned in a contract dated at Nippur in his accession
+     year. He may have been the immediate predecessor of
+     Sarakos.--? Ed.]
+
+Nineveh had been saved from pillage by the strength of her ramparts,
+but the other fortresses, Assur, Calah, and Dur-Sharrukîn, had been
+destroyed during the late troubles; the enemy, whether Medes or
+Scythians, had taken them by storm or reduced them by famine, and they
+were now mere heaps of ruin, deserted save for a few wretched remnants
+of their population. Assur-etililâni made some feeble attempts to
+restore to them a semblance of their ancient splendour. He erected at
+Calah, on the site of the palaces which had been destroyed by fire, a
+kind of castle rudely built, and still more rudely decorated, the rooms
+of which were small and low, and the walls of sun-dried brick were
+panelled only to the height of about a yard with slabs of limestone
+roughly squared, and without sculpture or inscription: the upper part of
+the walls was covered with a coating of uneven plaster. We do not know
+how long the inglorious reign of Assur-etililâni lasted, nor whether he
+was assassinated or died a natural death. His brother, Sin-shar-ishkun,*
+who succeeded him about 620 B.C., at first exercised authority, as he
+had done, over Babylon as well as Nineveh,** and laboured, like his
+predecessor, to repair the edifices which had suffered by the invasion,
+making war on his neighbours, perhaps even on the Medes, without
+incurring serious losses.
+
+     * The name of this king was discovered by G. Smith on the
+     fragments of a cylinder brought from Kouyunjik, where he
+     read it as Bel-zakir-iskun. The real reading is Sin-shar-
+     ishkun, and the similarity of this name with that of
+     Saracos, the last king of Assyria according to Greek
+     tradition, strikes one immediately. The relationship of this
+     king to Assur-etililâni was pointed out by Father Scheil
+     from the fragment of a tablet on which Sin-shar-ishkun is
+     declared to be the son of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria.
+
+     ** This may be deduced from a passage of Abydenus, where
+     Saracos or Sin-shar-ishkun sends Bussalossoros (that is,
+     Nabopolassar) to defend Chaldæ against the invasion of the
+     peoples of the sea; so according to Abydenus, or rather
+     Berosus, from whom Abydenus indirectly obtained his
+     information, Saracos was King of Babylon as well as of
+     Nineveh at the beginning of his reign.
+
+The Chaldæans, however, merely yielded him obedience from force of
+habit, and the moment was not far distant when they would endeavour to
+throw off his yoke. Babylon was at that time under the rule of a certain
+Nabu-bal-uzur, known to us as Nabopolassar, a Kaldu of ancient lineage,
+raised possibly by Assur-bani-pal to the dignity of governor, but
+who, in any case, had assumed the title of king on the accession of
+Assur-etililâni.*
+
+     * The Canon of Ptolemy makes Nabopolassar the direct
+     successor of Chinaladan, and his testimony is justified by
+     the series of Babylonian contracts which exist in fairly
+     regular succession from the second to the twenty-first years
+     of Nabopolassar. The account given by Berosus makes him a
+     general of Saracos, but the contradiction which this offers
+     to the testimony of the Canon can be explained if he is
+     considered as a vassal-king; the kings of Egypt and of Media
+     were likewise only satraps, according to Babylonian
+     tradition.
+
+His was but a local sovereignty, restricted probably to the city and its
+environs; and for twelve or thirteen years he had rested content with
+this secondary position, when an unforeseen incident presented him with
+the opportunity of rising to the first rank. Tradition asserted that
+an immense army suddenly landed at the mouths of the Euphrates and the
+Tigris; probably under this story is concealed the memory of one of
+those revolts of the Bît-Yakîn and the tribes dwelling on the shores of
+the Nar-Marratum, such as had often produced consternation in the minds
+of the Sargonid kings.* Sin-shar-ishkun, distracted doubtless by other
+anxieties, acted as his ancestors had done in similar circumstances, and
+enjoined on his vassal to march against the aggressors and drive them
+into the sea; but Nabopolassar, instead of obeying his suzerain, joined
+forces with the rebels, and declared his independence. Assur-etililâni
+and his younger brother had possibly neglected to take the hands of Bel,
+and were therefore looked upon as illegitimate sovereigns. The annalists
+of later times erased their names from the Royal Canon, and placed
+Nabopolassar immediately after Assur-bani-pal, whom they called
+Kandalanu. But however feeble Assyria had become, the cities on the
+Lower Euphrates feared her still, and refused to ally themselves with
+the pretender. Nabopolassar might perhaps have succumbed, as so many
+before him had done, had he been forced to rely entirely on his own
+resources, and he might have shared the sad fate of Merodach-baladan or
+of Shamash-shumukîn; but Marduk, who never failed to show favour to his
+faithful devotees, “raised up help for him and secured him an ally.”
+ The eyes of all who were oppressed by the cruel yoke of Nineveh were now
+turned on Cyaxares, and from the time that he had dispersed the Scythian
+hordes it was to him that they looked for salvation. Nabopolassar
+besought his assistance, which the Median king graciously promised;** it
+is even affirmed that a marriage concluded between one of his daughters,
+Amyfcis, and Nebuchadrezzar, the heir to the throne of Babylon, cemented
+the alliance.***
+
+     * Formerly these barbarians were identified with the remains
+     of the Scythian hordes, and this hypothesis has been
+     recently revived by Prashek. G. Rawlinson long ago
+     recognised that the reference must be to the Chaldæans, who
+     were perhaps joined by the Susians.
+
+     ** The _Cylinder of Nabonichs_, the only original document
+     in which allusion is made to the destruction of Nineveh,
+     speaks of the Ummân-Manda and their king, whom it does not
+     name, and it has been agreed to recognise Cyaxares in this
+     sovereign. On the other hand, the name of Ummân-Manda
+     certainly designates in the Assyrian texts the wandering
+     Iranian tribes to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sakse or
+     Scythians; the result, in the opinions of several
+     Assyriologists of the present day, is that neither Astyages
+     nor Cyaxares were Medes in the sense in which we have
+     hitherto accepted them as such on the evidence of Herodotus,
+     but that they were Scythians, the Scythians of the great
+     invasion. This conclusion does not seem to me at present
+     justified. The Babylonians, who up till then had not had any
+     direct intercourse either with the Madai or the Ummân-Manda,
+     did as the Egyptians had done whether in Saite or Ptolemaic
+     times, continuing to designate as Kharî, Kafîti, Lotanu, and
+     Khâti the nations subject to the Persians or Macedonians;
+     they applied a traditional name of olden days to present
+     circumstances, and I see, at present, no decisive reason to
+     change, on the mere authority of this one word, all that the
+     classical writers have handed down concerning the history of
+     the epoch according to the tradition current in their days.
+
+     *** The name of the princess is written Amuhia, Amyitis. The
+     classical sources, the only ones which mention her, make her
+     the daughter of Astyages, and this has given rise to various
+     hypotheses. According to some, the notice of this princess
+     has no historical value. According to others, the Astyages
+     mentioned as her father is not Cyaxares the Mede, but a
+     Scythian prince who came to the succour of Nabopolassar,
+     perhaps a predecessor of Cyaxares on the Median throne, and
+     in this case Phraortes himself under another name. The most
+     prudent course is still to admit that Abydenus, or one of
+     the compilers of extracts to whom we owe the information,
+     has substituted the name of the last king of Media for that
+     of his predecessor, either by mistake, or by reason of some
+     chronological combinations. Amyitis, transported into the
+     harem of the Chaldæan monarch, served, like all princesses
+     married out of their own countries, as a pledge for the
+     faithful observance by her relatives of the treaty which had
+     been concluded.
+
+The western provinces of the empire did not permit themselves to be
+drawn into the movement, and Judah, for example, remained faithful to
+its suzerain till the last moment,* but Sin-shar-ishkun received no help
+from them, and was obliged to fight his last battles single-handed. He
+shut himself up in Nineveh, and held out as long as he could; but when
+all his resources were exhausted--ammunitions of war, men and food
+supplies--he met his fate as a king, and burnt himself alive in his
+palace with his children and his wives, rather than fall alive into the
+hands of his conquerors (608 B.C.). The Babylonians would take no
+part in pillaging the temples, out of respect for the gods, who were
+practically identical with their own, but the Medes felt no such
+scruples. “Their king, the intrepid one, entirely destroyed the
+sanctuaries of the gods of Assur, and the cities of Accad which had
+shown themselves hostile to the lord of Accad, and had not rendered him
+assistance. He destroyed their holy places, and left not one remaining;
+he devastated their cities, and laid them waste as it were with a
+hurricane.” Nineveh laid low, Assyria no longer existed. After the lapse
+of a few years, she was named only among the legends of mythical days:
+two centuries later, her very site was forgotten, and a Greek army
+passed almost under the shadow of her dismantled towers, without a
+suspicion that there lay before it all that remained of the city where
+Semiramis had reigned in her glory.**
+
+     * It was to oppose the march of Necho _against the King of
+     Assyria_ that Josiah fought the battle of Megiddo (2 Kings
+     xxiii. 29, 30; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-24, where the mention
+     of the King of Assyria is suppressed).
+
+     ** This is what the _Ten Thousand_ did when they passed
+     before Larissa and Mespila. The name remained famous, and
+     later on the town which bore it attained a relative
+     importance.
+
+It is true that Egypt, Chaldæa, and the other military nations of the
+East, had never, in their hours of prosperity, shown the slightest
+consideration for their vanquished foes; the Theban Pharaohs had
+mercilessly crushed Africa and Asia beneath their feet, and had led into
+slavery the entire population of the countries they had subdued. But
+the Egyptians and Chaldaeans had, at least, accomplished a work of
+civilization whose splendour redeemed the brutalities of their acts of
+reprisal. It was from Egypt and Chaldæa that the knowledge and the
+arts of antiquity--astronomy, medicine, geometry, physical and natural
+sciences--spread to the ancestors of the classic races; and though
+Chaldæa yields up to us unwillingly, with niggard hand, the monuments
+of her most ancient kings, the temples and tombs of Egypt still exist to
+prove what signal advances the earliest civilised races made in the arts
+of the sculptor and the architect. But on turning to Assyria, if,
+after patiently studying the successive centuries during which she held
+supreme sway over the Eastern world, we look for other results besides
+her conquests, we shall find she possessed nothing that was not
+borrowed from extraneous sources. She received all her inspirations from
+Chaldæa--her civilisation, her manners, the implements of her industries
+and of agriculture, besides her scientific and religious literature: one
+thing alone is of native growth, the military tactics of her generals
+and the excellence of her soldiery. From the day when Assyria first
+realised her own strength, she lived only for war and rapine; and as
+soon as the exhaustion of her population rendered success on the field
+of battle an impossibility, the reason for her very existence vanished,
+and she passed away.
+
+Two great kingdoms rose simultaneously from her ruins. Cyaxares
+claimed Assyria proper and its dependencies on the Upper Tigris, but he
+specially reserved for himself the yet unconquered lands on the northern
+and eastern frontiers, whose inhabitants had only recently taken part
+in the political life of the times. Nabopolassar retained the suzerainty
+over the lowlands of Elam, the districts of Mesopotamia lying along
+the Euphrates, Syria, Palestine, and most of the countries which had
+hitherto played a part in history;* he claimed to exert his supremacy
+beyond the Isthmus, and the Chaldæan government looked upon the Egyptian
+kings as its feudatories because for some few years they had owned the
+suzerainty of Nineveh.**
+
+     * There was no actual division of the empire, as has been
+     often asserted, but each of the allies kept the portion
+     which fell into his power at the moment of their joint
+     effort. The two new states gradually increased in power by
+     successive conquests, each annexing by degrees the ancient
+     provinces of Assyria nearest to its own frontier.
+
+     ** This seems to be implied by the terms in which Berosus
+     speaks of Necho: he considers him as a rebel satrap over the
+     provinces of Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, and
+     enumerates Egypt in conjunction with Syria, Phoenicia, and
+     Arabia among the dependencies of Nabopolassar and
+     Nebuchadrezzar. Just as the Egyptian state documents never
+     mentioned the Lotanu or the Kharu without entitling them
+     _Children of Rebellion_, so the Chaldæan government, the
+     heir of Assyria, could only look upon the kings of Syria,
+     Arabia, and Egypt as rebellious vassals.
+
+[Illustration: 330. MAP OF THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE TIME OF
+NEBUCHADNEZZAR]
+
+The Pharaoh, however, did not long tolerate this pretension, and far
+from looking forward to bend the knee before a Chaldæan monarch, he
+believed himself strong enough to reassert his ancestral claims to the
+possession of Asia. Egypt had experienced many changes since the day
+when Tanuatamanu, returning to Ethiopia, had abandoned her to the
+ambition of the petty dynasties of the Delta. One of the romances
+current among the people of Sais in the fifth century B.C. related that
+at that time the whole land was divided between twelve princes. They
+lived peaceably side by side in friendly relations with each other,
+until an oracle predicted that the whole valley would finally belong to
+that prince among them who should pour a libation to Phtah into a brazen
+cup, and thenceforward they jealously watched each other each time they
+assembled to officiate in the temple of Memphis. One day, when they had
+met together in state, and the high priest presented to them the golden
+cups they were wont to use, he found he had mistaken their number, and
+had only prepared eleven. Psammetichus was therefore left without one,
+and in order not to disarrange the ceremonial he took off his brazen
+helmet and used it to make his libation; when the rest perceived this,
+the words of the oracle came to their remembrance, and they exiled the
+imprudent prince to the marshes along the sea-coast, and forbade him
+ever to quit them. He secretly consulted the oracle of Isis of Buto to
+know what he might expect from the gods, and she replied that the means
+of revenge would reach him from the sea, on the day when brazen soldiers
+should issue from its waters. He thought at first that the priests were
+mocking him, but shortly afterwards Ionian and Carian pirates, clad in
+their coats of mail, landed not far from his abode. The messenger who
+brought tidings of their advent had never before seen a soldier fully
+armed, and reported that brazen men had issued from the waves and
+were pillaging the country. Psammetichus, realising at once that the
+prediction was being fulfilled, ran to meet the strangers, enrolled them
+in his service, and with their aid overthrew successively his eleven
+rivals.*
+
+     * The account given by Diodorus of these events is in
+     general derived from that of Herodotus, with additional
+     details borrowed directly or indirectly from some historian
+     of the same epoch, perhaps Hellanicus of Mitylene: the
+     reason of the persecution endured by Psammetichus is,
+     according to him, not the fear of seeing the prediction
+     fulfilled, but jealousy of the wealth the Saite prince had
+     acquired by his commerce with the Greeks. I have separated
+     the narrative of Herodotus from his account of the Labyrinth
+     which did not originally belong to it, but was connected
+     with a different cycle of legends. The original romance was
+     part of the cycle which grew up around the oracle of Buto,
+     so celebrated in Egypt at the Persian epoch, several other
+     fragments of which are preserved in Herodotus; it had been
+     mixed up with one of the versions of the stories relating to
+     the Labyrinth, probably by some dragoman of the Fayyûm. The
+     number twelve does not correspond with the information
+     furnished by the Assyrian texts, which enumerate more than
+     twenty Egyptian princes; it is perhaps of Greek origin, like
+     the _twelve_ great gods which the informants of Herodotus
+     tried to make out in Egypt, and was introduced into the
+     Egyptian version by a Greek interpreter.
+
+A brazen helmet and an oracle had dethroned him; another oracle and
+brazen men had replaced him on his throne. A shorter version of these
+events made no mention of the twelve kings, but related instead that a
+certain Pharaoh named Tementhes had been warned by the oracle of Amon to
+beware of cocks. Now Psammetichus had as a companion in exile a Carian
+named Pigres, and in conversing with him one day, he learned by chance
+that the Carians had been the first people to wear crested helmets; he
+recalled at once the words of the oracle, and hired from Asia a number
+of these “cocks,” with whose assistance he revolted and overthrew his
+suzerain in battle under the walls of Memphis, close to the temple of
+Isis. Such is the legendary account of the Saite renaissance; its true
+history is not yet clearly and precisely known. Egypt was in a state
+of complete disintegration when Psammetichus at length revived the
+ambitious projects of his family, but the dissolution of the various
+component parts had not everywhere taken place in the same manner.
+
+[Illustration: 335.jpg THREE HOPLITES IN ACTION]
+
+     Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from an archaic vase-painting in the
+     collection of Salzmann.
+
+In the north, the Delta and the Nile valley, as far as Siut, were in the
+power of a military aristocracy, supported by irregular native troops
+and bands of mercenaries, for the most part of Libyan extraction, who
+were always designated by the generic name of Mashauasha. Most of these
+nobles were in possession of not more than two or three cities apiece:
+they had barely a sufficient number of supporters to maintain their
+precarious existence in their restricted domains, and would soon have
+succumbed to the attacks of their stronger neighbours, had they not
+found a powerful protector to assist them. They had finally separated
+themselves into two groups, divided roughly by the central arm of the
+Nile. One group comprised the districts that might be designated as
+the Asiatic zone of the country--Heliopolis, Bubastis, Mendes, Tanis,
+Busiris, and Seben-nytos--and it recognised as chief the lord of one or
+other of those wealthy cities, now the ruler of Bubastis, now of Tanis,
+and lastly Pakruru of Pisaptit. The second group centred in the lords
+of Sais, to whom the possession of Memphis had secured a preponderating
+voice in the counsels of the state for more than a century.*
+
+     * This grouping, which might already have been suspected
+     from the manner in which the Assyrian and Egyptian monuments
+     of the period show us the feudal princes rallying round
+     Necho I. and Pakruru, is indicated by the details in the
+     demotic romance published by Krall, where the foundation of
+     the story is the state of Egypt in the time of the “twelve
+     kings.”
+
+The fiefs and kingdoms of Middle Egypt wavered between the two
+groups, playing, however, a merely passive part in affairs: abandoning
+themselves to the stream of events rather than attempting to direct it,
+they owed allegiance to Sais and Tanis alternately as each prevailed
+over its rival. On passing thence into the Thebaid a different world
+appeared to be entered. There Amon reigned, ever increasingly supreme,
+and the steady advance of his influence had transformed his whole domain
+into a regular theocracy, where the women occupied the highest position
+and could alone transmit authority. At first, as we have seen, it
+was passed on to their husbands and their children, but latterly the
+rapidity with which the valley had changed masters had modified this law
+of succession in a remarkable way. Each time the principality shifted
+its allegiance from one king to another, the new sovereign naturally
+hastened to install beside the _divine female worshipper_ a man devoted
+to his interests, who should administer the fief to the best advantage
+of the suzerain. It is impossible to say whether he actually imposed
+this minister on her as a husband, or whether the time came when she was
+obliged to submit to as many espousals as there occurred revolutions
+in the destinies of Egypt.* However this may be, we know that from
+the first half of the seventh century B.C. the custom arose of placing
+beside “the divine worshipper” a princess of the dominant family, whom
+she adopted, and who thus became her heiress-designate. Taharqa had in
+this way associated one of his sisters, Shapenuapît II., with the
+queen Amenertas when the latter had lost her husband, Piônkhi; and
+Shapenuapît, succeeding her adopted mother, had reigned over Thebes in
+the Ethiopian interest during many years. There is nothing to show
+that she was married, and perhaps she was compensated for her official
+celibacy by being authorised to live the free life of an ordinary
+Pallacide;** her minister Montumihâît directed her affairs for her so
+completely that the Assyrian conquerors looked upon him as petty king
+of Thebes. Tanuatamanu confirmed him in his office when the Assyrians
+evacuated the Said, and the few years which had elapsed since that event
+had in no way modified the _régime_ established immediately on their
+departure.
+
+     * They would have been, in fact, in the same condition as
+     the Hova queens of our century, who married the ministers
+     who reigned in their names.
+
+     ** It is perhaps these last female descendants of the high
+     priests that are intended in a passage where Strabo speaks
+     of the Pallacides who were chosen from among the most noble
+     families of the city. Diodorus mentions their tombs, quoting
+     from Hecatous of Abdera, but he does not appear to know the
+     nature of their life; but the name of Pallacides which he
+     applies to them proves that their manner of life was really
+     that which Strabo describes.
+
+It is uncertain how long Assur-bani-pal in the north, and Tanuatamanu
+in the south, respectively maintained a precarious sovereignty over the
+portions of Egypt nearest to their own capitals.
+
+[Illustration: 338.jpg STATUE OF A THEBAN QUEEN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Bissing. The
+     statue, whose feet are missing, represents either Amenertas
+     I. or Mutertas; it was never completely finished, and
+     several of the parts have never received their final polish.
+
+The opening of the reign of Psammetichus seems to have been fraught with
+difficulties, and the tradition which represents him as proscribed by
+his peers, and confined to the marshes of the sea-coast, has probably a
+certain basis of truth. Pakruru, who had brought all the western part
+of the Delta under his own influence, and who, incessantly oscillating
+between Assyria and Ethiopia, had yet been able to preserve his power
+and his life, had certainly not of his own free will renounced the
+hope of some day wearing the double crown. It was against him or his
+successor that Psammetichus must have undertaken his first wars, and
+it was perhaps with the help of Assyrian governors that the federal
+coalition drove him back to the coast. He extricated himself from this
+untoward situation by the help of Greek and Asiatic mercenaries, his
+Ionians and Carians. Some historians stated that the decisive battle
+was fought near Memphis, in sight of the temple of Isis; others affirmed
+that it took place at Momemphis, that several of the princes perished
+in the conflict, and that the rest escaped into Libya, whence they never
+returned; others, again, spoke of an encounter on the Nile, when the
+fleet of the Saite king dispersed that of his rivals. It is, in fact,
+probable that a single campaign sufficed for Psammetichus, as formerly
+for the Ethiopian pretenders, to get the upper hand, and that the
+Egyptian feudal lords submitted after one or two defeats at most, hoping
+that, as in days gone by, when the first dash made by the new Pharaoh
+was over, his authority would decline, and their own would regain the
+ascendency. Events showed that they were deceived. Psammetichus, better
+served by his Hellenes than Tafnakhti or Bocchoris had been by
+their Libyans, or Piônkhi and Tanuatamanu by their Ethiopians, soon
+consolidated his rule over the country he had conquered. From 660 or
+659 B.C. he so effectively governed Egypt that foreigners, and even the
+Assyrians themselves commonly accorded him the title of king. The fall
+of the Ninevite rule had been involved in that of the feudal lords,
+but it was generally believed that Assur-bani-pal would leave no
+means untried to recall the countries of the Nile to their obedience:
+Psammetichus knew this, and knew also that, as soon as they were no
+longer detained by wars or rebellions elsewhere, the Assyrian armies
+would reappear in Egypt. He therefore entered into an alliance with
+Gyges,* and subsequently, perhaps, with Shamash-shumukîn also; then,
+while his former suzerain was waging war in Elam and Chaldæa, he turned
+southwards, in 658 B.C., and took possession of the Thebaid without
+encountering any opposition from the Ethiopians, as his ancestor
+Tafnakhti had from Piônkhi-Miamun. Mon-tumihâît** negotiated this
+capitulation of Thebes, as he had already negotiated so many others;
+in recompense for this service, he was confirmed in his office, and his
+queen retained her high rank.
+
+     * The annexation of the Thebaid and the consequent
+     pacification of Egypt was an accomplished fact in the year
+     IX. of Psammetichus I. The analogy of similar documents,
+     e.g. the stele of the high priest Menkhopirrî, shows that
+     the ceremony of adoption which consecrated the reunion of
+     Upper and Lower Egypt cannot have been separated by a long
+     interval from the completion of the reunion itself: in
+     placing this at the end of the year VIII., we should have
+     for the two events the respective dates of 658-657 and 657-
+     656 B.C.
+
+     ** The part played by Montumihâît in this affair is easily
+     deduced: (1) from our knowledge of his conduct some years
+     previously under Taharqa and Tanuatamanu; (2) from the
+     position he occupied at Thebes, in the year IX., with regard
+     to Shapenuapît, according to the stele of Legrain.
+
+A century or two earlier Psammetichus would have married one of the
+princesses of sacerdotal lineage, and this union would have sufficed to
+legalise his position; perhaps he actually associated Shapenuapît with
+himself by a show of marriage, but in any case he provided her with an
+adopted daughter according to the custom instituted by the Ethiopian
+Pharaohs. She already had one daughter by adoption, whom she had
+received at the hands of Taharqa, and who, in changing her family, had
+assumed the name of Amenertas in honour of the queen who had preceded
+Shapenuapît: Psammetichus forced her to replace the Ethiopian princess
+by one of his own daughters, who was henceforth called Shapenuapît,
+after her new mother. A deputation of the nobles and priests of Thebes
+came to escort the princess from Memphis, in the month of Tybi, in the
+ninth year of the reign: Psammetichus formally presented her to them,
+and the ambassadors, having listened to his address, expatiated in the
+customary eulogies on his splendour and generosity. “They shall endure
+as long as the world lasteth; all that thou ordainest shall endure. How
+beautiful is that which God hath done for thee, how glorious that which
+thy divine father hath done for thee? He is pleased that thy double
+should be commemorated, he rejoices in the pronouncing of thy name, for
+our lord Psammetichus has made a gift to his father Amon, he has given
+him his eldest daughter, his beloved Mtauqrît Shapenuapît, to be his
+divine spouse, that she may shake the sistrum before him!” On the 28th
+of Tybi the princess left the harem, clothed in fine linen and adorned
+with ornaments of malachite, and descended to the quay, accompanied by
+an immense throng, to set out for her new home. Relays stationed along
+the river at intervals made the voyage so expeditious that at the end
+of sixteen days the princess came in sight of Thebes. She disembarked on
+the 14th of Khoiak, amid the acclamations of the people: “She comes, the
+daughter of the King of the South, Nitauqrît, to the dwelling of
+Amon, that he may possess her and unite her to himself; she comes, the
+daughter of the King of the North, Shapenuapît, to the temple of
+Karnak, that the gods may there chant her praises.” As soon as the
+aged Shapenuapît had seen her coadjutor, “she loved her more than
+all things,” and assigned her a dowry, the same as that which she had
+received from her own parents, and which she had granted to her
+first adopted daughter Amenertas. The magnates of Thebes--the aged
+Montumihâît, his son Nsiphtah, and the prophets of Amon--vied with each
+other in their gifts of welcome: Psammetichus, on his side, had acted
+most generously, and the temples of Egypt assigned to the princess an
+annual income out of their revenues, or bestowed upon her grants of
+houses and lands, in all constituting a considerable inheritance,
+which somewhat consoled the Thebans for their subjection to a dynasty
+emanating from the cities of the north. The rest of the principality
+imitated the example of Thebes and the whole of Egypt, from the shores
+of the Mediterranean to the rocks of the first cataract, once more found
+itself reunited under the sceptre of an Egyptian king. A small part of
+Nubia, the portion nearest to Elephantine, followed this movement, but
+the greater part refused to cut itself off from the Ethiopians. These
+latter were henceforth confined to the regions along the middle course
+of the Nile, isolated from the rest of the world by the deserts, the
+Red Sea, and Egypt. It is probable that they did not give up without a
+struggle the hope of regaining the ground they had lost, and that their
+armies made more than one expedition in a northerly direction. The
+inhabitants of the Thebaid could hardly fail to remain faithful to them
+at heart, and to recognise in them the legitimate representatives of the
+posterity of Amon; it is possible that now and again they succeeded in
+penetrating as far as the ancient capital, but if so, their success was
+always ephemeral, and their sojourn left no permanent traces. The same
+causes, however, which had broken up the constituent elements, and
+destroyed the unity of Greater Egypt at the end of the Theban period,
+were still at work in Saite times to prevent the building up again of
+the empire. The preservation of the balance of power in this long and
+narrow strip of country depended on the centre of attraction and on the
+seat of government being nearly equidistant from the two extremities.
+This condition had been fulfilled as long as the court resided at
+Thebes; but as the removal of the seat of government to the Delta caused
+the loss and separation of the southern provinces, so its sudden return
+to the extreme south, with a temporary sojourn at Napata, necessarily
+produced a similar effect, and led to the speedy secession of the
+northern provinces. In either case, the dynasty placed at one extremity
+of the empire was unable to sustain for any length of time the weight
+depending on it at the other; when once the balance became even
+slightly disturbed, it could not regain its equilibrium, and there was
+consequently a sudden dislocation of the machinery of government.
+
+The triumph of the Saite dynasty accomplished the final ruin of the work
+begun under the Papis, and brought to completion by the Amenemhâîts and
+the Usirtasens. Greater Egypt ceased to exist, after more than twenty
+centuries of glorious life, and was replaced by the Little Egypt of the
+first ages of history. The defeat of the military chiefs of the north,
+the annexation of the principality of Amon, and the final expulsion of
+the Ethiopians and the Asiatics had occupied scarcely nine years, but
+these feats constituted only the smaller part of the work Psammetichus
+had to accomplish: his subsequent task lay in restoring prosperity to
+his kingdom, or, at all events, in raising it from the state of misery
+into which two centuries of civil wars and invasions had plunged it. The
+important cities had suffered grievously: Memphis had been besieged and
+taken by assault by both Piônkhi and Esar-haddon, Thebes had been twice
+sacked by the veterans of Assur-bani-pal, and from Syenê to Pelusium
+there was not a township but had suffered at the hands of foreigners
+or of the Egyptians themselves. The country had enjoyed a moment’s
+breathing-space under Sabaco, but the little good which this prince had
+been able to accomplish was effaced immediately after his death: the
+canals and dykes had been neglected, the supervision of the police
+relaxed, and the population, periodically decimated or driven to take
+refuge in the strongholds, had often allowed the lands to lie waste, so
+that famine had been superadded to the other evils under which the land
+already groaned. Psammetichus, having forced the feudal lords to submit
+to his supremacy, deprived them of the royal titles they had unduly
+assumed; he no longer tolerated their habits of private warfare, but
+restricted them to the functions of hereditary governors, which their
+ancestors had exercised under the conquering dynasties of former times,*
+and this enforced peace soon allowed the rural population to devote
+themselves joyfully to their regular occupations.
+
+     * During the last few years records of a certain number of
+     persons have been discovered whose names and condition prove
+     that they were the descendants of semi-independent princes
+     of the Ethiopian and Bubastite periods: e.g. a certain
+     Akaneshu, who was prince of Sebennytos under Psammetichus
+     I., and who very probably was the grandson of Akaneshu,
+     prince of the same town under Piônkhi; and a Sheshonq of
+     Busiris, who was perhaps a descendant of Sheshonq, prince of
+     Busiris under Piônkhi.
+
+With so fertile a soil, two or three years of security, during which
+the fellahîn were able to sow and reap their crops free from the fear
+of marauding bands, sufficed to restore abundance, if not wealth, to
+the country, and Psammetichus succeeded in securing both these and
+other benefits to Egypt, thanks to the vigilant severity of his
+administration. He would have been unable to accomplish these reforms
+had he relied only on the forces which had been at the disposal of
+his ancestors--the native troops demoralised by poverty, and the
+undisciplined bands of Libyan mercenaries, which constituted the sole
+normal force of the Tanite and Bubastite Pharaohs and the barons of the
+Delta and Middle Egypt. His experience of these two classes of soldiery
+had decided him to look elsewhere for a less precarious support, and
+ever since chance had brought him in contact with the Ionians and
+Carians, he had surrounded himself with a regular army of Hellenic and
+Asiatic mercenaries. It is impossible to exaggerate the terror that the
+apparition of these men produced in the minds of the African peoples, or
+the revolution they effected, alike in peace or war, in Oriental states:
+the charge of the Spanish soldiery among the lightly clad foot-soldiers
+of Mexico and Peru could not have caused more dismay than did that
+of the hoplites from beyond the sea among the half-naked archers and
+pikemen of Egypt and Libya. With their bulging corselets, the two plates
+of which protected back and chest, their greaves made of a single piece
+of bronze reaching from the ankle to the knee, their square or oval
+bucklers covered with metal, their heavy rounded helmets fitting closely
+to the head and neck, and surmounted by crests of waving plumes, they
+were, in truth, men of brass, invulnerable to any Oriental weapon. Drawn
+up in close array beneath their “tortoise,” they received almost unhurt
+the hail of arrows and stones hurled against them by the lightly armed
+infantry, and then, when their own trumpet sounded the signal for
+attack, and they let themselves fall with their whole weight upon the
+masses of the enemy, brandishing their spears above the upper edge
+of their bucklers, there was no force of native troops or company of
+Mashauasha that did not waver beneath the shock and finally give
+way before their attack. The Egyptians felt themselves incapable of
+overcoming them except by superior numbers or by stratagem, and it was
+the knowledge of their own hopeless inferiority which prevented the
+feudal lords from attempting to revenge themselves on Psammetichus. To
+make themselves his equals, they would have been obliged either to take
+a sufficient number of similar warriors into their own pay--and this
+they were not able to afford--or they must have won over those
+already in the employ of their suzerain; but the liberality with
+which Psammetichus treated his mercenaries gave them good cause to be
+faithful, even if military honour had not sufficed to keep them loyal to
+their employer. Psammetichus granted to them and their compatriots, who
+were attracted by the fame of Egypt, a concession of the fertile lands
+of the Delta stretching along the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and
+he was careful to separate the Ionians from the Carians by the whole
+breadth of the river: this was a wise precaution, for their union
+beneath a common flag had not extinguished their inherited hatred of
+one another, and the authority of the general did not always suffice
+to prevent fatal quarrels breaking out between contingents of different
+nationalities.
+
+[Illustration: 347.jpg THE SAITE FORTRESS OF DAPHNE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Fl. Petrie.
+
+They occupied, moreover, regularly entrenched camps, enclosed within
+massive walls, containing a collection of mud huts or houses of
+brick, the whole enclosure commanded by a fortress which formed the
+headquarters of the general and staff of officers. Some merchants from
+Miletus, emboldened by the presence of their fellow-countrymen, sailed
+with thirty vessels into the mouth of the Bolbitine branch of the
+Nile, and there founded a settlement which they named the Port of the
+Milesians, and, following in their wake, successive relays of emigrants
+arrived to reinforce the infant colony. The king entrusted a certain
+number of Egyptian children to the care of these Greek settlers, to be
+instructed in their language,* and the interpreters thus educated in
+their schools increased in proportion as the bonds of commercial and
+friendly intercourse between Greece and Egypt became strengthened, so
+that ere long, in the towns of the Delta, they constituted a regular
+class, whose function was to act as intermediaries between the two
+races.
+
+     * Diodorus, or rather the historian whom he follows, assures
+     us that Psammetichus went still further, and gave his own
+     children a Greek education; what is possible and even
+     probable, is, that he had them taught Greek. A bronze Apis
+     in the Gizeh Museum was dedicated by an interpreter who
+     inscribed on it a bilingual inscription in hieroglyphics and
+     Carian.
+
+[Illustration: 348a.jpg EGYPTIAN GREEK]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from PI, Pétrie. The original
+     statuette in alabaster is now in the Gizeh Museum; the
+     Cyprian style of the figure is easily recognised.
+
+[Illustration: 348b.jpg EGYPTIAN GREEK]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from PI. Pétrie. The original
+     limestone statuette is in the Gizeh Museum.
+
+By thus bringing his subjects in contact with an active, industrious,
+and enterprising nation, full of youthful vigour, Psammetichus no doubt
+hoped to inspire them with some of the qualities which he discerned in
+the colonists, but Egypt during the last two centuries had suffered too
+much at the hands of foreigners of all kinds to be favourably disposed
+to these new-comers. It would have been different had they presented
+themselves in humble guise like the Asiatics and Africans to whom Egypt
+had opened her doors so freely after the XVIIIth dynasty, and if
+they had adopted the obsequious manners of the Phoenician and Hebrew
+merchants; but they landed from their ships fully equipped for war, and,
+proud of their own courage and ability, they vied with the natives of
+the ancient race, whether of plebeian or noble birth, for the favour
+of the sovereign. Their language, their rude military customs, their
+cunning devices in trade, even the astonishment they manifested at the
+civilisation of the country, rendered them objects of disdain, as well
+as of jealous hatred to the Egyptian. The food of which they partook
+made them unclean in native estimation, and the horrified fellah shunned
+contact with them from fear of defiling himself, refusing to eat with
+them, or to use the same knife or cooking-vessel: the scribes and
+members of the higher classes, astonished at their ignorance, treated
+them like children with no past history, whose ancestors a few
+generations back had been mere savages.
+
+Although unexpressed at first, this hostility towards the Hellenes was
+not long in manifesting itself openly. The Saite tradition attributed it
+to a movement of wounded vanity. Psammetichus, to recompense the prowess
+of his Ionian and Carian soldiers, had attached them to his own person,
+and assigned to them the post of honour on the right wing when the army
+was drawn up for review or in battle array.*
+
+     * Diodorus Siculus states that it was during the Syrian war
+     that the king thus honoured his mercenary troops. Wiedemann
+     thinks this is an erroneous inference drawn from the passage
+     of Herodotus, in which he explains the meaning of the word
+     Asmakh.
+
+They reaped thus the double advantage of the glory, which they greatly
+prized, and of the higher pay attached to the title of body-guard, but
+the troops who had hitherto enjoyed these advantages were naturally
+indignant at losing them, and began to murmur. One particularly galling
+circumstance at last caused their discontent to break out. The eastern
+and southern frontiers of Egypt were conterminous with those of two
+conquering empires, Assyria and Ethiopia, and on the west the Libyan
+tribes along the shores of the Mediterranean were powerful enough
+to demand constant vigilance on the part of the border garrisons.
+Psammetichus, among other reforms, had reorganised the ancient system
+of defence. While placing outposts at the entrance to the passes leading
+from the desert into the Nile valley, he had concentrated considerable
+masses of troops at the three most vulnerable points--the outlets of
+the road to Syria, the country surrounding Lake Mareotis, and the first
+cataract; he had fortified Daphnse, near the old town of Zalu, as a
+defence against the Assyrians, Marea against the Libyan Bedâwin, and
+Elephantine against the Ethiopians. These advanced posts had been
+garrisoned with native troops who were quartered there for a year at a
+time. To be condemned to such an exile for so long a period raised
+in them a sense of profound indignation, but when the king apparently
+forgot them and left them there three years without sending other troops
+to relieve them, their anger knew no bounds. They resolved to put an end
+to such treatment, and as the hope of a successful rebellion seemed but
+small, they decided to leave the country. Two hundred and forty thousand
+of them assembled on a given day with their arms and baggage, and
+marched in good order towards Ethiopia. Psammetichus, warned of their
+intentions when ifc was too late, hastened after them with a handful of
+followers, and coming up with them, besought them not to desert their
+national gods, their wives, and their children. He had nearly prevailed
+on them to return, when one soldier, with a significant gesture,
+intimated that while manhood lasted they had power to create new
+families wherever they might chance to dwell. The details of this story
+betray the popular legend, but nevertheless have a basis of truth. The
+inscriptions from the time of Psammetichus onwards never mention the
+Mashauasha, while their name and their exploits constantly recur in the
+history of the preceding dynasties: henceforth they and their chiefs
+vanish from sight, and discord and brigandage simultaneously cease in
+the Egyptian nomes. It was very probably the most turbulent among these
+auxiliaries who left the country in the circumstances above narrated:
+since they could not contest the superiority of their Greek rivals,
+they concluded that their own part was played out, and rather than be
+relegated to the second rank, they preferred to quit the land in a body.
+Psammetichus, thus deprived of their support at the moment when Egypt
+had more than ever need of all her forces to regain her rightful
+position in the world, reorganised the military system as best he could.
+He does not seem to have relied much upon the contingents from Upper
+Egypt, to whom was doubtless entrusted the defence of the Nubian
+frontier, and who could not be withdrawn from their posts without danger
+of invasion or revolt. But the source of imminent peril did not lie in
+this direction, where Ethiopia, exhausted by the wars of Taharqa and
+Tanuatamanu, perhaps needed repose even more than Egypt itself, but
+rather on the Asiatic side, where Assur-bani-pal, in spite of the
+complications constantly arising in Karduniash and Elam, had by no means
+renounced his claims to the suzerainty of Egypt. The Pharaoh divided the
+feudatory militia of the Delta into two classes, which resided apart
+in different sets of nomes. The first group, who were popularly called
+Hermotybies, were stationed at Busiris, Sais, and Khemmis, in the island
+of Prosopitis, and in one half of Natho--in fact, in the district which
+for the last century had formed the centre of the principality of
+the Saite dynasty: perhaps they were mostly of Libyan origin, and
+represented the bands of Mashauasha who, from father to son, had served
+under Tafnakhti and his descendants. Popular report numbered them at
+160,000 men, all told, and the total number of the other class, known as
+the Calasiries, at 250,000; these latter belonged, in my opinion, to the
+pure Egyptian race, and were met with at Thebes, while the troops of
+the north, who were more generally called out, were scattered over the
+territory which formerly supported the Tanite and Bubastite kings, and
+latterly Pakruru, and which comprised the towns of Bubastis, Aphthis,
+Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytos, Athribis, Pharbaathos, Thmuis, Onuphis,
+Anysis, and Myecphoris. Each year one thousand Hermotybies and one
+thousand Calasiries were chosen to form the royal body-guard, and these
+received daily five minae of bread apiece, two minas of beef, and four
+bowls of wine; the jealousy which had been excited by the Greek
+troops was thus lessened, as well as the discontent provoked by the
+emigration.*
+
+     * _Calasiris_, the exact transcription of _Khala-shiri,
+     Khala-shere_, signifying _young man_. The meaning and
+     original of the word transcribed Hermotybies by Herodotus,
+     and Hermotymbies according to a variant given by Stephen of
+     Byzantium, is as yet unknown, but it seems to me to conceal
+     a title analogous to that of _Hir-mazaîu_, and to designate
+     what remained of Libyan soldiers in Egypt. This organisation
+     of the army is described by Herodotus as existing in his own
+     days, and there were Calasiries and Hermotybies in the
+     Egyptian contingent which accompanied the army of Mardonius
+     to Greece; it is nowhere stated that it was the work of
+     Psammetichus, but everything points to the conclusion that
+     it was so, at all events in the form in which it was known
+     to the Greeks.
+
+The King of Napata gladly welcomed the timely reinforcements which
+arrived to fill up the vacancies in his army and among his people,
+weakened by a century of rapid changes, and generously gave them
+permission to conquer for themselves some territory in the possession
+of his enemies! Having driven out the barbarians, they established
+themselves in the peninsula formed by the White and Blue Niles, and
+their numbers increased so greatly that in course of time they became a
+considerable nation. They called themselves Asmakh, the men who stand on
+the king’s left hand, in memory of the affront put upon them, and which
+they had avenged by their self-exile: Greek travellers and geographers
+called them sometimes Automoli, sometimes Sembrites, names which clung
+to them till almost the beginning of our present era.
+
+This departure of the Mashauasha was as the last blast of wind after a
+storm: the swell subsided by degrees, and peace reigned in the interior.
+Thebes accommodated itself as best it could to the new order of
+things under the nominal administration of the Divine Spouses, the two
+Shapenuapîts. Building works were recommenced at all points where it
+appeared necessary, and the need of restoration was indeed pressing
+after the disorders occasioned by the Assyrian invasion and the
+Ethiopian suzerainty. At Karnak, and in the great temples on both banks
+of the Nile, Psammetichus, respecting the fiction which assigned the
+chief authority to the Pallacides, effaced himself in favour of them,
+allowing them to claim all the merit of the work; in the cities they
+erected small chapels, in which they are portrayed as queens fulfilling
+their sacerdotal functions, humbly escorted by the viceroy who in other
+respects exercised the real power. The king’s zeal for restoration is
+manifest all along the Nile, at Coptos, Abydos,* and in the plains of
+the Delta, which are crowded with memorials of him. His two favourite
+capitals were Memphis and Sais, on both of which he impartially lavished
+his favours.
+
+     * The first Egyptologists attributed the prénommai cartouche
+     of Psammetichus I. to Psammetichus II., and _vice versa_:
+     this error must always be kept in mind in referring to their
+     works.
+
+At Memphis he built the propylons on the south side of the temple of
+Phtah, and the court in which the living Apis took his exercise and was
+fed: this court was surrounded by a colonnade, against the pillars of
+which were erected statues twelve cubits high, probably representing
+Osiris as in the Eames-seum and at Medinet-Habu. Apis even when dead
+also received his share of attention. Since the days when Ramses II.
+had excavated the subterranean Serapeum as a burial-place of the sacred
+bulls, no subsequent Pharaoh who had reigned at Memphis had failed to
+embellish their common tomb, and to celebrate with magnificence their
+rites of sepulture.
+
+[Illustration: 355.jpg CHAMBER AND SARCOPHAGUS OF AN APIS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving published in
+     Mariette.
+
+The body of the Apis, carefully embalmed, was sealed up in a coffin or
+sarcophagus of hard stone, the mouth of the vault was then walled up,
+and against the fresh masonry, at the foot of the neighbouring rocks,
+on the very floor of the passage, or wherever there was a clear space
+available, the high dignitaries, the workmen or the priests who had
+taken any part in the ceremonial, set up a votive stele calling down
+upon themselves and their families divine benedictions.
+
+[Illustration: 356.jpg THE GREAT GALLERY OF THE SERAPEUM]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving of Devéria.
+
+The gallery was transformed by degrees into a kind of record-office,
+where each dynasty in turn recorded its name, whenever a fresh
+apotheosis afforded them the opportunity: these records were discovered
+in our own time by Mariette, almost perfect in spite of the destroying
+hand of men, and comprised inscriptions by the Bubastites, by Bocchoris,
+and even by the Ethiopians. Taharqa, when menaced by the Assyrians, had
+stayed at Memphis, only a year before his death, in the interval between
+two campaigns, in order to bury an Apis, and Psammetichus likewise
+took care not to neglect this part of his regal duties. He at first was
+content to imitate his predecessors, but a subsidence having occurred in
+that part of the Serapeum where the Apis who had died in the twentieth
+year of his reign reposed, he ordered his engineers to bore another
+gallery in a harder vein of limestone, and he performed the opening
+ceremony in his fifty-second year. It was the commencement of a thorough
+restoration. The vaults in which the sacred bulls were entombed were
+severally inspected, the wrappings were repaired together with the mummy
+cases, the masonry of the chapel was strengthened, and the building
+endowed with woods, stuffs, perfumes, and the necessary oils. No less
+activity apparently was displayed at Sais, the native home and favourite
+residence of the Pharaoh; but all the monuments which adorned the place,
+including the temple of Nit, and the royal palace, have been entirely
+destroyed; the enclosing wall of unbaked bricks alone remains, and here
+and there, amid the _débris_ of the houses, may be seen some heaps of
+shattered stone where the public buildings once stood. On several blocks
+the name and titles of Psammetichus may yet be deciphered, and there are
+few cities in the Delta which cannot make a similar show. From one end
+of the Nile valley to the other the quarries were reopened, and the
+arts, stimulated by the orders which flowed in, soon flourished anew.
+The engraving of hieroglyphics and the art of painting both attained
+a remarkable degree of elegance; fine statues and bas-reliefs were
+executed in large numbers, and a widely spread school of art was
+developed. The local artists had scrupulously observed and handed down
+the traditions which obtained in the time of the Pyramids, and more
+especially those of the first Theban period; even the few fragments
+that have come down to us of the works of these artists in the age of
+the Ramessides recall rather the style of the VIth and XIIth dynasties
+than that of their Theban contemporaries. Their style, brought to
+perfection by evident imitation of the old Memphite masters, pleases
+us by its somewhat severe elegance, the taste shown in the choice of
+detail, and the extraordinary skill displayed in the working of
+the stone. The Memphites had by preference used limestone for their
+sculpture, the Thebans red and grey granite or sandstone; but the
+artists of the age of Psammetichus unhesitatingly attacked basalt,
+breccia, or serpentine, and obtained marvellous effects from these
+finely grained materials of regular and even texture. The artistic
+renaissance which they brought to its height had been already
+inaugurated under the Ethiopians, and many of the statues we possess
+of the reign of Taharqa are examples of excellent workmanship. That of
+Amenertas was over-praised at the time of its discovery; the face, half
+buried by the wig which we usually associate with the statues of the
+goddesses, has a dull and vacant expression in spite of its set smile,
+and the modelling of the figure is rather weak, but nevertheless there
+is something easy and refined in the gracefulness of the statue as a
+whole.
+
+[358.jpg Chieck Beled--Gizeh Museum]
+
+A statuette of another “Divine Spouse,” though mutilated and
+unfinished, is pleasing from its greater breadth of style, although such
+breadth is rarely found in the works of this school, which toned down,
+elongated, and attenuated the figure till it often lost in vigour what
+it gained in distinction. The one point in which the Saite artists made
+a real advance, was in the treatment of the heads of their models.
+
+[Illustration: 359.jpg MEMPHITE BAS-RELIEF OF THE SAITE EPOCH]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a heliogravure in Mariette. The bas-
+     relief was worked into the masonry of a house in Memphis in
+     the Byzantine period, and it was in order to fit it to the
+     course below that the masons bevelled the lower part of it.
+
+The expression is often refined and idealised as in the case of older
+works, but occasionally the portraiture is exact even to coarseness. It
+was not the idealised likeness of Montumihâît which the artist wished
+to portray, but Montumihâît himself, with his low forehead, his small
+close-set eyes, his thin cheeks, and the deep lines about his nose and
+mouth. And besides this, the wrinkles, the crows’ feet, the cranial
+projections, the shape of ear and neck, are brought out with minute
+fidelity. A statue was no longer, as in earlier days, merely a piece
+of sacred stone, the support of the divine or human double, in which
+artistic value was an accessory of no importance and was esteemed only
+as a guarantee of resemblance: without losing aught of its religious
+significance, a statue henceforward became a work of art, admired and
+prized for the manner in which the sculptor faithfully represented his
+model, as well as for its mystic utility.
+
+The reign of Psammetichus lasted till nearly the end of the century, and
+was marked by peace both at home and abroad. No doubt skirmishes of some
+kind took place in Lydia and Nubia, but we know nothing of them, nor
+have we any account of engagements with the Asiatics which from time to
+time must have taken place during this reign. Psammetichus followed with
+a vigilant eye the revolutionary changes beyond the isthmus, actuated
+at first by the fear of an offensive movement on the part of Syria, and
+when that ceased to be a danger, by the hope of one day recovering,
+in Southern Syria, at all events, that leading position which his
+predecessors had held so long. Tradition asserts that he wisely confined
+his ambition to the conquest of the Philistine Pentapolis; it is even
+reported that he besieged Ashdod for twenty-nine years before gaining
+possession of it. If we disregard the cipher, which is evidently
+borrowed from some popular romance, the fact in itself is in no way
+improbable. Ashdod was a particularly active community, and had played
+a far more important part in earlier campaigns than any other member of
+the Pentapolis. It possessed outside the town proper, which was situated
+some little distance from the coast, a seaport similar to that of Gaza,
+and of sufficient size to shelter a whole fleet.
+
+[Illustration: 361.jpg THE RUINS OF SAIS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudior, from a photograph by Golenischeff.
+
+Whoever held this harbour could exercise effective control over the main
+routes leading from Syria into Egypt. Psammetichus probably undertook
+this expedition towards the end of his life, when the victories gained
+by the Medes had demonstrated the incapacity of Assyria to maintain the
+defence of her distant provinces.*
+
+     * At one time I was inclined to explain this period of
+     twenty-nine years by assuming that the fall of Ashdod took
+     place in the twenty-ninth year of the king’s reign, and that
+     Herodotus had mistaken the date of its surrender for the
+     duration of the siege: such an hypothesis is, however,
+     unnecessary, since it is very probable that we have here one
+     of those exaggerated estimates of time so dear to the hearts
+     of popular historians. If we are to believe the account
+     given by Diodorus, it was in Syria that Psammetichus granted
+     the honour of a place in the right wing of his army to the
+     Greek mercenaries: the capture of Ashdod must, in this case,
+     have occurred before the emigration of the native troops. In
+     Jer. xxv. 20, reference is made to “the remnant of Ashdod,”
+      in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e. about 603 B.C., and
+     the decadence of the city is generally attributed to the war
+     with Egypt; it might with equal probability be ascribed to
+     the Scythian invasion.
+
+The attack of the Scythians, which might have proved dangerous to Egypt,
+had it been pushed far enough, had left her unharmed, and was in the
+end even advantageous to her. It was subsequent to the retreat of the
+barbarians, no doubt, that Psam-metichus sent his troops into Philistia
+and succeeded in annexing the whole or part of it. After this success
+he was content to wait and watch the course of events. The surprising
+revival of Egypt must have had the effect of infusing fresh life into
+the Egyptian factions existing in all the autonomous states, and in the
+prefectures of Syria. The appearance of the Pharaoh’s troops, and
+the toleration of their presence within the territory of the Assyrian
+empire, aroused on all sides the hope of deliverance, and incited the
+malcontents to take some immediate action.
+
+We do not know what may have happened at Tyre and Sidon, or among the
+peoples of Edom and Arabia, but Judah, at any rate, under the rule of
+Josiah, carefully abstained from any action inconsistent with the pledge
+of fidelity which it had given to Assyria. Indeed, the whole kingdom
+was completely absorbed in questions of a theological nature, and the
+agitations which affected the religious life of the nation reacted on
+its political life as well. Josiah, as he grew older, began to identify
+himself more and more with the doctrines taught by the prophets, and,
+thanks to his support, the party which sought to complete the reforms
+outlined by Hezekiah gained fresh recruits every day. The opposition
+which they had formerly aroused among the priests of the temple had
+gradually died out, partly as the result of genuine conviction, and
+partly because the priests had come to realise that the establishment
+of a single exclusive sanctuary would work for their own interest
+and advantage. The high priest Hilkiah took up the line followed by
+Jeremiah, and was supported by a number of influential personages such
+as Shaphan the scribe, son of Azaliah, Ahikam, Achbor son of Micaiab,
+and a prophetess named Huldah, who had married the keeper of the royal
+wardrobe. The terrors of the Scythian invasion had oppressed the hearts
+and quickened the zeal of the orthodox. Judah, they declared, had no
+refuge save Jahveh alone; all hope was lost if it persisted in the
+doctrines which had aroused against the faithless the implacable wrath
+of Jahveh; it must renounce at once those idols and superstitious rites
+with which His worship had been disfigured, and overthrow the altars
+which were to be found in every part of the country in order to
+concentrate all its devotion on the temple of Solomon. In a word, Judah
+must return to an observance of the strict letter of the law, as it had
+been followed by their forefathers. But as this venerable code was not
+to be found either in the “Book of the Covenant” or in any of the other
+writings held sacred by Israel, the question naturally arose as to where
+it was now hidden. In the eighteenth year of his reign, Josiah sent
+Shaphan the scribe to the temple in order to audit the accounts of the
+sums collected at the gates for the maintenance of the building. After
+the accounts had been checked, Hilkiah suddenly declared that he had
+“found the Book of the Law” in the temple, and thereupon handed the
+document to Shaphan, who perused it forthwith. On his return to the
+palace, the scribe made his report: “Thy servants have emptied out the
+money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand
+of the workmen;” then he added “Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a
+book,” and proceeded to read it to the king. When the latter had heard
+the words contained in this Book of the Law, he was seized with anguish,
+and rent his garments; then, unable to arrive at any decision by
+himself, he sent Hilkiah, Shaphan, Ahikam, Achbor, and Asaiah to inquire
+of Jahveh for him and for his people, “for great is the wrath of the
+Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened
+unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is
+written concerning us.”
+
+[Illustration: 364.jpg DECORATIONS ON THE WRAPPINGS OF A MUMMY.]
+
+The envoys betook themselves not to the official oracle or the
+recognised prophets, but to a woman, the prophetess Huldah, who was
+attached to the court in virtue of her husband’s office; and she bade
+them, in the name of the Most High, to summon a meeting of the faithful,
+and, after reading the new code to them, to call upon all present to
+promise that they would henceforth observe its ordinances: thus Jahveh
+would be appeased, and since the king had “rent his garments and wept
+before Me, I also have heard thee, saith Jahveh. Therefore, behold, I
+will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave
+in peace.” Josiah thereupon having summoned the elders of Judah and
+Jerusalem, went up into the temple, and there, standing on the platform,
+he read the Book of the Law in the presence of the whole people.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxii. 3-20; xxiii. 1, 2. The narrative has
+     undergone slight interpolation in places, e.g. verses 46,
+     5a, 6, and 7, where the compiler has made it harmonise with
+     events previously recorded in connection with the reign of
+     Joash (2 Kings xii. 6-16). The beginning of Huldah’s
+     prophecy was suppressed, when the capture of Jerusalem
+     proved that the reform of divine worship had not succeeded
+     in averting the wrath of Jahveh. It probably contained
+     directions to read the _Book of the Covenant_ to the people,
+     and to persuade them to adopt its precepts, followed by a
+     promise to save Judah provided it remained faithful to its
+     engagements.
+
+It dealt with questions which had been frequent subjects of debate in
+prophetic circles since the days of Hezekiah, and the anonymous writer
+who had compiled it was so strongly imbued with the ideas of Jeremiah,
+and had so closely followed his style, that some have been inclined to
+ascribe the work to Jeremiah himself. It has always been a custom among
+Orientals to affirm that any work for which they profess particular
+esteem was discovered in the temple of a god; the Egyptian priests,
+for instance, invented an origin of this nature for the more important
+chapters of their Book of the Dead, and for the leading treatises in the
+scientific literature of Egypt. The author of the Book of the Law had
+ransacked the distant past for the name of the leader who had delivered
+Israel from captivity in Egypt. He told how Moses, when he began to feel
+the hand of death upon him, determined to declare in Gilead the decrees
+which Jahveh had delivered to him for the guidance of His people.* In
+these ordinances the indivisible nature of God, and His jealousy of
+any participation of other deities in the worship of His people, are
+strongly emphasised. “Ye shall surely destroy all the places wherein
+the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high
+mountains and upon the hills, and under every green tree: and ye shall
+break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn
+their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of
+their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place.” **
+
+     * Even St. Jerome and St. John Chrysostom admitted that
+     Deuteronomy was the book discovered by Hilkiah in the temple
+     during the reign of Josiah, and this view is accepted at
+     present, though it is applied, not to the book of
+     Deuteronomy as it appears in the Pentateuch, but rather to
+     the nucleus of this book, and especially chaps, xii.-xxvi.
+
+     ** Deut. xii. 2, 3.
+
+Even were a prophet or dreamer of dreams to arise in the midst of the
+faithful and direct them by a sign or a miracle to turn aside after
+those accursed gods, they must not follow the teaching of these false
+guides, not even if the sign or miracle actually came to pass, but must
+seize and slay them. Even “if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy
+son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is
+as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve
+other gods,... thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him:
+neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither
+shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall
+be first upon him to put him to death, and, afterwards the hand of all
+the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die; because he
+hath sought to draw thee away from Jahveh!”* And this Jahveh was not the
+Jahveh of any special place. He was not the Jahveh of Bethel, or of Dan,
+or of Mizpah, or of Geba, or of Beersheba; He is simply Jahveh.** Yet
+the seat of His worship was not a matter of indifference to Him. “Unto
+the place which Jahveh shall choose out of all your tribes to put His
+name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt
+thou come: and thither shall ye bring your... sacrifices and your
+tithes.” *** Jerusalem is not mentioned by name, but the reference to it
+was clear, since every one knew that the suppression of the provincial
+sanctuaries must necessarily benefit it. One part of the new code dealt
+with the relations between different members of the community. The king
+was to approximate as closely as possible to the ideal priest; he was
+not to lift up his heart above his brethren, nor set his mind on the
+possession of many chariots, horses, or wives, but must continually read
+the law of God and ponder over His ordinances, and observe them word for
+word all the days of his life.****
+
+     * Deut. xiii. 1-10.
+
+     ** Deut. vi. 4. The expression found in Zecli. xiv. 9 was
+     borrowed from the second of the introductions added to
+     _Deuteronomy_ at a later date; the phrase harmonises so
+     closely with the main purpose of the book itself, that there
+     can be no objection to employing it here.
+
+     *** Deut. xii. 5, 6.
+
+     **** Deut. xvii. 14-20; cf. xx. 1-9 for the regulations in
+     regard to the levying of troops.
+
+Even in time of war he was not to put his trust in his soldiers or in
+his own personal valour; here again he must allow himself to be guided
+by Jahveh, and must undertake nothing without first consulting Him
+through the medium of His priests. The poor,* the widow, and the
+orphan,** the bondservant,*** and even the stranger within the gates--in
+remembrance of the bondage in Egypt ****--were all specially placed
+under the divine protection; every Jew who had become enslaved to a
+fellow-countryman was to be set at liberty at the end of six years, and
+was to receive a small allowance from his master which would ensure him
+for a time against starvation.^
+
+     * As to the poor, and the charitable obligations towards
+     them imposed by their common religion, cf. Deut. xv. 7-11;
+     as to the rights of the hired servant, cf. xxiv. 14, 15.
+
+     ** Deut. xxiv. 17-22 forbids the taking of a widow’s
+     clothing in pledge, and lays down regulations in regard to
+     gleaning permitted to widows and orphans (cf. Lev. xix. 9,
+     10); reference is also made to their share in triennial
+     tithe (Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13) and in the solemn
+     festivals (Deut. xvi. 11-14).
+
+     *** Slaves were allowed to share in the rejoicings during
+     the great festivals (Deut. xvi. 11, 14), and certain rights
+     were accorded to women taken prisoners in war who had become
+     their captors’ concubines (Deut. xxi. 10-14).
+
+     ****Participation of the stranger in the triennial tithe
+     (Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13).
+
+     ^ Deut. xv. 12-18.
+
+The regulations in regard to divine worship had not as yet been drawn
+up in that spirit of hair-splitting minuteness which, later on, became
+a characteristic of Hebrew legislation. Only three great festivals are
+mentioned in the Book of the Law. The Passover was celebrated in the
+month of Abîb, when the grain is in the ear, and had already come to be
+regarded as commemorative of the Exodus; but the other two, the Feast
+of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles, were merely associated with the
+agricultural seasons, and took place, the former seven weeks after the
+beginning of the harvest, the latter after the last of the crops had
+been housed.* The claim of the priest to a share in the victim and in
+the offerings made on various occasions is maintained, and the lawgiver
+allows him to draw a similar benefit from the annual and triennial
+tithes which he imposes on corn and wine and on the firstborn of cattle,
+the produce of this tithe being devoted to a sort of family festival
+celebrated in the Holy Place.** The priest was thus placed on the same
+footing as the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, and his
+influence was but little greater than it had been in the early days of
+the monarchy. It was to the prophet and not to the priest that the duty
+belonged of directing the public conscience in all those cases for which
+the law had made no provision. “I will put My words into his mouth (said
+Jahveh), and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
+And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto My words
+which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him. But the
+prophet which shall speak a word presumptuously in My name, which I have
+not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other
+gods, that same prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How
+shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?--when a prophet
+speaketh in the name of Jahveh, if the thing follow not, nor come to
+pass, that is the thing which Jahveh hath not spoken: the prophet hath
+spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.”
+
+     * Deut. xvi. 1-17.
+
+     ** Deut. xviii. 1-8; as to the share in the triennial tithe,
+     cf. Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13.
+
+When the reading of the law had ended, Josiah implored the people to
+make a covenant with Jahveh; that is to say, “to walk after Jahveh, and
+to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with
+all their hearts and all their souls, to confirm the words of this
+covenant that were written in this book.” The final words, which
+lingered in every ear, contained imprecations of even more terrible
+and gloomy import than those with which the prophets had been wont to
+threaten Judah. “If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jahveh thy
+God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I
+command thee this day; then all these curses shall come upon thee, and
+overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou
+be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
+Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, the
+increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock.... Thou shalt betroth
+a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build an house,
+and shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not
+use the fruit thereof. Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and
+thou shalt not eat thereof.... Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given
+unto another people; and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing
+for them all the day: and there shall be naught in the power of thine
+hand.... Jahveh shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end
+of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not
+understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shalt not regard the
+person of the old, nor show favour to the young.” This enemy was to burn
+and destroy everything: “and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates,
+throughout all thy land, which Jahveh thy God hath given thee. And thou
+shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy
+daughters... in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall straiten
+thee.” Those who escape must depart into captivity, and there endure for
+many a long year the tortures of direst slavery; “thy life shall hang
+in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have
+none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it
+were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for
+the fear of thine heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of
+thine eyes which thou shalt see.” *
+
+     * Deut. xxviii. The two sets of imprecations (xxvii.,
+     xxviii.) which terminate the actual work are both of later
+     redaction, but the original MS. undoubtedly ended with some
+     analogous formula. I have quoted above the most
+     characteristic parts of the twenty-eighth chapter.
+
+The assembly took the oath required of them, and the king at once
+displayed the utmost zeal in exacting literal performance of the
+ordinances contained in the Book of the Law. His first step was to
+purify the temple: Hilkiah and his priests overthrew all the idols
+contained in it, and all the objects that had been fashioned in
+honour of strange gods--the Baals, the Asherim, and all the Host of
+Heaven--and, carrying them out of Jerusalem into the valley of the
+Kidron, cast them into the flames, and scattered the ashes upon the
+place where all the filth of the city was cast out. The altars and the
+houses of the Sodomites which defiled the temple courts were demolished,
+the chariots of the sun broken in pieces, and the horses of the god
+sent to the stables of the king’s chamberlain;* the sanctuaries and high
+places which had been set up at the gates of the city, in the public
+places, and along the walls were razed to the ground, and the Tophet,
+where the people made their children pass through the fire, was
+transformed into a common sewer.
+
+     * [The Hebrew text admits of this meaning, which is,
+     however, not clear in the English A.V.--Tr.]
+
+The provincial sanctuaries shared the fate of those of the capital; in
+a short time, from Geba to Beersheba, there remained not one of those
+“high places,” at which the ancestors of the nation and their rulers
+had offered prayers for generations past. The wave of reform passed even
+across the frontier and was borne into the Assyrian province of Samaria;
+the temple and image which Jeroboam had set up at Bethel were reduced to
+ashes, and human bones were burnt upon the altar to desecrate it beyond
+possibility of purification.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 3-20, 24-27, where several glosses and
+     interpolations are easily recognisable, such as the episode
+     at Bethel (v. 15-20), the authenticity of which is otherwise
+     incontestable. The account in 2 Chron. xxxiv. is a defaced
+     reproduction of that of 2 Kings, and it places the reform,
+     in part at least, before the discovery of the new law.
+
+The governor offered no objection to these acts; he regarded them, in
+the first place, as the private affairs of the subjects of the empire,
+with which he had no need to interfere, so long as the outburst of
+religious feeling did not tend towards a revolt: we know, moreover, that
+Josiah, guided on this point by the prophets, would have believed that
+he was opposing the divine will had he sought to free himself from the
+Assyrian yoke by ordinary political methods; besides this, in 621, under
+Assur-etililâni, five years after the Scythian invasion, the prefect of
+Samaria had possibly not sufficient troops at his disposal to oppose the
+encroachments of the vassal princes. It was an affair of merely a few
+months. In the following year, when the work of destruction was
+over, Josiah commanded that the Passover should be kept in the manner
+prescribed in the new book; crowds flocked into Jerusalem, from Israel
+as well as from Judah, and the festival made a deep impression on the
+minds of the people. Centuries afterwards the Passover of King Josiah
+was still remembered: “There was not kept such a Passover from the days
+of the Judges... nor in all the days of the Kings of Israel, nor of the
+Kings of Judah.” *
+
+     1 2 Kings xxiii. 21-23; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-19. The text of
+     the Soptuagint appears to imply that it was the first
+     Passover celebrated in Jerusalem. It also gives in chap.
+     xxii. 3, after the mention of the eighteenth year, a date of
+     the seventh or eighth month, which is not usually accepted,
+     as it is in contradiction with what is affirmed in chap,
+     xxiii. 21-23, viz. that the Passover celebrated at Jerusalem
+     was in the same year as the reform, in the eighteenth year.
+     It is to do away with the contradiction between these two
+     passages that the Hebrew text has suppressed the mention of
+     the month. I think, however, it ought to be considered
+     authentic and be retained, if we are allowed to place the
+     celebration of the Passover in what would be one year after.
+     To do this it would not be needful to correct the regnal
+     date in the text: admitting that the reform took place in
+     621, the Passover of 620 would still quite well have taken
+     place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, that being dependent
+     on the time of year at which the king had ascended the
+     throne.
+
+The first outburst of zeal having spent itself, a reaction was ere long
+bound to set in both among the ruling classes and among the people, and
+the spectacle that Asia at that time presented to their view was truly
+of a nature to incite doubts in the minds of the faithful. Assyria--that
+Assyria of which the prophets had spoken as the irresistible emissary of
+the Most High--had not only failed to recover from the injuries she had
+received at the hands, first of the Medes, and then of the Scythians,
+but had with each advancing year seen more severe wounds inflicted upon
+her, and hastening her irretrievably to her ruin. And besides this,
+Egypt and Chaldæa, the ancient kingdoms which had for a short time bent
+beneath her yoke, had now once more arisen, and were astonishing the
+world by their renewed vigour. Psammetichus, it is true, after having
+stretched his arm across the desert and laid hands upon the citadel
+which secured to him an outlet into Syria for his armies, had proceeded
+no further, and thus showed that he was not inclined to reassert
+the ancient rights of Egypt over the countries of the Jordan and the
+Orontes; but he had died in 611, and his son, Necho II., who succeeded
+him, did not manifest the same peaceful intentions.*
+
+     * The last dated stele of Psammetichus I. is the official
+     epitaph of the Apis which died in his fifty-second year. On
+     the other hand, an Apis, born in the fifty-third year of
+     Psammetichus, died in the sixteenth year of Necho, after
+     having lived 16 years, 7 months, 17 days. A very simple
+     calculation shows that Psammetichus I. reigned fifty-four
+     years, as stated by Herodotus and Manetho, according to
+     Julius Africanus.
+
+If he decided to try his fortune in Syria, supported by his Greek and
+Egyptian battalions, what would be the attitude that Judah would assume
+between moribund Assyria and the kingdom of the Pharaohs in its renewed
+vigour? It was in the spring of 608 that the crisis occurred. Nineveh,
+besieged by the Medes, was on the point of capitulating, and it was easy
+to foresee that the question as to who should rule there would shortly
+be an open one: should Egypt hesitate longer in seizing what she
+believed to be her rightful heritage, she would run the risk of finding
+the question settled and another in possession. Necho quitted Memphis
+and made his way towards the Asiatic frontier with the army which his
+father had left to him. It was no longer composed of the ill-organised
+bands of the Ethiopian kings or the princes of the Delta, temporarily
+united under the rule of a single leader, but all the while divided by
+reciprocal hatreds and suspicions which doomed it to failure. All the
+troops which constituted it--Egyptians, Libyans, and Greeks alike--were
+thoroughly under the control of their chief, and advanced in a compact
+and irresistible mass “like the Nile: like a river its volume rolls
+onward. It said: I arise, I inundate the earth, I will drown cities
+and people! Charge, horses! Chariots, fly forward at a gallop! Let the
+warriors march, the Ethiopian and the Libyan under the shelter of his
+buckler, the fellah bending the bow!”*
+
+     * Jer. xlvi. 7-9, where the prophet describes, not the army
+     which marched against Josiah, but that which was beaten at
+     Carchemish. With a difference of date of only three or four
+     years, the constituent elements of the army were certainly
+     the same, so that the description of one would apply to the
+     other.
+
+As soon as Josiah heard the news, he called together his troops
+and prepared to resist the attack. Necho affected not to take his
+demonstrations seriously, and sent a disdainful message recommending him
+to remain neutral: “What have I to do with thee, thou King of Judah? I
+come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have
+war: and God hath commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling
+with God who is with me, that He destroy thee not!”*
+
+     * The message of Necho to Josiah is known to us from 2
+     Chron. xxxv. 20-22.
+
+Having despatched the message, probably at the moment of entering the
+Shephelah, he continued in a northerly direction, nothing doubting that
+his warning had met a friendly reception; but however low Nineveh had
+fallen, Josiah could not feel that he was loosed from the oaths which
+bound him to her, and, trusting in the help of Jahveh, he threw himself
+resolutely into the struggle. The Egyptian generals were well acquainted
+with the route as far as the farther borders of Philistia, having
+passed along it a few years previously, at the time of the campaign of
+Psammetichus; but they had no experience of the country beyond Ashdod,
+and were solely dependent for guidance on the information of merchants
+or the triumphant records of the old Theban Pharaohs. These monuments
+followed the traditional road which had led their ancestors from Gaza
+to Megiddo, from Megiddo to Qodshu, from Qodshu to Carchemish, and they
+were reckoning on passing through the valley of the Jordan, and then
+that of the Orontes, without encountering any resistance, when, at the
+entrance to the gorges of Carmel, they were met by the advance guard of
+the Judæan army.
+
+Josiah, not having been warned in time to meet them as they left the
+desert, had followed a road parallel to their line of march, and had
+taken up his position in advance of them on the plain of Megiddo, on the
+very spot where Thutmosis III. had vanquished the Syrian confederates
+nearly ten centuries before. The King of Judah was defeated and killed
+in the confusion of the battle, and the conqueror pushed on northwards
+without, at that moment, giving the fate of the scattered Jews a further
+thought.* He rapidly crossed the plain of the Orontes by the ancient
+caravan track, and having reached the Euphrates, he halted under the
+walls of Carchemish. Perhaps he may have heard there of the fall of
+Nineveh, and the fear of drawing down upon himself the Medes or the
+Babylonians prevented him from crossing the river and raiding the
+country of the Balikh, which, from the force of custom, the royal
+scribes still persisted in designating by the disused name of Mitanni.**
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 29; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 22, 23. It is
+     probably to this battle that Herodotus alludes when he says
+     that Necho overcame the Syrians at Magdôlos. The identity of
+     Magdôlos and Megiddo, accepted by almost all historians, was
+     disputed by Gutschmid, who sees in the Magdôlos of Herodotus
+     the Migdol of the Syro-Egyptian frontier, and in the
+     engagement itself, an engagement of Necho with the Assyrians
+     and their Philistine allies; also by Th. Reinach, who
+     prefers to identify Magdôlos with one of the Migdols near
+     Ascalon, and considers this combat as fought against the
+     Assyrian army of occupation. If the information in Herodotus
+     were indeed borrowed from Hecatasus of Miletus, and by the
+     latter from the inscription placed by Necho in the temple of
+     Branchidae, it appears to me impossible to admit that
+     Magdôlos does not here represent Megiddo.
+
+     ** The text of 2 Kings xxiii. 29 says positively that Necho
+     was marching towards the Euphrates. The name Mitanni is
+     found even in Ptolemaic times.
+
+He returned southwards, after having collected the usual tributes and
+posted a few garrisons at strategic points; at Biblah he held a kind of
+_Durbar_ to receive the homage of the independent Phoenicians* and of
+the old vassals of Assyria, who, owing to the rapidity of his movements,
+had not been able to tender their offerings on his outward march.
+
+     * The submission of the Phoenicians to Necho is gathered
+     from a passage in Berosus, where he says that the Egyptian
+     army beaten at Carchemish comprised Phoenicians, besides
+     Syrians and Arabs.
+
+[Illustration: 378.jpg Victorious Necho]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph published in
+     Mariette. This scarab, now in the Gizeh Museum, is the only
+     Egyptian monument which alludes to the victories of Necho.
+     Above, the king stands between Nît and Isis; below, the
+     vanquished are stretched on the ground.
+
+The Jews had rescued the body of their king and had brought it back in
+his chariot to Jerusalem; they proclaimed in his stead, not his eldest
+son Eliakim, but the youngest, Shallum, who adopted the name of Jehoahaz
+on ascending the throne. He was a young man, twenty-three years of age,
+light and presumptuous of disposition, opposed to the reform movement,
+and had doubtless been unwise enough to display his hostile feelings
+towards the conqueror. Necho summoned him to Eiblah, deposed him after
+a reign of three months, condemned him to prison, and replaced him by
+Eliakim, who changed his name to that of Jehoiakim--“he whom Jahveh
+exalts;” and after laying Judah under a tribute of one hundred talents
+of silver and one of gold, the Egyptian monarch returned to his own
+country. Certain indications lead us to believe that he was obliged to
+undertake other punitive expeditions. The Philistines, probably deceived
+by false rumours of his defeat, revolted against him about the time that
+he was engaged in hostilities in Northern Syria, and on receiving news
+not only of his safety, but of the victory he had gained, their alarm
+was at once aroused. Judah forgot her own sorrows on seeing the peril in
+which they stood, and Jeremiah pronounced against them a prophecy full
+of menace. “Behold,” he cried, “waters rise up out of the north, and
+shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all
+that is therein, the city and them that dwell therein; and the men shall
+cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl... for the Lord will
+spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the Isle of Caphtor. Baldness is
+come upon Gaza; Ascalon is dumb with terror, and you, all that are left
+of the giants, how long will ye tear your faces in your mourning?” *
+Ascalon was sacked and then Gaza,** and Necho at length was able to
+re-enter his domains, doubtless by the bridge of Zalu, following in this
+his models, his heroic ancestors of the great Theban dynasties.
+
+     * [R.V., “Ashkolon is brought to nought, the remnant of
+     their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?”--Tr.]
+
+     ** Jer. xlvii., which is usually attributed to a period
+     subsequent to the defeat at Carchemish or even later; the
+     title, which alone mentions the Egyptians, is wanting in the
+     LXX. If we admit that the enemy coming from the north is the
+     Egyptian and not the Chaldaean, as do most writers, the only
+     time that danger could have threatened Philistia from the
+     Egyptians coming from the north, was when Necho, victorious,
+     was returning from his first campaign. In this case, the
+     Kadytis of Herodotus, which has caused so much trouble to
+     commentators, would certainly be Gaza, and there would be no
+     difficulty in explaining how the tradition preserved by the
+     Greek historian placed the taking of this town after the
+     battle of Megiddo.
+
+He wished thereupon to perpetuate the memory of the Greeks who had
+served him so bravely, and as soon as the division of the spoil had been
+made, he sent as an offering to the temple of Apollo at Miletus, the
+cuirass which he had worn throughout the campaign.
+
+We can picture the reception which his subjects gave him, and how the
+deputations of priests and nobles in white robes flocked out to meet him
+with garlands of flowers in their hands, and with acclamations similar
+to those which of old had heralded the return of Seti I. or Ramses II.
+National pride, no doubt, was flattered by this revival of military
+glory, but other motives than those of vanity lay at the root of the
+delight exhibited by the whole country at the news of the success of the
+expedition. The history of the century which was drawing to its close,
+had demonstrated more than once how disadvantageous it was to Egypt to
+be separated from a great power merely by the breadth of the isthmus.
+If Taharqa, instead of awaiting the attack on the banks of the Nile, had
+met the Assyrians at the foot of Carmel, or even before Gaza, it would
+have been impossible for Esarhaddon to turn the glorious kingdom of the
+Pharaohs into an Assyrian province after merely a few weeks of fighting.
+The dictates of prudence, more than those of ambition, rendered,
+therefore, the conquest of Syria a necessity, and Necho showed his
+wisdom in undertaking it at the moment when the downfall of Nineveh
+reduced all risk of opposition to a minimum; it remained to be seen
+whether the conquerors of Sin-shar-ishkun would tolerate for long the
+interference of a third robber, and would consent to share the spoil
+with these Africans, who, having had none of the trouble, had hastened
+to secure the profit. All the Mediterranean dependencies of Assyria,
+such as Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judæ, fell naturally within the
+sphere of Babylon rather than that of Media, and, indeed, Cyaxares never
+troubled himself about them; and Nabopolassar, who considered them
+his own by right, had for the moment too much in hand to permit of his
+reclaiming them. The Aramæans of the Khabur and the Balikh, the nomads
+of the Mesopotamian plain, had not done homage to him, and the country
+districts were infested with numerous bands of Cimmerians and Scythians,
+who had quite recently pillaged the sacred city of Harrân and violated
+the temple of the god Sin.* Nabopolassar, who was too old to command
+his troops in person, probably entrusted the conduct of them to
+Nebuchadrezzar, who was the son he had appointed to succeed him, and who
+had also married the Median princess. Three years sufficed this prince
+to carry the frontier of the new Chaldæan empire as far as the Syrian
+fords of the Euphrates, within sight of Thapsacus and Carchemish. Harrân
+remained in the hands of the barbarians,** probably on condition of
+their paying a tribute, but the district of the Subaru was laid waste,
+its cities reduced to ashes, and the Babylonian suzerainty established
+on the southern slopes of the Masios.
+
+     * _Inscrip. of the Cylinder of Nabonidus_ mentions the
+     pillage of Harrân as having taken place fifty-four years
+     before the date of its restoration by Nabonidus. This was
+     begun, as we know, in the third year of that king, possibly
+     in 554-3. The date of the destruction is, therefore, 608-7,
+     that is to say, a few months before the destruction of
+     Nineveh.
+
+     ** The passage in the _Cylinder of Nabonidus_ shows that the
+     barbarians remained in possession of the town.
+
+Having brought these preliminary operations to a successful issue,
+Nabopolassar, considering himself protected on the north and north-east
+by his friendship with Cyaxares, no longer hesitated to make an effort
+to recover the regions dominated by Egyptian influence, and, if the
+occasion presented itself, to reduce to submission the Pharaoh who was
+in his eyes merely a rebellious satrap. Nebuchadrezzar again placed
+himself at the head of his troops; Necho, warned of his projects,
+hastened to meet him with all the forces at his disposal, and, owing
+probably to the resistance offered by the garrisons which he possessed
+in the Hittite fortresses, he had time to continue his march as far as
+the Euphrates. The two armies encountered each other at Carchemish; the
+Egyptians were completely defeated in spite of their bravery and the
+skilful tactics of their Greek auxiliaries, and the Asiatic nations, who
+had once more begun to rely on Egypt, were obliged to acknowledge that
+they were as unequal to the task of overcoming Chaldaea as they had been
+of sustaining a struggle with Assyria.*
+
+     * Jer. xlvi. 2; cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 7, where the editor,
+     without mentioning the battle of Carchemish, recalls in
+     passing that “the King of Babylon had taken, from the brook
+     of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the
+     King of Egypt.”
+
+The religious party in Judah, whose hopes had been disappointed by the
+victory of Pharaoh at Megiddo, now rejoiced at his defeat, and when the
+remains of his legions made their way back across the Philistine plain,
+closely pressed by the enemy, Jeremiah hailed them as they passed with
+cutting irony. Two or three brief, vivid sentences depicting the spirit
+that had fired them a few months before, and then the picture of their
+disorderly flight: “Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to
+battle. Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth
+with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.
+Wherefore have I seen it? They are dismayed and turn backward; and their
+mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back;
+terror is on every side, saith the Lord. Let not the swift flee away,
+nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Euphrates have
+they stumbled and fallen.... Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin
+daughter of Egypt; in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no
+healing for thee. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is
+full of thy cry: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty,
+they are fallen both of them together.” * Nebuchadrezzar received by the
+way the submission of Jehoiakim, and of the princes of Ammon, Moab, and
+the Philistines;** he was nearing Pelusium on his way into Egypt, when a
+messenger brought him the news of his father’s death.
+
+     * Jer. xlvi. 3-6, 11, 12.
+
+     ** The submission of all these peoples is implied by the
+     passage already cited in 2 Kings xxiv. 7; Berosus speaks of
+     the Phoenician, Jewish, and Syrian prisoners whom
+     Nebuchadrezzar left to his generals, when he resolved to
+     return to Babylon by the shortest route.
+
+He feared lest a competitor should dispute his throne--perhaps his
+younger brother, that Nabu-shum-lishir who had figured at his side
+at the dedication of a temple to Marduk. He therefore concluded an
+armistice with Necho, by the terms of which he remained master of the
+whole of Syria between the Euphrates and the Wady el-Arish, and then
+hastily turned homewards. But his impatience could not brook the
+delay occasioned by the slow march of a large force, nor the ordinary
+circuitous route by Carchemish and through Mesopotamia. He hurried
+across the Arabian desert, accompanied by a small escort of light
+troops, and presented himself unexpectedly at the gates of Babylon. He
+found all in order. His Chaldæan ministers had assumed the direction of
+affairs, and had reserved the throne for the rightful heir; he had only
+to appear to be acclaimed and obeyed (B.C. 605).
+
+His reign was long, prosperous, and on the whole peaceful. The recent
+changes in Asiatic politics had shut out the Chaldæans from the majority
+of the battle-fields on which the Assyrians had been wont to wage
+warfare with the tribes on their eastern and northern frontiers. We no
+longer see stirring on the border-land those confused masses of tribes
+and communities of whose tumultuous life the Ninevite annals make such
+frequent record: Elam as an independent state no longer existed, neither
+did Philipi and Namri, nor the Cossæans, nor Parsua, nor the Medes
+with their perpetual divisions, nor the Urartians and the Mannai in
+a constant state of ferment within their mountain territory; all that
+remained of that turbulent world now constituted a single empire, united
+under the hegemony of the Medes, and the rule of a successful conqueror.
+The greater part of Blam was already subject to those Achæmenides who
+called themselves sovereigns of Anshân as well as of Persia, and whose
+fief was dependent on the kingdom of Ecbatana:* it is probable that
+Chaldasa received as her share of the ancient Susian territory the low
+countries of the Uknu and the Ulai, occupied by the Aramæan tribes
+of the Puqudu, the Eutu, and the Grambulu;** but Susa fell outside her
+portion, and was soon transformed into a flourishing Iranian town.
+
+     * “The king and the princes of Elam” mentioned in Jer. xxv.
+     25, xlix.35-39, and in Ezele. xxxii. 24, 25, in the time of
+     Nebuchadrezzar, are probably the Persian kings of Anshân and
+     their Elamite vassals--not only, as is usually believed, the
+     kings and native princes conquered by Assur-bani-pal; the
+     same probably holds good of the Elam which an anonymous
+     prophet associates with the Medes under Nabonidus, in the
+     destruction of Babylon (Isa. xxi. 2). The princes of Malamîr
+     appear to me to belong to an anterior epoch.
+
+     ** The enumeration given in Ezelc. xxiii. 23, “the
+     Babylonians and all the Chaldæans, Pelted, and Shoa, and
+     Koa,” shows us probably that the Aramæans of the Lower
+     Tigris represented by Pekôd, as those of the Lower Euphrates
+     are by the Chaldæans, belonged to the Babylonian empire in
+     the time of the prophet. They are also considered as
+     belonging to Babylon in the passage of an anonymous prophet
+     (Jer. I. 21), who wrote in the last days of the Chaldæn
+     empire: “Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against
+     it and the inhabitants of Pekod.” Translators and
+     commentators have until quite recently mistaken the import
+     of the name Pekôd.
+
+The plains bordering the right bank of the Tigris, from the Uknu to
+the Turnat or the Eadanu, which had belonged to Babylon from the very
+earliest times, were no doubt still retained by her;* but the mountain
+district which commanded them certainly remained in the hands of
+Cyaxares, as well as the greater part of Assyria proper, and there
+is every reason to believe that from the Eadanu northwards the Tigris
+formed the boundary between the two allies, as far as the confluence of
+the Zab.
+
+     * This is what appears to me to follow from the account of
+     the conquest o£ Babylon by Cyrus, as related by Herodotus.
+
+The entire basin of the Upper Tigris and its Assyrian colonies, Amidi
+and Tushkân were now comprised in the sphere of Medic influence, and the
+settlement of the Scythians at Harrân, around one of the most venerated
+of the Semitic sanctuaries, shows to what restrictions the new authority
+of Chaldasa was subjected, even in the districts of Mesopotamia, which
+were formerly among the most faithful possessions of Nineveh. If these
+barbarians had been isolated, they would not long have defied the King
+of Babylon, but being akin to the peoples who were subject to Cyaxares,
+they probably claimed his protection, and regarded themselves as his
+liege men; it was necessary to treat them with consideration, and
+tolerate the arrogance of their presence upon the only convenient road
+which connected the eastern with the western provinces of the kingdom.
+It is therefore evident that there was no opening on this side for those
+ever-recurring struggles in which Assyria had exhausted her best powers;
+one war was alone possible, that with Media, but it was fraught with
+such danger that the dictates of prudence demanded that it should be
+avoided at all costs, even should the alliance between the two courts
+cease to be cemented by a royal marriage. However great the confidence
+which he justly placed in the valour of his Chaldæans, Nebuchadrezzar
+could not hide from himself the fact that for two centuries they had
+always been beaten by the Assyrians, and that therefore he would run
+too great a risk in provoking hostilities with an army which had got the
+better of the conquerors of his people. Besides this, Cyaxares was fully
+engaged in subjecting the region which he had allotted to himself, and
+had no special desire to break with his ally. Nothing is known of his
+history during the years which followed the downfall of Nineveh, but it
+is not difficult to guess what were the obstacles he had to surmount,
+and the result of the efforts which he made to overcome them. The
+country which extends between the Caspian and the Black Sea--the
+mountain block of Armenia, the basins of the Araxes and the Kur, the
+valleys of the Halys, the Iris, and the Thermodon, and the forests
+of the Anti-Taurus and the Taurus itself--had been thrown into utter
+confusion by the Cimmerians and the Scythians. Nothing remained of the
+previous order of things which had so long prevailed there, and the
+barbarians who for a century and a half had destroyed everything in the
+country seemed incapable of organising anything in its place. Urartu had
+shrunk within its ancient limits around Ararat, and it is not known
+who ruled her; the civilisation of Argistis and Menuas had almost
+disappeared with the dynasty which had opposed the power of Assyria, and
+the people, who had never been much impregnated by it, soon fell back
+into their native rude habits of life. Confused masses of European
+barbarians were stirring in Etiaus and the regions of the Araxes,
+seeking a country in which to settle themselves, and did not succeed in
+establishing themselves firmly till a much later period in the district
+of Sakasênê, to which was attached the name of one of their tribes.*
+
+     * Strabo states that Armenia and the maritime regions of
+     Cappadocia suffered greatly from the invasion of the
+     Scythians.
+
+Such of the Mushku and the Tabal as had not perished had taken refuge in
+the north, among the mountains bordering the Black Sea, where they were
+ere long known to the Greeks as the Moschi and the Tibarenians. The
+remains of the Cimmerian hordes had taken their place in Cappadocia,
+and the Phrygian population which had followed in their wake had spread
+themselves over the basin of the Upper Halys and over the ancient
+Milidu, which before long took from them the name of Armenia.* All these
+elements constituted a seething, struggling, restless mass of people,
+actuated by no plan or method, and subject merely to the caprice of its
+chiefs; it was, indeed, the “seething cauldron” of which the
+Hebrew prophets had had a vision, which at times overflowed over the
+neighbouring nations, and at others was consumed within and wasted
+itself in fruitless ebullition.**
+
+     * The Phrygian origin of the Armenians is pointed out by
+     Herodotus and by Eudoxius.
+
+     ** Jer. i. 13.
+
+It took Cyaxares years to achieve his conquests; he finally succeeded,
+however, in reducing the various elements to subjection--Urartians,
+Scythians, Cimmerians, Chaldæ, and the industrious tribes of the
+Chalybes and the White Syrians--and, always victorious, appeared at last
+on the right hank of the Halys; but having reached it, he found himself
+face to face with foes of quite a different calibre from those with
+whom he had hitherto to deal. Lydia had increased both in wealth and
+in vigour since the days when her king Ardys informed his ally
+Assur-bani-pal that he had avenged the death of his father and driven
+the Cimmerians from the valley of the Msoander.
+
+He had by so doing averted all immediate danger; but as long as the
+principal horde remained unexterminated, another invasion was always
+to be feared; besides which, the barbarian inroad, although of short
+duration, had wrought such havoc in the country that no native power in
+Asia Minor appeared, nor in reality was, able to make the effort needful
+to destroy them. Their king Dugdamis, it will be remembered, met his
+death in Cilicia at the hands of the Assyrians about the year 640, and
+Kôbos, his successor, was defeated and killed by the Scythians under
+Madyes about 633. The repeated repulses they had suffered had the effect
+of quickly relieving Lydia, Phrygia, and the remaining states of the
+Ægean and the Black Sea from their inroads; the Milesians wrested
+Sinope from them about 630, and the few bands left behind when the main
+body set out for the countries of the Euphrates were so harried and
+decimated by the people over whom they had terrorised for nearly a
+century, that they had soon no refuge except round the fortress of
+Antandros, in the mountains of the Troad. Most of the kingdoms whose
+downfall they had caused never recovered from their reverses; but
+Lydia, which had not laid down its arms since the death of Gyges, became
+possessed by degrees of the whole of their territory; Phrygia proper
+came back to her in the general redistribution, and with it most of the
+countries which had been under the rule of the dynasty of Midas, from
+the mountains of Lycia to the shores of the Black Sea. The transfer was
+effected, apparently, with very slight opposition and with little loss
+of time, since in the four or five years which followed the death of
+Kôbos, Ardys had risen in the estimation of the Greeks to the position
+enjoyed by Gyges; and when, in 628, Aristomenes, the hero of the
+Messenian wars, arrived at Rhodes, it is said that he contemplated
+proceeding from thence, first to Sardes and then to Ecbatana, for the
+purpose of gaining the adherence of Lydia and Media to his cause.
+
+[Illustration: 390.jpgA VIEW IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MESSOGIS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Rayet and Thomas.
+
+Death put an end to his projects, but he would not for a moment have
+entertained them had not Ardys been at that time at the head of a
+renowned and flourishing kingdom. The renewal of international commerce
+followed closely on the re-establishment of peace, and even if the long
+period of Scythian invasion, followed by the destruction of Nineveh,
+rendered the overland route less available for regular traffic than
+before, at all events relations between the inhabitants of the Euphrates
+valley and those of the iEgean littoral were resumed to such good
+purpose that before long several fresh marts were opened in Lydia.
+
+[Illustration: 391.jpg THE SITE OF PRIÊNÊ.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Rayet and Thomas.
+
+Kymê and Ephesus put the region of the Messogis and the Tmolus into
+communication with the sea, but the lower valleys of the Hermos and
+the Masander were closed by the existence of Greek colonies at
+Smyrna, Clazomenas, Colophon, Priênê, and Miletus--all hostile to the
+Mermnadæ--which it would be necessary to overcome if these countries
+were to enjoy the prosperity shared by other parts of the kingdom; hence
+the principal effort made by the Lydians was either directly to annex
+these towns, or to impose such treaties on them as would make them their
+dependencies. Ardys seized Priênê towards 620, and after having thus
+established himself on the northern shore of the Latrnio Gulf,* he
+proceeded to besiege Miletus in 616, at the very close of his career.
+Hostilities were wearily prolonged all through the reign of Sadyattes
+(615-610), and down to the sixth year of Alyattes.**
+
+     * The well-known story that Priênê was saved under Alyattes
+     by a stratagem of the philosopher Bias is merely a fable, of
+     which several other examples are found. It would not be
+     possible to conclude from it, as Grote did, that Ardys’ rule
+     over the town was but ephemeral.
+
+     ** The periods of duration assigned here to the reigns of
+     these princes are those of Euschius--that is to say, 15
+     years for Crosus, 37 for Alyattes, 5 for Sadyattes, 37 for
+     Ardys; Julius Africanus gives 15 for Sadyattes and 38 for
+     Ardys, while Herodotus suggests 14 for Crosus, 57 for
+     Alyattes, 12 for Sadyattes, and 59 for Ardys.
+
+The position of Miletus was too strong to permit of its being carried by
+a _coup de main_; besides which, the Lydians were unwilling to destroy
+at one blow a town whose colonies, skilfully planted at the seaports
+from the coasts of the Black Sea to those of Egypt, would one day
+furnish them with so many outlets for their industrial products. Their
+method of attacking it resolved itself into a series of exhausting
+raids. “Every year, as soon as the fruit crops and the harvests began
+to ripen, Alyattes set out at the head of his troops, whom he caused
+to march and encamp to the sound of instruments. Having arrived in the
+Milesian territory, he completely destroyed the crops and the orchards,
+and then again withdrew.” In these expeditions he was careful to
+avoid any excesses which would have made the injury inflicted appear
+irretrievable; his troops were forbidden to destroy dwelling-houses
+or buildings dedicated to the gods; indeed, on one occasion, when the
+conflagration which consumed the lands accidentally spread to the temple
+of Athena near Assêsos, he rebuilt two temples for the goddess at his
+own expense. The Milesians sustained the struggle courageously, until
+two reverses at Limeneion and in the plain of the Maeander at length
+induced them to make terms. Their tyrant, Thrasybulus, acting on the
+advice of the Delphic Apollo and by the mediation of Periander of
+Corinth, concluded a treaty with Alyattes in which the two princes,
+declaring themselves the guest and the ally one of the other, very
+probably conceded extensive commercial privileges to one another both by
+land and sea (604).*
+
+     * Thrasybulus’ stratagem is said to have taken place at
+     Priênê by Diogenes Laertes and by Polysenus. The war begins
+     under Ardys, lasts for five years under Sadyattes, instead
+     of the six years which Herodotus attributes to it, and five
+     years under Alyattes.
+
+Alyattes rewarded the oracle by the gift of a magnificent bowl, the work
+of Glaucus of Chios, which continued to be shown to travellers of
+the Roman period as one of the most remarkable curiosities of Delphi.
+Alyattes continued his expeditions against the other Greek colonies, but
+directed them prudently and leisurely, so as not to alarm his European
+friends, and provoke the formation against himself of a coalition of the
+Hellenic communities shattered over the isles or along the littoral
+of the Ægean. We know that towards the end of his reign he recovered
+Colophon, which had been previously acquired by Gyges, but had regained
+its independence during the Cimmerian crisis;* he razed Smyrna to the
+ground, and forced its inhabitants to occupy unfortified towns, where
+his suzerainty could not be disputed;** he half devastated Clazomense,
+whose citizens saved it by a despairing effort, and he renewed the
+ancient alliances with Ephesus, Kymê, and the cities of the region of
+the Caicus and the Hellespont,*** though it is impossible to attribute
+an accurate date to each of these particular events.
+
+     * Polysenus tells the story of the trick by which Alyattes,
+     after he had treated with the people of Colophon, destroyed
+     their cavalry and seized on their town. The fact that a
+     treaty was made seems to be confirmed by a fragment of
+     Phylarchus, and the surrender of the town to the Lydians by
+     a fragment of Xenophanes, quoted in Athenseus. Schubert does
+     not seem to believe that the town was taken by Alyattes; I
+     have adopted the opinion of Ladet on this point.
+
+     ** Herodotus and Nicolas of Damascus confine themselves to
+     relating the capture of the city; adds that the Lydians
+     compelled the inhabitants to dwell in unfortified towns.
+     Schubert thinks that the passage in Strabo refers, not to
+     the time of Alyattes, but to a subsequent event in the fifth
+     century; he relies for this opinion on a fragment of Pindar,
+     which represents Smyrna as still flourishing in his time.
+     But, as Busolt has pointed out, the intention of the text of
+     Pindar is to represent the state of the city at about the
+     time of Homer’s birth, and not in the fifth century.
+
+     *** The peace between Ephesus and Lydia must have been
+     troubled for a little while in the reign of Sadyattes, but
+     it was confirmed under Alyattes by the marriage of Melas II.
+     with one of the king’s daughters.
+
+Most of them had already taken place or were still proceeding when the
+irruption of the Medes across the Halys obliged him to concentrate all
+his energies on the eastern portion of his kingdom.
+
+The current tradition in Lydia of a century later attributed the
+conflict of the two peoples to a romantic cause. It related that
+Cyaxares had bestowed his favour on the bands of Scythians who had
+become his mercenaries on the death of Madyes, and that he had entrusted
+to them the children of some of the noblest Medic families, that they
+might train them to hunt and also teach them the use of the bow. One
+day, on their returning from the chase without any game, Cyaxares
+reproached them for their want of skill in such angry and insulting
+terms, that they resolved on immediate revenge. They cut one of the
+children in pieces, which they dressed after the same manner as that
+in which they were accustomed to prepare the game they had killed, and
+served up the dish to the king; then, while he was feasting upon it with
+his courtiers, they lied in haste and took refuge with Alyattes. The
+latter welcomed them, and refused to send them back to Cyaxares;
+hence the outbreak of hostilities. It is, of course, possible that the
+emigration of a nomad horde may have been the cause of the war,* but
+graver reasons than this had set the two nations at variance.
+
+     * Grote has collected a certain number of examples in later
+     times to show that the journeying of a nomad horde from one
+     state to another may provoke wars, and he concludes
+     therefrom that at least the basis of Herodotus’ account may
+     be considered as true.
+
+The hardworking inhabitants of the valleys of the Iris and the Halys
+were still possessed of considerable riches, in spite of the losses
+they had suffered from the avaricious Cimmerians, and their chief towns,
+Comana, Pteria and Teiria, continued to enjoy prosperity under the rule
+of their priest-kings. Pteria particularly had developed in the course
+of the century, thanks to her favourable situation, which had enabled
+her to offer a secure refuge to the neighbouring population during the
+late disasters.
+
+[Illustation: 396.jpg THE RUINS OF PTERIA]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Charles Texier.
+
+The town itself was crowded into a confined plain, on the left bank of
+a torrent which flowed into the Halys, and the city walls may still
+be clearly traced upon the soil; the outline of the houses, the silos,
+cisterns, and rock-cut staircases are still visible in places, besides
+the remains of a palace built of enormous blocks of almost rough-hewn
+limestone. The town was defended by wide ramparts, and also by two
+fortresses perched upon enormous masses of rock, while a few thousand
+yards to the east of the city, on the right bank of the torrent, three
+converging ravines concealed the sanctuary of one of those mysterious
+oracles whose fame attracted worshippers from far and wide during the
+annual fairs.
+
+[Illustration: 396b.jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE SANCTUARY OF PTERIA]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Chantre.
+
+The bas-reliefs which decorate them belong to that semi-barbarous
+art which we have already met with in the monuments attributed to the
+Khâfci, near the Orontes and Euphrates, on both slopes of the Amanus, in
+Cilioia, and in the ravines of the Taurus.
+
+[Illustration: 398.jpg ONE OF THE PROCESSIONS IN THE RAVINE OF PTERIA]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre.
+
+Long processions of priests and votaries defile before figures of the
+gods and goddesses standing erect upon their sacred animals; in one
+scene, a tall goddess, a Cybele or an Anaitis, leans affectionately upon
+her chosen lover, and seems to draw him with her towards an image with a
+lion’s body and the head of a youth.*
+
+     * These bas-reliefs seem to me to have been executed at
+     about the time with which we are dealing, or perhaps a few
+     years later--in any case, before the Persian conquest.
+
+Pteria and its surrounding hills formed a kind of natural fortress which
+overlooked the whole bend of the Halys; it constituted, in the land of
+the Lydians, an outpost which effectually protected their possessions in
+Phrygia and Papnlagonia against an attack from the East; in the hands
+of the Medes it would be a dominant position which would counteract the
+defensive features of the Halys, and from it they might penetrate into
+the heart of Asia Minor without encountering any serious obstacles. The
+struggle between the two sovereigns was not so unequal as might at first
+appear. No doubt the army of Alyattes was inferior in numbers, but
+the bravery of its component forces and the ability of its leaders
+compensated for its numerical inferiority, and Cyaxares had no troop to
+be compared with the Carian lancers, with the hoplites of Ionia, or with
+the heavy Mæonian cavalry. During six years the two armies met again and
+again--fate sometimes favouring one and sometimes the other--and
+were about to try their fortune once more, after several indecisive
+engagements, when an eclipse of the sun suspended operations (585).
+The Iranian peoples would fight only in full daylight, and their
+adversaries, although warned, so it is said, by the Milesian philosopher
+Thaïes of the phenomenon about to take place in the heavens, were
+perhaps not completely reassured as to its significance, and the two
+hosts accordingly separated without coming to blows.*
+
+     * This eclipse was identified at one time with that of Sept.
+     30, 610, at another with that of May 28, 585. The latter of
+     these two dates appears to me to be the correct one, and is
+     the only one which agrees with what we know of the general
+     history of the sixth century.
+
+Nebuchadrezzar had followed, not without some misgivings, the
+vicissitudes of the campaign, and his anxiety was shared by the
+independent princes of Asia Minor, who were allies of the Lydians; he
+and they alike awaited with dread a decisive action, which, by crushing
+one of the belligerents beyond hope of recovery, would leave the
+onlookers at the mercy of the victor in the full flush of his success.
+Tradition relates that Syennesis of Cilicia and the Babylonian Nabonidus
+had taken advantage of the alarm produced by the eclipse to negotiate
+an armistice, and that they were soon successful in bringing the rival
+powers to an agreement.* The Halys remained the recognised frontier of
+the two kingdoms, but the Lydians probably obtained advantages for their
+commerce, which they regarded as compensatory for the abandonment of
+their claim to the district of Pteria. To strengthen the alliance, it
+was agreed that Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis in marriage
+to Ishtuvigu, or, as the Greeks called him, Astyages, the son of
+Cyaxares.** According to the custom of the times, the two contracting
+parties, after taking the vow of fidelity, sealed the compact by
+pricking each other’s arms and sucking the few drops of blood which
+oozed from the puncture.***
+
+     * The name Labynetos given by Herodotus is a transcript of
+     Nabonidus, but cannot here designate the Babylonian king of
+     that name, for the latter reigned more than thirty years
+     after the peace was concluded between the Lydians and the
+     Medes. If Herodotus has not made the mistake of putting
+     Labynetos for Nebuchadrezzar, we may admit that this
+     Labynetos was a prince of the royal family, or simply a
+     general who was commanding the Chaldoan auxiliaries of
+     Cyaxares.
+
+     ** The form Ishtuvigu is given us by the Chaldoan documents.
+     Its exact transcript was Astuigas, Astyigas, according to
+     Ctosias; in fact, this coincides so remarkably with the
+     Babylonian mode of spelling, that we may believe that it
+     faithfully reproduces the original pronunciation.
+
+     *** Many ancient authors have spoken of this war, or at
+     least of the eclipse which brought it to an end. Several of
+     them place the conclusion of peace not in the reign of
+     Cyaxares, but in that of Astyages--Cicero, Solinus, and the
+     Armenian Eusebius--and their view has been adopted by some
+     modern historians. The two versions of the account can be
+     reconciled by saying that Astyages was commanding the Median
+     army instead of his father, who was too old to do so, but
+     such an explanation is unnecessary, and Cyaxares, though
+     over seventy, might still have had sufficient vigour to wage
+     war. The substitution of Astyages for Cyaxares by the
+     authors of Roman times was probably effected with the object
+     of making the date of the eclipse agree with a different
+     system of chronology from that followed by Herodotus.
+
+Cyaxares died in the following year (584), full of days and renown, and
+was at once succeeded by Astyages. Few princes could boast of having had
+such a successful career as his, even in that century of unprecedented
+fortunes and boundless ambitions. Inheriting a disorganised army,
+proclaimed king in the midst of mourning, on the morrow of a defeat
+in which the fate of his kingdom had hung in the balance, he succeeded
+within a quarter of a century in overthrowing his enemies and
+substituting his supremacy for theirs throughout the whole of Western
+Asia. At his accession Media had occupied only a small portion of the
+Iranian table-land; at his death, the Median empire extended to
+the banks of the Halys. It is now not difficult to understand why
+Nebuchadrezzar abstained from all expeditions in the regions of the
+Taurus, as well as in those of the Upper Tigris. He would inevitably
+have come into contact with the allies of the Lydians, perchance with
+the Lydians themselves, or with the Medes, as the case might be; and
+he would have been drawn on to take an active part in their dangerous
+quarrels, from which, after all, he could not hope to reap any personal
+advantage. In reality, there was one field of action only open to him,
+and that was Southern Syria, with Egypt in her rear. He found himself,
+at this extreme limit of his dominions, in a political situation almost
+identical with that of his Assyrian predecessors, and consequently more
+or less under the obligation of repeating their policy. The Saites, like
+the Ethiopians before them, could enjoy no assured sense of security in
+the Delta, when they knew that they had a great military state as their
+nearest neighbour on the other side of the isthmus; they felt with
+reason that the thirty leagues of desert which separated Pelusium from
+Gaza was an insufficient protection from invasion, and they desired
+to have between themselves and their adversary a tract of country
+sufficiently extensive to ward off the first blows in the case of
+hostilities. If such a buffer territory could be composed of feudal
+provinces or tributary states, Egyptian pride would be flattered, while
+at the same time the security of the kingdom would be increased, and
+indeed the victorious progress of Necho had for the moment changed their
+most ambitious dreams into realities. Driven back into the Nile valley
+after the battle of Carchemish, their pretensions had immediately
+shrunk within more modest limits; their aspirations were now confined to
+gaining the confidence of the few surviving states which had preserved
+some sort of independence in spite of the Assyrian conquest, to
+detaching them from Chaldoan interests and making them into a protecting
+zone against the ambition of a new Esarhaddon. To this work Necho
+applied himself as soon as Nebuchadrezzar had left him in order to
+hasten back to Babylon. The Egyptian monarch belonged to a persevering
+race, who were never kept, down by reverses, and had not once allowed
+themselves to be discouraged during the whole of the century in which
+they had laboured to secure the crown for themselves; his defeat had
+not lessened his tenacity, nor, it would seem, his certainty of final
+success. Besides organising his Egyptian and Libyan troops, he enrolled
+a still larger number of Hellenic mercenaries, correctly anticipating
+that the restless spirits of the Phoenicians and Jews would soon furnish
+him with an opportunity of distinguishing himself upon the scene of
+action.
+
+It was perhaps at this juncture that he decided to strengthen his
+position by the co-operation of a fleet. The superiority of the Chaldoan
+battalions had been so clearly manifested, that he could scarcely hope
+for a decisive victory if he persisted in seeking it on land; but if
+he could succeed in securing the command of the sea, his galleys, by
+continually cruising along the Syrian coast, and conveying troops,
+provisions, arms, and money to the Phoenician towns, would so
+successfully foster and maintain a spirit of rebellion, that the
+Chaldæans would not dare to venture into Egypt until they had dealt
+with this source of danger in their rear. He therefore set to work
+to increase the number of his war-vessels on the Bed Sea, but more
+especially on the Mediterranean, and as he had drawn upon Greece for his
+troops, he now applied to her for shipbuilders.*
+
+     * Herodotus tells us that in his time the ruins of the docks
+     which Necho had made for the building of his triremes could
+     still be seen on the shore of the Red Sea as well as on that
+     of the Mediterranean. He seems also to say that the building
+     of the fleet was anterior to the first Syrian expedition.
+
+[Illustration: 404.jpg AN EGYPTIAN VESSEL OF THE SAITE PERIOD]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph sent by G. Benédite.
+
+The trireme, which had been invented by either the Samian or Corinthian
+naval constructors, had as yet been little used, and possibly Herodotus
+is attributing an event of his own time to this earlier period when
+he affirms that Necho filled a dockyard with a whole fleet of these
+vessels; he possessed, at any rate, a considerable number of them, and
+along with them other vessels of various build, in which the blunt stem
+and curved poop of the Greeks were combined with the square-cabined
+barque of the Egyptians. At the same time, in order to transport the
+squadron from one sea to another when occasion demanded, he endeavoured
+to reopen the ancient canal.
+
+He improved its course and widened it so as to permit of two triremes
+sailing abreast or easily clearing each other in passing. The canal
+started from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, not far from Patumos, and
+skirted the foot of the Arabian hills from west to east; it then plunged
+into the Wady Tumilat, and finally entered the head of the bay which now
+forms the Lake of Ismaïlia. The narrow channel by which this sheet
+of water was anciently connected with the Gulf of Suez was probably
+obstructed in places, and required clearing out at several points, if
+not along its entire extent. A later tradition states that after having
+lost 100,000 men in attempting this task, the king abandoned the project
+on the advice of an oracle, a god having been supposed to have predicted
+to him that he was working for the barbarians.*
+
+     * The figures, 100,000 men, are evidently exaggerated, for
+     in a similar undertaking, the digging of the Mahmudiyeh
+     canal, Mehemet-Ali lost only 10,000 men, though the work was
+     greater.
+
+[Illustration: 405.jpg THE ANCIENT HEAD OF THE RED SEA, NOW THE NORTHERN
+EXTREMITY OF THE BITTER LAKES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the railway
+     between Ismaïlia and Suez, on the eastern shore of the lake.
+
+Another of Necho’s enterprises excited the admiration of his
+contemporaries, and remained for ever in the memory of the people. The
+Carthaginians had discovered on the ocean coast of Libya, a country rich
+in gold, ivory, precious woods, pepper, and spices, but their political
+jealousy prevented other nations from following in their wake in the
+interests of trade. The Egyptians possibly may have undertaken to
+dispute their monopoly, or the Phoenicians may have desired to reach
+their colony by a less frequented highway than the Mediterranean. The
+merchants of the Said and the Delta had never entirely lost touch with
+the people dwelling on the shores of the Red Sea, and though the royal
+fleets no longer pursued their course down it on their way to Punt as
+in the days of Hâtshopsîtu and Ramses III., private individuals ventured
+from time to time to open trade communications with the ancient “Ladders
+of Incense.” Necho despatched the Phoenician captains of his fleet in
+search of new lands, and they started from the neighbourhood of Suez,
+probably accompanied by native pilots accustomed to navigate in those
+waters. The undertaking, fraught with difficulty even in the last
+century, was, indeed, a formidable one for the small vessels of the
+Saite period. They sailed south for months with the east to the left
+of them, and on their right the continent which seemed to extend
+indefinitely before them. Towards the autumn they disembarked on some
+convenient shore, sowed the wheat with which they were provided, and
+waited till the crop was ripe; having reaped the harvest, they again
+took to the sea. Any accurate remembrance of what they saw was soon
+effaced; they could merely recollect that, having reached a certain
+point, they observed with astonishment that the sun appeared to have
+reversed its course, and now rose on their right hand. This meant that
+they had turned the southern extremity of Africa and were unconsciously
+sailing northwards. In the third year they passed through the pillars
+of Hercules and reached Egypt in safety. The very limited knowledge of
+navigation possessed by the mariners of that day rendered this voyage
+fruitless; the dangerous route thus opened up to commerce remained
+unused, and its discovery was remembered only as a curious feat devoid
+of any practical use.*
+
+     * The Greek writers after Herodotus denied the possibility
+     of such a voyage, and they thought that it could not be
+     decided whether Africa was entirely surrounded by water, and
+     that certainly no traveller had ever journeyed above 5000
+     stadia beyond the entrance to the Red Sea. Modern writers
+     are divided on the point, some denying and others
+     maintaining the authenticity of the account. The observation
+     made by the navigators of the apparent change in the course
+     of the sun, which Herodotus has recorded, and which neither
+     he nor his authorities understood, seems to me to be so
+     weighty an argument for its authenticity, that it is
+     impossible to reject the tradition until we have more
+     decided grounds for so doing.
+
+In order to obtain any practical results from the arduous voyage, it
+would have been necessary for Egypt to devote a considerable part of
+its resources to the making of such expeditions, whereas the country
+preferred to concentrate all its energies on its Tyrian policy. Necho
+certainly possessed the sympathies of the Tyrians, who had transferred
+their traditional hatred of the Assyrians to the Chaldæans. He could
+also count with equal certainty on the support of a considerable party
+in Moab, Ammon, and Edom, as well as among the Nabatæans and the Arabs
+of Kedar; but the key of the whole position lay with Judah--that ally
+without whom none of Necho’s other partisans would venture to declare
+openly against their master. The death of Josiah had dealt a fatal blow
+to the hopes of the prophets, and even long after the event they could
+not recall it without lamenting the fate of this king after their own
+heart. “And like unto him,” exclaims their chronicler, “was there no
+king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with
+all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses;
+neither after him arose there any like him.” *
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 25.
+
+The events which followed his violent death--the deposition of Jehoahaz,
+the establishment and fall of the Egyptian supremacy, the proclamation
+of the Chaldæan suzerainty, the degradation of the king and the misery
+of the people brought about by the tribute exacted from them by their
+foreign masters,--all these revolutions which had succeeded each other
+without break or respite had all but ruined the belief in the efficacy
+of the reform due to Hilkiah’s discovery, and preached by Jeremiah
+and his followers. The people saw in these calamities the vengeance of
+Jahveh against the presumptuous faction which had overthrown His various
+sanctuaries and had attempted to confine His worship to a single temple;
+they therefore restored the banished attractions, and set themselves to
+sacrifice to strange gods with greater zest than ever.
+
+A like crisis occurred and like party divisions had broken out around
+Jehoiakim similar to those at the court of Ahaz and Hezekiah a century
+earlier. The populace, the soldiery, and most of the court officials,
+in short, all who adhered to the old popular form of religion or were
+attracted to strange devotions, hoped to rid themselves of the Chaldæans
+by earthly means, and since Necho declared himself an implacable enemy
+of their foe, their principal aim was to come to terms with Egypt.
+Jeremiah, on the contrary, and those who remained faithful to the
+teaching of the prophets, saw in all that was passing around them
+cogent reasons for rejecting worldly wisdom and advice, and for yielding
+themselves unreservedly to the Divine will in bowing before the Chaldæan
+of whom Jahveh made use, as of the Assyrian of old, to chastise the sins
+of Judah. The struggle between the two factions constantly disturbed
+the public peace, and it needed little to cause the preaching of the
+prophets to degenerate into an incitement to revolt. On a feast-day
+which occurred in the early months of Jehoiakim’s reign, Jeremiah took
+up his station on the pavement of the temple and loudly apostrophised
+the crowd of worshippers. “Thus saith the Lord: If ye will not hearken
+unto Me, to walk in My law, which I have set before you, to hearken to
+the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send unto you, even rising
+up early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make
+this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the
+nations of the earth.” Such a speech, boldly addressed to an audience
+the majority of whom were already moved by hostile feelings, brought
+their animosity to a climax; the officiating priests, the prophets, and
+the pilgrims gathered round Jeremiah, crying, “Thou shalt surely die.”
+ The people thronged into the temple, the princes of Judah went up to
+the king’s house and to the house of the Lord, and sat in council in the
+entry of the new gate. They decreed that Jeremiah, having spoken in
+the name of the Lord, did not merit death, and some of their number,
+recalling the precedent of Micaiah the Morasthite, who in his time had
+predicted the ruin of Jerusalem, added, “Did Hezekiah King of Judah and
+all Judah put him at all to death?” Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, one of
+those who had helped in restoring the law, took the prophet under his
+protection and prevented the crowd from injuring him, but some
+others were not able to escape the popular fury. The prophet Uriah of
+Kirjath-jearim, who unweariedly prophesied against the city and country
+after the manner of Jeremiah, fled to Egypt, but in vain; Jehoiakim
+despatched Elnathan, the son of Achbor, “and certain men with him,” who
+brought him back to Judah, “slew him with the sword, and cast his dead
+body into the graves of the common people.” * If popular feeling had
+reached such a pitch before the battle of Carchemish, to what height
+must it have risen when the news of Nebuchadrezzar’s victory had given
+the death-blow to the hopes of the Egyptian faction! Jeremiah believed
+the moment ripe for forcibly arresting the popular imagination while
+it was swayed by the panic of anticipated invasion. He dictated to his
+disciple Baruch the prophecies he had pronounced since the appearance of
+the Scythians under Josiah, and on the day of the solemn fast proclaimed
+throughout Judah during the winter of the fifth year of the reign, a few
+months after the defeat of the Egyptians, he caused the writing to be
+read to the assembled people at the entry of the new gate.**
+
+     * Jer. xxvi., where the scene takes place at the beginning
+     of Jehoiakim’s reign, i.e. under the Egyptian domination.
+
+     ** The date given in Jer. xxxvi. 9 makes the year begin in
+     spring, since the ninth month occurs in winter; this date
+     belongs, therefore, to the later recensions of the text. It
+     is nevertheless probably authentic, representing the exact
+     equivalent of the original date according to the old
+     calendar.
+
+Micaiah, the son of Gremariah, was among those who listened, and noting
+that the audience were moved by the denunciations which revived the
+memory of their recent misfortunes, he hastened to inform the ministers
+sitting in council within the palace of what was passing. They at once
+sent for Baruch, and begged him to repeat to them what he had read.
+They were so much alarmed at its recital, that they advised him to hide
+himself in company with Jeremiah, while they informed the king of the
+matter. Jehoiakim was sitting in a chamber with a brazier burning before
+him on account of the severe cold: scarcely had they read three or four
+pages before him when his anger broke forth; he seized the roll, slashed
+it with the scribe’s penknife, and threw the fragments into the
+fire. Jeremiah recomposed the text from memory, and inserted in it a
+malediction against the king. “Thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim,
+King of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and
+his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night
+to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for
+their iniquity: and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants
+of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have
+pronounced against them; but they hearkened not.” *
+
+     * Jer. xxxvi. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the
+     contents of Jeremiah’s roll, and most of the authors who
+     have dealt with this subject think that the roll contained
+     the greater part of the fragments which, in the book of the
+     prophet, occupy chaps, i. 4-11, ii., iii. 1-5, 19-25, iv.-
+     vi., vii., viii., ix. 1-21, x. 17-25, xi., xii. 1-6, xvii.
+     19-27, xviii., xix. 1-13, which it must be admitted have not
+     in every case been preserved in their original form, but
+     have been abridged or rearranged after the exile. Other
+     chapters evidently belong to the years previous to the fifth
+     year of Jehoiakim, as well as part of the prophecies against
+     the barbarians, but they could not have been included in the
+     original roll, as the latter would then have been too long
+     to have been read three times in one day.
+
+The Egyptian tendencies evinced at court, at first discreetly veiled,
+were now accentuated to such a degree that Nebuchadrezzar became
+alarmed, and came in person to Jerusalem in the year 601. His presence
+frustrated the intrigues of Pharaoh. Jehoiakim was reduced to order for
+a time, but three years later he revolted afresh at the instigation of
+Necho, and this time the Chaldæan satraps opened hostilities in earnest.
+They assembled their troops, which were reinforced by Syrian, Moabite,
+and Ammonite contingents, and laid siege to Jerusalem.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiv. 1-4. The passage is not easy to be
+     understood as it stands, and it has been differently
+     interpreted by historians. Some have supposed that it refers
+     to events immediately following the battle of Carchemish,
+     and that Jehoiakim defended Jerusalem against Nebuchadrezzar
+     in 605. Others think that, after the battle of Carchemish,
+     Jehoiakim took advantage of Nebuchadrezzar’s being obliged
+     to return at once to Babylon, and would not recognise the
+     authority of the Chaldæans; that Nebuchadrezzar returned
+     later, towards 601, and took Jerusalem, and that it is to
+     this second war that allusion is made in the Book of Kings.
+     It is more simple to consider that which occurred about 600
+     as a first attempt at rebellion which was punished lightly
+     by the Chaldæans.
+
+Jehoiakim, left to himself, resisted with such determination that
+Nebuchadrezzar was obliged to bring up his Chaldæan forces to assist in
+the attack. Judah trembled with fear at the mere description which her
+prophet Habakkuk gave of this fierce and sturdy people, “which march
+through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling-places which are
+not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their
+dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than
+leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their
+horsemen spread themselves; yea, their horsemen come from far; they
+fly as an eagle that hasteneth to devour. They come all of them for
+violence; their faces are set eagerly as the east wind, and they gather
+captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a
+derision unto him: he derideth every stronghold: for he heapeth up dust
+and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over the
+guilty, even he whose might is his god.” Nebuchadrezzar’s army must have
+presented a spectacle as strange as did that of Necho. It contained,
+besides its nucleus of Chaldæn and Babylonian infantry, squadrons of
+Scythian and Median cavalry, whose cruelty it was, no doubt, that had
+alarmed the prophet, and certainly bands of Greek hoplites, for the
+poet Alcasus had had a brother, Antimenidas by name, in the Chaldæan
+monarch’s service. Jehoiakim died before the enemy appeared beneath the
+walls of Jerusalem, and was at once succeeded by his son Jeconiah,* a
+youth of eighteen years, who assumed the name of Jehoiachin.**
+
+     * [Jehoiachin is called Coniah in Jer. xxii. 24 and xxiv. 1,
+     and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.--Tr.]
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxiv. 5-10; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6-9, where the
+     writer says that Nebuchadrezzar bound Jehoiakim “in
+     fetters, to carry him to Babylon.”
+
+The new king continued the struggle at first courageously, but the
+advent of Nebuchadrezzar so clearly convinced him of the futility of the
+defence, that he suddenly decided to lay down his arms. He came forth
+from the city with his mother Nehushta, the officers of his house, his
+ministers, and his eunuchs, and prostrated himself at the feet of
+his suzerain. The Chaldæn monarch was not inclined to proceed to
+extremities; he therefore exiled to Babylon Jehoiachin and the whole of
+his seditious court who had so ill-advised the young king, the best of
+his officers, and the most skilful artisans, in all 3023 persons,
+but the priests and the bulk of the people remained at Jerusalem. The
+conqueror appointed Mattaniah, the youngest son of Josiah, to be their
+ruler, who, on succeeding to the crown, changed his name, after the
+example of his predecessors, adopting that of Zedekiah. Jehoiachin had
+reigned exactly three months over his besieged city (596).*
+
+The Egyptians made no attempt to save their ally, but if they felt
+themselves not in a condition to defy the Chaldasans on Syrian
+territory, the Chaldaeans on their side feared to carry hostilities
+into the heart of the Delta. Necho died two years after the disaster at
+Jerusalem, without having been called to account by, or having found an
+opportunity of further annoying, his rival, and his son Psammetichus II.
+succeeded peacefully to the throne.** He was a youth at this time,***
+and his father’s ministers conducted the affairs of State on his behalf,
+and it was they who directed one of his early campaigns, if not the very
+first, against Ethiopia.****
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10.
+
+     ** The length of Necho’s reign is fixed at sixteen years by
+     Herodotus, and at six or at nine years by the various
+     abbreviators of Manetho. The contemporaneous monuments have
+     confirmed the testimony of Herodotus on this point as
+     against that of Manetho, and the stelse of the Florentine
+     Museum, of the Leyden Museum, and of the Louvre have
+     furnished certain proof that Necho died in the sixteenth
+     year, after fifteen and a half years’ reign.
+
+     *** His sarcophagus, discovered in 1883, and now preserved
+     in the Gizeh Museum, is of such small dimensions that it can
+     have been used only for a youth.
+
+     **** The graffiti of Abu-Simbel have been most frequently
+     attributed to Psammetichus I., and until recently I had
+     thought it possible to maintain this opinion. A. von
+     Gutsehmid was the first to restore them to Psammetichus IL,
+     and his opinion has gained ground since Wiedemann’s vigorous
+     defence of it. The Alysian mercenary’s graffito contains
+     the Greek translation of the current Egyptian phrase “when
+     his Majesty came on his first military expedition into this
+     country,” which seems to point to no very early date in a
+     reign for a first campaign. Moreover, one of the generals in
+     command of the expedition is a Psammetichus, son of
+     Theocles, that is, a Greek with an Egyptian name. A
+     considerable lapse of time must have taken place since
+     Psammetichus’ first dealings with the Greeks, for otherwise
+     the person named after the king would not have been of
+     sufficiently mature age to be put at the head of a body of
+     troops.
+
+They organised a small army for him composed of Egyptians, Greeks, and
+Asiatic mercenaries, which, while the king was taking up his residence
+at Elephantine, was borne up the Nile in a fleet of large vessels.* It
+probably went as far south as the northern point of the second cataract,
+and not having encountered any Ethiopian force,** it retraced its course
+and came to anchor at Abu-Simbel.
+
+     * The chief graffito at Abu-Simbel says, in fact, that the
+     king came to Elephantine, and that only the troops
+     accompanying the General Psammetichus, the son of Theocles,
+     went beyond Kerkis. It was probably during his stay at
+     Elephantine, while awaiting the return of the expedition,
+     that Psammetichus II. had the inscriptions containing his
+     cartouches engraved upon the rocks of Bigga, Abaton, Philo,
+     and Konosso, or among the ruins of Elephantine and of
+     Phila?.
+
+     ** The Greek inscription says _above Kerlcis_. Wiedemann has
+     corrected _Kerkis_ into _Kortis_, the Korte of the first
+     cataract, but the reading Kerkis is too well established for
+     there to be any reason for change. The simplest explanation
+     is to acknowledge that the inscription refers to a place
+     situated a few miles above Abu-Simbel, towards Wady-Halfa.
+
+The officers in command, after having admired the rock-cut chapel of
+Ramses II., left in it a memento of their visit in a fine inscription
+cut on the right leg of one of the colossi. This inscription informs us
+that “King Psammatikhos having come to Elephantine, the people who were
+with Psammatikhos, son of Theocles, wrote this. They ascended above
+Kerkis, to where the river ceases; Potasimto commanded the foreigners,
+Amasis the Egyptians. At the same time also wrote Arkhôn, son of
+Amoibikhos, and Peleqos, son of Ulamos.” Following the example of their
+officers, the soldiers also wrote their names here and there, each in
+his own language--Ionians, Rhodians, Carians, Phoenicians, and perhaps
+even Jews; e.g. Elesibios of Teos, Pabis of Colophon, Telephos of
+Ialysos, Abdsakon son of Petiehvê, Gerhekal son of Hallum. The whole of
+this part of the country, brought to ruin in the gradual dismemberment
+of Greater Egypt, could not have differed much from the Nubia of to-day;
+there were the same narrow strips of cultivation along the river banks,
+gigantic temples half buried by their own ruins, scattered towns
+and villages, and everywhere the yellow sand creeping insensibly down
+towards the Nile. The northern part of this province remained in the
+hands of the Saite Pharaohs, and the districts situated further south
+just beyond Abu-Simbel formed at that period a sort of neutral ground
+between their domain and that of the Pharaohs of Napata. While all this
+was going on, Syria continued to plot in secret, and the faction which
+sought security in a foreign alliance was endeavouring to shake off the
+depression caused by the reverses of Jehoiakim and his son; and the tide
+of popular feeling setting in the direction of Egypt became so strong,
+that even Zedekiah, the creature of Nebuchadrezzar, was unable to stem
+it. The prophets who were inimical to religious reform, persisted in
+their belief that the humiliation of the country was merely temporary.
+
+[Illustration: 417.jpg THE FAÇADE OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ABU-SIMBEL]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
+
+Those of them who still remained in Jerusalem repeated at every turn,
+“Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon... the vessels of the Lord’s
+house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon.” Jeremiah
+endeavoured to counteract the effect of their words, but in vain; the
+people, instead of listening to the prophet, waxed wroth with him,
+and gave themselves more and more recklessly up to their former sins.
+Incense was burnt every morning on the roofs of the houses and at the
+corners of the streets in honour of Baal, lamentations for Tammuz again
+rent the air at the season of his festival; the temple was invaded
+by uncircumcised priests and their idols, and the king permitted the
+priests of Moloch to raise their pyres in the valley of Hinnom. The
+exiled Jews, surrounded on all sides by heathen peoples, presented a no
+less grievous spectacle than their brethren at Jerusalem; some openly
+renounced the God of their fathers, others worshipped their chosen idols
+in secret, while those who did not actually become traitors to their
+faith, would only listen to such prophets as promised them a speedy
+revenge--Ahab, Zedekiah, son of Maaseiah, and Shemaiah. There was one
+man, however, who appeared in their midst, a priest, brought up from his
+youth in the temple and imbued with the ideas of reform--Ezekiel, son of
+Buzi, whose words might have brought them to a more just appreciation of
+their position, had they not drowned his voice by their clamour; alarmed
+at their threats, he refrained from speech in public, but gathered round
+him a few faithful adherents at his house in Tel-AMb, where the spirit
+of the Lord first came upon him in their presence about the year 592.*
+
+     * Ezelc. i. 1, 2. We see him receiving the elders in his
+     house in chaps, viii. 1, xiv. 1, xx. 1, et. seq.
+
+This little band of exiles was in constant communication with the
+mother-country, and the echo of the religious quarrels and of the
+controversies provoked between the various factions by the events of
+the political world, was promptly borne to them by merchants, travelling
+scribes, or the king’s legates who were sent regularly to Babylon with
+the tribute.* They learnt, about the year 590, that grave events were at
+hand, and that the moment had come when Judah, recovering at length from
+her trials, should once more occupy, in the sight of the sun, that place
+for which Jahveh had destined her. The kings of Moab, Ammon, Edom,
+Tyre, and Sidon had sent envoys to Jerusalem, and there, probably at the
+dictation of Egypt, they had agreed on what measures to take to stir
+up a general insurrection against Chaldæa.** The report of their
+resolutions had revived the courage of the national party, and of its
+prophets; Hananiah, son of Azzur, had gone through the city announcing
+the good news to all.***
+
+     * Jer. xxix. 3 gives the names of two of these transmitters
+     of the tribute--Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the
+     son of Hilkiah, to whom Jeremiah had entrusted a message for
+     those of the captivity.
+
+     ** Jer. xxvii. 1-3. The statement at the beginning of this
+     chapter: _In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim_,
+     contains a copyist’s error; the reading should be: _In the
+     beginning of the reign of Zedekiah_ (see ver. 12).
+
+     *** Jer. xxvii., xxviii.
+
+“Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have
+broken the yoke of the King of Babylon. Within two full years will I
+bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house .. . and
+Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, with all the captives of
+Judah that went to Babylon!” But Jeremiah had made wooden yokes and
+had sent them to the confederate princes, threatening them with divine
+punishment if they did not bow their necks to Nebuchadrezzar; the
+prophet himself bore one on his own neck, and showed himself in the
+streets on all occasions thus accoutred, as a living emblem of the
+slavery in which Jahveh permitted His people to remain for their
+spiritual good. Hananiah, meeting the prophet by chance, wrested the
+yoke from him and broke it, exclaiming, “Thus saith the Lord: Even so
+will I break the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, within two
+full years from off the neck of all the nations.” The mirth of the
+bystanders was roused, but on the morrow Jeremiah appeared with a yoke
+of iron, which Jahveh had put “upon the neck of all the nations, that
+they may serve Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon.” Moreover, to destroy in
+the minds of the exiled Jews any hope of speedy deliverance, he wrote
+to them: “Let not your prophets that be in the midst of you, and your
+diviners, deceive you, neither hearken ye to your dreams which ye cause
+to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in My name: I have
+not sent them, saith the Lord.” The prophet exhorted them to resign
+themselves to their fate, at all events for the time, that the unity
+of their nation might be preserved until the time when it might indeed
+please Jahveh to restore it: “Build ye houses and dwell in them, and
+plant gardens and eat the fruit of them: take ye wives and beget sons
+and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to
+husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply ye there
+and be not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have
+caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it:
+for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” Psammetichus II. died
+in 589,* and his reign, though short, was distinguished by the activity
+shown in rebuilding and embellishing the temples.
+
+     * Herodotus reckoned the length of the reign of Psammetichus
+     II. at six years, in which he agrees with the Syncellus,
+     while the abbreviators of Manetho fix it at seventeen years.
+     The results given by the reading of a stele of the Louvre
+     enable us to settle that the figure 6 is to be preferred to
+     the other, and to reckon the length of the reign at five
+     years and a half.
+
+His name is met with everywhere on the banks of the Nile--at Karnak,
+where he completed the decoration of the great columns of Taharqa, at
+Abydos, at Heliopolis, and on the monuments that have come from that
+town, such as the obelisk set up in the Campus Martius at Borne. The
+personal influence of the young sovereign did not count for much in the
+zeal thus displayed; but the impulse that had been growing during three
+or four generations, since the time of the expulsion of the Assyrians,
+now began to have its full effect. Egypt, well armed, well governed
+by able ministers, and more and more closely bound to Greece by both
+mercantile and friendly ties, had risen to a very high position in the
+estimation of its contemporaries; the inhabitants of Elis had deferred
+to her decision in the question whether they should take part in the
+Olympic games in which they were the judges, and following the advice
+she had given on the matter, they had excluded their own citizens from
+the sports so as to avoid the least suspicion of partiality in the
+distribution of the prizes.* The new king, probably the brother of
+the late Pharaoh, had his prenomen of Uahibn from his grandfather
+Psammetichus I., and it was this sovereign that the Greeks called
+indifferently Uaphres and Apries.**
+
+     * Diodorus Siculus has transferred the anecdote to Amasis,
+     and the decision given is elsewhere attributed to one of the
+     seven sages. The story is a popular romance, of which
+     Herodotus gives the version current among the Greeks in
+     Egypt.
+
+     ** According to Herodotus, Apries was the son of Psammis.
+     The size of the sarcophagus of Psammetichus II., suitable
+     only for a youth, makes this filiation improbable.
+     Psammetichus, who came to the throne when he was hardly more
+     than a child, could have left behind him only children of
+     tender age, and Apries appears from the outset as a prince
+     of full mental and physical development.
+
+[Illustration: 422.jpg APRIES, FROM A SPHINX IN THE LOUVRE]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the bronze statuette in the Louvre
+     Museum.
+
+He was young, ambitious, greedy of fame and military glory, and longed
+to use the weapon that his predecessors had for some fifteen years past
+been carefully whetting; his emissaries, arriving at Jerusalem at
+the moment when the popular excitement was at its height, had little
+difficulty in overcoming Zede-kiah’s scruples. Edoni, Moab, and the
+Philistines, who had all taken their share in the conferences of the
+rebel party, hesitated at the last moment, and refused to sever their
+relations with Babylon. Tyre and the Ammonites alone persisted in their
+determination, and allied themselves with Egypt on the same terms as
+Judah.
+
+[Illustration: 423.jpg STELE OF NEBUCHADREZZAR]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Pognon. The figures
+     have been carefully defaced with the hammer, but the outline
+     of the king can still be discerned on the left; he seizes
+     the rampant lion by the right paw, and while it raises its
+     left paw against him, he plunges his dagger into the body of
+     the beast.
+
+Nebuchadrezzar, thus defied by three enemies, was at a loss to decide
+upon which to make his first attack. Ezekiel, whose place of exile put
+him in a favourable position for learning what was passing, shows him to
+us as he “stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways,
+to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the
+teraphim, he looked in the liver.” Judah formed as it were the bridge
+by which the Egyptians could safely enter Syria, and if Nebuchadrezzar
+could succeed in occupying it before their arrival, he could at once
+break up the coalition into three separate parts incapable of rejoining
+one another--Ammon in the desert to the east, Tyre and Sidon on the
+seaboard, and Pharaoh beyond his isthmus to the south-west. He therefore
+established himself in a central position at Eiblah on the Orontes, from
+whence he could observe the progress of the operations, and hasten
+with his reserve force to a threatened point in the case of unforeseen
+difficulties; having done this, he despatched the two divisions of
+his army against his two principal adversaries. One of these divisions
+crossed the Lebanon, seized its fortresses, and, leaving a record of its
+victories on the rocks of the Wady Brissa, made its way southwards along
+the coast to blockade Tyre.*
+
+     * The account of this Phoenician campaign is contained in
+     one of the inscriptions discovered and commented on by
+     Pognon. Winckler, the only one to my knowledge who has tried
+     to give a precise chronological position to the events
+     recorded in the inscription, places them at the very
+     beginning of the reign, after the victory of Carchemish,
+     about the time when Nebuchadrezzar heard that his father had
+     just died. I think that this date is not justified by the
+     study of the inscription, for the king speaks therein of the
+     great works that he had accomplished, the restoration of the
+     temples, the rebuilding of the walls of Babylon, and the
+     digging of canals, all of which take us to the middle or the
+     end of his reign. We are therefore left to choose between
+     one of two dates, namely, that of 590-587, during the Jewish
+     war, and that from the King’s thirty-seventh year to 568
+     B.C., during the war against Amasis which will be treated
+     below. I have chosen the first, because of Nebuchadrezzar’s
+     long sojourn at Riblah, which gave him sufficient time for
+     the engraving of the stelse on Lebanon: the bas-reliefs of
+     Wady. Brissa could have been cut before the taking of
+     Jerusalem, for no allusion to the war against the Jews is
+     found in them. The enemy mentioned in the opening lines is
+     perhaps Apries, whose fleet was scouring the Phoenician
+     coasts.
+
+The other force bore down upon Zedekiah, and made war upon him
+ruthlessly. It burnt the villages and unwalled towns, gave the rural
+districts over as a prey to the Philistines and the Edomites, surrounded
+the two fortresses of Lachish and Azekah, and only after completely
+exhausting the provinces, appeared before the walls of the capital.
+Jerusalem was closely beset when the news reached the Chaldæans that
+Apries was approaching Gaza; Zedekiah, in his distress, appealed to him
+for help, and the promised succour at length came upon the scene. The
+Chaldæans at once raised the siege with the object of arresting the
+advancing enemy, and the popular party, reckoning already on a Chaldean
+defeat, gave way to insolent rejoicing over the prophets of evil.
+Jeremiah, however, had no hope of final success. “Deceive not
+yourselves, saying, The Chaldæans shall surely depart from us; for
+they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the
+Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men
+among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this
+city with fire.” What actually took place is not known; according to one
+account, Apries accepted battle and was defeated; according to another,
+he refused to be drawn into an engagement, and returned haughtily to
+Egypt.*
+
+     * That, at least, is what Jeremiah seems to say (xxxvii. 7):
+     “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which is come forth to help you,
+     shall return to Egypt into their own land.” There is no hint
+     here of defeat or even of a battle.
+
+His fleet probably made some effective raiding on the Phoenician coast.
+It is easy to believe that the sight of the Chaldoan camp inspired him
+with prudence, and that he thought twice before compromising the effects
+of his naval campaign and risking the loss of his fine army--the only
+one which Egypt possessed--in a conflict in which his own safety was
+not directly concerned. Nebuchadrezzar, on his side, was not anxious to
+pursue so strongly equipped an adversary too hotly, and deeming himself
+fortunate in having escaped the ordeal of a trial of strength with him,
+he returned to his position before the walls of Jerusalem.
+
+The city receiving no further succour, its fall was merely a question of
+time, and resistance served merely to irritate the besiegers. The Jews
+nevertheless continued to defend it with the heroic obstinacy and, at
+the same time, with the frenzied discord of which they have so often
+shown themselves capable. During the respite which the diversion caused
+by Apries afforded them, Jeremiah had attempted to flee from Jerusalem
+and seek refuge in Benjamin, to which tribe he belonged. Arrested at the
+city gate on the pretext of treason, he was unmercifully beaten, thrown
+into prison, and the king, who had begun to believe in him, did not
+venture to deliver him. He was confined in the court of the palace,
+which served as a gaol, and allowed a ration of a loaf of bread for his
+daily food.1 The courtyard was a public place, to which all comers had
+access who desired to speak to the prisoners, and even here the prophet
+did not cease to preach and exhort the people to repentance: “He that
+abideth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the
+pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldæans shall live, and
+his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live. Thus saith the
+Lord, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the
+King of Babylon, and he shall take it.”
+
+[Illustration: 427.jpg PRISONERS UNDER TORTURE HAVING THEIR TONGUES TORN
+OUT]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum.
+
+The princes and officers of the king, however, complained to Zedekiah
+of him: “Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he
+weakeneth the hands of the men of war, and the hands of all the people
+in speaking such words.” Given up to his accusers and plunged in a
+muddy cistern, he escaped by the connivance of a eunuch of the royal
+household, only to renew his denunciations with greater force than ever.
+
+[Illustration: 428.jpg A KING PUTTING OUT THE EYES OF A PRISONER]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from several engravings in Botta.
+     The mutilated remains of several bas-reliefs have been
+     combined so as to form a tolerably correct scene; the
+     prisoners have a ring passed through their lips, and the
+     king holds them by a cord attached to it.
+
+The king sent for him secretly and asked his advice, but could draw
+from him nothing but threats: “If thou wilt go forth unto the King of
+Babylon’s princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be
+burned with fire, and thou shalt live and thine house: but if thou wilt
+not go forth to the King of Babylon’s princes, then shall this city
+be given into the hand of the Chal-dseans, and they shall burn it with
+fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand.” Zedekiah would have
+asked no better than to follow his advice, but he had gone too far to
+draw back now. To the miseries of war and sickness the horrors of famine
+were added, but the determination of the besieged was unshaken; bread
+was failing, and yet they would not hear of surrender. At length, after
+a year and a half of sufferings heroically borne, in the eleventh year
+of Zedekiah, the eleventh month, and the fourth day of the month, a
+portion of the city wall fell before the attacks of the battering-rams,
+and the Chaldæan army entered by the breach. Zedekiah assembled his
+remaining soldiers, and took counsel as to the possibility of cutting
+his way through the enemy to beyond the Jordan; escaping by night
+through the gateway opposite the Pool of Siloam, he was taken prisoner
+near Jericho, and carried off to Eiblah, where Nebuchadrezzar was
+awaiting with impatience the result of the operations. The Chaldæans
+were accustomed to torture their prisoners in the fashion we frequently
+see represented on the monuments of Nineveh, and whenever an unexpected
+stroke of good fortune brings to light any decorative bas-relief from
+their palaces, we shall see represented on it the impaling stake,
+rebels being flayed alive, and chiefs having their tongues torn out.
+Nebuchadrezzar, whose patience was exhausted, caused the sons of
+Zedekiah to be slain in the presence of their father, together with all
+the prisoners of noble birth, and then, having put out his eyes, sent
+the king of Babylon loaded with chains. As for the city which had so
+long defied his wrath, he gave it over to Nebuzaradan, one of the
+great officers of the crown, with orders to demolish it and give it up
+systematically to the flames. The temple was despoiled of its precious
+wall-coverings, the pillars and brazen ornaments of the time of Solomon
+which still remained were broken up, and the pieces carried off to
+Chaldoa in sacks, the masonry was overthrown and the blocks of stone
+rolled down the hill into the ravine of the Kedron. The survivors among
+the garrison, the priests, scribes, and members of the upper classes,
+were sent off into exile, but the mortality during the siege had been
+so great that the convoy barely numbered eight hundred and thirty-two
+persons.
+
+[Illustration: 430b.jpg A PEOPLE CARRIED AWAY INTO CAPTIVITY]
+
+Some of the poorer population were allowed to remain in the environs,
+and the fields and vineyards of the exiles were divided among them.1
+Having accomplished the work of destruction, the Chal-dseans retired,
+leaving the government in the hands of Gedaliah, son of Ahikam,* a
+friend of Jeremiah. Gedaliah established himself at Mizpah, where
+he endeavoured to gather around him the remnant of the nation, and
+fugitives poured in from Moab, Ammon, and Edom.
+
+     *Chron. xxxvi. 17-20. The following is the table of the
+     kings of Judah from the death of Solomon to the destruction
+     of Jerusalem:--
+
+[Illustration: 430.jpg TABLE OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH]
+
+It seemed that a Jewish principality was about to rise again from the
+ruins of the kingdom. Jeremiah was its accredited counsellor, but his
+influence could not establish harmony among these turbulent spirits,
+still smarting from their recent misfortunes.* The captains of the bands
+which had been roaming over the country after the fall of Jerusalem
+refused, moreover, to act in concert with Gedaliah, and one of them,
+Ishmael by name, who was of the royal blood, assassinated him, but,
+being attacked in Gibeon by Johanan, the son of Kareah, was forced to
+escape almost alone and take refuge with the Ammonites.** These acts
+of violence aroused the vigilance of the Chaldasans; Johanan feared
+reprisals, and retired into Egypt, taking with him Jeremiah, Baruch,
+and the bulk of the people.*** Apries gave the refugees a welcome, and
+assigned them certain villages near to his military colony at Daphnae,
+whence they soon spread into the neighbouring nomes as far as Migdol,
+Memphis, and even as far as the Thebaid.****
+
+     * For the manner in which Jeremiah was separated from the
+     rest of the captives, set at liberty and sent back to
+     Gedaliah, see Jer. xxxix. 11-18, xl. 1-6.
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxv. 23-25, and Jer. xl. 7-16, xli. 1-15, where
+     these events are recorded at length.
+
+     *** 2 Kings xxv. 26; Jer. xli. 16-18, xlii., xliii. 1-7.
+
+     **** Jer. xliv. 1, where the word of the Lord is spoken to
+     “all the Jews... which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes
+     (Daphno), and at Moph (corr. Moph, Memphis), and in the
+     country of Pathros.”
+
+Even after all these catastrophes Judah’s woes were not yet at an end.
+In 581, the few remaining Jews in Palestine allied themselves with the
+Moabites and made a last wild effort for independence; a final defeat,
+followed by a final exile, brought them to irretrievable ruin.* The
+earlier captives had entertained no hope of advantage from these
+despairing efforts, and Ezekiel from afar condemned them without pity:
+“They that inherit those waste places in the land of Israel speak,
+saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many;
+the land is given us for inheritance.... Ye lift up your eyes unto your
+idols and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land? Ye stand upon your
+sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour’s
+wife: and shall ye possess the land?... Thus saith the Lord God: As I
+live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword,
+and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be
+devoured, and they that be in the strongholds and in the caves shall die
+of the pestilence.” **
+
+     * Josephus, following Berosus, speaks of a war against the
+     Moabites and the Ammonites, followed by the conquest of
+     Egypt in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar. To this
+     must be added a Jewish revolt if we are to connect with
+     these events the mention of the third captivity, carried out
+     in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar by Nebuzaradan.
+
+     ** Ezek. xxxiii. 23-27.
+
+The first act of the revolution foreseen by the prophets was over; the
+day of the Lord, so persistently announced by them, had at length come,
+and it had seen not only the sack of Jerusalem, but the destruction of
+the earthly kingdom of Judah. Many of the survivors, refusing still to
+acknowledge the justice of the chastisement, persisted in throwing the
+blame of the disaster on the reformers of the old worship, and saw no
+hope of salvation except in their idolatrous practices. “As for the
+word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not
+hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone
+forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to
+pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers,
+our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of
+Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well and saw no
+evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven and
+to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and
+have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”
+
+There still remained to these misguided Jews one consolation which
+they shared in common with the prophets--the certainty of seeing the
+hereditary foes of Israel involved in the common overthrow: Ammon had
+been already severely chastised; Tyre, cut off from the neighbouring
+mainland, seemed on the point of succumbing, and the turn of Egypt
+must surely soon arrive in which she would have to expiate in bitter
+sufferings the wrongs her evil counsels had brought upon Jerusalem.
+Their anticipated joy, however, of witnessing such chastisements was not
+realised. Tyre defied for thirteen years the blockade of Nebuchadrezzar,
+and when the city at length decided to capitulate, it was on condition
+that its king, Ethbaal III., should continue to reign under the almost
+nominal suzerainty of the Chaldeans (574 B.C.).*
+
+     * The majority of Christian writers have imagined, contrary
+     to the testimony of the Phoenician annals, that the island
+     of Tyre was taken by Nebuchadrezzar; they say that the
+     Chaldæans united the island to the mainland by a causeway
+     similar to that constructed subsequently by Alexander. It is
+     worthy of notice that a local tradition, still existing in
+     the eleventh century of our era, asserted that the besiegers
+     were not successful in their enterprise.
+
+Egypt continued not only to preserve her independence, but seemed to
+increase in prosperity in proportion to the intensity of the hatred
+which she had stirred up against her.
+
+[Illustration: 436.jpg BRONZE LION OF BOHBAIT]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving in Mariette.
+
+Apries set about repairing the monuments and embellishing the temples:
+he erected throughout the country stelæ, tables of offerings, statues
+and obelisks, some of which, though of small size, like that which
+adorns the Piazza della Minerva at Borne,* erected so incongruously on
+the back of a modern elephant, are unequalled for purity of form and
+delicacy of cutting. The high pitch of artistic excellence to which the
+schools of the reign of Psam-metichus II. had attained was maintained
+at the same exalted level. If the granite sphinxes** and bronze lions of
+this period lack somewhat in grace of form, it must be acknowledged that
+they display greater refinement and elegance in the technique of carving
+or moulding than had yet been attained.
+
+     * [One of the two obelisks of the Campus Martius, on which
+     site the Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva was built.--Tr.]
+
+     ** Above the summary of the contents of the present chapter,
+     will be found one of these sphinxes which was discovered in
+     Rome.
+
+[Illustration: 437.jpg THE SMALL OBELISK IN THE PIAZZA DELLA MINERVA AT
+HOME]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+
+While engaged in these works at home, Apries was not unobservant of
+the revolutions occurring in Asia, upon which he maintained a constant
+watch, and in the years which followed the capitulation of Tyre, he found
+the opportunity, so long looked for, of entering once more upon the
+scene. The Phoenician navy had suffered much during the lengthy blockade
+of their country, and had become inferior to the Egyptian, now well
+organised by Thelonians: Apries therefore took the offensive by sea, and
+made a direct descent on the Phoenician coasts. Nebuchadrezzar opposed
+him with the forces of the recently subjugated Tyrians, and the latter,
+having cooled in their attachment to Egypt owing to the special favour
+shown by the Pharaoh to their rivals the Hellenes, summoned their
+Cypriote vassals to assist them in repelling the attack. The Egyptians
+dispersed the combined fleets, and taking possession of Sidon, gave
+it up to pillage. The other maritime cities surrendered of their own
+accord,* including Gebal, which received an Egyptian garrison, and
+where the officers of Pharaoh founded a temple to the goddess whom they
+identified with the Egyptian Hâthor.
+
+     * The war of Apries against the Phoenicians cannot have
+     taken place before the capitulation of Tyre in 574 B.C.,
+     because the Tyrians took part in it by order of
+     Nebuchadrezzar, and on the other hand it cannot be put later
+     than 569 B.C., the date of the revolt of Amasis; it must
+     therefore be assigned to about 571 B.C.
+
+The object at which Necho and Psammetichus II. had aimed for fifteen
+years was thus attained by Apries at one fortunate blow, and he could
+legitimately entitle himself “more fortunate than all the kings his
+predecessors,” and imagine, in his pride, that “the gods themselves
+were unable to injure him.” The gods, however, did not allow him long
+to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Greeks had often visited Libya since
+the time when Egypt had been thrown open to the trade of the iEgean.
+Their sailors had discovered that the most convenient course thither
+was to sail straight to Crete, and then to traverse the sea between this
+island and the headlands of the Libyan plateau; here they fell in with a
+strong current setting towards the east, which carried them quickly and
+easily as far as Eakotis and Canopus, along the Marmarican shore. In
+these voyages they learned to appreciate the value of the country; and
+about 631 B.C. some Dorians of Thera, who had set out to seek for a new
+home at the bidding of the Delphic oracle, landed in the small desert
+island of Platsea, where they built a strongly fortified settlement.
+Their leader, Battos,* soon crossed over to the mainland, where, having
+reached the high plateau, he built the city of Cyrene on the borders of
+an extremely fertile region, watered by abundant springs. The tribes of
+the Labu, who had fought so valiantly against the Pharaohs of old, still
+formed a kind of loose confederation, and their territory stretched
+across the deserts from the Egyptian frontier to the shores of the
+Syrtes. The chief of this confederation assumed the title of king, as in
+the days of Mînephtah or of Ramses III.**
+
+     * Herodotus seems to have been ignorant of the real name of
+     the founder of Cyrene, which has been preserved for us by
+     Pindar, by Callimachus, by the spurious Heraclides of
+     Pontus, and by the chronologists of the Christian epoch.
+     Herodotus says that _Battos_ signifies _king_ in the
+     language of Libya.
+
+     ** The description given by Herodotus of these Libyan tribes
+     agrees with the slight amount of information furnished by
+     the Egyptian monuments for the thirteenth century B.C.
+
+The most civilised of these tribes were those which now dwelt nearest
+to the coast: first the Adyrmakhides, who were settled beyond Marea, and
+had been semi-Egyptianised by constant intercourse with the inhabitants
+of the Delta; then the Giligammes, who dwelt between the port of Plynus
+and the island of Aphrodisias; and beyond these, again, the Asbystes,
+famed for their skill in chariot-driving, the Cabales, and the
+Auschises. The oases of the hinterland were in the hands of the
+Nasamones and of the Mashauasha, whom the Greeks called Maxyes.
+
+One of the revolutions so frequent among the desert tribes had compelled
+the latter to remove from their home near the Nile valley, to a district
+far to the west, on the banks of the river Triton.
+
+[Illustration: 440.jpg THE OASIS OF AMOK AND THE SPRING OF THE SUN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Minutoli.
+
+There they had settled down in a permanent fashion, dwelling in houses
+of stone, and giving themselves up to the cultivation of the soil. They
+continued, however, to preserve in their new life some of their ancient
+customs, such as that of painting their bodies with vermilion, and of
+shaving off the hair from their heads, with the exception of one lock
+which hung over the right ear. The Theban Pharaohs had formerly placed
+garrisons in the most important oases, and had consecrated temples there
+to their god Amon.
+
+[Illustration: 440b.jpg PORTION OF THE RUINS OF CYRENE]
+
+One of these sanctuaries, built close to an intermittent spring, which
+gave forth alternately hot and cold water, had risen to great eminence,
+and the oracle of these Ammonians was a centre of pilgrimage from far
+and near. The first Libyans who came into contact with the Greeks, the
+Asbystes and the Giligammes, received the new-comers kindly, giving
+them their daughters in marriage; from the fusion of the two races
+thus brought about sprang, first under Battos and then under his son
+Arkesilas I., an industrious and valiant race.
+
+[Illustration: 443.jpg MAP OF LYBIA IN THE VITH CENTURY B.C.]
+
+The main part of their revenues was derived from commerce in silphium
+and woollen goods, and even the kings themselves did not deem it beneath
+their dignity to preside in person at the weighing of the crop, and the
+storing of the trusses in their magazines. The rapid increase in the
+wealth of the city having shortly brought about a breach in the friendly
+relations hitherto maintained between it and its neighbours, Battos
+the Fortunate, the son of Arkesilas I., sent for colonists from
+Greece: numbers answered to his call, on the faith of a second oracular
+prediction, and in order to provide them with the necessary land, Battos
+did not hesitate to dispossess his native allies. The latter appealed to
+Adikrân, king of the confederacy, and this prince, persuaded that this
+irregular militia would not be able to withstand the charge of the
+hoplites, thereupon applied in his turn to Apries for assistance.
+
+[Illustration: 443b.jpg the Silphium ]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast of a coin of Cyrene.
+
+There was much tempting spoil to be had in Cyrene, and Apries was fully
+aware of the fact, from the accounts of the Libyans and the Greeks. His
+covetousness must have been aroused at the prospect of such rich booty,
+and perhaps he would have thought of appropriating it sooner, had he not
+been deterred from the attempt by his knowledge of the superiority of
+the Greek fleets, and of the dangers attendant on a long and painful
+march over an almost desert country through disaffected tribes.
+
+[Illustration: 444.jpg WEIGHING SILPHIUM IN PRESENCE OF KING ARKESILAS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
+     the Coin Room in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The
+     king here represented is Arkesilas II. the Bad.
+
+Now that he could rely on the support of the Libyans, he hesitated no
+longer to run these risks. Deeming it imprudent, with good reason,
+to employ his mercenary troops against their own compatriots, Apries
+mobilised for his encounter with Battos an army exclusively recruited
+from among his native reserves. The troops set out full of confidence
+in themselves and of disdain for the enemy, delighted moreover at an
+opportunity for at length convincing their kings of their error in
+preferring barbarian to native forces. But the engagement brought to
+nought all their boastings. The Egyptians were defeated in the first
+encounter near Irasa, hard by the fountain of Thestê, near the spot
+where the high plateaus of Cyrene proper terminate in the low cliffs
+of Marmarica: and the troops suffered so severely during the subsequent
+retreat that only a small remnant of the army regained in safety the
+frontier of the Delta.*
+
+     * The interpretation I have given to the sentiments of the
+     Egyptian army follows clearly enough from the observation of
+     Herodotus, that “the Egyptians, having never experienced
+     themselves the power of the Greeks, had felt for them
+     nothing but contempt.” The site of Irasa and the fountain of
+     Thestê has been fixed with much probability in the fertile
+     district watered still by the fountain of Ersen, Erazem, or
+     Erasân.
+
+This unexpected reverse was the occasion of the outbreak of a revolution
+which had been in preparation for years. The emigration to Ethiopia
+of some contingents of the military class had temporarily weakened
+the factions hostile to foreign influence; these factions had felt
+themselves powerless under the rule of Psammetichus I., and had bowed to
+his will, prepared all the while to reassert themselves when they felt
+strong enough to do so successfully. The reorganisation of the native
+army furnished them at once with the means of insurrection, of which
+they had temporarily been deprived. Although Pharaoh had lavished
+privileges on the Hermotybies and Calasiries, she had not removed the
+causes for discontent which had little by little alienated the good will
+of the Mashauasha: to do so would have rendered necessary the disbanding
+of the Ionian guard, the object of their jealousy, and to take this step
+neither he nor his successors could submit themselves. The hatred
+of these mercenaries, and the irritation against the sovereigns who
+employed them, grew fiercer from reign to reign, and now wanted nothing
+but a pretext to break forth openly: such a pretext was furnished by the
+defeat at Irasa. When the fugitives arrived at the entrenched camp of
+Marea, exasperated by their defeat, and alleging doubtless that it was
+due to treachery, they found others who affected to share their belief
+that Pharaoh had despatched his Egyptian troops against Cyrene with
+the view of consigning to certain death those whose loyalty to him was
+suspected, and it was not difficult to stir up the disaffected soldiers
+to open revolt. It was not the first time that a military tumult had
+threatened the sovereignty of Apries. Some time previous to this, in
+an opposite quarter of the Nile valley, the troops stationed at
+Elephantine, composed partly of Egyptians, partly of Asiatic and Greek
+mercenaries--possibly the same who had fought in the Ethiopian campaign
+under Psammetichus II.--had risen in rebellion owing to some neglect
+in the payment of their wages: having devastated the Thebaid, they had
+marched straight across the desert to the port of Shashirît, in the hope
+of there seizing ships to enable them to reach the havens of Idumæa
+or Nabatoa. The governor of Elephantine, Nsihor, had at first held them
+back with specious promises; but on learning that Apries was approaching
+with reinforcements, he attacked them boldly, and driving them before
+him, hemmed them in between his own force and that of the king and
+massacred them all. Apries thought that the revolt at Marea would have a
+similar issue, and that he might succeed in baffling the rebels by
+fair words; he sent to them as his representative Amasis, one of his
+generals, distantly connected probably with the royal house. What took
+place in the camp is not clearly known, for the actual events have been
+transformed in the course of popular transmission into romantic legends.
+The story soon took shape that Amasis was born of humble parentage in
+the village of Siuph, not far from Sais; he was fond, it was narrated,
+of wine, the pleasures of the table, and women, and replenished
+his empty purse by stealing what he could lay his hands on from his
+neighbours or comrades--a gay boon-companion all the while, with an
+easy disposition and sarcastic tongue. According to some accounts, he
+conciliated the favour of Apries by his invariable affability and good
+humour; according to others, he won the king’s confidence by presenting
+him with a crown of flowers on his birthday.*
+
+     * The king to whom Amasis made this offering is called
+     Patarmis, and the similarity of this name with the
+     Patarbemis of Herodotus seems to indicate a variant of the
+     legend, in which Patarmis or Patarbemis took the place of
+     Apries.
+
+The story goes on to say that while he was haranguing the rebels, one
+of them, slipping behind him, suddenly placed on his head the rounded
+helmet of the Pharaohs: the bystanders immediately proclaimed him king,
+and after a slight show of resistance he accepted the dignity. As
+soon as the rumour of these events had reached Sais, Apries despatched
+Patarbemis, one of his chief officers, with orders to bring back the
+rebel chief alive. The latter was seated on his horse, on the point of
+breaking up his camp and marching against his former patron, when the
+envoy arrived. On learning the nature of his mission, Amasis charged
+him to carry back a reply to the effect that he had already been making
+preparation to submit, and besought the sovereign to grant him patiently
+a few days longer, so that he might bring with him the Egyptian subjects
+of Pharaoh. Tradition adds that, on receiving this insolent defiance,
+Apries fell into a violent passion, and without listening to
+remonstrance, ordered the nose and ears of Patarbemis to be cut off,
+whereupon the indignant people, it is alleged, deserted his cause and
+ranged themselves on the side of Amasis. The mercenaries, however,
+did not betray the confidence reposed in them by their Egyptian lords.
+Although only thirty thousand against a whole people, they unflinchingly
+awaited the attack at Momemphis (569 B.C.); but, being overwhelmed by
+the numbers of their assailants, disbanded and fled, after a conflict
+lasting one day. Apries, taken prisoner in the rout, was at first well
+treated by the conqueror, and seems even to have retained for a time
+the external pomp of royalty; but the populace of Sais demanding his
+execution with vehemence, Amasis was at length constrained to deliver
+him up to their vengeance, and Apries was strangled by the mob. He was
+honourably interred between the royal palace and the temple of Nit, not
+far from the spot where his predecessors reposed in their glory,* and
+the usurper made himself sole master of the country. It was equivalent
+to a change of dynasty, and Amasis had recourse to the methods usual in
+such cases to consolidate his power. He entered into a marriage alliance
+with princesses of the Saite line, and thus legitimatised his usurpation
+as far as the north was concerned.**
+
+     * It was probably from this necropolis that the coffin of
+     Psammetichus II. came.
+
+     ** The wife of Amasis, who was mother of Psammetichus III.,
+     the queen Tintkhiti, daughter of Petenit, prophet of Phtah,
+     was probably connected with the royal family of Sais.
+
+In the south, the “divine worshippers” had continued to administer the
+extensive heritage of Amon, and Nitocris, heiress of Shapenuapît, had
+adopted in her old age a daughter of her great-nephew, Psammetichus IL,
+named Ankhnasnofiribrî: this princess was at this time in possession of
+Thebes, and Amasis appears to have entered into a fictitious marriage
+with her in order to assume to himself her rights to the crown. He had
+hardly succeeded in establishing his authority on a firm basis when he
+was called upon to repel the Chaldaean invasion. The Hebrew prophets had
+been threatening Egypt with this invasion for a long time, and Ezekiel,
+discounting the future, had already described the entrance of Pharaoh
+into Hades, to dwell among the chiefs of the nations--Assur, Elam,
+Meshech, Tubal, Edom, and Philistia--who, having incurred the vengeance
+of Jahveh, had descended into the grave one after the other: “Pharaoh
+and all his army shall be slain by the sword, saith the Lord God! For I
+have put this terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in
+the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword,
+even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God!” Nebuchadrezzar
+had some hesitation in hazarding his fortune in a campaign on the banks
+of the Nile: he realised tolerably clearly that Babylon was not in
+command of such resources as had been at the disposal of Nineveh under
+Esarhaddon or Assur-bani-pal, and that Egypt in the hands of a Saite
+dynasty was a more formidable foe than when ruled by the Ethiopians. The
+report of the revolution of which Apries had become a victim at length
+determined him to act; the annihilation of the Hellenic troops, and the
+dismay which the defeat at Irasa had occasioned in the hearts of
+the Egyptians, seemed to offer an opportunity too favourable to be
+neglected. The campaign was opened by Nebuchadrezzar about 568, in the
+thirty-seventh year of his reign,* but we have no certain information as
+to the issue of his enterprise.
+
+     * A fragment of his Annals, discovered by Pinches, mentions
+     in the thirty-seventh year of his reign a campaign against
+     [Ah]masu, King of Egypt; and Wiedemann, from the evidence of
+     this document combined with the information derived from one
+     of the monuments in the Louvre, thought that the fact of a
+     conquest of Egypt as far as Syenô might be admitted; at that
+     point the Egyptian general Nsihor would have defeated the
+     Chaldæans and repelled the invasion, and this event would
+     have taken place during the joint reign of Apries and
+     Amasis. A more attentive examination of the Egyptian
+     monument shows that it refers not to a Chaldæan war, but to
+     a rebellion of the garrisons in the south of Egypt,
+     including the Greek and Semitic auxiliaries.
+
+According to Chaldæan tradition, Nebuchadrezzar actually invaded the
+valley of the Nile and converted Egypt into a Babylonian province,
+with Amasis as its satrap.* We may well believe that Amasis lost the
+conquests won by his predecessor in Phoenicia, if, indeed, they still
+belonged to Egypt at his accession: but there is nothing to indicate
+that the Chaldæans ever entered Egypt itself and repeated the Assyrian
+exploit of a century before.
+
+     * These events would have taken place in the twenty-third
+     year of Nebuchadrezzar; the reigning king (Apries) being
+     killed and his place taken by one of his generals (Amasis),
+     who remained a satrap of the Babylonian empire.
+
+This was Nebuchadrezzar’s last war, the last at least of which history
+makes any mention. As a fact, the kings of the second Babylonian empire
+do not seem to have been the impetuous conquerors which we have fancied
+them to be. We see them as they are depicted to us in the visions of the
+Hebrew prophets, who, regarding them and their nation as a scourge in
+the hands of God, had no colours vivid enough or images sufficiently
+terrible to portray them. They had blotted out Nineveh from the list of
+cities, humiliated Pharaoh, and subjugated Syria, and they had done
+all this almost at their first appearance in the field--such a feat as
+Assyria and Egypt in the plenitude of their strength had been unable to
+accomplish: they had, moreover, destroyed Jerusalem and carried Judah
+into captivity. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that this
+Nebuchadrezzar, whose history is known to us almost entirely from Jewish
+sources, should appear as a fated force let loose upon the world. “O
+thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up
+thyself into the scabbard; rest and be still! How canst thou be quiet,
+seeing the Lord hath given thee a charge?” But his campaigns in
+Syria and Africa, of which the echoes transmitted to us still seem so
+formidable, were not nearly so terrible in reality as those in which
+Blam had perished a century previously; they were, moreover, the only
+conflicts which troubled the peace of his reign. The Arabian chroniclers
+affirm, indeed, that the fabulous wealth of Yemen had incited him to
+invade that region. Nebuchadrezzar, they relate, routed, not far from
+the town of Dhât-îrk, the Joctanides of Jorhom, who had barred his
+road to the Kaabah, and after seizing Mecca, reached the borders of
+the children of Himyrâ: the exhausted condition of his soldiers having
+prevented him from pressing further forward in his career of conquest,
+he retraced his steps and returned to Babylon with a great number of
+prisoners, including two entire tribes, those of Hadhurâ and Uabar,
+whom he established as colonists in Chaldæa.* He never passed in this
+direction beyond the limits reached by Assur-bani-pal, and his exploits
+were restricted to some successful raids against the tribes of Kedar and
+Nabatsea.**
+
+* Most of the Arabic legends relating to these conquests of
+Nebuchadrezzar are indirectly derived from the biblical story; but it is
+possible that the history of the expeditions against Central Arabia is
+founded on fact.
+
+** This seems to follow from Jeremiah’s imprecations upon Kedar
+
+The same reasons which at the commencement of his reign had restrained
+his ambition to extend his dominions towards the east and north, were
+operative up to the end of his life. Astyages had not inherited the
+martial spirit of his father Cyaxares, and only one warlike expedition,
+that against the Cadusians, is ascribed to him.*
+
+     * Moses of Chorene attributes to him long wars against an
+     Armenian king named Tigranes; but this is a fiction of a
+     later age.
+
+Naturally indolent, lacking in decision, superstitious and cruel, he
+passed a life of idleness amid the luxury of a corrupt court, surrounded
+by pages, women, and eunuchs, with no more serious pastime than the
+chase, pursued within the limits of his own parks or on the confines
+of the desert. But if the king was weak, his empire was vigorous, and
+Nebuchadrezzar, brought up from his youth to dread the armies of Media,
+retained his respect for them up to the end of his life, even when there
+was no longer any occasion to do so. Nebuchadrezzar was, after all, not
+so much a warrior as a man of peace, whether so constituted by nature
+or rendered so by political necessity in its proper sense, and he
+took advantage of the long intervals of quiet between his campaigns to
+complete the extensive works which more than anything else have won
+for him his renown. During the century which had preceded the fall of
+Nineveh, Babylonia had had several bitter experiences; it had suffered
+almost entire destruction at the hands of Sennacherib; it had been given
+up to pillage by Assur-bani-pal, not to mention the sieges and ravages
+it had sustained in the course of continual revolts. The other cities
+of Babylonia, Sippara, Borsippa, Kutha, Nipur, Uruk, and Uru, had been
+subjected to capture and recapture, while the surrounding districts,
+abandoned in turn to Elamites, Assyrians, and the Kaldâ, had lain
+uncultivated for many years. The canals at the same time had become
+choked with mud, the banks had fallen in, and the waters, no longer
+kept under control, had overflowed the land, and the plains long since
+reclaimed for cultivation had returned to their original condition of
+morasses and reed-beds; at Babylon itself the Arakhtu, still encumbered
+with the _debris_ cast into it by Sennacherib, was no longer navigable,
+and was productive of more injury than profit to the city: in some parts
+the aspect of the country must have been desolate and neglected as at
+the present day, and the work accomplished by twenty generations had to
+be begun entirely afresh. Nabopolassar had already applied himself to
+the task in spite of the anxieties of his Assyrian campaigns, and had
+raised many earthworks in both the capital and the provinces. But a
+great deal more still remained to be done, and Nebuchadrezzar pushed
+forward the work planned by his father, and carried it to completion
+undeterred and undismayed by any difficulties.* The combined system
+of irrigation and navigation introduced by the kings of the first
+Babylonian empire twenty centuries previously, was ingeniously repaired;
+the beds of the principal canals, the Royal river and the Arakhtu,
+were straightened and deepened; the drainage of the country between the
+Tigris and the Euphrates was regulated by means of subsidiary canals and
+a network of dykes; the canals surrounding Babylon or intersecting in
+the middle of the city were cleaned out, and a waterway was secured
+for navigation from one river to the other, and from the plateau of
+Mesopotamia to the Nar-Marratum.**
+
+     * The only long inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar which we
+     possess, are those commemorating the great works he designed
+     and executed.
+
+     ** The irrigation works of Nebuchadrezzar are described at
+     length, and perhaps exaggerated, by Abydenus, who merely
+     quotes Berosus more or less inaccurately. The completion of
+     the quays along the Arakhtu, begun by Nabopolassar, is
+     noticed in the _East India Company’s Inscription_. A special
+     inscription, publ. by H. Rawlinson, gives an account of the
+     repairing of the canal Libil-khigallu, which crossed
+     Babylon.
+
+We may well believe that all Nebuchadrezzar’s undertakings were carried
+out in accordance with a carefully prepared scheme for perfecting
+the defences of the kingdom while completing the system of internal
+communication. The riches of Karduniash, now restored to vigour by
+continued peace, and become the centre of a considerable empire, could
+not fail to excite the jealousy of its neighbours, and particularly that
+of the most powerful among them, the Medes of Ecbatana. It is true
+that the relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages continued to be
+cordial, and as yet there were no indications of a rupture; but it
+was always possible that under their successors the good understanding
+between the two courts might come to an end, and it was needful to
+provide against the possibility of the barbarous tribes of Iran being
+let loose upon Babylon, and attempting to inflict on her the fate they
+had brought upon Nineveh. Nebuchadrezzar, therefore, was anxious to
+interpose, between himself and these possible foes, such a series of
+fortifications that the most persevering enemy would be worn out by the
+prolonged task of forcing them one after another, provided that they
+were efficiently garrisoned. He erected across the northern side of the
+isthmus between the two rivers a great embankment, faced with bricks
+cemented together with bitumen, called the _Wall of Media_; this wall,
+starting from Sippara, stretched from the confluence of the Saklauiyeh
+with the Euphrates to the site of the modern village of Jibbara on the
+Tigris; on both sides of it four or five deep trenches were excavated,
+which were passable on raised causeways or by bridges of boats, so
+arranged as to be easily broken up in case of invasion.
+
+[Illustration: 456.jpg CITY DEFENDED BY A TRIPLE WALL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of the time of
+     Sargon, in the Museum of the Louvre.
+
+The eastern frontier was furnished with a rampart protected by a wide
+moat, following, between Jibbara and Nipur, the contours of a low-lying
+district which could be readily flooded. The western boundary was
+already protected by the Pallakottas, and the lakes or marshes of
+Bahr-î-Nejîf: Nebuchadrezzar multiplied the number of the dikes, and so
+arranged them that the whole country between the suburbs of Borsippa and
+Babylon could be inundated at will. Babylon itself formed as it were the
+citadel in the midst of these enormous outlying fortifications, and
+the engineers both of Nabopo-lassar and of his son expended all the
+resources of their art on rendering it impregnable. A triple rampart
+surrounded it and united it to Borsippa, built on the model of those
+whose outline is so frequently found on the lowest tier of an Assyrian
+bas-relief.
+
+[Illustration: 457.jpg PROBABLE SECTION OF THE TRIPLE WALL OF BABYLON]
+
+     Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from the restoration by
+     Dieulafoy.
+
+A moat of great width, with banks of masonry, communicating with
+the Euphrates, washed the foot of the outer wall, which retained the
+traditional name of Imgur-bel: behind this wall rose Nimitti-bel, the
+true city wall, to a height of more than ninety feet above the level of
+the plain, appearing from a distance, with its battlements and towers,
+more like a mountain chain than a rampart built by the hand of man;
+finally, behind Nimitti-bel ran a platform on the same level as the
+curtain of Imgur-bel, forming a last barrier behind which the garrison
+could rally before finally owning itself defeated and surrendering the
+city. Large square towers rose at intervals along the face of the walls,
+to the height of some eighteen feet above the battlements: a hundred
+gates fitted with bronze-plated doors, which could be securely shut at
+need, gave access to the city.*
+
+     * The description of the fortifications of the city is
+     furnished by Herodotus, who himself saw them still partially
+     standing; the account of their construction has been given
+     by Nebuchadrezzar himself, in the _East India Company’s
+     Inscription_.
+
+The space within the walls was by no means completely covered by houses,
+but contained gardens, farms, fields, and, here and there, the ruins of
+deserted buildings. As in older Babylon, the city proper clustered round
+the temple of Merodach, with its narrow winding streets, its crowded
+bazaars, its noisy and dirty squares, its hostelries and warehouses of
+foreign merchandise.
+
+[Illustration: 458.jpg FRAGMENT OF A BABYLONIAN BAS-RELIEF]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+The pyramid of Esarhad-don and Assur-bani-pal, too hastily built, had
+fallen into ruins: Nebuchadrezzar reconstructed its seven stages, and
+erected on the topmost platform a shrine furnished with a table of
+massive gold, and a couch on which the priestess chosen to be the spouse
+of the god might sleep at night. Other small temples were erected here
+and there on both banks of the river, and the royal palace, built in the
+marvellously short space of fifteen days, was celebrated for its hanging
+gardens, where the ladies of the harem might walk unveiled, secure from
+vulgar observation. No trace of all these extensive works remains at the
+present day.
+
+[Illustration: 459.jpg RUINS OF THE ZIGGURÂT OF THE TEMPLE OF BEL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+Some scattered fragments of crumbling walls alone betray the site of
+the great ziggurât, a few bas-reliefs are strewn over the surface of the
+ground, and a lion of timeworn stone, lying on its back in a depression
+of the soil, is perhaps the last survivor of those which kept watch,
+according to custom, at the gates of the palace. But the whole of this
+vast work of reconstruction and ornamentation must not be attributed to
+Nebuchadrezzar alone. The plans had been designed by Nabopolassar under
+the influence of one of his wives, who by a strange chance bears in
+classic tradition the very Egyptian name of Nitocris; but his work was
+insignificant compared with that accomplished by his son, and the name
+of Nebuchadrezzar was justly connected with the marvels of Babylon by
+all ancient writers. But even his reign of fifty-five years did not
+suffice for the completion of all his undertakings, and many details
+still remained imperfect at his death in the beginning of 562 B.C.
+Though of Kaldu origin, and consequently exposed to the suspicions
+and secret enmity of the native Babylonians, as all of his race, even
+Mero-dach-Baladan himself, had been before him, he had yet succeeded
+throughout the whole of his reign in making himself respected by the
+turbulent inhabitants of his capital, and in curbing the ambitious
+pretensions of the priests of Merodach. As soon as his master-hand
+was withdrawn, the passions so long repressed broke forth, and
+proved utterly beyond the control of his less able or less fortunate
+successors.*
+
+     * The sequel of this history is known from the narrative of
+     Berosus. Its authenticity is proved by passages on the
+     _Cylinder of Nabonidus_. Messer-schmidt considers that Amil-
+     marduk and Labashi-marduk were overthrown by the priestly
+     faction, but a passage on the _Cylinder_, in which Nabonidus
+     represents himself as inheriting the political views of
+     Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur, leads me to take the
+     opposite view. We know what hatred Nabonidus roused in the
+     minds of the priests of Merodach because his principles of
+     government were opposed to theirs: the severe judgment he
+     passed on the rule of Amil-marduk and Labashi-marduk seems
+     to prove that he considered them as belonging to the rival
+     party in the state, that is, to the priestly faction. The
+     forms of the names and the lengths of the several reigns
+     have been confirmed by contemporary monuments, especially by
+     the numerous contract tablets. The principal inscriptions
+     belonging to the reign of Nergal-sharuzur deal only with
+     public works and the restoration of monuments.
+
+[Illustration: 460.jpg THE STONE LION OF BABYLON]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph furnished by
+     Father Scheil.
+
+As far as we are able to judge by the documents which have come down to
+us, two factions had arisen in the city since the fall of Nineveh, both
+of which aspired to power and strove to gain a controlling influence
+with the sovereign. The one comprised the descendants of the Kaldâ who
+had delivered the city from the Assyrian yoke, together with those
+of the ancient military nobility. The other was composed of the great
+priestly families and their adherents, who claimed for the gods or their
+representatives the right to control the affairs of the state, and
+to impose the will of heaven on the rulers of the kingdom. The latter
+faction seems to have prevailed at first at the court of Amil-marduk,
+the sole surviving son and successor of Nebuchadrezzar. This prince on
+his accession embraced a policy contrary to that pursued by his father:
+and one of his first acts was to release Jehoiachin, King of Judah, who
+had been languishing in chains for twenty-seven years, and to ameliorate
+the condition of the other expatriated Jews. The official history of a
+later date represented him as having been an unjust sovereign, but we
+have no information as to his misdeeds, and know only that after two
+years a conspiracy broke out against him, led by his own brother-in-law,
+Nergal-sharuzur, who assassinated him and seized the vacant throne
+(560 B.C.). Nergal-sharuzur endeavoured to revive the policy of
+Nebuchadrezzar, and was probably supported by the military party, but
+his reign was a short one; he died in 556 B.C., leaving as sole heir
+a youth of dissipated character named Labashi-marduk, whose name is
+stigmatised by the chroniclers as that of a prince who knew not how to
+rule. He was murdered at the end of nine months, and his place taken
+by a native Babylonian, a certain Nabonâîd (Nabonidus), son of
+Nabo-balatsu-ikbi, who was not connected by birth with his immediate
+predecessors on the throne (556-555 B.C.).
+
+No Oriental empire could escape from the effects of frequent and
+abrupt changes in its rulers: like so many previous dynasties, that of
+Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after
+the death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and
+decrepitude. Popular imagination, awe-struck by such a sudden downfall
+from exalted prosperity, recognised the hand of God in the events which
+brought about the catastrophe. A Chaldæan legend, current not long
+after, related how Nebuchadrezzar, being seized towards the end of his
+life with the spirit of prophecy, mounted to the roof of his palace,
+and was constrained, as a punishment for his pride, to predict to his
+people, with his own lips, the approaching ruin of their city; thereupon
+the glory of its monarch suffered an eclipse from which there was no
+emerging. The Jews, nourishing undying hatred for conqueror who had
+overthrown Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon, were
+not satisfied with a punishment so inadequate. According to them,
+Nebuchadrezzar, after his victorious career, was so intoxicated with
+his own glory that he proclaimed himself the equal of God. “Is not
+this great Babylon,” he cried, “which I have built for the royal
+dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my
+majesty!” and while he thus spake, there came a voice from heaven,
+decreeing his metamorphosis into the form of a beast. “He was driven
+from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew
+of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails
+like birds’ claws.” For seven years the king remained in this state,
+to resume his former shape at the end of this period, and recover his
+kingdom after having magnified the God of Israel.*
+
+     * Dan. iv.
+
+The founder of the dynasty which replaced that of Nebuchadrezzar,
+Nabonidus, was certainly ill fitted to brave the storms already
+threatening to break over his kingdom. It has not been ascertained
+whether he had any natural right to the throne, or by what means he
+attained supreme power, but the way in which he dwells on the names
+of Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur renders it probable that he was
+raised to the throne by the military faction. He did not prove, as
+events turned turned out, a good general, nor even a soldier of moderate
+ability, and it is even possible that he also lacked that fierce courage
+of which none of his predecessors was ever destitute. He allowed his
+army to dwindle away and his fortresses to fall into ruins; the foreign
+alliances existing at his accession, together with those which he
+himself had concluded, were not turned to the best advantage;
+his provinces were badly administered, and his subjects rendered
+discontented: his most salient characteristic was an insatiable
+curiosity concerning historical and religious antiquities, which
+stimulated him to undertake excavations in all the temples, in order
+to bring to light monuments of ages long gone by. He was a monarch
+of peaceful disposition, who might have reigned with some measure of
+success in a century of unbroken peace, or one troubled only by petty
+wars with surrounding inferior states; but, unfortunately, the times
+were ill suited to such mild sovereignty. The ancient Eastern world,
+worn out by an existence reckoned by thousands of years, as well as by
+its incessant conflicts, would have desired, indeed, no better fate than
+to enjoy some years of repose in the condition in which recent events
+had left it; but other nations, the Greeks and the Persians, by no means
+anxious for tranquillity, were entering the lists. For the moment
+the efforts of the Greeks were concentrated on Egypt, where Pharaoh
+manifested for them inexhaustible good will, and on Cyprus, two-thirds
+of which belonged to them; the danger for Chaldæa lay in the Persians,
+kinsfolk and vassals of the Medes, whose semi-barbarous chieftains had
+issued from their mountain homes some eighty years previously to occupy
+the eastern districts of Elam.
+
+END OF VOL. VIII.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      History of Egypt, by Maspero, Volume 8
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12)
+
+Author: G. Maspero
+
+Editor: A.H. Sayce
+
+Translator: M.L. McClure
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2005 [EBook #17328]
+Last Updated: September 8, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT, CHALDÆA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+Character set: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/spines.jpg" width="100%" alt="Spines " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="100%" alt="Cover " />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      HISTORY OF EGYPT <br /><br /> CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By G. MASPERO, <br /><br /> Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of
+      Queen&rsquo;s College, <br /> Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at
+      the College of France
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Edited by A. H. SAYCE, <br /> Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      Translated by M. L. McCLURE, <br /> Member of the Committee of the Egypt
+      Exploration Fund
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Volume VIII.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      LONDON <br /> THE GROLIER SOCIETY <br /> PUBLISHERS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" alt="Frontispiece " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> Arab Family at Dinner <br /> <br /> <a name="linkimage-0004"       id="linkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" alt="Titlepage " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/003.jpg" width="100%" alt="003.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      <i>SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)</i>
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE STRUGGLE OF SENNACHERIB WITH JUDÆA AND EGYPT&mdash;DESTRUCTION OF
+      BABYLON</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The upheaval of the entire Eastern world on the accession of
+      Sennacherib&mdash;Revolt of Babylon: return of Merodach-baladan and his
+      efforts to form a coalition against Assyria; the battle of Kish (703 B.C.)&mdash;Belibni,
+      King of Babylon (702-699 B.C.)&mdash;Sabaco, King of Egypt, Amenertas and
+      Pionkhi, Shàbî-toku&mdash;Tyre and its kings after Ethbaal II.: Phoenician
+      colonisation in Libya and the foundation of Carthage&mdash;The Kingdom of
+      Tyre in the time of Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon: Elulai&mdash;Judah
+      and the reforms of Hezekiah; alliance of Judah and Tyre with Egypt, the
+      downfall of the Tyrian kingdom (702 B.C.)&mdash;The battle of Altaku and
+      the siege of Jerusalem: Sennacherib encamped before Lachish, his Egyptian
+      expedition, the disaster at Pelusium.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Renewed revolt of Babylon and the Tabal (699 B.C.); flight of the
+      people of Bît-Yakîn into Elamite territory; Sennacherib&rsquo;s fleet and
+      descent on Nagitu (697-696 B.C.)&mdash;Khalludush invades Karduniash (695
+      B.C.); Nirgal-ushezib and Mushesîb-marduk at Babylon (693-689 B.C.)&mdash;Sennacherib
+      invades Elam (693 B.C.): battle of Khalulê (692 B.C.), siege and
+      destruction of Babylon (689 B.C.)&mdash;Buildings of Sennacherib at
+      Nineveh: his palace at Kouyunjik; its decoration with battle, hunting, and
+      building scenes.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I&mdash;SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.) </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB2HCH0001"> CHAPTER II&mdash;THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS
+        ZENITH; ESARHADDON AND ASSUR-BANI-PAL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkC2HCH0001"> CHAPTER III&mdash;THE MEDES AND THE SECOND
+        CHALDÆAN EMPIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <hr />
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>List of Illustrations</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0001"> Spines </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0002"> Cover </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0004"> Titlepage </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0005"> 003.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0007"> 011.jpg Clay Seal With Cartouche of Sabaco
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0008"> 017.jpg a Phoenician Galley With Two Banks of
+        Oars </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0009"> 018.jpg Map of Kingdom Of Tyre, the Campaign
+        Of Sennacherib </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0010"> 023.jpg Map of the Campaign Of Sennacherib in
+        Judea </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0011"> 028.jpg the Pass of Legnia, in Lebanon </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0012"> 028b.jpg Esneh&mdash;principal Abyssinian
+        Trading Village </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0013"> 030.jpg Sennacherib Receiving the Submissions
+        of The Jews </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0014"> 042.jpg a Raid Among the Woods and Mountains.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0015"> 048.jpg Map the Nar-marratum in The Time of
+        Sennacherib </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0016"> 049.jpg the Fleet of Sennacherib on The
+        Nar-marratum </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0017"> 052.jpg a Skirmish in the Marshes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0018"> 054.jpg the Horse of Nergal-ushezÎb Falling
+        in The Battle </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0019"> 063.jpg the Mounds of Nineveh Seen from The
+        Terrace Of A House in Mosul </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0020"> 065.jpg King Sennacherib Watching the
+        Transport of A Colossal Statue </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0021"> 066.jpg Assyrian Bas-reliefs at Bavian </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0022"> 069.jpg Great Assyrian Stele at BaviaÎt. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0023"> 073.jpg an Assyrian Cavalry Raid Through the
+        Woods </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0024"> 074.jpg (and 75) Transport of a Winged Bull
+        on A Sledge. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0025"> 079.jpg Sennacherib </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0005"> 081.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0006"> 082.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0007"> 083.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0008"> 087.jpg Stone Lion at HamadÂn </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0009"> 088.jpg View of HamadÂn and Mount Elvend in
+        Winter </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0010"> 090.jpg Asia Minor in the 7th Century </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0011"> 095.jpg Monument Commemorative of Midas </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0012"> 096.jpg a Phrygian God </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0013"> 097.jpg the Mother-goddess Between Lions
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0014"> 098.jpg the Mother-goddess and Atys </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0015"> 099.jpg the God Men Associated With The Sun
+        and Other Deities </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0016"> 101.jpg Midas of Phrygia </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0017"> 104.jpg the Steep Banks of The Halys Failed
+        to Arrest Them </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0018"> 105.jpg View Ovek the Plain of Sardes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0019"> 106.jpg the Axe Borne by Zeus Labraundos
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0020"> 110.jpg a Conflict With Two Griffins. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0021"> 111.jpg Scythians Armed for War </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0022"> 115.jpg Inhabited Caves on the Banks of The
+        Halys </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0023"> 131.jpg the Town of Kharkhar With Its Triple
+        Rampart </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0024"> 137.jpg Shabitoku, King of Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0025"> 139.jpg Taharqa and his Queen DikahÎtamanu
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0026"> 142.jpg the Column of Taharqa, at Karnak
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0027"> 143.jpg the Hemispeos Op HÂthor and BÎsÛ, At
+        Gebel-barkal </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0028"> 144.jpg Entrance to the Hemispeos of BÎsÛ
+        (bes), At Gebel-barkal </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0029"> 145.jpg Taharqa </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0030"> 156.jpg Southern Promontory at the Mouth of
+        The Nahr-el-kelb </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0031"> 157.jpg Stele of Esarhaddon at the
+        Nahr-el-kelb </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0032"> 158.jpg Stele of Zinjirli </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0033"> 161.jpg Assyrian Sphinx in Egyptian Style
+        Supporting The Base of a Column </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0034"> 168.jpg Assur-banipal As a Bearer of
+        Offerings </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0035"> 169.jpg Sihamash-shumukin As a Bearer of
+        Offerings </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0036"> 174.jpg MontumihÂÎt, Prince of Thebes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0037"> 175.jpg Psammetichus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0038"> 181.jpg Lydian Horsemen </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0039"> 187.jpg Assur-bani-pal </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0040"> 190.jpg Mural Decorations from the Grottoes
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0041"> 191.jpg King Tanuatamanu in Adoration Before
+        the Gods Of Thebes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0042"> 195.jpg Assyrian Helmet Found at Thebes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0043"> 198.jpg a Lion Issuing from Its Cage </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0044"> 206.jpg Ituni Breaks his Bow With a Blow of
+        His Sword, And Gives Himself up to the Executioner </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0045"> 206b.jpg the Battle of Tulliz </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0046"> 209.jpg Urtaku Cousin of TiummÂn,
+        Surrendering to An Assyrian </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0047"> 210.jpg the Last Arrow of TiummÂn and his
+        Son </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0048"> 211.jpg Death of TiummÂn and his Son </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0049"> 212.jpg Khumb.n-igash Proclaimed King </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0050"> 215.jpg the Head of Thumman Sent to Nineveh
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0051"> 216.jpg Assur-bani-pal Banqueting With his
+        Queen </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0052"> 217.jpg Two Elamite Chiefs Flayed Alive
+        After the Battle Of TullÎz </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0053"> 228.jpg the Eastern World in The Reign of
+        Assur-bani-pal </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0054"> 235.jpg Psammetichus I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0055"> 240.jpg Battle of the Cimmerians Against The
+        Greeks Accompanied by Their Dogs </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0056"> 251.jpg Statues of the Gods Carried off by
+        Assyrian Soldiery </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0057"> 252.jpg the Tumulus of Suza </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0058"> 260.jpg Prayer in the Desert After Painting
+        by Gerome </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0005"> 261.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0006"> 262.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0007"> 263.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0008"> 268.jpg and 269.jpg Table of Median Dynasty
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0009"> 274.jpg Map of the Lands Created by
+        Ahura-mazda </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0010"> 269.jpg NisÆan Houses Harnessed to a Royal
+        Chariot </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0011"> 280.jpg the Persian Realm </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0012"> 282.jpg Scene in the Mountains of Persia.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0013"> 285.jpg Head of a Persian Archer </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0014"> 287.jpg a Persian </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0015"> 290.jpg a Herd of Wild Goats&mdash;a
+        Bas-relief Of the Time Of Assur-bani-pal </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0016"> 290b Illustrated Manuscript in Heiroglyphics
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0017"> 294.jpg Remains of Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s Wall at
+        Nippur </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0018"> 297.jpg Medic and Persian Foot-soldiers </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0019"> 298.jpg a Medic Horseman </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0020"> 300.jpg the Assyrian Triangle </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0021"> 301.jpg Map of Nineveh </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0022"> 302.jpg Part of the Fosse at Nineveh </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0023"> 308.jpg Scythians Tending Their Wounded </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0024"> 311.jpg Iranian Soldier Fighting Against the
+        Scythians </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0025"> 330. Map of the Eastern World in The Time Of
+        Nebuchadnezzar </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0026"> 335.jpg Three Hoplites in Action </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0027"> 338.jpg Statue of a Theban Queen </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0028"> 347.jpg the Saite Fortress of Daphne </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0029"> 348a.jpg Egyptian Greek </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0030"> 348b.jpg Egyptian Greek </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0031"> 355.jpg Chamber and Sarcophagus of an Apis
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0032"> 356.jpg the Great Gallery of The Serapeum
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkchieck"> 358.jpg Chieck Beled&mdash;Gizeh Museum </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0033"> 359.jpg Memphite Bas-relief of the Saite
+        Epoch </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0034"> 361.jpg the Ruins of Sais </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0035"> 364.jpg Decorations on the Wrappings of a
+        Mummy. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0036"> 378.jpg Victorious Necho </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0037"> 390.jpga View in the Mountains of The
+        Messogis </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0038"> 391.jpg the Site of Priênê. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0039"> 396.jpg the Ruins of Pteria </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0040"> 396b.jpg the Entrance to The Sanctuary of
+        Pteria </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0041"> 398.jpg One of the Processions in The Ravine
+        Of Pteria </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0042"> 404.jpg an Egyptian Vessel of the Saite
+        Period </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0043"> 405.jpg the Ancient Head of The Red Sea, Now
+        The Northern Extremity of the Bitter Lakes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0044"> 417.jpg the Façade of The Great Temple Of
+        Abu-simbel </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0045"> 422.jpg Apries, from a Sphinx in the Louvre
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0046"> 423.jpg Stele of Nebuchadrezzar </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0047"> 427.jpg Prisoners Under Torture Having Their
+        Tongues Torn Out </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0048"> 428.jpg a King Putting out the Eyes of A
+        Prisoner </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0049"> 430b.jpg a People Carried Away Into
+        Captivity </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0050"> 430.jpg Table of the Kings Of Judah </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0051"> 436.jpg Bronze Lion of Bohbait </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0052"> 437.jpg the Small Obelisk in The Piazza
+        Della Minerva At Home </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0053"> 440.jpg the Oasis of Amok and The Spring Of
+        The Sun </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0054"> 440b.jpg Portion of the Ruins Of Cyrene </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0055"> 443.jpg Map of Lybia in the Vith Century
+        B.c. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0056"> 443b.jpg the Silphium </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0057"> 444.jpg Weighing Silphium in Presence of
+        King Arkesilas </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0058"> 456.jpg City Defended by a Triple Wall </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0059"> 457.jpg Probable Section of the Triple Wall
+        Of Babylon </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0060"> 458.jpg Fragment of a Babylonian Bas-relief
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0061"> 459.jpg Ruins of the ZiggurÂt Of The Temple
+        Of Bel </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0062"> 460.jpg the Stone Lion of Babylon </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I&mdash;SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>The struggle of Sennacherib with Judæa and Egypt&mdash;Destruction of
+      Babylon.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father&rsquo;s good fortune, or lacked
+      his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy
+      necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely
+      removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the adaptability of
+      character nor the delicate tact required to manage successfully the
+      heterogeneous elements combined under his sway.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The two principal documents for the reign of Sennacherib
+     are engraved on cylinders: the Taylor Cylinder and the
+     Bellino Cylinder, duplicates of which, more or less perfect,
+     exist in the collections of the British Museum. The Taylor
+     Cylinder, found at Kouyunjik or Usebi-Yunus, contains the
+     history or the first eight years of this reign; the Bellino
+     Cylinder treats of the two first years of the reign.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He lacked the wisdom to conciliate the vanquished, or opportunely to check
+      his own repressive measures; he destroyed towns, massacred entire tribes,
+      and laid whole tracts of country waste, and by failing to repeople these
+      with captive exiles from other nations, or to import colonists in
+      sufficient numbers, he found himself towards the end of his reign ruling
+      over a sparsely inhabited desert where his father had bequeathed to him
+      flourishing provinces and populous cities. His was the system of the first
+      Assyrian conquerors, Shalmaneser III. and Assur-nazir-pal, substituted for
+      that of Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon. The assimilation of the conquered
+      peoples to their conquerors was retarded, tribute was no longer paid
+      regularly, and the loss of revenue under this head was not compensated by
+      the uncertain increase in the spoils obtained by war; the recruiting of
+      the army, rendered more difficult by the depopulation of revolted
+      districts, weighed heavier still on those which remained faithful, and
+      began, as in former times, to exhaust the nation. The news of Sargon&rsquo;s
+      murder, published throughout the Eastern world, had rekindled hope in the
+      countries recently subjugated by Assyria, as well as in those hostile to
+      her. Phoenicia, Egypt, Media, and Elam roused themselves from their
+      lethargy and anxiously awaited the turn which events should take at
+      Nineveh and Babylon. Sennacherib did not consider it to his interest to
+      assume the crown of Chaldæa, and to treat on a footing of absolute
+      equality a country which had been subdued by force of arms: he relegated
+      it to the rank of a vassal state, and while reserving the suzerainty for
+      himself, sent thither one of his brothers to rule as king.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The events which took place at Babylon at the beginning of
+     Sennacherib&rsquo;s reign are known to us from the fragments of
+     Berosus, compared with the Canon of Ptolemy and Pinches&rsquo;
+     Babylonian Canon. The first interregnum in the Canon of
+     Ptolemy (704-702 B.C.) is filled in Pinches&rsquo; Canon by three
+     kings who are said to have reigned as follows: Sennacherib,
+     two years; Marduk-zâkir-shumu, one month; Merodach-baladan,
+     nine months. Berosus substitutes for Sennacherib one of his
+     brothers, whose name apparently he did not know; and this is
+     the version I have adopted, in agreement with most modern
+     historians, as best tallying with the evident lack of
+     affection for Babylon displayed by Sennacherib throughout
+     his reign.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Babylonians were indignant at this slight. Accustomed to see their
+      foreign ruler conform to their national customs, take the hands of Bel,
+      and assume or receive from them a new throne-name, they could not resign
+      themselves to descend to the level of mere tributaries: in less than two
+      years they rebelled, assassinated the king who had been imposed upon them,
+      and proclaimed in his stead Marduk-zâkir-shumu,* who was merely the son of
+      a female slave (704 B.C.).
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The servile origin of this personage is indicated in
+     Pinches&rsquo; Babylonian Canon; he might, however, be connected
+     through his father with a princely, or even a royal, family,
+     and thereby be in a position to win popular support. Among
+     modern Assyriologists, some suppose that the name Akises in
+     Berosus is a corruption of [Marduk-]zâkir[shumu]; others
+     consider Akises-Akishu as being the personal name of the
+     king, and Marduk-zâkir-shumu his throne-name.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This was the signal for a general insurrection in Chaldæa and the eastern
+      part of the empire. Merodach-baladan, who had remained in hiding in the
+      valleys on the Elamite frontier since his defeat in 709 B.C., suddenly
+      issued forth with his adherents, and marched at once to Babylon; the very
+      news of his approach caused a sedition, in the midst of which
+      Marduk-zâkir-shumu perished, after having reigned for only one month.
+      Merodach-baladan re-entered his former capital, and as soon as he was once
+      more seated on the throne, he endeavoured to form alliances with all the
+      princes, both small and great, who might create a diversion in his favour.
+      His envoys obtained promises of help from Elam; other emissaries hastened
+      to Syria to solicit the alliance of Hezekiah, and might have even
+      proceeded to Egypt if their sovereign&rsquo;s good fortune had lasted long
+      enough.* But Sennacherib did not waste his opportunities in
+      lengthy-preparations.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xx. 12-19; Isa. xxxix. The embassy to Hezekiah has
+     been assigned to the first reign of Merodach-baladan, under
+     Sargon. In accordance with the information obtained from the
+     Assyrian monuments, it seems to me that it could only have
+     taken place during his second reign, in 703 B.C.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The magnificent army left by Sargon was at his disposal, and summoning it
+      at once into the field, he advanced on the town of Kîsh, where the Kaldâ
+      monarch was entrenched with his Aramæan forces and the Elamite auxiliaries
+      furnished by Shutruk-nakhunta. The battle issued in the complete rout of
+      the confederate forces. Merodach-baladan fled almost unattended, first to
+      Guzum-manu, and then to the marshes of the Tigris, where he found a
+      temporary refuge; the troops who were despatched in pursuit followed him
+      for five days, and then, having failed to secure the fugitive, gave up the
+      search.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The detail is furnished by the <i>Bellino Cylinder</i>. Berosus
+     affirmed that Merodach-baladan was put to death by Belibni.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His camp fell into the possession of the victor, with all its contents&mdash;chariots,
+      horses, mules, camels, and herds of cattle belonging to the commissariat
+      department of the army: Babylon threw open its gates without resistance,
+      hoping, no doubt, that Sennacherib would at length resolve to imitate the
+      precedent set by his father and retain the royal dignity for himself. He
+      did, indeed, consent to remit the punishment for this first insurrection,
+      and contented himself with pillaging the royal treasury and palace, but he
+      did not deign to assume the crown, conferring it on Belibni, a Babylonian
+      of noble birth, who had been taken, when quite a child, to Nineveh and
+      educated there under the eyes of Sargon.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name is transcribed Belibos in Greek, and it seems as
+     if the Assyrian variants justify the pronunciation Belibush.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While he was thus reorganising the government, his generals were bringing
+      the campaign to a close: they sacked, one after another, eighty-nine
+      strongholds and eight hundred and twenty villages of the Kaldâ; they drove
+      out the Arabian and Aramaean garrisons which Merodach-baladan had placed
+      in the cities of Karduniash, in Urak, Nipur, Kuta, and Kharshag-kalamma,
+      and they re-established Assyrian supremacy over all the tribes on the east
+      of the Tigris up to the frontiers of Elam, the Tumuna, the Ubudu, the
+      Gambulu, and the Khindaru, as also over the Nabataeans and Hagarenes, who
+      wandered over the deserts of Arabia to the west of the mouths of the
+      Euphrates. The booty was enormous: 208,000 prisoners, both male and
+      female, 7200 horses, 11,073 asses, 5230 camels, 80,100 oxen, 800,500
+      sheep, made their way like a gigantic horde of emigrants to Assyria under
+      the escort of the victorious army. Meanwhile the Khirimmu remained
+      defiant, and showed not the slightest intention to submit: their
+      strongholds had to be attacked and the inhabitants annihilated before
+      order could in any way be restored in the country. The second reign of
+      Merodach-baladan had lasted barely nine months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:32%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/011.jpg"
+       alt="011.jpg Clay Seal With Cartouche of Sabaco " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a sketch by Layard.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The blow which ruined Merodach-baladan broke up the coalition which he had
+      tried to form against Assyria. Babylon was the only rallying-point where
+      states so remote, and such entire strangers to each other as Judah and
+      Elam, could enter into friendly relations and arrange a plan of combined
+      action. Having lost Babylon as a centre, they were once more hopelessly
+      isolated, and had no means of concerting measures against the common foe:
+      they renounced all offensive action, and waited under arms to see how the
+      conqueror would deal with each severally. The most threatening storm,
+      however, was not that which was gathering over Palestine, even were Egypt
+      to be drawn into open war: for a revolt of the western provinces, however
+      serious, was never likely to lead to disastrous complications, and the
+      distance from Pelusium to the Tigris was too great for a victory of the
+      Pharaoh to compromise effectually the safety of the empire. On the other
+      hand, should intervention on the part of Elam in the affairs of Babylon or
+      Media be crowned with success, the most disastrous consequences might
+      ensue: it would mean the loss of Karduniash, or of the frontier districts
+      won with such difficulty by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon; it would
+      entail permanent hostilities on the Tigris and the Zab, and perhaps the
+      appearance of barbarian troops under the walls of Calah or of Nineveh.
+      Elam had assisted Merodach-baladan, and its soldiers had fought on the
+      plains of Kish. Months had elapsed since that battle, yet Shutruk-nakhunta
+      showed no disposition to take the initiative: he accepted his defeat at
+      all events for the time, but though he put off the day of reckoning till a
+      more favourable opportunity, it argued neither weakness nor
+      discouragement, and he was ready to give a fierce reception to any
+      Assyrian monarch who should venture within his domain. Sennacherib,
+      knowing both the character and resources of the Elamite king, did not
+      attempt to meet him in the open field, but wreaked his resentment on the
+      frontier tribes who had rebelled at the instigation of the Elamites, on
+      the Cossoans, on Ellipi and its king Ishpabara. He pursued the inhabitants
+      into the narrow valleys and forests of the Khoatras, where his chariots
+      were unable to follow: proceeding with his troops, sometimes on horseback,
+      at other times on foot, he reduced Bît-kilamzak, Khardishpi, and
+      Bît-kubatti to ashes, and annexed the territories of the Cossoans and the
+      Yasubigallâ to the prefecture of Arrapkha. Thence he entered Ellipi, where
+      Ishpabara did not venture to come to close quarters with him in the open
+      field, but led him on from town to town. He destroyed the two royal seats
+      of Marubishti and Akkuddu, and thirty-four of their dependent strongholds;
+      he took possession of Zizirtu, Kummalu, the district of Bitbarru, and the
+      city of Elinzash, to which he gave the name Kar-Sennacherib,&mdash;the
+      fortress of Sennacherib,&mdash;and annexed them to the government of
+      Kharkhar. The distant Medes, disquieted at his advance, sent him presents,
+      and renewed the assurances of devotion they had given to Sargon, but
+      Sennacherib did not push forward into their territory as his predecessors
+      had done: he was content to have maintained his authority as far as his
+      outlying posts, and to have strengthened the Assyrian empire by acquiring
+      some well-situated positions near the main routes which led from the
+      Iranian table-land to the plains of Mesopotamia. Having accomplished this,
+      he at once turned his attention towards the west, where the spirit of
+      rebellion was still active in the countries bordering on the African
+      frontier. Sabaco, now undisputed master of Egypt, was not content, like
+      Piônkhi, to bring Egypt proper into a position of dependence, and govern
+      it at a distance, by means of his generals. He took up his residence
+      within it, at least during part of every year, and played the rôle of
+      Pharaoh so well that his Egyptian subjects, both at Thebes and in the
+      Delta, were obliged to acknowledge his sovereignty and recognise him as
+      the founder of a new dynasty. He kept a close watch over the vassal
+      princes, placing garrisons in Memphis and the other principal citadels,
+      and throughout the country he took in hand public works which had been
+      almost completely interrupted for more than a century owing to the civil
+      wars: the highways were repaired, the canals cleaned out and enlarged, and
+      the foundations of the towns raised above the level of the inundation.
+      Bubastis especially profited under his rule, and regained the ascendency
+      it had lost ever since the accession of the second Tanite dynasty; but
+      this partiality was not to the detriment of other cities. Several of the
+      temples at Memphis were restored, and the inscriptions effaced by time
+      were re-engraved. Thebes, happy under the government of Amenertas and her
+      husband Piônkhi, profited largely by the liberality of its Ethiopian
+      rulers. At Luxor Sabaco restored the decoration of the principal gateway
+      between the two pylons, and repaired several portions of the temple of
+      Amon at Karnak. History subsequently related that, in order to obtain
+      sufficient workmen, he substituted forced labour for the penalty of death:
+      a policy which, beside being profitable, would win for him a reputation
+      for clemency. Egypt, at length reduced to peace and order, began once more
+      to flourish, and to display that inherent vitality of which she had so
+      often given proof, and her reviving prosperity attracted as of old the
+      attention of foreign powers. At the beginning of his reign, Sabaco had
+      attempted to meddle in the intrigues of Syria, but the ease with which
+      Sargon had quelled the revolt of Ashdod had inspired the Egyptian monarch
+      with salutary distrust in his own power; he had sent presents to the
+      conqueror and received gifts in exchange, which furnished him with a
+      pretext for enrolling the Asiatic peoples among the tributary nations
+      whose names he inscribed on his triumphal lists.* Since then he had had
+      some diplomatic correspondence with his powerful neighbour, and a document
+      bearing his name was laid up in the archives at Calah, where the clay seal
+      once attached to it has been discovered. Peace had lasted for a dozen
+      years, when he died about 703 B.C., and his son Shabîtoku ascended the
+      throne.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It was probably with reference to this exchange of
+     presents that Sabaco caused the bas-relief at Karnak to be
+     engraved, in which he represents himself as victorious over
+     both Asiatics and Africans.
+
+     ** One version of Manetho assigns twelve years to the reign
+     of Sabaco, and this duration is confirmed by an inscription
+     in Hammamât, dated in his twelfth year. Sabaco having
+     succeeded to the throne in 716-715 B.C., his reign brings us
+     down to 704 or 703 B.C., which obliges us to place the
+     accession of Shabî-toku in the year following the death of
+     Sargon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The temporary embarrassments in which the Babylonian revolution had
+      plunged Sennacherib must have offered a tempting opportunity for
+      interference to this inexperienced king. Tyre and Judah alone of all the
+      Syrian states retained a sufficiently independent spirit to cherish any
+      hope of deliverance from the foreign yoke. Tyre still maintained her
+      supremacy over Southern Phoenicia, and her rulers were also kings of
+      Sidon.* The long reign of Eth-baal and his alliance with the kings of
+      Israel had gradually repaired the losses occasioned by civil discord, and
+      had restored Tyre to the high degree of prosperity which it had enjoyed
+      under Hiram. Few actual facts are known which can enlighten us as to the
+      activity which prevailed under Eth-baal: we know, however, that he rebuilt
+      the small town of Botrys, which had been destroyed in the course of some
+      civil war, and that he founded the city of Auza in Libyan territory, at
+      the foot of the mountains of Aures, in one of the richest mineral
+      districts of modern Algeria.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Eth-baal II., who, according to the testimony of the
+     native historians, belonged to the royal family of Tyre, is
+     called King of the Sidonians in the Bible (1 Kings xvi. 31),
+     and the Assyrian texts similarly call Elulai King of the
+     Sidonians, while Menander mentions him as King of Tyre. It
+     is probable that the King of Sidon, mentioned in the Annals
+     of Shal-maneser III. side by side with the King of Tyre, was
+     a vassal of the Tyrian monarch.
+
+     ** The two facts are preserved in a passage of Menander. I
+     admit the identity of the Auza mentioned in this fragment
+     with the Auzea of Tacitus, and with the <i>Colonia Septimia
+     Aur. Auziensium</i> of the Roman inscriptions the present
+     Aumale.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In 876 B.C. Assur-nazir-pal had crossed the Lebanon and skirted the shores
+      of the Mediterranean: Eth-baal, naturally compliant, had loaded him with
+      gifts, and by this opportune submission had preserved his cities and
+      country from the horrors of invasion.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The King of Tyre who sent gifts to Assur-nazir-pal is not
+     named in the Assyrian documents: our knowledge of Tyrian
+     chronology permits us with all probability to identify him
+     with Eth-baal.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Twenty years later Shalmaneser III. had returned to Syria, and had come
+      into conflict with Damascus. The northern Phoenicians formed a league with
+      Ben-hadad (Adadidri) to withstand him, and drew upon themselves the
+      penalty of their rashness; the Tynans, faithful to their usual policy,
+      preferred to submit voluntarily and purchase peace. Their conduct showed
+      the greater wisdom in that, after the death of Eth-baal, internal troubles
+      again broke out with renewed fierceness and with even more disastrous
+      results. His immediate successor was Balezor (854-846 B.C.), followed by
+      Mutton I. (845-821 B.C.), who flung himself at the feet of Shalmaneser
+      III., in 842 B.c., in the camp at Baalirasi, and renewed his homage three
+      years later, in 839 B.C. The legends concerning the foundation of Carthage
+      blend with our slight knowledge of his history. They attribute to Mutton
+      I. a daughter named Elissa, who was married to her uncle Sicharbal, high
+      priest of Melkarth, and a young son named Pygmalion (820-774 B.c.).
+      Sicharbal had been nominated by Mutton as regent during the minority of
+      Pygmalion, but he was overthrown by the people, and some years later
+      murdered by his ward. From that time forward Elissa&rsquo;s one aim was to
+      avenge the murder of her husband. She formed a conspiracy which was joined
+      by all the nobles, but being betrayed and threatened with death, she
+      seized a fleet which lay ready to sail in the harbour, and embarking with
+      all her adherents set sail for Africa, landing in the district of
+      Zeugitanê, where the Sidonians had already built Kambê. There she
+      purchased a tract of land from larbas, chief of the Liby-phoenicians, and
+      built on the ruins of the ancient factory a new town, Qart-hadshat, which
+      the Greeks called Carchedo and the Romans Carthage. The genius of Virgil
+      has rendered the name of Dido illustrious: but history fails to recognise
+      in the narratives which form the basis of his tale anything beyond a
+      legendary account fabricated after the actual origin (814-813 B.C.) of the
+      great Punic city had been forgotten. Thus weakened, Tyre could less than
+      ever think of opposing the ambitious designs of Assyria: Pygmalion took no
+      part in the rebellions of the petty Syrian kings against Samsî-rammân, and
+      in 803 B.C. he received his suzerain Rammân-nirâri with the accustomed
+      gifts, when that king passed through Phoenicia before attacking Damascus.
+      Pygmalion died about 774 B.C., and the names of his immediate successors
+      are not known;* it may be supposed, however, that when the power of
+      Nineveh temporarily declined, the ties which held Tyre to Assyria became
+      naturally relaxed, and the city released herself from the burden of a
+      tribute which had in the past been very irregularly paid.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The fragment of Menander &lsquo;which has preserved for us the
+     list of Tyrian kings from Abî-baal to Pygmalion, was only
+     quoted by Josephus, because, the seventh year of Pygmalion&rsquo;s
+     reign corresponding to the date of the foundation of
+     Carthage,&mdash;814&mdash;813 B.C. according to the chronological
+     system of Timssus,&mdash;the Hebrew historian found in it a fixed
+     date which seemed to permit of his establishing the
+     chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah on a trustworthy
+     basis between the reign of Pygmalion and Hiram I., the
+     contemporary of David and Solomon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The yoke was reassumed half a century later, at the mere echo of the first
+      victories of Tiglath-pileser III.; and Hiram II., who then reigned in
+      Tyre, hastened to carry to the camp at Arpad assurances of his fidelity
+      (742 B.C.). He gave pledges of his allegiance once more in 738 B.C.; then
+      he disappears, and Mutton II. takes his place about 736 B.C. This king
+      cast off, unhappily for himself, his hereditary apathy, and as soon as a
+      pretext offered itself, abandoned the policy of neutrality to which his
+      ancestors had adhered so firmly. He entered into an alliance in 734 B.C.
+      with Damascus, Israel and Philistia, secretly supported and probably
+      instigated by Egypt; then, when Israel was conquered and Damascus
+      overthrown, he delayed repairing his error till an Assyrian army appeared
+      before Tyre: he had then to pay the price of his temerity by 120 talents
+      of gold and many loads of merchandise (728 B.C.). The punishment was light
+      and the loss inconsiderable in comparison with the accumulated wealth of
+      the city, which its maritime trade was daily increasing:* Mutton thought
+      the episode was closed,** but the peaceful policy of his house, having
+      been twice interrupted, could not be resumed.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *[For a description of the trade carried on by Tyre, cf.
+     Ezelc. xxvi., xxvii., and xxviii.&mdash;-Tr.]
+
+     ** Pygmalion having died about 774 B.C., and Hiram II. not
+     appearing till 742 B.C., it is probable that we should
+     intercalate between these two Kings at least one sovereign
+     whose name is still unknown.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/018.jpg"
+       alt="018.jpg Map of Kingdom Of Tyre, the Campaign Of Sennacherib " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Southern Phoenicia, having once launched on the stream of Asiatic
+      politics, followed its fluctuations, and was compelled henceforth to
+      employ in her own defence the forces which had hitherto been utilised in
+      promoting her colonial enterprises. But it was not due to the foolish
+      caprice of ignorant or rash sovereigns that Tyre renounced her former
+      neutral policy: she was constrained to do so, almost perforce, by the
+      changes which had taken place in Europe. The progress of the Greeks, and
+      their triumph in the waters of the Ægean and Ionian Seas, and the rapid
+      expansion of the Etruscan navy after the end of the ninth century, had
+      gradually restricted the Phoenician merchantmen to the coasts of the
+      Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic: they industriously exploited the
+      mineral wealth of Africa and Spain, and traffic with the barbarous tribes
+      of Morocco and Lusitania, as well as the discovery and working of the
+      British tin mines, had largely compensated for the losses occasioned by
+      the closing of the Greek and Italian markets. Their ships, obliged now to
+      coast along the inhospitable cliffs of Northern Africa and to face the
+      open sea, were more strongly and scientifically built than any vessels
+      hitherto constructed. The Egyptian undecked galleys, with stem and stern
+      curving inwards, were discarded as a build ill adapted to resist the
+      attacks of wind or wave. The new Phoenician galley had a long, low,
+      narrow, well-balanced hull, the stern raised and curving inwards above the
+      steersman, as heretofore, but the bows pointed and furnished with a sharp
+      ram projecting from the keel, equally serviceable to cleave the waves or
+      to stave in the side of an enemy&rsquo;s ship. Motive power was supplied by two
+      banks of oars, the upper ones resting in rowlocks on the gunwale, the
+      lower ones in rowlocks pierced in the timbers of the vessel&rsquo;s side. An
+      upper deck, supported by stout posts, ran from stem to stern, above the
+      heads of the rowers, and was reserved for the soldiers and the rest of the
+      crew: on a light railing surrounding it were hung the circular shields of
+      the former, forming as it were a rampart on either side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/017.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="017.jpg a Phoenician Galley With Two Banks of Oars " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard. Sennacherib affirms
+     that vessels of this type had been constructed by Syrian
+     shipwrights, and were manned by Tyrian, Sidonian, and Ionian
+     sailors.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The mast, passing through both decks, was firmly fixed in the keel, and
+      was supported by two stays made fast to stem and stern. The rectangular
+      sail was attached to a yard which could be hoisted or lowered at will. The
+      wealth which accrued to the Tyrians from their naval expeditions had
+      rendered the superiority of Tyre over the neighbouring cities so manifest
+      that they had nearly all become her vassals. Arvad and Northern Phoenicia
+      were still independent, as also the sacred city of Bylos, but the entire
+      coast from the Nahr-el-Kelb to the headland formed by Mount Carmel was
+      directly subject to Tyre,* comprising the two Sidons, Bît-zîti, and
+      Sarepta, the country from Mahalliba to the fords of the Litâny, Ushu and
+      its hinterland as far as Kana, Akzîb, Akko, and Dora; and this compact
+      territory, partly protected by the range of Lebanon, and secured by the
+      habitual prudence of its rulers from the invasions which had desolated
+      Syria, formed the most flourishing, and perhaps also the most populous,
+      kingdom which still existed between the Euphrates and the Egyptian
+      desert.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The kings of Arvad and Byblos are still found mentioned at
+     the beginning of Sennacherib&rsquo;s reign.
+
+     ** The extent of the kingdom of Tyro is indicated by the
+     passage in which Sennacherib enumerated the cities which he
+     had taken from Elulai. To these must be added Dor, to the
+     south of Carmel, which was always regarded as belonging to
+     the Tyrians, and whose isolated position between the
+     headland, the sea, and the forest might cause the Assyrians
+     to leave it unmolested.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Besides these, some parts of Cyprus were dependent on Tyre, though the
+      Achaean colonies, continually reinforced by fresh immigrants, had absorbed
+      most of the native population and driven the rest into the mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hybrid civilisation had developed among these early Greek settlers,
+      amalgamating the customs, religions, and arts of the ancient eastern world
+      of Egypt, Syria, and Chaldoa in variable proportions: their script was
+      probably derived from one of the Asianic systems whose monuments are still
+      but partly known, and it consisted of a syllabary awkwardly adapted to a
+      language for which it had not been designed. A dozen petty kings, of whom
+      the majority were Greeks, disputed possession of the northern and eastern
+      parts of the island, at Idalion, Khytros, Paphos, Soli, Kourion, Tamassos,
+      and Ledron. The Phoenicians had given way at first before the invaders,
+      and had grouped themselves in the eastern plain round Kition; they had,
+      however, subsequently assumed the offensive, and endeavoured to regain the
+      territory they had lost. Kition, which had been destroyed in one of their
+      wars, had been rebuilt, and thus obtained the name of Qart-hadshat, &ldquo;the
+      new city.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name of this city, at first read as Amtikhadashti, and
+     identified with Ammokhostos or with Amathous,&mdash;<i>Amti-
+     Khadash</i> would in this case be equivalent to <i>New
+     Amathous</i>,&mdash;is really Karti-Khadashti, as is proved by the
+     variant reading discovered by Schrader, and this is
+     identical with the native name of Carthage in Africa. This
+     new city must have been of some antiquity by the time of
+     Elulai, for it is mentioned on a fragment of a bronze vase
+     found in Cyprus itself: this fragment belonged to a King
+     Hiram, who according to some authorities would be Hiram II.,
+     according to others, Hiram I.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mutton&rsquo;s successor, Elulai, continued, as we know, the work of defence and
+      conquest: perhaps it was with a view to checking his advance that seven
+      kings of Cyprus sent an embassy, in 709 B.C., to his suzerain, Sargon, and
+      placed themselves under the protection of Assyria. If this was actually
+      the case, and Elulai was compelled to suspend hostilities against these
+      hereditary foes, one can understand that this grievance, added to the
+      reasons for uneasiness inspired by the situation of his continental
+      dominions, may have given him the desire to rid himself of the yoke of
+      Assyria, and contributed to his resolution to ally himself with the powers
+      which were taking up arms against her. The constant intercourse of his
+      subjects with the Delta, and his natural anxiety to avoid anything which
+      might close one of the richest markets of the world to the Tyrian trade,
+      inclined him to receive favourably the overtures of the Pharaoh: the
+      emissaries of Shabîtoku found him as much disposed as Hezekiah himself to
+      begin the struggle. The latter monarch, who had ascended the throne while
+      still very young, had at first shown no ambition beyond the carrying out
+      of religious reforms. His father Ahaz had been far from orthodox, in spite
+      of the influence exerted over him by Isaiah. During his visit to
+      Tiglath-pileser at Damascus (729 B.C.) he had noticed an altar whose
+      design pleased him. He sent a description of it to the high priest Urijah,
+      with orders to have a similar one constructed, and erected in the court of
+      the temple at Jerusalem: this altar he appropriated to his personal use,
+      and caused the priests to minister at it, instead of at the old altar,
+      which he relegated to an inferior position. He also effected changes in
+      the temple furniture, which doubtless appeared to him old-fashioned in
+      comparison with the splendours of the Assyrian worship which he had
+      witnessed, and he made some alterations in the approaches to the temple,
+      wishing, as far as we can judge, that the King of Judah should henceforth,
+      like his brother of Nineveh, have a private, means of access to his
+      national god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was but the least of his offences: for had he not offered his own son
+      as a holocaust at the moment he felt himself most menaced by the league of
+      Israel and Damascus? Among the people themselves there were many
+      faint-hearted and faithless, who, doubting the power of the God of their
+      forefathers, turned aside to the gods of the neighbouring nations, and
+      besought from them the succour they despaired of receiving from any other
+      source; the worship of Jahveh was confounded with that of Moloch in the
+      valley of the children of Hinnom, where there was a sanctuary or Tophet,
+      at which the people celebrated the most horrible rites: a large and fierce
+      pyre was kept continually burning there, to consume the children whose
+      fathers brought them to offer in sacrifice.* Isaiah complains bitterly of
+      these unbelievers who profaned the land with their idols, &ldquo;worshipping the
+      work of their own hands, that which their own fingers had made.&rdquo; ** The new
+      king, obedient to the divine command, renounced the errors of his father;
+      he removed the fetishes with which the superstition of his predecessors
+      had cumbered the temple, and which they had connected with the worship of
+      Jahveh, and in his zeal even destroyed the ancient brazen serpent, the
+      Nehushtan, the origin of which was attributed to Moses.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Isa. xxx. 33, where the prophet describes the Tophet
+     Jahveh&rsquo;s anger is preparing for Assyria.
+
+     ** Isa. ii. 8.
+
+     *** 2 Kings xviii. 4. I leave the account of this religious
+     reformation in the place assigned to it in the Bible; other
+     historians relegate it to a time subsequent to the invasion
+     of Sennacherib.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the occasion of the revolt of Yamani, Isaiah counselled Hezekiah to
+      remain neutral, and this prudence enabled him to look on in security at
+      the ruin of the Philistines, the hereditary foes of his race. Under his
+      wise administration the kingdom of Judah, secured against annoyance from
+      envious neighbours by the protection which Assur freely afforded to its
+      obedient vassals, and revived by thirty years of peace, rose rapidly from
+      the rank of secondary importance which it had formerly been content to
+      occupy. &ldquo;Their land was full of silver and gold, neither was there any end
+      of their treasures; their land also was full of horses, neither was there
+      any end of their chariots.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Isa. ii. 7, where the description applies better to the
+     later years of Ahaz or the reign, of Hezekiah than to the
+     years preceding the war against Pekah and Rezin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Now that the kingdom of Israel had been reduced to the condition of an
+      Assyrian province, it was on Judah and its capital that the hopes of the
+      whole Hebrew nation were centred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tyre and Jerusalem had hitherto formed the extreme outwork of the Syrian
+      states; they were the only remaining barrier which separated the empires
+      of Egypt and Assyria, and it was to the interest of the Pharaoh to
+      purchase their alliance and increase their strength by every means in his
+      power. Negotiations must have been going on for some time between the
+      three powers, but up to the time of the death of Sargon and the return of
+      Merodach-baladan to Babylon their results had been unimportant, and it was
+      possible that the disasters which had befallen the Kaldâ would tend to
+      cool the ardour of the allies. An unforeseen circumstance opportunely
+      rekindled their zeal, and determined them to try their fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/023.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="023.jpg Map of the Campaign Of Sennacherib in Judea " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The inhabitants of Ekron, dissatisfied with Padî, the chief whom the
+      Assyrians had set over them, seized his person and sent him in chains to
+      Hezekiah.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name of the city, written Amgarruna, is really
+     Akkaron-Ekron.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      To accept the present was equivalent to open rebellion, and a declaration
+      of war against the power of the suzerain. Isaiah, as usual, wished Judah
+      to rely on Jahveh alone, and preached against alliance with the
+      Babylonians, for he foresaw that success would merely result in
+      substituting the Kaldâ for the Ninevite monarch, and in aggravating the
+      condition of Judah. &ldquo;All that is in thine house,&rdquo; he said to Hezekiah,
+      &ldquo;and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be
+      carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons
+      that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away;
+      and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon.&rdquo; Hezekiah
+      did not pay much heed to the prediction, for, he reflected, &ldquo;peace and
+      truth shall be in my days,&rdquo; and the future troubled him little.* When the
+      overthrow of Merodach-baladan had taken place, the prophet still more
+      earnestly urged the people not to incur the vengeance of Assyria without
+      other help than that of Tyre or Ethiopia, and Eliakim, son of Hilkiah,
+      spoke in the same strain; but Shebna, the prefect of the palace, declaimed
+      against this advice, and the latter&rsquo;s counsel prevailed with his master.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xx. 16-19.
+
+     ** This follows from the terms in which the prophet compares
+     the two men (Isa. xxii. 15-25).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hezekiah agreed to accept the sovereignty over Ekron which its inhabitants
+      offered to him, but a remnant of prudence kept him from putting Padî to
+      death, and he contented himself with casting him into prison. Isaiah,
+      though temporarily out of favour with the king, ceased not to proclaim
+      aloud in all quarters the will of the Almighty. &ldquo;Woe to the rebellious
+      children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of Me; and that cover
+      with a covering (form alliances), but not of My spirit, that they may add
+      sin to sin: that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at My
+      mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust
+      in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your
+      shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. When your
+      princes shall be at Tanis, and your messengers shall come to
+      Heracleopolis,* [Heb. Hanes.&mdash;Tr.] you shall all be ashamed of a
+      people that cannot profit you.... For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no
+      purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth still.&rdquo; * He
+      returned, unwearied and with varying imagery, to his theme, contrasting
+      the uncertainty and frailty of the expedients of worldly wisdom urged by
+      the military party, with the steadfast will of Jahveh and the irresistible
+      authority with which He invests His faithful servants. &ldquo;The Egyptians are
+      men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit; and when the
+      Lord shall stretch out His hand, both he that helpeth shall stumble, and
+      he that is holpen shall fall, and they shall all fail together. For thus
+      saith the Lord unto me, Like as when the lion growleth, and the young lion
+      over his prey, if a multitude of shepherds be called forth against him, he
+      will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of
+      them: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon Mount Zion, and
+      upon the hill thereof. As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect
+      Jerusalem: He will protect and deliver it. Turn ye unto Him from whom ye
+      have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.&rdquo; **
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Isa. xxx. 1-5, 7. In verses 4, 5, the original text
+     employs the third person; I have restored the second person,
+     to avoid confusion.
+
+     ** Isa. xxxi. 3-6.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      No one, however, gave heed to his warnings, either king or people; but the
+      example of Phoenicia soon proved that he was right. When Sennacherib
+      bestirred himself, in the spring of 702 B.C., either the Ethiopians were
+      not ready, or they dared not advance to encounter him in Coele-Syria, and
+      they left Elulai to get out of his difficulties as best he might. He had
+      no army to risk in a pitched battle; but fondly imagined that his cities,
+      long since fortified, and protected on the east by the range of Lebanon,
+      would offer a resistance sufficiently stubborn to wear out the patience of
+      his assailant. The Assyrians, however, disconcerted his plans. Instead of
+      advancing against him by the pass of Nahr-el-Kebir, according to their
+      usual custom, they attacked him in flank, descending into the very midst
+      of his positions by the <i>col</i> of Legnia or one of the neighbouring
+      passes.* They captured in succession the two Sidons, Bît-zîti, Sarepta,
+      Mahalliba, Ushu, Akzîb, and Acco: Elulai, reduced to the possession of the
+      island of Tyre alone, retreated to one of his colonies in Cyprus, where he
+      died some years later, without having set foot again on the continent. All
+      his former possessions on the mainland were given to a certain Eth-baal,
+      who chose Sidon for his seat of government, and Tyre lost by this one
+      skirmish the rank of metropolis which she had enjoyed for centuries.**
+      This summary punishment decided all the Syrian princes who were not
+      compromised beyond hope of pardon to humble themselves before the
+      suzerain. Menahem of Samsi-muruna,***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This follows from the very order in which the cities were
+     taken in the course of this campaign.
+
+     ** The Assyrian text gives for the name of the King of Sidon
+     a shortened form Tu-baal instead of Eth-baal, paralleled by
+     Lulia for Elulai.
+
+     *** Several of the early Assyriologists read Usi-muruna, and
+     identified the city bearing this name with Samaria. The
+     discovery of the reading Samsi-muruna on a fragment of the
+     time of Assur-bani-pal no longer permits of this
+     identification, and obliges us to look for the city in
+     Phoenicia.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Abdiliti of Arvad, Uru-malîk of Byblos, Puduîlu of Amnion, Chemosh-nadab
+      of Moab, Malîk-rammu of Edom, Mitinti of Ashdod, all brought their tribute
+      in person to the Assyrian camp before Ushu: Zedekiah of Ashkelon and
+      Hezekiah of Judah alone persisted in their hostility. Egypt had at length
+      been moved by the misfortunes of her allies, and the Ethiopian troops had
+      advanced to the seat of war, but they did not arrive in time to save
+      Zedekiah: Sennacherib razed to the ground all his strongholds one after
+      another, Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and Hazor,* took him prisoner at
+      Ascalon, and sent him with his family to Assyria, setting up Sharludarî,
+      son of Bukibti, in his stead. Sennacherib then turned against Ekron, and
+      was about to begin the siege of the city, when the long-expected Egyptians
+      at length made their appearance. Shabîtoku did not command them in person,
+      but he had sent his best troops&mdash;the contingents furnished by the
+      petty kings of the Delta, and the sheikhs of the Sinaitic peninsula, who
+      were vassals of Egypt. The encounter took place near Altaku,** and on this
+      occasion again, as at Raphia, the scientific tactics of the Assyrians
+      prevailed over the stereotyped organisation of Pharaoh&rsquo;s army: the
+      Ethiopian generals left some of their chariots in the hands of the
+      conqueror, and retreated with the remnants of their force beyond the
+      Isthmus.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * These are the cities attributed to the tribes of Dan and
+     Judah in Josh. xv. 25, 41; xix. 45. Beth-dagon is now Bêt-
+     Dejân; Azuru is Yazûr, to the south-east of Joppa; Beni-
+     barak is Ibn-Abrak, to the north-east of the same town.
+
+     ** Altaku is certainly Eltekeh of Dan (Josh. xix. 44), as
+     was seen from the outset; the site, however, of Eltekeh
+     cannot be fixed with any certainty. It has been located at
+     Bêt-Lukkieh, in the mountainous country north-west of
+     Jerusalem, but this position in no way corresponds to the
+     requirements of the Assyrian text, according to which the
+     battle took place on a plain large enough for the evolutions
+     of the Egyptian chariots, and situated between the group of
+     towns formed by Beth-dagon, Joppa, Beni-barak, and Hazor,
+     which Sennacherib had just captured, and the cities of
+     Ekrbn, Timnath, and Eltekeh, which he took directly after
+     his victory: a suitable locality must be looked for in the
+     vicinity of Ramleh or Zernuka.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Altaku capitulated, an example followed by the neighbouring fortress of
+      Timnath, and subsequently by Ekron itself, all three being made to feel
+      Sennacherib&rsquo;s vengeance. &ldquo;The nobles and chiefs who had offended, I slew,&rdquo;
+       he remarks, &ldquo;and set up their corpses on stakes in a circle round the
+      city; those of the inhabitants who had offended and committed crimes, I
+      took them prisoners, and for the rest who had neither offended nor
+      transgressed, I pardoned them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/028b.jpg"
+       alt="028b.jpg Esneh--principal Abyssinian Trading Village" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/028b-text.jpg" alt="028b-text" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      We may here pause to inquire how Hezekiah was occupied while his fate was
+      being decided on the field of Altaku. He was fortifying Jerusalem, and
+      storing within it munitions of War, and enrolling Jewish soldiers and
+      mercenary troops from the Arab tribes of the desert. He had suddenly
+      become aware that large portions of the wall of the city of David had
+      crumbled away, and he set about demolishing the neighbouring houses to
+      obtain materials for repairing these breaches: he hastily strengthened the
+      weak points in his fortifications, stopped up the springs which flowed
+      into the Gibon, and cut off the brook itself, constructing a reservoir
+      between the inner and outer city walls to store up the waters of the
+      ancient pool. These alterations* rendered the city, which from its natural
+      position was well defended, so impregnable that Sennacherib decided not to
+      attack it until the rest of the kingdom had been subjugated: with this
+      object in view he pitched his camp before Lachish, whence he could keep a
+      watch over the main routes from Egypt where they crossed the frontier, and
+      then scattered his forces over the land of Judah, delivering it up to
+      pillage in a systematic manner. He took forty-six walled towns, and
+      numberless strongholds and villages, demolishing the walls and leading
+      into captivity 200,150 persons of all ages and conditions, together with
+      their household goods, their horses, asses, mules, camels, oxen, and
+      sheep;** it was a war as disastrous in its effects as that which
+      terminated in the fall of Samaria, or which led to the final captivity in
+      Babylon.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Isa. xxii. 8-11.
+
+     * An allusion to the sojourn of Sennacherib near Lachish is
+     found in 2 Kings xviii. 14-17; xix. 8, and in Isa. xxxvi. 2;
+     xxxvii. 8
+
+     *** It seems that the Jewish historian Demetrios considered
+     the captivities under Nebuchadrezzar and Sennacherib to be
+     on the same footing.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The work of destruction accomplished, the Rabshakeh brought up all his
+      forces and threw up a complete circle of earthworks round Jerusalem:
+      Hezekiah found himself shut up in his capital &ldquo;like a bird in a cage.&rdquo; The
+      inhabitants soon became accustomed to this isolated life, but Isaiah was
+      indignant at seeing them indifferent to their calamities, and inveighed
+      against them with angry eloquence: &ldquo;What aileth thee now, that thou art
+      wholly gone up to the housetops? O thou that art full of shoutings, a
+      tumultuous city, a joyous town; thy slain are not slain with the sword,
+      neither are they dead in battle. All thy rulers fled away together, they
+      are made prisoners without drawing the bow; they are come hither from afar
+      for safety, and all that meet together here shall be taken together.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * [The R.V. gives this passage as follows: &ldquo;They were bound
+     by the archers: all that were found of thee were bound
+     together, they fled afar off.&rdquo;&mdash;TR.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The danger was urgent; the Assyrians were massed in their entrenchments
+      with their auxiliaries ranged behind them to support them: &ldquo;Elam bare the
+      quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield
+      (for the assault). And it came to pass that thy choicest valleys were full
+      of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at thy gate, and he
+      took away the covering of Judah.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/030.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="030.jpg Sennacherib Receiving the Submissions of The Jews " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      In those days, therefore, Jahveh, without pity for His people, called them
+      to &ldquo;weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with
+      sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep,
+      eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+      shall die. And the Lord of hosts revealed Himself in mine ears, Surely
+      this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord,
+      the Lord of Hosts.&rdquo; * The prophet threw the blame on the courtiers
+      especially Shebna, who still hoped for succour from the Egyptians, and
+      kept up the king&rsquo;s illusions on this point. He threatened him with the
+      divine anger; he depicted him as seized by Jahveh, rolled and kneaded into
+      a lump, &ldquo;and tossed like a ball into a large country: there shalt thou
+      die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of thy
+      lord&rsquo;s house. And I will thrust thee from thy office, and from thy station
+      he shall pull thee down!&rdquo;** Meanwhile, day after day elapsed, and Pharaoh
+      did not hasten to the rescue. Hezekiah&rsquo;s eyes were opened; he dismissed
+      Shebna, and degraded him to the position of scribe, and set Eliakim in his
+      place in the Council of State.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Isa. xxii. 1-14.
+
+     ** Isa. xxii. 15-19.
+
+     ***In the duplicate narrative of these negotiations with the
+     Assyrian generals, Shebna is in fact considered as a mere
+     scribe, while Eliakim is the prefect of the king&rsquo;s house (2
+     Kings xviii. 18, 37; xix. 2: Isa. xxxvi. 3, 22; xxxvii. 2).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Isaiah&rsquo;s influence revived, and he persuaded the king to sue for peace
+      while yet there was time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sennacherib was encamped at Lachish; but the Tartan and his two
+      lieutenants received the overtures of peace, and proposed a parley near
+      the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller&rsquo;s field.
+      Hezekiah did not venture to go in person to the meeting-place; he sent
+      Eliakirn, the new prefect of the palace, Shebna, and the chancellor Joah,
+      the chief cupbearer, and tradition relates that the Assyrian addressed
+      them in severe terms in his master&rsquo;s name: &ldquo;Now on whom dost thou trust,
+      that thou rebellest against me? Behold, thou trustest upon the staff of
+      this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into
+      his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to all that trust on
+      him.&rdquo; Then, as he continued to declaim in a loud voice, so that the crowds
+      gathered on the wall could hear him, the delegates besought him to speak
+      in Aramaic, which they understood, but &ldquo;speak not to us in the Jews&rsquo;
+      language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall!&rdquo; Instead,
+      however, of granting their request, the Assyrian general advanced towards
+      the spectators and addressed them in Hebrew: &ldquo;Hear ye the words of the
+      great king, the King of Assyria. Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he
+      shall not be able to deliver you: neither let Hezekiah make you trust in
+      the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us: this city shall not be
+      given into the hand of the King of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for
+      thus saith the King of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to
+      me; and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and
+      drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; until I come and take
+      you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of
+      bread and vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord
+      will deliver us!&rdquo; The specified conditions were less hard than might have
+      been feared.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Hebrew version of these events is recorded in 2 Kings
+     xviii. 13-37; xix., and in Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii., with only
+     one important divergence, namely, the absence from Isaiah of
+     verses 14-16 of 2 Kings xviii. This particular passage, in
+     which the name of the king has a peculiar form, is a
+     detached fragment of an older document, perhaps the official
+     annals of the kingdom, whose contents agreed with the facts
+     recorded in the Assyrian text. The rest is borrowed from the
+     cycle of prophetic narratives, and contains two different
+     versions of the same events. The first comprises 2 Kings
+     xviii. 13, 17-37; xix. l-9a, 36&amp;-37, where Sennacherib is
+     represented as despatching a verbal message to Hezekiah by
+     the Tartan and his captains. The second consists merely of 2
+     Kings xix. 96-36a, and in this has been inserted a long
+     prophecy of Isaiah&rsquo;s (xix. 21-31) which has but a vague
+     connection with the rest of the narrative. In this
+     Sennacherib defied Hezekiah in a letter, which the Jewish
+     king spread before the Lord, and shortly afterwards received
+     a reply through the prophet. The two versions were combined
+     towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth
+     century, by the compiler of the <i>Book of Kings</i>, and passed
+     thence into the collection of the prophecies attributed to
+     Isaiah.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Jewish king was to give up his wives and daughters as hostages, to
+      pledge himself to pay a regular tribute, and disburse immediately a ransom
+      of thirty talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver: he could
+      only make up this large sum by emptying the royal and sacred treasuries,
+      and taking down the plates of gold with which merely a short while before
+      he had adorned the doors and lintels of the temple. Padî was released from
+      his long captivity, reseated on his throne, and received several Jewish
+      towns as an indemnity: other portions of territory were bestowed upon
+      Mitinti of Ashdod and Zillibel of Graza as a reward for their loyalty.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The sequence of events is not very well observed in the
+     Assyrian text, and the liberation of Padî is inserted in 11.
+     8-11, before the account of the war with Hezekiah. It seems
+     very unlikely that the King of Judah would have released his
+     prisoner before his treaty with Sennacherib; the Assyrian
+     scribe, wishing to bring together all the facts relating to
+     Ekron, anticipated this event. Hebrew tradition fixed the
+     ransom at the lowest figure, 300 talents of silver instead
+     of the 800 given in the Assyrian document (2 Kings xviii.
+     14), and authorities have tried to reconcile this divergence
+     by speculating on the different values represented by a
+     talent in different countries and epochs.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hezekiah issued from the struggle with his territory curtailed and his
+      kingdom devastated; the last obstacle which stood in the way of the
+      Assyrians&rsquo; victorious advance fell with him, and Sennacherib could now
+      push forward with perfect safety towards the Nile. He had, indeed, already
+      planned an attack on Egypt, and had reached the isthmus, when a mysterious
+      accident arrested his further progress. The conflict on the plains of
+      Altaku had been severe; and the army, already seriously diminished by its
+      victory, had been still further weakened during the campaign in Judæa, and
+      possibly the excesses indulged in by the soldiery had developed in them
+      the germs of one of those terrible epidemics which had devastated Western
+      Asia several times in the course of the century: whatever may have been
+      the cause, half the army was destroyed by pestilence before it reached the
+      frontier of the Delta, and Sennacherib led back the shattered remnants of
+      his force to Nineveh.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Assyrian texts are silent about this catastrophe, and
+     the sacred books of the Hebrews seem to refer it to the camp
+     at Libnah in Palestine (2 Kings xix. 8-35); the Egyptian
+     legend related by Herodotus seems to prove that it took
+     place near the Egyptian frontier. Josephus takes the king as
+     far as Pelusium, and describes the destruction of the
+     Assyrian army as taking place in the camp before this town.
+     He may have been misled by the meaning &ldquo;mud,&rdquo; which attaches
+     to the name of Libnah as well as to that of Pelusium. Oppert
+     upheld his opinion, and identified the Libnah of the
+     biblical narrative with the Pelusium of Herodotus. It is
+     probable that each of the two nations referred the scene of
+     the miracle to a different locality.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Hebrews did not hesitate to ascribe the event to the vengeance of
+      Jahveh, and to make it a subject of thankfulness. They related that before
+      their brutal conqueror quitted the country he had sent a parting message
+      to Hezekiah: &ldquo;Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying,
+      Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the King of Assyria. Behold,
+      thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by
+      destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the
+      nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran
+      and Rezepk, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar? Where is the
+      King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the city of
+      Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?&rdquo; Hezekiah, having received this letter of
+      defiance, laid it in the temple before Jahveh, and prostrated himself in
+      prayer: the response came to him through the mouth of Isaiah. &ldquo;Thus saith
+      the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, He shall not come unto this city,
+      nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with a shield,
+      nor cast a mount against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he
+      return, and he shall not come unto this city, saith the Lord. For I will
+      defend this city to save it, for Mine own sake and for My servant David&rsquo;s
+      sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went
+      forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and
+      five thousand: and when men arose early in the morning, behold, they were
+      all dead corpses.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xix. 8-35; Isa. xxxvii. 8-36; this is the second
+     tradition of which mention has been made, but already
+     amalgamated with the first to form the narrative as it now
+     stands.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptians considered the event no less miraculous than did the
+      Hebrews, and one of their popular tales ascribed the prodigy to Phtah, the
+      god of Memphis. Sethon, the high priest of Phtah, lived in a time of
+      national distress, and the warrior class, whom he had deprived of some of
+      its privileges, refused to take up arms in his behalf. He repaired,
+      therefore, to the temple to implore divine assistance, and, falling
+      asleep, was visited by a dream. The god appeared to him, and promised to
+      send him some auxiliaries who should ensure him success. He enlisted such
+      of the Egyptians as were willing to follow him, shopkeepers, fullers, and
+      sutlers, and led them to Pelusium to resist the threatened invasion. In
+      the night a legion of field-mice came forth, whence no one knew, and,
+      noiselessly spreading throughout the camp of the Assyrians, gnawed the
+      quivers, the bowstrings, and the straps of the bucklers in such a way
+      that, on the morrow, the enemy, finding themselves disarmed, fled after a
+      mere pretence at resistance, and suffered severe losses. A statue was long
+      shown in the temple at Memphis portraying this Sethon: he was represented
+      holding a mouse in his hand, and the inscription bade men reverence the
+      god who had wrought this miracle.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The statue with which this legend has been connected, must
+     have represented a king offering the image of a mouse
+     crouching on a basket, like the cynocephalus on the
+     hieroglyphic sign which denotes centuries, or the frog of
+     the goddess Hiqît. Historians have desired to recognise in
+     Sethon a King Zêt of the XXIIIth dynasty, or even Shabîtoku
+     of the XXVth dynasty; Krall identified him with Satni in the
+     demotic story of Satni-Umois.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:44%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/028.jpg"
+       alt="028.jpg the Pass of Legnia, in Lebanon " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from a photograph
+given in Lortet.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The disaster was a terrible one: Sennacherib&rsquo;s triumphant advance was
+      suddenly checked, and he was forced to return to Asia when the goal of his
+      ambition was almost reached. The loss of a single army, however much to be
+      deplored, was not irreparable, since Assyria could furnish her sovereign
+      with a second force as numerous as that which lay buried in the desert on
+      the road to Egypt, but it was uncertain what effect the news of the
+      calamity and the sight of the survivors might have on the minds of his
+      subjects and rivals. The latter took no immediate action, and the secret
+      joy which they must have experienced did not blind them to the real facts
+      of the case; for though the power of Assyria was shaken, she was still
+      stronger than any one of them severally, or even than all of them
+      together, and to attack her or rebel against her now, was to court defeat
+      with as much certainty as in past days. The Pharaoh kept himself behind
+      his rivers; the military science and skill which had baffled his generals
+      on the field of Altaku did not inspire him with any desire to reappear on
+      the plains of Palestine. Hezekiah, King of Judah, had emptied his treasury
+      to furnish his ransom, his strongholds had capitulated one by one, and his
+      territory, diminished by the loss of some of the towns of the Shephelah,
+      was little botter than a waste of smoking ruins. He thought himself
+      fortunate to have preserved his power under the suzerainty of Assyria, and
+      his sole aim for many years was to refill his treasury, reconstitute his
+      army, and re-establish his kingdom. The Philistine and Nabatasan princes,
+      and the chiefs of Moab, Ammon, and Idumsea, had nothing to gain by war,
+      being too feeble to have any chance of success without the help of Judah,
+      Tyre, and Egypt. The Syrians maintained a peaceful attitude, which was
+      certainly their wisest policy; and during the following quarter of a
+      century they loyally obeyed their governors, and gave Sennacherib no cause
+      to revisit them. It was fortunate for him that they did so, for the
+      peoples of the North and East, the Kaldâ, and, above all, the Elamites,
+      were the cause of much trouble, and exclusively occupied his attention
+      during several years. The inhabitants of Bît-Yakîn, urged on either by
+      their natural restlessness or by the news of the misfortune which had
+      befallen their enemy, determined once more to try the fortunes of war.
+      Incited by Marduk-ushezlb,* one of their princes, and by Merodach-baladan,
+      these people of the marshes intrigued with the courts of Babylon and Susa,
+      and were emboldened to turn against the Assyrian garrisons stationed in
+      their midst to preserve order. Sennacherib&rsquo;s vengeance fell first on
+      Marduk-ushezîb, who fled from his stronghold of Bîttutu after sustaining a
+      short siege. Merodach-baladan, deserted by his accomplice, put the statues
+      of his gods and his royal treasures on board his fleet, and embarking with
+      his followers, crossed the lagoon, and effected a landing in the district
+      of Nagîtu, in Susian territory, beyond the mouth of the Ulaî.**
+      Sennacherib entered Bît-Yakîn without striking a blow, and completed the
+      destruction of the half-deserted town; he next proceeded to demolish the
+      other cities one after the other, carrying off into captivity all the men
+      and cattle who fell in his way.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Three kings of Babylon at this period bore very similar
+     names&mdash;Marduk-ushezîb, Nergal-ushezîb, and Mushezîb-marduk.
+     Nergal-ushezîb is the elder of the two whom the texts call
+     Shuzub, and whom Assyriologists at first confused one with
+     another.
+
+     ** Nagîtu was bounded by the Nar-Marratum and the Ulaî,
+     which allows us to identify it with the territory south of
+     Edrisieh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Elamites, disconcerted by the rapidity of his action, allowed him to
+      crush their allies unopposed; and as they had not openly intervened, the
+      conqueror refrained from calling them to account for their intrigues.
+      Babylon paid the penalty for all: its sovereign, Belibni, who had failed
+      to make the sacred authority of the suzerain respected in the city, and
+      who, perhaps, had taken some part in the conspiracy, was with his family
+      deported to Nineveh, and his vacant throne was given to Assur-nadin-shumu,
+      a younger son of Sargon (699 B.C.).*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Berosus, misled by the deposition of Belibni, thought that
+     the expedition was directed against Babylon itself; he has
+     likewise confounded Assur-nâdin-shumu with Esar-haddon, and
+     he has given this latter, whom he calls Asordancs, as the
+     immediate successor of Belibni. The date 699 B.C. for these
+     events is indicated in <i>Pinches&rsquo; Babylonian Chronicle</i>,
+     which places them in the third year of Belibni.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Order was once more restored in Karduniash, but Sennacherib felt that its
+      submission would be neither sincere nor permanent, so long as
+      Merodach-baladan was hovering on its frontier possessed of an army, a
+      fleet, and a supply of treasure, and prepared to enter the lists as soon
+      as circumstances seemed favourable to his cause. Sennacherib resolved,
+      therefore, to cross the head of the Persian Gulf and deal him such a blow
+      as would once for all end the contest; but troubles which broke out on the
+      Urartian frontier as soon as he returned forced, him to put off his
+      project. The tribes of Tumurru, who had placed their strongholds like
+      eyries among the peaks of Nipur, had been making frequent descents on the
+      plains of the Tigris, which they had ravaged unchecked by any fear of
+      Assyrian power. Sennacherib formed an entrenched camp at the foot of their
+      mountain retreat, and there left the greater part of his army, while he
+      set out on an adventurous expedition with a picked body of infantry and
+      cavalry. Over ravines and torrents, up rough and difficult slopes, they
+      made their way, the king himself being conveyed in a litter, as there were
+      no roads practicable for his royal chariot; he even deigned to walk when
+      the hillsides were too steep for his bearers to carry him; he climbed like
+      a goat, slept on the bare rocks, drank putrid water from a leathern
+      bottle, and after many hardships at length came up with the enemy. He
+      burnt their villages, and carried off herds of cattle and troops of
+      captives; but this exploit was more a satisfaction of his vanity than a
+      distinct advantage gained, for the pillaging of the plains of the Tigris
+      probably recommenced as soon as the king had quitted the country. The same
+      year he pushed as far as Dayaîni, here similar tactics were employed.
+      Constructing a camp in the neighbourhood of Mount Anara and Mount Uppa, he
+      forced his way to the capital, Ukki, traversing a complicated network of
+      gorges and forests which had hitherto been considered impenetrable. The
+      king, Manîya, fled; Ukki was taken by assault and pillaged, the spoil
+      obtained from it slightly exceeding that from Tumurru (699 B.C.). Shortly
+      afterwards the province of Tulgarimmê revolted in concert with the Tabal:
+      Sennacherib overcame the allied forces, and led his victorious regiments
+      through the defiles of the Taurus.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The dates of and connection between these two wars are not
+     determined with any certainty. Some authorities assign them
+     both to the same year, somewhere between 699 and 696 B.C.,
+     while others assign them to two different years, the first
+     to 699 or 696 B.C., the second to 698 or 695 B.C.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/040.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="040.jpg a Raid Among the Woods and Mountains. " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layahd, Monuments of Nineveh,
+     vol. i. pi. 70.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Greek pirates or colonists having ventured from time to time to ravage the
+      seaboard, he destroyed one of their fleets near the mouth of the Saros,
+      and took advantage of his sojourn in this region to fortify the two cities
+      of Tarsus and Ankhialê, to defend his Cilician frontier against the
+      peoples of Asia Minor.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The encounter of the Assyrians with the Greeks is only
+     known to us from a fragment of Berosus. The foundation of
+     Tarsus is definitely attributed to Sennacherib in the same
+     passage; that of Ankhialc is referred to the fabulous
+     Sardanapalus, but most historians with much probability
+     attribute the foundation to Sennacherib.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0017" id="linkimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:48%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/052.jpg"
+       alt="052.jpg a Skirmish in the Marshes " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from Layard.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      This was a necessary precaution, for the whole of Asia Minor was just then
+      stirred by the inrush of new nations which were devastating the country,
+      and the effect of these convulsions was beginning to be felt in the
+      country to the south of the central plain, at the foot of the Taurus, and
+      on the frontiers of the Assyrian empire. Barbarian hordes, attracted by
+      the fame of the ancient Hittite sanctuaries in the upper basin of the
+      Euphrates and the Araxes, had descended now and again to measure their
+      strength against the advanced posts of Assyria or Urartu, but had
+      subsequently withdrawn and disappeared beyond the Halys. Their movements
+      may at this time have been so aggressive as to arouse serious anxiety in
+      the minds of the Ninevite rulers; it is certain that Sennacherib, though
+      apparently hindered by no revolt, delayed the execution of the projects he
+      had formed against Merodach-baladan for three years; and it is possible
+      his inaction may be attributed to the fear of some complication arising on
+      his north-western frontier. He did not carry out his scheme till 695 B.C.,
+      when all danger in that quarter had passed away. The enterprise was a
+      difficult one, for Nagîtu and the neighbouring districts were dependencies
+      of Susa, and could not be reached by land without a violation of Blamite
+      neutrality, which would almost inevitably lead to a conflict.
+      Shutruk-nakhunta was no longer alive. In the very year in which his rival
+      had set up Assur-nâdin-shumu as King of Karduniash, a revolution had
+      broken out in Elam, which was in all probability connected with the events
+      then taking place in Babylon. His subjects were angry with him for having
+      failed to send timely succour to his allies the Kaldâ, and for having
+      allowed Bît-Yakîn to be destroyed: his own brother Khalludush sided with
+      the malcontents, threw Shutruk-nakhunta into prison, and proclaimed
+      himself king. This time the Ninevites, thinking that Elam was certain to
+      intervene, sought how they might finally overpower Merodach-baladan before
+      this interference could prove effectual. The feudal constitution of the
+      Blamite monarchy rendered, as we know, the mobilisation of the army at the
+      opening of a war a long and difficult task: weeks might easily elapse
+      before the first and second grades of feudatory nobility could join the
+      royal troops and form a combined army capable of striking an important
+      blow. This was a cause of dangerous inferiority in a conflict with the
+      Assyrians, the chief part of whose forces, bivouacking close to the
+      capital during the winter months, could leave their quarters and set out
+      on a campaign at little more than a day&rsquo;s notice; the kings of Elam
+      minimised the danger by keeping sufficient troops under arms on their
+      northern and western frontiers to meet any emergency, but an attack by sea
+      seemed to them so unlikely that they had not, for a long time past,
+      thought of protecting their coast-line. The ancient Chaldæan cities, Uru,
+      Bagash, Uruk, and Bridu had possessed fleets on the Persian Gulf; but the
+      times were long past when they used to send to procure stone and wood from
+      the countries of Magan and Melukhkha, and the seas which they had ruled
+      were now traversed only by merchant vessels or fishing-boats. Besides
+      this, the condition of the estuary seemed to prohibit all attack from that
+      side. The space between Bît-Yakîn and the long line of dunes or mud-banks
+      which blocked the entrance to it was not so much a gulf as a lagoon of
+      uncertain and shifting extent; the water flowed only in the middle, being
+      stagnant near the shores; the whole expanse was irregularly dotted over
+      with mud-banks, and its service was constantly altered by the alluvial
+      soil brought down by the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Ulaî, and the Uknu.
+      The navigation of this lagoon was dangerous, for the relative positions of
+      the channels and shallows were constantly shifting, and vessels of deep
+      draught often ran aground in passing from one end of it to the other.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The condition I describe here is very similar to what
+     Alexander&rsquo;s admirals found 350 years later. Arrian has
+     preserved for us the account of Nearchus&rsquo; navigation in
+     these waters, and his description shows such a well-defined
+     condition of the estuary that its main outline must have
+     remained unchanged for a considerable time; the only
+     subsequent alterations which had taken place must have been
+     in the internal configuration, where the deposit of alluvium
+     must have necessarily reduced the area of the lake since the
+     time of Sennacherib. The little map on the next page has no
+     pretension to scientific exactitude; its only object is to
+     show roughly what the estuary of the Euphrates was like, and
+     to illustrate approximately the course of the Assyrian
+     expedition.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/048.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="048.jpg Map the Nar-marratum in The Time of Sennacherib " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Sennacherib decided to march his force to the mouth of the Euphrates, and,
+      embarking it there, to bring it to bear suddenly on the portion of Elamite
+      territory nearest to Nagîtu: if all went well, he would thus have time to
+      crush the rising power of Merodach-baladan and regain his own port of
+      departure before Khalludush could muster a sufficient army to render
+      efficient succour to his vassal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than a year was consumed in preparations. The united cities of
+      Chaldæa being unable to furnish the transports required to convey such a
+      large host across the Nar-Marratum, it was necessary to construct a fleet,
+      and to do so in such a way that the enemy should have no suspicion of
+      danger. Sennacherib accordingly set up his dockyards at Tul-barsîp on the
+      Euphrates and at Nineveh on the Tigris, and Syrian shipwrights built him a
+      fleet of vessels after two distinct types. Some were galleys identical in
+      build and equipment with those which the Mediterranean natives used for
+      their traffic with distant lands. The others followed the old Babylonian
+      model, with stem and stern both raised, the bows being sometimes
+      distinguished by the carving of a horse&rsquo;s head, which justified the name
+      of <i>sea-horse</i> given to a vessel of this kind. They had no masts, but
+      propelling power was provided by two banks of oars one above the other, as
+      in the galleys. The two divisions of the fleet were ready at the beginning
+      of 694 B.C., and it was arranged that they should meet at Bît-Dakkuri, to
+      the south of Babylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/049.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="049.jpg the Fleet of Sennacherib on The Nar-marratum " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The fleet from Tul-barsîp had merely to descend the Euphrates to reach the
+      meeting-place,* but that from Nineveh had to make a more complicated
+      journey.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The story of the preparations, as it has been transmitted
+     to us in Sennacherib&rsquo;s inscriptions, is curiously similar to
+     the accounts given by the Greek historians of the vessels
+     Alexander had built at Babylon and Thap-sacus by Phoenician
+     workmen, which descended the Euphrates to join the fleet in
+     the Persian Gulf. This fleet consisted of quinquiremos,
+     according to Aristobulus, who was present at their
+     construction: Quintus-Curtius makes them all vessels with
+     seven banks of oars, but he evidently confuses the galleys
+     built at Thapsacus with those which came in sections from
+     Phoenicia and which Alexander had put together at Babylon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By following the course of the Tigris to its mouth it would have had to
+      skirt the coast of Elam for a considerable distance, and would inevitably
+      have aroused the suspicions of Khalludush; the passage of such a strong
+      squadron must have revealed to him the importance of the enterprise, and
+      put him on his guard. The vessels therefore stayed their course at Upi,
+      where they were drawn ashore and transported on rollers across the narrow
+      isthmus which separates the Tigris from the Arakhtu canal, on which they
+      were then relaunched. Either the canal had not been well kept, or else it
+      never had the necessary depth at certain places; but the crews managed to
+      overcome all obstacles and rejoined their comrades in due time.
+      Sennacherib was ready waiting for them with all his troops&mdash;foot-soldiers,
+      charioteers, and horsemen&mdash;and with supplies of food for the men, and
+      of barley and oats for the horses; as soon as the last contingent had
+      arrived, he gave the signal for departure, and all advanced together, the
+      army marching along the southern bank, the fleet descending the current,
+      to the little port of Bab-Salimeti, some twelve miles below the mouth of
+      the river.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The mouth of the Euphrates being at that time not far from
+     the site of Kornah, Bab-Salimeti, which was about twelve
+     miles distant, must have been somewhere near the present
+     village of Abu-Hatira, on the south bank of the river.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There they halted in order to proceed to the final embarcation, but at the
+      last moment their inexperience of the sea nearly compromised the success
+      of the expedition. Even if they were not absolutely ignorant of the ebb
+      and flow of the tide, they certainly did not know how dangerous the spring
+      tide could prove at the equinox under the influence of a south wind. The
+      rising tide then comes into conflict with the volume of water brought down
+      by the stream, and in the encounter the banks are broken down, and
+      sometimes large districts are inundated: this is what happened that year,
+      to the terror of the Assyrians. Their camp was invaded and completely
+      flooded by the waves; the king and his soldiers took refuge in haste on
+      the galleys, where they were kept prisoners for five days &ldquo;as in a huge
+      cage.&rdquo; As soon as the waters abated, they completed their preparations and
+      started on their voyage. At the point where the Euphrates enters the
+      lagoon, Sennacherib pushed forward to the front of the line, and, standing
+      in the bows of his flag-ship, offered a sacrifice to Eâ, the god of the
+      Ocean. Having made a solemn libation, he threw into the water a gold model
+      of a ship, a golden fish, and an image of the god himself, likewise in
+      gold; this ceremony performed, he returned to the port of Bab-Salimeti
+      with his guard, while the bulk of his forces continued their voyage
+      eastward. The passage took place without mishap, but they could not
+      disembark on the shore of the gulf itself, which was unapproachable by
+      reason of the deposits of semi-liquid mud which girdled it; they therefore
+      put into the mouth of the Ulaî, and ascended the river till they reached a
+      spot where the slimy reed-beds gave place to firm ground, which permitted
+      them to draw their ships to land.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Billerbeck recognises in the narrative of Sennacherib the
+     indication of two attempts at debarcation, of which the
+     second only can have been successful; I can distinguish only
+     one crossing.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The inhabitants assembled hastily at sight of the enemy, and the news,
+      spreading through the neighbouring tribes, brought together for their
+      defence a confused crowd of archers, chariots, and horsemen. The
+      Assyrians, leaping into the stream and climbing up the bank, easily
+      overpowered these undisciplined troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They captured at the first onset Nagîtu, Nagîtu-Dibîna, Khilmu, Pillatu,
+      and Khupapânu; and raiding the Kaldâ, forced them on board the fleet with
+      their gods, their families, their flocks, and household possessions, and
+      beat a hurried retreat with their booty. Merodach-baladan himself and his
+      children once more escaped their clutches, but the State he had tried to
+      create was annihilated, and his power utterly crushed. Sennacherib
+      received his generals with great demonstrations of joy at Bab-Salimeti,
+      and carried the spoil in triumph to Nineveh. Khalludush, exasperated by
+      the affront put upon him, instantly retaliated by invading Karduniash,
+      where he pushed forward as far as Sippara, pillaging and destroying the
+      inhabitants without opposition. The Babylonians who had accompanied
+      Merodach-baladan into exile, returned in the train of the Elamites, and,
+      secretly stealing back to their homes, stirred up a general revolt:
+      Assur-nâdin-shumu, taken prisoner by his own subjects, was put in chains
+      and despatched to Susa, his throne being bestowed on a Babylonian named
+      Nergal-ushezîb,* who at once took the field (694 B.C.).
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This is the prince whom the Assyrian documents name
+     Shuzub, and whom we might call Shuzub the Babylonian, in
+     contradistinction to Mushezib-marduk, who is Shuzub the
+     Kaldu.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His preliminary efforts were successful: he ravaged the frontier along the
+      Turnât with the help of the Elamites, and took by assault the city of
+      Nipur, which refused to desert the cause of Sennacherib (693 B.C.).
+      Meanwhile the Assyrian generals had captured Uruk (Erech) on the 1st of
+      Tisri, after the retreat of Khalludush; and having sacked the city, were
+      retreating northwards with their spoil when they were defeated on the 7th
+      near Nipur by Nergal-ushezîb. He had already rescued the statues of the
+      gods and the treasure, when his horse fell in the midst of the fray, and
+      he could not disengage himself. His vanquished foes led him captive to
+      Nineveh, where Sennacherib exposed him in chains at the principal gateway
+      of his palace: the Babylonians, who owed to him their latest success,
+      summoned a Kaldu prince, Mushezîb-marduk, son of Gahut, to take command.
+      He hastened to comply, and with the assistance of Blamite troops offered
+      such a determined resistance to all attack, that he was finally left in
+      undisturbed possession of his kingdom (692 B.C.): the actual result to
+      Assyria, therefore, of the ephemeral victory gained by the fleet had been
+      the loss of Babylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0018" id="linkimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:46%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/054.jpg"
+       alt="054.jpg the Horse of Nergal-ushezÎb Falling in The Battle " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from Layard.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      A revolution in Elam speedily afforded Assyria an opportunity for revenge.
+      When Nergal-ushezîb was taken prisoner, the people of Susa, dissatisfied
+      with the want of activity displayed by Khalludush, conspired to depose
+      him: on hearing, therefore, the news of the revolutions in Chaldæa, they
+      rose in revolt on the 26th of Tisri, and, besieging him in his palace, put
+      him to death, and elected a certain Kutur-nakhunta as his successor.
+      Sennacherib, without a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, crossed the frontier at
+      Durîlu, before order was re-established at Susa, and recovered, after very
+      slight resistance, Baza and Bît-khaîri which Shutruk-nakhunta had taken
+      from Sargon. This preliminary success laid the lower plain of Susiana at
+      his mercy, and he ravaged it pitilessly from Baza to Bît-bunaki.
+      &ldquo;Thirty-four strongholds and the townships depending on them, whose number
+      is unequalled, I besieged and took by assault, their inhabitants I led
+      into captivity, I demolished them and reduced them to ashes: I caused the
+      smoke of their burning to rise into the wide heaven, like the smoke of one
+      great sacrifice.&rdquo; Kutur-nakhunta, still insecurely seated on the throne of
+      Susa, retreated with his army towards Khaîdalu, in the almost unexplored
+      regions which bordered the Banian plateau,* and entrenched himself
+      strongly in the heart of the mountains.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Khaîdalu is very probably the present Dis Malkân.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The season was already well advanced when the Assyrians set out on this
+      expedition, and November set in while they were ravaging the plain: but
+      the weather was still so fine that Sennacherib determined to take
+      advantage of it to march upon Madaktu. Hardly had he scaled the heights
+      when winter fell upon him with its accompaniment of cold and squally
+      weather. &ldquo;Violent storms broke out, it rained and snowed incessantly, the
+      torrents and streams overflowed their banks,&rdquo; so that hostilities had to
+      be suspended and the troops ordered back to Nineveh. The effect produced,
+      however, by these bold measures was in no way diminished: though
+      Kutur-nakhunta had not had the necessary time to prepare for the contest,
+      he was nevertheless discredited among his subjects for failing to bring
+      them out of it with glory, and three months after the retreat of the
+      Assyrians he was assassinated in a riot on the 20th of Ab, 692 B.C.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Assyrian documents merely mention the death of Kutur-
+     nakhunta less than three months after the return of
+     Sennacherib to Nineveh. Pinches&rsquo; <i>Babylonian Chronicle</i> only
+     mentions the revolution in which he perished, and informs us
+     that he had reigned ten months. It contracts Ummân-minânu,
+     the name of the Elamite king, to Minânu.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His younger brother, Ummân-minânu, assumed the crown, and though his
+      enemies disdainfully refused to credit him with either prudence or
+      judgment, he soon restored his kingdom to such a formidable degree of
+      power that Mushezîb-marduk thought the opportunity a favourable one for
+      striking a blow at Assyria, from which she could never recover. Elam had
+      plenty of troops, but was deficient in the resources necessary to pay the
+      men and their chiefs, and to induce the tribes of the table-land to
+      furnish their contingents. Mushezîb-marduk, therefore, emptied the sacred
+      treasury of E-sagilla, and sent the gold and silver of Bel and Zarpanit to
+      Ummân-minânu with a message which ran thus: &ldquo;Assemble thine army, and
+      prepare thy camp, come to Babylon and strengthen our hands, for thou art
+      our help.&rdquo; The Elamite asked nothing better than to avenge the provinces
+      so cruelly harassed, and the cities consumed in the course of the last
+      campaign: he summoned all his nobles, from the least to the greatest, and
+      enlisted the help of the troops of Parsuas, Ellipi, and Anzân, the
+      Aramaean Puqudu and Gambulu of the Tigris, as well as the Aramæans of the
+      Euphrates, and the peoples of Bît-Adini and Bît-Amukkâni, who had rallied
+      round Sam una, son of Merodach-baladan, and joined forces with the
+      soldiers of Mushezîb-marduk in Babylon. &ldquo;Like an invasion of countless
+      locusts swooping down upon the land, they assembled, resolved to give me
+      battle, and the dust of their feet rose before me, like a thick cloud
+      which darkens the copper-coloured dome of the sky.&rdquo; The conflict took
+      place near the township of Khalulê, on the banks of the Tigris, not far
+      from the confluence of this river with the Turnât.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Haupt attributes to the name the signification <i>holes,
+     bogs</i>, and this interpretation agrees well enough with the
+     state of the country round the mouths of the Dîyala, in the
+     low-lying district which separates that river from the
+     Tigris; he compares it with the name Haulâyeh, quoted by
+     Arab geographers in this neighbourhood, and with that of the
+     canton of Hâleh, mentioned in Syrian texts as belonging to
+     the district of Râdhân, between the Adhem and the Dîyala.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At this point the Turnât, flowing through the plain, divides into several
+      branches, which ramify again and again, and form a kind of delta extending
+      from the ruins of Nayân to those of Reshadeh. During the whole of the day
+      the engagement between the two hosts raged on this unstable soil, and
+      their leaders themselves sold their lives dearly in the struggle.
+      Sennacherib invoked the help of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nebo, Bel, Nergal,
+      Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, and the gods heard his prayers.
+      &ldquo;Like a lion I raged, I donned my harness, I covered my head with my
+      casque, the badge of war; my powerful battle-chariot, which mows down the
+      rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart; the strong bow
+      which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the javelin, destroyer of
+      life, I grasped it: the whole host of obdurate rebels I charged, shining
+      like silver or like the day, and I roared as Kammân roareth.&rdquo;
+       Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one of the first
+      encounters, and many of his officers perished around him, &ldquo;of those who
+      wore golden daggers at their belts, and bracelets of gold on their
+      wrists.&rdquo; They fell one after the other, &ldquo;like fat bulls chained&rdquo; for the
+      sacrifice, or like sheep, and their blood flowed on the broad plain as the
+      water after a violent storm: the horses plunged in it up to their knees,
+      and the body of the royal chariot was reddened with it. A son of
+      Merodach-baladan, Nabu-shumishkun, was taken prisoner, but Ummân-minânu
+      and Mushezîb-marduk escaped unhurt from the fatal field. It seems as if
+      fortune had at last decided in favour of the Assyrians, and they
+      proclaimed the fact loudly, but their success was not so evident as to
+      preclude their adversaries also claiming the victory with some show of
+      truth. In any case, the losses on both sides were so considerable as to
+      force the two belligerents to suspend operations; they returned each to
+      his capital, and matters remained much as they had been before the battle
+      took place.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * <i>Pinches&rsquo; Babylonian Chronicle</i> attributes the victory to
+     the Elamites, and says that the year in which the battle was
+     fought was unknown. The testimony of this chronicle is so
+     often marred by partiality, that to prefer it always to that
+     of the Ninevite inscriptions shows deficiency of critical
+     ability: the course of events seems to me to prove that the
+     advantage remained with the Assyrians, though the victory
+     was not decisive. The date, which necessarily falls between
+     692 and 689 B.C., has been decided by general considerations
+     as 691 B.C., the very year in which the <i>Taylor Cylinder</i>
+     was written.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Years might have elapsed before Sennacherib could have ventured to
+      recommence hostilities: he was not deluded by the exaggerated estimate of
+      his victory in the accounts given by his court historians, and he
+      recognised the fact that the issue of the struggle must be uncertain as
+      long as the alliance subsisted between Elam and Chaldæa. But fortune came
+      to his aid sooner than he had expected. Ummân-minânu was not absolute in
+      his dominions any more than his predecessors had been, and the losses he
+      had sustained at Khalulê, without obtaining any compensating advantages in
+      the form of prisoners or spoil, had lowered him in the estimation of his
+      vassals; Mushezîb-marduk, on the other hand, had emptied his treasuries,
+      and though Karduniash was wealthy, it was hardly able, after such a short
+      interval, to provide further subsidies to purchase the assistance of the
+      mountain tribes. Sennacherib&rsquo;s emissaries kept him well informed of all
+      that occurred in the enemy&rsquo;s court, and he accordingly took the field
+      again at the beginning of 689 B.C., and on this occasion circumstances
+      seemed likely to combine to give him an easy victory.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Assyrian documents insert the account of the capture
+     of Babylon directly after the battle of Khalulê, and modern
+     historians therefore concluded that the two events took
+     place within a few months of each other. The information
+     afforded by <i>Pinches&rsquo; Babylonian Chronicle</i> has enabled us
+     to correct this mistake, and to bring down the date of the
+     taking of Babylon to 689 B.C.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mushezîb-marduk shut himself up in Babylon, not doubting that the Elamites
+      would hasten to his succour as soon as they should hear of his distress;
+      but his expectation was not fulfilled. Ummân-minânu was struck down by
+      apoplexy, on the 15th of Nisân, and though his illness did not at once
+      terminate fatally, he was left paralysed with distorted mouth, and loss of
+      speech, incapable of action, and almost unfit to govern. His seizure put a
+      stop to his warlike preparations: and his ministers, preoccupied with the
+      urgent question of the succession to the throne, had no desire to provoke
+      a conflict with Assyria, the issue of which could not be foretold: they
+      therefore left their ally to defend his own interests as best he might.
+      Babylon, reduced to rely entirely on its own resources, does not seem to
+      have held out long, and perhaps the remembrance of the treatment it had
+      received on former occasions may account for the very slight resistance it
+      now offered. The Assyrian kings who had from time to time conquered
+      Babylon, had always treated it with great consideration. They had looked
+      upon it as a sacred city, whose caprices and outbreaks must always be
+      pardoned; it was only with infinite precautions that they had imposed
+      their commands upon it, and even when they had felt that severity was
+      desirable, they had restrained themselves in using it, and humoured the
+      idiosyncrasies of the inhabitants. Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V.,
+      and Sargon had all preferred to be legally crowned as sovereigns of
+      Babylon instead of remaining merely its masters by right of conquest, and
+      though Sennacherib had refused compliance with the traditions by which his
+      predecessors had submitted to be bound, he had behaved with unwonted
+      lenity after quelling the two previous revolts. He now recognised that his
+      clemency had been shown in vain, and his small stock of patience was
+      completely exhausted just when fate threw the rebellious city into his
+      power. If the inhabitants had expected to be once more let off easily,
+      their illusions were speedily dissipated: they were slain by the sword as
+      if they had been ordinary foes, such as Jews, Tibarenians, or Kaldâ of
+      Bît-Yakîn, and they were spared none of the horrors which custom then
+      permitted the stronger to inflict upon the weaker. For several days the
+      pitiless massacre lasted. Young and old, all who fell into the hands of
+      the soldiery, perished by the sword; piles of corpses filled the streets
+      and the approaches to the temples, especially the avenue of winged bulls
+      which led to E-sagilla, and, even after the first fury of carnage had been
+      appeased, it was only to be succeeded by more organised pillage.
+      Mushezîb-marduk was sent into exile with his family, and immense convoys
+      of prisoners and spoil followed him. The treasures carried off from the
+      royal palace, the temples, and the houses of the rich nobles were divided
+      among the conquerors: they comprised gold, silver, precious stones, costly
+      stuffs, and provisions of all sorts. The sacred edifices were sacked, the
+      images hacked to pieces or carried off to Nineveh: Bel-Marduk, introduced
+      into the sanctuary of Assur, became subordinate to the rival deity amid a
+      crowd of strange gods. In the inmost recess of a chapel were discovered
+      some ancient statues of Kammân and Shala of E-kallati, which
+      Marduk-nâdin-akhê had carried off in the time of Tiglath-pileser I., and
+      these were brought back in triumph to their own land, after an absence of
+      four hundred and eighteen years. The buildings themselves suffered a like
+      fate to that of their owners and their gods. &ldquo;The city and its houses,
+      from foundation to roof, I destroyed them, I demolished them, I burnt them
+      with fire; walls, gateways, sacred chapels, and the towers of earth and
+      tiles, I laid them all low and cast them into the Arakhtu.&rdquo; The incessant
+      revolts of the people justified this wholesale destruction. Babylon, as we
+      have said before, was too powerful to be reduced for long to the second
+      rank in a Mesopotamian empire: as soon as fate established the seat of
+      empire in the districts bordering on the Euphrates and the middle course
+      of the Tigris, its well-chosen situation, its size, its riches, the extent
+      of its population, the number of its temples, and the beauty of its
+      palaces, all conspired to make it the capital of the country. In vain
+      Assur, Calah, or Nineveh thrust themselves into the foremost rank, and by
+      a strenuous effort made their princes rulers of Babylon; in a short time
+      Babylon replenished her treasury, found allies, soldiers, and leaders, and
+      in spite of reverses of fortune soon regained the upper hand. The only
+      treatment which could effectually destroy her ascendency was that of
+      leaving in her not one brick upon another, thus preventing her from being
+      re-peopled for several generations, since a new city could not at once
+      spring up from the ashes of the old; until she had been utterly destroyed
+      her conquerors had still reason to fear her. This fact Sennacherib, or his
+      councillors, knew well. If he merits any reproach, it is not for having
+      seized the opportunity of destroying the city which Babylon offered him,
+      but rather for not having persevered in his design to the end, and reduced
+      her to a mere name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of these costly and absorbing wars, we may well wonder how
+      Sennacherib found time and means to build villas or temples; yet he is
+      nevertheless, among the kings of Assyria, the monarch who has left us the
+      largest number of monuments. He restored a shrine of Nergal in the small
+      town of Tarbizi; he fortified the village of Alshi; and in 704 B.C. he
+      founded a royal residence in the fortress of Kakzi, which defended the
+      approach to Calah from the south-east. He did not reside much at
+      Dur-Sharrukîn, neither did he complete the decoration of his father&rsquo;s
+      palace there: his pride as a victorious warrior suffered when his
+      surroundings reminded him of a more successful conqueror than himself, and
+      Calah itself was too full of memories of Tiglath-pileser III. and the
+      sovereigns of the eighth century for him to desire to establish his court
+      there. He preferred to reside at Nineveh, which had been much neglected by
+      his predecessors, and where the crumbling edifices merely recalled the
+      memory of long-vanished splendours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0019" id="linkimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/063.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="063.jpg the Mounds of Nineveh Seen from The Terrace Of A House in Mosul " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a lithograph in Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He selected this city as his residence at the very beginning of his reign,
+      perhaps while he was still only crown prince, and began by repairing its
+      ancient fortifications; later on, when the success of his earlier
+      campaigns had furnished him with a sufficient supply of prisoners, he
+      undertook the restoration of the whole city, with its avenues, streets,
+      canals, quays, gardens, and aqueducts: the labour of all the captives
+      brought together from different quarters of his empire was pressed into
+      the execution of his plans&mdash;the Kaldâ, the Aramæans, the Mannai, the
+      people of Kuî, the Cilicians, the Philistines, and the ïyrians; the
+      provinces vied with each other in furnishing him with materials without
+      stint,&mdash;precious woods were procured from Syria, marbles from
+      Kapri-dargîla, alabaster from Balad, while Bît-Yakîn provided the rushes
+      to be laid between the courses of brickwork. The river Tebilti, after
+      causing the downfall of the royal mausolea and &ldquo;displaying to the light of
+      day the coffins which they concealed,&rdquo; had sapped the foundations of the
+      palace of Assur-nazir-pal, and caused it to fall in: a muddy pool now
+      occupied the north-western quarter, between the court of Ishtar and the
+      lofty ziggurât of Assur. This pool Sennacherib filled up, and regulated
+      the course of the stream, providing against the recurrence of
+      such-accidents in future by building a substructure of masonry, 454 cubits
+      long by 289 wide, formed of large blocks of stone cemented together by
+      bitumen. On this he erected a magnificent palace, a Bît-Khilâni in the
+      Syrian style, with woodwork of fragrant cedar and cypress overlaid with
+      gold and silver, panellings of sculptured marble and alabaster, and
+      friezes and cornices in glazed tiles of brilliant colouring: inspired by
+      the goddess Nin-kurra, he caused winged bulls of white alabaster and
+      limestone statues of the gods to be hewn in the quarries of Balad near
+      Nineveh. He presided in person at all these operations&mdash;at the
+      raising of the soil, the making of the substructures of the terrace, the
+      transport of the colossal statues or blocks and their subsequent erection;
+      indeed, he was to be seen at every turn, standing in Ids ebony and ivory
+      chariot, drawn by a team of men. When the building was finished, he was so
+      delighted with its beauty that he named it &ldquo;the incomparable palace,&rdquo; and
+      his admiration was shared by his contemporaries; they were never wearied
+      of extolling in glowing terms the twelve bronze lions, the twelve winged
+      bulls, and the twenty-four statues of goddesses which kept watch over the
+      entrance, and for the construction of which a new method of rapid casting
+      had been invented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0020" id="linkimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/065.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="065.jpg King Sennacherib Watching the Transport of A Colossal Statue " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Formerly the erection of such edifices cost much in suffering to the
+      artificers employed on them, but Sennacherib brought his great enterprise
+      to a prompt completion without extravagant outlay or unnecessary hardship
+      inflicted on his workmen. He proceeded to annex the neighbouring quarters
+      of the city, relegating the inhabitants to the suburbs while he laid out a
+      great park on the land thus cleared; this park was well planted with
+      trees, like the heights of Amanus, and in it flourished side by side all
+      the forest growths indigenousnto the Cilician mountains and the plains of
+      Chaldæa. A lake, fed by a canal leading from the Khuzur, supplied it with
+      water, which was conducted in streams and rills through the thickets,
+      keeping them always fresh and green. Vines trained on trellises afforded a
+      grateful shade during the sultry hours of the day; birds sang in the
+      branches, herds of wild boar and deer roamed through the coverts, in order
+      that the prince might enjoy the pleasures of the chase without quitting
+      his own private grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0021" id="linkimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/066.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="066.jpg Assyrian Bas-reliefs at Bavian " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The main part of these constructions was finished about 700 B.C., but many
+      details were left incomplete, and the work was still proceeding after the
+      court had long been in residence on the spot. Meanwhile a smaller palace,
+      as well as barracks and a depot for arms and provisions, sprang up
+      elsewhere. Eighteen aqueducts, carried across the country, brought the
+      water from the Muzri to the Khuzur, and secured an adequate supply to the
+      city; the Ninevites, who had hitherto relied upon rain-water for the
+      replenishing of their cisterns, awoke one day to find themselves released
+      from all anxiety on this score. An ancient and semi-subterranean canal,
+      which Assur-nazir-pal had constructed nearly two centuries before, but
+      which, owing to the neglect of his successors, had become choked up, was
+      cleaned out, enlarged and repaired, and made capable of bringing water to
+      their doors from the springs of Mount Tas, in the same year as that in
+      which the battle of Khalulê took place.* At a later date, magnificent
+      bas-reliefs, carved on the rock by order of Esar-haddon, representing
+      winged bulls, figures of the gods and of the king, with explanatory
+      inscriptions, marked the site of the springs, and formed a kind of
+      monumental façade to the ravine in which they took their rise.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Mount Tas is the group of hills enclosing the ravine of
+     Bavian. These works were described in the Bavian
+     inscription, of which they occupy the whole of the first
+     part.
+
+     ** The Bavian text speaks of six inscriptions and statues
+     which the king had engraved on the Mount of Tas, at the
+     source of the stream.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It would be hard to account for the rapidity with which these great works
+      were completed, did one not remember that Sargon had previously carried
+      out extensive architectural schemes, in which he must have employed all
+      the available artists in his empire. The revolutions which had shattered
+      the realm under the last descendants of Assur-nazir-pal, and the
+      consequent impoverishment of the kingdom, had not been without a
+      disastrous effect on the schools of Assyrian sculpture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="068 (93K) UNKNOWN SUBJECTS FROM THE FIFTH TOMB"       src="images/068.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkimage-0022" id="linkimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/069.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="069.jpg Great Assyrian Stele at BaviaÎt. " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudior, from Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Since the royal treasury alone was able to bear the expense of those vast
+      compositions in which the artistic skill of the period could have free
+      play, the closing of the royal workshops, owing to the misfortunes of the
+      time, had the immediate effect of emptying the sculptors&rsquo; studios. Even
+      though the period of depression lasted for the space of two or three
+      generations only, it became difficult to obtain artistic workmen; and
+      those who were not discouraged from the pursuit of art by the uncertainty
+      of employment, no longer possessed the high degree of skill attained by
+      their predecessors, owing to lack of opportunity to cultivate it.
+      Sculpture was at a very low ebb when Tiglath-pileser III. desired to
+      emulate the royal builders of days gone by, and the awkwardness of
+      composition noticeable in some of his bas-reliefs, and the almost barbaric
+      style of the stelae erected by persons of even so high a rank as
+      Belharrân-beluzur, prove the lamentable deficiency of good artists at that
+      epoch, and show that the king had no choice but to employ all the
+      surviving members of the ancient guilds, whether good, bad, or indifferent
+      workmen. The increased demand, however, soon produced an adequate supply
+      of workers, and when Sargon ascended the throne, the royal guild of
+      sculptors had been thoroughly reconstituted; the inefficient workmen on
+      whom Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser had been obliged to rely had been
+      eliminated in course of time, and many of the sculptures which adorned the
+      palace at Khorsabad display a purity of design and boldness of execution
+      comparable to that of the best Egyptian art. The composition still shows
+      traces of Chaldæan stiffness, and the exaggerated drawing of the muscles
+      produces an occasionally unpleasing-heaviness of outline, but none the
+      less the work as a whole constitutes one of the richest and most ingenious
+      schemes of decoration ever devised, which, while its colouring was still
+      perfect, must have equalled in splendour the great triumphal battle-scenes
+      at Ibsambul or Medinet-Habu. Sennacherib found ready to his hand a body of
+      well-trained artists, whose number had considerably increased during the
+      reign of Sargon, and he profited by the experience which they had acquired
+      and the talent that many of them had developed. What immediately strikes
+      the spectator in the series of pictures produced under his auspices, is
+      the great skill with which his artists covered the whole surface at their
+      disposal without overcrowding it. They no longer treated their subject,
+      whether it were a warlike expedition, a hunting excursion, a sacrificial
+      scene, or an episode of domestic life, as a simple juxtaposition of groups
+      of almost equal importance ranged at the same elevation along the walls,
+      the subject of each bas-relief being complete in itself and without any
+      necessary connection with its neighbour. They now selected two or three
+      principal incidents from the subjects proposed to them for representation,
+      and round these they grouped such of the less important episodes as lent
+      themselves best to picturesque treatment, and scattered sparingly over the
+      rest of the field the minor accessories which seemed suitable to indicate
+      more precisely the scene of the action. Under the auspices of this later
+      school, Assyrian foot-soldiers are no longer depicted attacking the
+      barbarians of Media or Elam on backgrounds of smooth stone, where no line
+      marks the various levels, and where the remoter figures appear to be
+      walking in the air without anything to support them. If the battle
+      represented took place on a wooded slope crowned by a stronghold on the
+      summit of the hill, the artist, in order to give an impression of the
+      surroundings, covered his background with guilloche patterns by which to
+      represent the rugged surface of the mountains; he placed here and there
+      groups of various kinds of trees, especially the straight cypresses and
+      firs which grew upon the slopes of the Iranian table-land: or he
+      represented a body of lancers galloping in single file along the narrow
+      woodland paths, and hastening to surprise a distant enemy, or again
+      foot-soldiers chasing their foes through the forest or engaging them in
+      single combat; while in the corners of the picture the wounded are being
+      stabbed or otherwise despatched, fugitives are trying to escape through
+      the undergrowth, and shepherds are pleading with the victors for their
+      lives. It is the actual scene the sculptor sets himself to depict, and one
+      is sometimes inclined to ask, while noting the precision with which the
+      details of the battle are rendered, whether the picture was not drawn on
+      the spot, and whether the conqueror did not carry artists in his train to
+      make sketches for the decorators of the main features of the country
+      traversed and of the victories won. The masses of infantry seem actually
+      in motion, a troop of horsemen rush blindly over uneven ground, and the
+      episodes of their raid are unfolded in all their confusion with unfailing
+      animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0023" id="linkimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/073.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="073.jpg an Assyrian Cavalry Raid Through the Woods " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For the first time a spectator can realise Assyrian warfare with its
+      striking contrasts of bravery and unbridled cruelty; he is no longer
+      reduced to spell out laboriously a monotonous narrative of a battle, for
+      the battle takes place actually before his eyes. And after the return from
+      the scene of action, when it is desired to show how the victor employed
+      his prisoners for the greater honour of his gods and his own glory, the
+      picture is no less detailed and realistic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0024" id="linkimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/074.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="074th (82K Transport of a Winged Bull on A Sledge.)"       src="images/074th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There we see them, the noble and the great of all the conquered nations,
+      Chaldæans and Elamites, inhabitants of Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Judaea,
+      harnessed to ropes and goaded by the whips of the overseers, dragging the
+      colossal bull which is destined to mount guard at the gates of the palace:
+      with bodies bent, pendant arms, and faces contorted with pain, they, who
+      had been the chief men in their cities, now take the place of beasts of
+      burden, while Sennacherib, erect on his state chariot, with steady glance
+      and lips compressed, watches them as they pass slowly before him in their
+      ignominy and misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0025" id="linkimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:27%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/079.jpg" alt="079.jpg Sennacherib " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-
+Gudin, from Layard.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      After the destruction of Babylon there is a pause in the history of the
+      conqueror, and with him in that of Assyria itself. It seems as if Nineveh
+      had been exhausted by the greatness of her effort, and was stopping to
+      take breath before setting out on a fresh career of conquest: the other
+      nations also, as if overwhelmed by the magnitude of the catastrophe,
+      appear to have henceforth despaired of their own security, and sought only
+      how to avoid whatever might rouse against them the enmity of the master of
+      the hour. His empire formed a compact and solid block in their midst, on
+      which no human force seemed capable of making any impression. They had
+      attacked it each in turn, or all at once, Elam in the east, Urartu in the
+      north, Egypt in the south-west, and their efforts had not only miserably
+      failed, but had for the most part drawn down upon them disastrous
+      reprisals. The people of Urartu remained in gloomy inaction amidst their
+      mountains, the Elamites had lost their supremacy over half the Aramæan
+      tribes, and if Egypt was as yet inaccessible beyond the intervening
+      deserts, she owed it less to the strength of her armies than to the
+      mysterious fatality at Libnah. In one half-century the Assyrians had
+      effectually and permanently disabled the first of these kingdoms, and
+      inflicted on the others such serious injuries that they were slow in
+      recovering from them. The fate of these proud nations had intimidated the
+      inferior states&mdash;Arabs, Medes, tribes of Asia Minor, barbarous
+      Cimmerians or Scythians,&mdash;all alike were careful to repress their
+      natural inclinations to rapine and plunder. If occasionally their love of
+      booty overpowered their prudence, and they hazarded a raid on some
+      defenceless village in the neighbouring border territory, troops were
+      hastily despatched from the nearest Assyrian garrison, who speedily drove
+      them back across the frontier, and pursuing them into their own country,
+      inflicted on them so severe a punishment that they remained for some
+      considerable time paralysed by awe and terror. Assyria was the foremost
+      kingdom of the East, and indeed of the whole world, and the hegemony which
+      she exercised over all the countries within her reach cannot be accounted
+      for solely by her military superiority. Not only did she excel in the art
+      of conquest, as many before her had done&mdash;Babylonians, Elamites,
+      Hittites, and Egyptians&mdash;but she did what none of them had been able
+      to accomplish; she exacted lasting obedience from the conquered nations,
+      ruling them with a firm hand, and accustoming them to live on good terms
+      with one another in spite of diversity of race, and this with a light
+      rein, with unfailing tact, and apparently with but little effort. The
+      system of deportation so resolutely carried out by Tiglath-pileser III.
+      and Sargon began to produce effect, and up to this time the most happy
+      results only were discernible. The colonies which had been planted
+      throughout the empire from Palestine to Media, some of them two
+      generations previously, others within recent years, were becoming more and
+      more acclimatised to their new surroundings, on which they were producing
+      the effect desired by their conquerors; they were meant to hold in check
+      the populations in whose midst they had been set down, to act as a curb
+      upon them, and also to break up their national unity and thus gradually
+      prepare them for absorption into a wider fatherland, in which they would
+      cease to be exclusively Damascenes, Samaritans, Hittites, or Aramæans,
+      since they would become Assyrians and fellow-citizens of a mighty empire.
+      The provinces, brought at length under a regular system of government,
+      protected against external dangers and internal discord, by a
+      well-disciplined soldiery, and enjoying a peace and security they had
+      rarely known in the days of their independence, gradually became
+      accustomed to live in concord under the rule of a common sovereign, and to
+      feel themselves portions of a single empire. The speech of Assyria was
+      their official language, the gods of Assyria were associated with their
+      national gods in the prayers they offered up for the welfare of the
+      sovereign, and foreign nations with whom they were brought into
+      communication no longer distinguished between them and their conquerors,
+      calling their country Assyria, and regarding its inhabitants as Assyrians.
+      As is invariably the case, domestic peace and good administration had
+      caused a sudden development of wealth and commercial activity. Although
+      Nineveh and Calah never became such centres of trade and industry as
+      Babylon had been, yet the presence of the court and the sovereign
+      attracted thither merchants from all parts of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Medes, reaching the capital by way of the passes of Kowândîz and
+      Suleimaniyeh, brought in the lapis-lazuli, precious stones, metals, and
+      woollen stuffs of Central Asia and the farthest East, while the
+      Phoenicians and even Greeks, who were already following in their foot
+      steps, came thither to sell in the à bazaars of Assyria the most precious
+      of the wares brought back by their merchant vessels from the shores of the
+      Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the farthest West. The great cities of
+      the triangle of Assyria were gradually supplanting all the capitals of the
+      ancient world, not excepting Memphis, and becoming the centres of
+      universal trade; unexcelled for centuries in the arts of war, Assyria was
+      in a fair way to become mistress also in the arts of peace. A Jewish
+      prophet thus described the empire at a later date: &ldquo;The Assyrian was a
+      cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of
+      an high stature; and his top was among the thick clouds. The waters
+      nourished him, the deep made him grow: therefore his stature was exalted
+      above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his
+      branches became long by reason of many waters, when he shot them forth.
+      All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his
+      branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and
+      under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his
+      greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by many waters.
+      The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not
+      like his boughs, and the plane trees were not as his branches; nor was any
+      tree like unto him in beauty: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in
+      the garden of God, envied him.&rdquo; (Ezek. xxxi. 3-9).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="080 (21K)" src="images/080.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkBimage-0005" id="linkBimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/081.jpg" width="100%" alt="081.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0006" id="linkBimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/082.jpg" width="100%" alt="082.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS ZENITH. ESARHADDON AND ASSUR-BANI-PAL</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE MEDES AND CIMMERIANS: LYDIA&mdash;THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT, OP ARABIA,
+      AND OF ELAM.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Last years of Sennacherib&mdash;New races appear upon the scene&mdash;The
+      Medes: Deiokes and the foundation of Ecbatana, the Bit-Dayaukku and their
+      origin&mdash;The races of Asia Minor&mdash;The Phrygians, their earliest
+      rulers, their conquests, and their religion&mdash;Last of the Heraclidæ in
+      Lydia, trade and constitution of their kingdom&mdash;The Tylonidæ, and
+      Mermnadæ&mdash;The Cimmerians driven back into Asia by the Scythians&mdash;The
+      Treves.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Murder of Sennacherib and accession of Esarhaddon: defeat of Sharezer
+      (681 B.C.)&mdash;Campaigns against the Kaldd, the Cimmerians, the tribes
+      of Cilicia, and against Sidon (680-679 B.C.); Cimmerian and Scythian
+      invasions, revolt of vie Mannai, and expeditions against the Medes;
+      submission of the northern Arabs (678-676 B.C.)&mdash;Egyptian affairs;
+      Taharqa (Tirhakah), his building operations, his Syrian policy&mdash;Disturbances
+      on the frontiers of Elam and Urartu.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>First invasion of Egypt and subjection of the country to Nineveh (670
+      B.C.)&mdash;Intrigues of rival claimants to the throne, and division of
+      the Assyrian empire between Assùr-bani-pal and Shamash shumukîn (668 B.C.)&mdash;Revolt
+      of Egypt and death of Esarhaddon (668 B.C.); accession of Assur-bani-pal;
+      his campaign against Kirbît; defeat of Taharqa and reconstitution of the
+      Egyptian province (667 B.C.)&mdash;Affairs of Asia Minor: Gyges (693
+      B.C.), his tears against the Greeks and Cimmerians; he sends ambassadors
+      to Nineveh (664 B.C.).</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Tanuatamanu reasserts the authority of Ethiopia in Egypt (664 B.C.),
+      and Tammaritu of Elam invades Karduniash; reconquest of the Said and sack
+      of Thebes&mdash;Psammetichus I. and the rise of the XXVIth dynasty&mdash;Disturbances
+      among the Medes and Mannai&mdash;War against Teumman and the victory of
+      Tulliz (660 B.C.): Elam yields to the Assyrians for the first time&mdash;Shamash-shumukin
+      at Babylon; is at first on good terms with his brother, then becomes
+      dissatisfied, and forms a coalition against the Ninevite supremacy.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The Uruk incident and outbreak of the war between Karduniash, Elam, and
+      Assyria; Elam disabled by domestic discords&mdash;Siege and capture of
+      Babylon; Assur-bani-pal ascends the throne under the name of Kandalanu
+      (648-646 B.C.)&mdash;Revolt of Egypt: defeat and death of Gyges (642 B.C.
+      ): Ardys drives out the Cimmerians and Dugdamis is killed in Cilicia&mdash;Submission
+      of Arabia.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Revolution in Elam&mdash;Attack on Indabigash&mdash;Tammaritu restored
+      to power&mdash;Pillage and destruction of Susa&mdash;Campaign against the
+      Arabs of Kedar and the Nabatæans: suppression of the Tyrian rebellion
+      &mdash;Dying struggles of Elam&mdash;Capture of Madaktu and surrender of
+      Khumban-khaldash&mdash;The power of Assyria reaches its zenith.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkB2HCH0001" id="linkB2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <a name="linkBimage-0007"       id="linkBimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/083.jpg" width="100%" alt="083.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II&mdash;THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS ZENITH; ESARHADDON AND
+      ASSUR-BANI-PAL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>The Medes and Cimmerians: Lydia&mdash;The conquest of Egypt, of Arabia,
+      and of Elam.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we have already seen, Sennacherib reigned for eight years after his
+      triumph; eight years of tranquillity at home, and of peace with all his
+      neighbours abroad. If we examine the contemporary monuments or the
+      documents of a later period, and attempt to glean from them some details
+      concerning the close of his career, we find that there is a complete
+      absence of any record of national movement on the part of either Elam,
+      Urartu, or Egypt.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Layard. The vignette, also by
+     Faucher-Gudin, represents Taharqa in a kneeling attitude,
+     and is taken from a bronze statuette in the Macgregor
+     collection.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0008" id="linkBimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/087.jpg"
+       alt="087.jpg Stone Lion at HamadÂn " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from Plandin and Coste.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The only event of which any definite mention is made is a raid across the
+      north of Arabia, in the course of which Hazael, King of Adumu, and chief
+      among the princes of Kedar, was despoiled of the images of his gods. The
+      older states of the Oriental world had, as we have pointed out, grown
+      weary of warfare which brought them nothing but loss of men and treasure;
+      but behind these states, on the distant horizon to the east and
+      north-west, were rising up new nations whose growth and erratic movements
+      assumed an importance that became daily more and more alarming. On the
+      east, the Medes, till lately undistinguishable from the other tribes
+      occupying the western corner of the Iranian table-land, had recently
+      broken away from the main body, and, rallying round a single leader,
+      already gave promise of establishing an empire formidable alike by the
+      energy of its people and the extent of its domain. A tradition afterwards
+      accepted by them attributed their earlier successes to a certain Deïokes,
+      son of Phraortes, a man wiser than his fellows, who first set himself to
+      deal out justice in his own household. The men of his village, observing
+      his merits, chose him to be the arbiter of all their disputes, and, being
+      secretly ambitious of sovereign power, he did his best to settle their
+      differences on lines of the strictest equity and justice. By these means
+      he gained such credit with his fellow-citizens as to attract the attention
+      of those who lived in the neighbouring villages, who had suffered from
+      unjust judgments, so that when they heard of the singular uprightness of
+      Deïokes and of the equity of his decisions they joyfully had recourse to
+      him until at last they came to put confidence in no one else. The number
+      of complaints brought before him continually increasing as people learnt
+      more and more the justice of his judgments, Deïokes, finding himself now
+      all-important, announced that he did not intend any longer to hear causes,
+      and appeared no more in the seat in which he had been accustomed to sit
+      and administer justice. &ldquo;&lsquo;It was not to his advantage,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;to spend
+      the whole day in regulating other men&rsquo;s affairs to the neglect of his
+      own.&rsquo; Hereupon robbery and lawlessness broke out afresh and prevailed
+      throughout the country even more than heretofore; wherefore the Medes
+      assembled from all quarters and held a consultation on the state of
+      affairs. The speakers, as I think, were chiefly friends of Deïokes. &lsquo;We
+      cannot possibly,&rsquo; they said, &lsquo;go on living in this country if things
+      continue as they now are; let us, therefore, set a king over us, so that
+      the land may be well governed, and we ourselves may be able to attend to
+      our own affairs, and not be forced to quit our country on account of
+      anarchy.&rsquo; After speaking thus, they persuaded themselves that they desired
+      a king, and forthwith debated whom they should choose. Deïokes was
+      proposed and warmly praised by all, so they agreed to elect him.&rdquo;
+       Whereupon Deïokes had a great palace built, and enrolled a bodyguard to
+      attend upon him. He next called upon his subjects to leave their villages,
+      and &ldquo;the Medes, obedient to his orders, built the city now called
+      Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in
+      circles one within the other. The walls are concentric, and so arranged
+      that they rise one above the other by the height of their battlements. The
+      nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favoured this arrangement.
+      The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries
+      standing within the last. The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the
+      same as that of Athens. Of this wall the battlements are white, of the
+      next black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, of the fifth orange.
+      The two last have their battlements coated respectively with silver and
+      gold. All these fortifications Deïokes caused to be raised for himself and
+      his own palace; the people he required to dwell outside the citadel. When
+      the town was finished, he established a rule that no one should have
+      direct access to the king, but that all communications should pass through
+      the hands of messengers. It was declared to be unseemly for any one to see
+      the king face to face, or to laugh or spit in his presence. This
+      ceremonial Deïokes established for his own security, fearing lest his
+      compeers who had been brought up with him, and were of as good family and
+      parts as he, should be vexed at the sight of him and conspire against him:
+      he thought that by rendering himself invisible to his vassals they would
+      in time come to regard him as quite a different sort of being from
+      themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three facts stand out from this legendary background. It is
+      probable that Deïokes was an actual person; that the empire of the Medes
+      first took shape under his auspices; that he formed an important kingdom
+      at the foot of Mount Elvend, and founded Ecbatana the Great, or, at at any
+      rate, helped to raise it to the rank of a capital.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The existence of Deïokes has been called in question by
+     Grote and by the Rawlinsons. Most recent historians,
+     however, accept the story of this personage as true in its
+     main facts; some believe him to have been merely the
+     ancestor of the royal house which later on founded the
+     united kingdom of the Medes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Its site was happily chosen, in a rich and fertile valley, close to where
+      the roads emerge which cross the Zagros chain of mountains and connect
+      Iran with the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, almost on the border of
+      the salt desert which forms and renders sterile the central regions of the
+      plateau. Mount Elvend shelters it, and feeds with its snows the streams
+      that irrigate it, whose waters transform the whole country round into one
+      vast orchard. The modern town has, as it were, swallowed up all traces of
+      its predecessor; a stone lion, overthrown and mutilated, marks the site of
+      the royal palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chronological reckoning of the native annalists, as handed down to us
+      by Herodotus, credits Deïokes with a reign of fifty-three years, which
+      occupied almost the whole of the first half of the seventh century, i.e.
+      from 709 to 656, or from 700 to 647 B.C.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus expressly attributes a reign of fifty-three
+     years to his Deïokes, and the total of a hundred and fifty
+     years which we obtain by adding together the number of years
+     assigned by him to the four Median kings (53 + 22 + 40 +
+     35) brings us back to 709-708, if we admit, as he does, that
+     the year of the proclamation by Cyrus as King of Persia
+     (559-558) was that in which Astyages was overthrown; we get
+     700-699 as the date of Deiokes&rsquo; accession, if we separate
+     the two facts, as the monuments compel us to do, and reckon
+     the hundred and fifty years of the Median empire from the
+     fall of Astyages in 550-549.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The records of Nineveh mention a certain Dayaukku who was governor of the
+      Mannai, and an ally of the Assyrians in the days of Sargon, and was
+      afterwards deported with his family to Hamath in 715; two years later
+      reference is made to an expedition across the territory of Bît-Dayaukku,
+      which is described as lying between Ellipi and Karalla, thus corresponding
+      to the modern province of Hamadân. It is quite within the bounds of
+      possibility that the Dayaukku who gave his name to this district was
+      identical with the Deiokes of later writers.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The form Deïokes, in place of Daïokes, is due to the Ionic
+     dialect employed by Herodotus. Justi regards the name as an
+     abbreviated form of the ancient Persian <i>Dahyaupati</i>&mdash;&ldquo;the
+     master of a province,&rdquo; with the suffix <i>-ha</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0009" id="linkBimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/088.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="088.jpg View of HamadÂn and Mount Elvend in Winter " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He was the official ancestor of a royal house, a fact proved by the way in
+      which his conqueror uses the name to distinguish the country over which he
+      had ruled; moreover, the epoch assigned to him by contemporary chroniclers
+      coincides closely enough with that indicated by tradition in the case of
+      Deïokes. He was never the august sovereign that posterity afterwards made
+      him out to be, and his territory included barely half of what constituted
+      the province of Media in classical times; he contrived, however&mdash;and
+      it was this that gained him universal renown in later days&mdash;to create
+      a central rallying-point for the Median tribes around which they
+      henceforth grouped themselves. The work of concentration was merely in its
+      initial stage during the lifetime of Sennacherib, and little or nothing
+      was felt of its effects outside its immediate area of influence, but the
+      pacific character ascribed to the worthy Deïokes by popular legends, is to
+      a certain extent confirmed by the testimony of the monuments: they record
+      only one expedition, in 702, against Ellipi and the neighbouring tribes,
+      in the course of which some portions of the newly acquired territory were
+      annexed to the province of Kharkhar, and after mentioning this the annals
+      have nothing further to relate during the rest of the reign. Sennacherib
+      was too much taken up with his retaliatory measures against Babylon, or
+      his disputes with Blam, to think of venturing on expeditions such as those
+      which had brought Tiglath-pileser III. or Sargon within sight of Mount
+      Bikni; while the Medes, on their part, had suffered so many reverses under
+      these two monarchs that they probably thought twice before attacking any
+      of the outposts scattered along the Assyrian frontier: nothing occurred to
+      disturb their tranquillity during the early years of the seventh century,
+      and this peaceful interval probably enabled Deïokes to consolidate, if not
+      to extend, his growing authority. But if matters were quiet, at all events
+      on the surface, in this direction, the nations on the north and north-west
+      had for some time past begun to adopt a more threatening attitude. That
+      migration of races between Europe and Asia, which had been in such active
+      progress about the middle of the second millennium before our era, had
+      increased twofold in intensity after the rise of the XXth Egyptian
+      dynasty, and from thenceforward a wave of new races had gradually spread
+      over the whole of Asia Minor, and had either driven the older peoples into
+      the less fertile or more inaccessible districts, or else had overrun and
+      absorbed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0010" id="linkBimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/090.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="090.jpg Asia Minor in the 7th Century " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Many of the nations that had fought against Ramses II. and Ramses III.,
+      such as the Uashasha, the Shagalasha, the Zakkali, the Danauna, and the
+      Tursha, had disappeared, but the Thracians, whose appearance on the scene
+      caused such consternation in days gone by, had taken root in the very
+      heart of the peninsula, and had, in the course of three or four
+      generations, succeeded in establishing a thriving state. The legend which
+      traced the descent of the royal line back to the fabulous hero Ascanius
+      proves that at the outset the haughty tribe of the Ascanians must have
+      taken precedence over their fellows;* it soon degenerated, however, and
+      before long the Phrygian tribe gained the upper hand and gave its name to
+      the whole nation.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name of this tribe was retained by a district
+     afterwards included in the province of Bithynia, viz.
+     Ascania, on the shores of the Ascanian lake: the
+     distribution of place and personal names over the face of
+     the country makes it seem extremely probable that Ascania
+     and the early Ascanians occupied the whole of the region
+     bounded on the north by the Propontis; in other words, the
+     very country in which, according to Xanthus of Lydia, the
+     Phry gians first established themselves after their arrival
+     in Asia.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Phrygia proper, the country first colonised by them, lay between Mount
+      Dindymus and the river Halys, in the valley of the Upper Sangarios and its
+      affluents: it was there that the towns and strongholds of their most
+      venerated leaders, such as Midaion, Dorylaion, Gordiaion, Tataion, and
+      many others stood close together, perpetuating the memory of Midas,
+      Dorylas, Gordios, and Tatas. Its climate was severe and liable to great
+      extremes of temperature, being bitterly cold in winter and almost tropical
+      during the summer months; forests of oak and pine, however, and fields of
+      corn flourished, while the mountain slopes favoured the growth of the
+      vine; it was, in short, an excellent and fertile country, well fitted for
+      the development of a nation of vinedressers and tillers of the soil. The
+      slaying of an ox or the destruction of an agricultural implement was
+      punishable by death, and legend relates that Gordios, the first Phrygian
+      king, was a peasant by birth. His sole patrimony consisted of a single
+      pair of oxen, and the waggon used by him in bringing home his sheaves
+      after the harvest was afterwards placed as an offering in the temple of
+      Cybele at Ancyra by his son Midas; there was a local tradition according
+      to which the welfare of all Asia depended on the knot which bound the yoke
+      to the pole being preserved intact. Midas did not imitate his father&rsquo;s
+      simple habits, and the poets, after crediting him with fabulous wealth,
+      tried also to make out that he was a conqueror. The kingdom expanded in
+      all directions, and soon included the upper valley of the Masander, with
+      its primeval sanctuaries, Kydrara, Colossæ, and Kylsenæ, founded wherever
+      exhalations of steam and boiling springs betrayed the presence of some
+      supernatural power. The southern shores of the Hellespont, which formed
+      part of the Troad, and was the former territory of the Ascania, belonged
+      to it, as did also the majority of the peoples scattered along the coast
+      of the Euxine between the mouth of the Sangarios and that of the Halys;
+      those portions of the central steppe which border on Lake Tatta were also
+      for a time subject to it, Lydia was under its influence, and it is no
+      exaggeration to say that in the tenth and eleventh centuries before our
+      era there was a regular Phrygian empire which held sway, almost without a
+      rival, over the western half of Asia Minor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0011" id="linkBimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/095.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="095.jpg Monument Commemorative of Midas " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a plate in Perrot and Chipiez.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0012" id="linkBimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:39%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/096.jpg" alt="096.jpg a Phrygian God " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a sketch by Ramsay.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It has left behind it so few relics of its existence, that we can only
+      guess at what it must have been in the days of its prosperity. Three or
+      four ruined fortresses, a few votive stelae, and a dozen bas-reliefs cut
+      on the faces of cliffs in a style which at first recalls the Hittite and
+      Asianic carvings of the preceding age, and afterwards, as we come down to
+      later times, betrays the influence of early Greek art. In the midst of one
+      of their cemeteries we come upon a monument resembling the façade of a
+      house or temple cut out of the virgin rock; it consists of a low
+      triangular pediment, surmounted by a double scroll, then a rectangle of
+      greater length than height, framed between two pilasters and a horizontal
+      string-course, the centre being decorated with a geometrical design of
+      crosses in a way which suggests the pattern of a carpet; a recess is
+      hollowed out on a level with the ground, and filled by a blind door with
+      rebated doorposts. Is it a tomb? The inscription carefully engraved above
+      one side of the pediment contains the name of Midas, and seems to show
+      that we have before us a commemorative monument, piously dedicated by a
+      certain Ates in honour of the Phrygian hero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elsewhere we come upon the outlines of a draped female form, sometimes
+      alone, sometimes accompanied by two lions, or of a man clothed in a short
+      tunic, holding a sort of straight sceptre in his hand, and we fancy that
+      we have the image of a god before our eyes, though we cannot say which of
+      the deities handed down by tradition it may represent. The religion of the
+      Phrygians is shrouded in the same mystery as their civilisation and their
+      art, and presents a curious mixture of European and Asianic elements. The
+      old aboriginal races had worshipped from time immemorial a certain
+      mother-goddess, Ma, or Amma, the black earth, which brings forth without
+      ceasing, and nourishes all living things. Her central place of worship
+      seems, originally, to have been in the region of the Anti-taurus, and it
+      was there that her sacred cities&mdash;Tyana, Venasa, and the Cappadocian
+      Comana&mdash;were to be found as late as Roman times; in these towns her
+      priests were regarded as kings, and thousands of her priestesses spent
+      lives of prostitution in her service; but her sanctuaries, with their
+      special rites and regulations, were scattered over the whole peninsula.
+      She was sometimes worshipped under the form of a meteoric stone, or betyle
+      similar to those found in Canaan;* more frequently she was represented in
+      female shape, with attendant lions, or placed erect on a lion in the
+      attitude of walking.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * E.g. at Mount Dindymus and at Pessinus, which latter place
+     was supposed to possess the oldest sanctuary of Cybele. The
+     Pessinus stone, which was carried off to Rome in 204 B.C.,
+     was small, irregular in shape, and of a dark colour. Another
+     stone represented Ida.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A moon-god, Men, shared divine honours with her, and with a goddess Nana
+      whose son Atys had been the only love of Ma and the victim of her passion.
+      We are told that she compelled him to emasculate himself in a fit of mad
+      delirium, and then transformed him into a pine tree: thenceforward her
+      priests made the sacrifice of their virility with their own hands at the
+      moment of dedicating themselves to the service of the goddess.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Nana was made out to be the daughter of the river
+     Sangarios. She is said to have conceived Atys by placing in
+     her bosom the fruit of an almond tree which sprang from the
+     hermaphrodite Agdistis. This was the form&mdash;extremely ancient
+     in its main features&mdash;in which the legend was preserved at
+     Pessinus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0013" id="linkBimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:44%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/097.jpg"
+       alt="097.jpg the Mother-goddess Between Lions " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a sketch by Ramsay.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0014" id="linkBimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/098.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="098.jpg the Mother-goddess and Atys " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre. One of
+     the bas-reliefs at Iasilikiaia, to which we shall have
+     occasion to refer later on in Chapter III. of the present
+     volume.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The gods introduced from Thrace by the Phrygians showed a close affinity
+      with those of the purely Asianic peoples. Precedence was universally given
+      to a celestial divinity named Bagaios, Lord of the Oak, perhaps because he
+      was worshipped under a gigantic sacred oak; he was king of gods and men,
+      then-father,* lord of the thunder and the lightning, the warrior who
+      charges in his chariot.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In this capacity he bore the surname Papas.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He, doubtless, allowed a queen-regent of the earth to share his throne,*
+      but Sauazios, another, and, at first, less venerable deity had thrown this
+      august pair into the shade.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The existence of such a goddess may be deduced from the
+     passage in which Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that
+     Manes, first king of the Phrygians, was the son of Zeus and
+     Demeter.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0015" id="linkBimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/099.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="099.jpg the God Men Associated With The Sun and Other Deities " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Perdrizet. The
+     last figure on the left is the god Men; the Sun overlooks
+     all the rest, and a god bearing an axe occupies the extreme
+     right of the picture. The shapes of these ancient aboriginal
+     deities have been modified by the influence of Græco-Roman
+     syncretism, and I merely give these figures, as I do many
+     others, for lack of better representations.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks, finding this Sauazios at the head of the Phrygian Pantheon,
+      identified him with their Zeus, or, less frequently, with the Sun; he was
+      really a variant of their Dionysos. He became torpid in the autumn, and
+      slept a death-like sleep all through the winter; but no sooner did he feel
+      the warmth of the first breath of spring, than he again awoke, glowing
+      with youth, and revelled during his summer in the heart of the forest or
+      on the mountain-side, leading a life of riot and intoxication, guarded by
+      a band of Sauades, spirits of the springs and streams, the Sileni of Greek
+      mythology. The resemblances detected by the new-comers between the orgies
+      of Thrace and those of Asia quickly led to confusion between the different
+      dogmas and divinities. The Phrygians adopted Ma, and made her their queen,
+      the Cybele who dwells in the hills, and takes her title from the
+      mountain-tops which she inhabits&mdash;Dindymêne on Mount Dindymus,
+      Sipylêne on Mount Sipylus. She is always the earth, but the earth
+      untilled, and is seated in the midst of lions, or borne through her domain
+      in a car drawn by lions, accompanied by a troop of Corybantes with
+      dishevelled locks. Sauazios, identified with the Asianic Atys, became her
+      lover and her priest, and Men, transformed by popular etymology into
+      Manes, the good and beautiful, was looked upon as the giver of good luck,
+      who protects men after death as well as in life. This religion, evolved
+      from so many diverse elements, possessed a character of sombre poetry and
+      sensual fanaticism which appealed strongly to the Greek imagination: they
+      quickly adopted even its most barbarous mysteries, those celebrated in
+      honour of the goddess and Atys, or of Sauazios. They tell us but little of
+      the inner significance of the symbols and doctrines taught by its
+      votaries, but have frequently described its outward manifestations. These
+      consisted of aimless wanderings through the forests, in which the priest,
+      incarnate representative of his god, led after him the ministers of the
+      temple, who were identified with the Sauades and nymphs of the heavenly
+      host. Men heard them passing in the night, heralded by the piercing notes
+      of the flute provoking to frenzy, and by the clash of brazen cymbals,
+      accompanied by the din of uproarious ecstasy: these sounds were broken at
+      intervals by the bellowing of bulls and the roll of drums, like the
+      rambling of subterranean thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0016" id="linkBimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/101.jpg" alt="101.jpg Midas of Phrygia " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a specimen in the
+<i>Cabinet des Médailles</i>.
+It is a bronze coin from
+Prymnessos in Phrygia,
+belonging to the imperial
+ epoch.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      A Midas followed a Gordios, and a Gordios a Midas, in alternate
+      succession, and under their rule the Phrygian empire enjoyed a period of
+      prosperous obscurity. Lydia led an uneventful existence beside them, under
+      dynasties which have received merely passing notice at the hands of the
+      Greek chroniclers. They credit it at the outset with the almost fabulous
+      royal line of the Atyadæ, in one of whose reigns the Tyrseni are said to
+      have migrated into Italy. Towards the twelfth century the Atyadæ were
+      supplanted by a family of Heraclido, who traced their descent to a certain
+      Agrôn, whose personality is only a degree less mythical than his ancestry;
+      he was descended from Heracles through Alcseus, Belus, and Ninus. Whether
+      these last two names point to intercourse with one or other of the courts
+      on the banks of the Euphrates, it is difficult to say. Twenty-one
+      Heraclido, each one the son of his predecessor, are said to have followed
+      Agrôn on the throne, their combined reigns giving a total of five hundred
+      years.* Most of these princes, whether Atyadæ or Heraclidæ, have for us
+      not even a shadowy existence, and what we know of the remainder is of a
+      purely fabulous nature. For instance, Kambles is reported to have
+      possessed such a monstrous appetite, that he devoured his own wife one
+      night, while asleep.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The number is a purely conventional one, and Gutschmid has
+     shown how it originated. The computation at first comprised
+     the complete series of 22 Heraclidæ and 5 Mermnadæ,
+     estimated reasonably at 4 kings to a century, i.e. 27 X 25 =
+     675 years, from the taking of Sardes to the supposed
+     accession of Agrôn. As it was known from other sources that
+     the 5 Mermnadæ had reigned 170 years, these were subtracted
+     from the 675, to obtain the duration of the Heraclidæ alone,
+     and by this means were obtained the 505 years mentioned by
+     Herodotus.
+
+     ** Another version, related by Nicolas of Damascus, refers
+     the story to the time of Lardanos, a contemporary of
+     Hercules; it shows that the Lydian chronographers considered
+     Kambles or Kamblitas as being one of the last of the Atyad
+     kings.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The concubine of Meles, again, is said to have brought forth a lion, and
+      the oracle of Telmessos predicted that the town of Sardes would be
+      rendered impregnable if the animal were led round the city walls; this was
+      done, except on the side of the citadel facing Mount Tmolus, which was
+      considered unapproachable, but it was by that very path that the Persians
+      subsequently entered the town. Alkimos, we are told, accumulated immense
+      treasures, and under his rule his subjects enjoyed unequalled prosperity
+      for fourteen years. It is possible that the story of the expedition
+      despatched into Palestine by a certain Akiamos, which ended in the
+      foundation of Ascalon, is merely a feeble echo of the raids in Syrian and
+      Egyptian waters made by the Tyrseni and Sardinians in the thirteenth
+      century B.C. The spread of the Phrygians, and the subsequent progress of
+      Greek colonisation, must have curtailed the possessions of the Heraclidas
+      from the eleventh to the ninth centuries, but the material condition of
+      the people does not appear to have suffered by this diminution of
+      territory. When they had once firmly planted themselves in the ports along
+      the Asianic littoral&mdash;at Kymê, at Phocæ, at Smyrna, at Clazomenæ, at
+      Colophon, at Ephesus, at Magnesia, at Miletus&mdash;the Æolians and the
+      Ionians lost no time in reaping the advantages which this position, at the
+      western extremities of the great high-road through Asia Minor, secured to
+      them. They overran all the Lydian settlements in Phrygia&mdash;Sardes,
+      Leontocephalos, Pessinus, Gordioon, and Ancyra. The steep banks and the
+      tortuous course of the Halys failed to arrest them; and they pushed
+      forward beyond the mysterious regions peopled by the White Syrians, where
+      the ancient civilisation of Asia Minor still held its sway. The search for
+      precious metals mainly drew them on&mdash;the gold and silver, the copper,
+      bronze, and above all iron, which the Chalybæ found in their mountains,
+      and which were conveyed by caravans from the regions of the Caucasus to
+      the sacred towns of Teiria and Pteria.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The site of Pteria has been fixed at Boghaz-keui by
+     Texier, an identification which has been generally adopted;
+     Euyuk is very probably Teiria, a town of the Lcucosyrians,
+     mentioned by Hecatsous of Miletus in his work.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The friendly relations into which they entered with the natives on these
+      journeys resulted before long in barter and intermarriage, though their
+      influence made itself felt in different ways, according to the character
+      of the people on whom it was brought to bear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0017" id="linkBimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/104.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="104.jpg the Steep Banks of The Halys Failed to Arrest Them " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by A. Boissier.
+     The road leading from Angora to Yuzgat crosses the river not
+     far from the site shown here, near the spot where the
+     ancient road crossed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They gave as a legacy to Phrygia one of their alphabets, that of Kymê,
+      which soon banished the old Hittite syllabary from the monuments, and they
+      borrowed in exchange Phrygian customs, musical instruments, traditions,
+      and religious orgies. A Midas sought in marriage Hermodikê, the daughter
+      of Agamemnon the Kymsoan, while another Midas, who had consulted the
+      oracle of Delphi, presented to the god the chryselephantine throne on
+      which he was wont to sit when he dispensed justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0018" id="linkBimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/105.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="105.jpg View Ovek the Plain of Sardes " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This interchange of amenities and these alliances, however, had a merely
+      superficial effect, and in no way modified the temperament and life of the
+      people in inner Asia Minor. They remained a robust, hardworking race,
+      attached to their fields and woods, loutish and slow of understanding,
+      unskilled in war, and not apt in defending themselves in spite of their
+      natural bravery. The Lydians, on the contrary, submitted readily to
+      foreign influence, and the Greek leaven introduced among them became the
+      germ of a new civilisation, which occupied an intermediate place between
+      that of the Greek and that of the Oriental world. About the first half of
+      the eighth century B.C. the Lydians had become organised into a
+      confederation of several tribes, governed by hereditary chiefs, who were
+      again in their turn subject to the Heraclidæ occupying Sardes.* This town
+      rose in terraces on the lower slopes of a detached spur of the Tmolus
+      running in the direction of the Hermos, and was crowned by the citadel,
+      within which were included the royal palace, the treasury, and the
+      arsenals. It was surrounded by an immense plain, bounded on the south by a
+      curve of the Tmolus, and on the west by the distant mountains of Phrygia
+      Katake-kaumenê. The Mæonians still claimed primacy over the entire race,
+      and the family was chosen from among their nobles. The king, who was
+      supposed to be descended from the gods, bore, as the insignia of his rank,
+      a double-headed axe, the emblem of his divine ancestors. The Greeks of
+      later times said that the axe was that of their Heracles, which was
+      wrested by him from the Amazon Hippolyta, and given to Omphalê.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Gelzer was the first, to my knowledge, to state that Lydia
+     was a feudal state, and he defined its constitution. Radet
+     refuses to recognise it as feudal in the true sense of the
+     term, and he prefers to see in it a confederation of states
+     under the authority of a single prince.
+
+     ** Gelzer sees in the legend about the axe related by
+     Plutarch, a reminiscence of a primitive gynocracy. The axe
+     is the emblem of the god of war, and, as such, belongs to
+     the king: the coins of Mylasa exhibit it held by Zeus
+     Labraundos.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0019" id="linkBimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:24%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/106.jpg"
+       alt="106.jpg the Axe Borne by Zeus Labraundos " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a coin in the
+Cabinet des Médailles.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The king was the supreme head of the priesthood, as also of the vassal
+      chiefs and of the army, but he had as a subordinate a &ldquo;companion&rdquo; who
+      could replace him when occasion demanded, and he was assisted in the
+      exercise of his functions by the counsel of &ldquo;Friends,&rdquo; and further still
+      in extraordinary circumstances by the citizens of the capital assembled in
+      the public square. This intervention of the voice of the populace was a
+      thing unknown in the East, and had probably been introduced in imitation
+      of customs observed among the Greeks of Æolia or Ionia; it was an
+      important political factor, and might possibly lead to an outbreak or a
+      revolution. Outside the pale of Sardes and the province of Mæonia, the
+      bulk of Lydian territory was distributed among a very numerous body of
+      landowners, who were particularly proud of their noble descent. Many of
+      these country magnates held extensive fiefs, and had in their pay small
+      armies, which rendered them almost independent, and the only way for the
+      sovereign to succeed in ruling them was to conciliate them at all hazards,
+      and to keep them in perpetual enmity with their fellows. Two of these
+      rival families vied with each other in their efforts to secure the royal
+      favour; that of the Tylonidæ and that of the Mermnadæ, the principal
+      domain of which latter lay at Teira, in the valley of the Cayster, though
+      they had also other possessions at Dascylion, in Hellespontine Phrygia.
+      The head sometimes of one and sometimes of the other family would fill
+      that post of &ldquo;companion&rdquo; which placed all the resources of the kingdom at
+      the disposal of the occupant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0020" id="linkBimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:46%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/110.jpg"
+       alt="110.jpg a Conflict With Two Griffins. " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from one of the reliefs
+on the crown of the
+Great Blinitza.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The first of the Mermnadæ of whom we get a glimpse is Daskylos, son of
+      Gyges, who about the year 740 was &ldquo;companion&rdquo; during the declining years
+      of Ardys, over whom he exercised such influence that Adyattes, the heir to
+      the throne, took umbrage at it, and caused him to be secretly
+      assassinated, whereupon his widow, fearing for her own safety, hastily
+      fled into Phrygia, of which district she was a native. On hearing of the
+      crime, Ardys, trembling with anger, convoked the Assembly, and as his
+      advanced age rendered walking difficult, he caused himself to be carried
+      to the public square in a litter. Having reached the place, he laid the
+      assassins under a curse, and gave permission to any who could find them to
+      kill them; he then returned to his palace, where he died a few years
+      later, about 730 B.C. Adyattes took the name of Meles on ascending the
+      throne, and at first reigned happily, but his father&rsquo;s curse weighed upon
+      him, and before long began to take effect. Lydia having been laid waste by
+      a famine, the oracle declared that, before appeasing the gods, the king
+      must expiate the murder of the Mermnad noble, by making every atonement in
+      his power, if need be by an exile of three years&rsquo; duration. Meles
+      submitted to the divine decree. He sought out the widow of his victim, and
+      learning that during her flight she had given birth to a son, called, like
+      his father, Daskylos, he sent to entreat the young man to repair
+      immediately to Sardes, that he might make amends for the murder; the
+      youth, however, alleged that he was as yet unborn at the hour of his
+      father&rsquo;s death, and therefore not entitled to be a party to an arrangement
+      which did not personally affect him, and refused to return to his own
+      country. Having failed in this attempt, Meles entrusted the regency of his
+      kingdom to Sadyattes, son of Kadys, one of the Tylonidas, who probably had
+      already filled the post of companion to the king for some time past, and
+      set out for Babylon. When the three years had elapsed, Sadyattes
+      faithfully handed over to him the reins of government and resumed the
+      second place. Myrsos succeeded Meles about 716,* and his accession
+      immediately became the cause of uneasiness to the younger Daskylos, who
+      felt that he was no longer safe from the intrigues of the Heraclidaî; he
+      therefore quitted Phrygia and settled beyond the Italys among the White
+      Syrians, one of whom he took in marriage, and had by her a son, whom he
+      called Gyges, after his ancestor. The Lydian chronicles which have come
+      down to us make no mention of him, after the birth of this child, for
+      nearly a quarter of a century. We know, however, from other sources, that
+      the country in which he took refuge had for some time past been ravaged by
+      enemies coming from the Caucasus, known to us as the Cimmerians.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The lists of Eusebius give 36 years to Ardys, 14 years to
+     Meles or Adyattes, 12 years to Myrsos, and 17 years to
+     Candaules; that is to say, if we place the accession of
+     Gyges in 687, the dates of the reign of Candaules are 704-
+     687, of that of Mysros 716-704, of that of Meles 730-716, of
+     that of Ardys I. 766-730. Oelzer thinks that the double
+     names each represent a different Icing; Radet adheres to the
+     four generations of Eusebius.
+
+     ** I would gladly have treated at length the subject of the
+     Cimmerians with its accompanying developments, but lack of
+     space prevents me from doing more than summing up here the
+     position I have taken. Most modern critics have rejected
+     that part of the tradition preserved by Herodotus which
+     refers to the itinerary of the Cimmerians, and have confused
+     the Cimmerian invasion with that of the Thracian tribes. I
+     think that there is reason to give weight to Herodotus&rsquo;
+     statement, and to distinguish carefully between two series
+     of events: (1) a movement of peoples coming from Europe into
+     Asia, by the routes that Herodotus indicates, about the
+     latter half of the eighth century B.C., who would be more
+     especially the Cimmerians; (2) a movement of peoples coming
+     from Europe into Asia by the Thracian Bosphorus, and among
+     whom there was perhaps, side by side with the Treres, a
+     remnant of Cimmerian tribes who had been ousted by the
+     Scythians. The two streams would have had their confluence
+     in the heart of Asia Minor, in the first half of the seventh
+     century.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Previous to this period these had been an almost mythical race in the eyes
+      of the civilised races of the Oriental world. They imagined them as living
+      in a perpetual mist on the confines of the universe: &ldquo;Never does bright
+      Helios look upon them with his rays, neither when he rises towards the
+      starry heaven, nor when he turns back from heaven towards the earth, but a
+      baleful night spreads itself over these miserable mortals.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Odyssey, xi. 14-19. It is this passage which Ephorus
+     applies to the Cimmerians of his own time who were
+     established in the Crimea, and which accounts for his saying
+     that they were a race of miners, living perpetually
+     underground.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Fabulous animals, such as griffins with lions&rsquo; bodies, having the neck and
+      ears of a fox, and the wings and beak of an eagle, wandered over their
+      plains, and sometimes attacked them; the inhabitants were forced to defend
+      themselves with axes, and did not always emerge victorious from these
+      terrible conflicts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0021" id="linkBimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:51%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/111.jpg"
+       alt="111.jpg Scythians Armed for War " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the reliefs on the silver vase
+     of Kul-Oba.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The few merchants who had ventured to penetrate into their country had
+      returned from their travels with less fanciful notions concerning the
+      nature of the regions frequented by them, but little continued to be known
+      of them, until an unforeseen occurrence obliged them to quit their remote
+      steppes. The Scythians, driven from the plains of the Iaxartes by an
+      influx of the Massagetæ, were urged forwards in a westerly direction
+      beyond the Volga and the Don, and so great was the terror inspired by the
+      mere report of their approach, that the Cimmerians decided to quit their
+      own territory. A tradition current in Asia three centuries later, told how
+      their kings had counselled them to make a stand against the invaders; the
+      people, however, having refused to listen to their advice, their rulers
+      and those who were loyal to them fell by each other&rsquo;s hands, and their
+      burial-place was still shown near the banks of the Tyras. Some of their
+      tribes took refuge in the Chersonesus Taurica, but the greater number
+      pushed forward beyond the Mæotio marshes; a body of Scythians followed in
+      their track, and the united horde pressed onwards till they entered Asia
+      Minor, keeping to the shores of the Black Sea.* This heterogeneous mass of
+      people came into conflict first with Urartu; then turning obliquely in a
+      south-easterly direction, their advance-guard fell upon the Mannai. But
+      they were repulsed by Sargon&rsquo;s generals; the check thus administered
+      forced them to fall back speedily upon other countries less vigorously
+      defended. The Scythians, therefore, settled themselves in the eastern
+      basin of the Araxes, on the frontiers of Urartu and the Mannai, where they
+      formed themselves into a kind of marauding community, perpetually
+      quarrelling with their neighbours.** The Cimmerians took their way
+      westwards, and established themselves upon the upper waters of the Araxes,
+      the Euphrates, the Halys, and the Thermodon,*** greatly to the vexation of
+      the rulers of Urartu.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The version of Aristaeas of Proconnesus, as given by
+     Herodotus and by Damastes of Sigsea, attributes a more
+     complex origin to this migration, i.e. that the Arimaspes
+     had driven the Issedonians before them, and that the latter
+     had in turn driven the Scythians back on the Cimmerians.
+
+     ** The Scythians of the tradition preserved by Herodotus
+     must have been the Ashguzai or Ishkuzai of the cuneiform
+     documents. The original name must have been Skuza, Shkuza,
+     with a sound in the second syllable that the Greeks have
+     rendered by <i>th</i>, and the Assyrians by <i>z</i>: the initial
+     vowel has been added, according to a well-known rule, to
+     facilitate the pronunciation of the combination sk, sine. An
+     oracle of the time of Esarhaddon shows that they occupied
+     one of the districts really belonging to the Mannai: and it
+     is probably they who are mentioned in a passage of Jer. li.
+     27, where the traditional reading <i>Aschenaz</i> should be
+     replaced by that of Ashkuz.
+
+     *** It is doubtless to these events that the tradition
+     preserved by Pompeius Trogus, which is known to us through
+     his abbreviator Justin, or through the compilers of a later
+     period, refers, concerning the two Scythian princes Ylinus
+     and Scolopitus: they seem to have settled along the coast,
+     on the banks of the Thermodon and in the district of
+     Themiscyra.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They subsequently felt their way along the valleys of the Anti-Taurus, but
+      finding them held by Assyrian troops, they turned their steps towards the
+      country of the White Syrians, seized Sinôpê, where the Greeks had recently
+      founded a colony, and bore down upon Phrygia. It would appear that they
+      were joined in these regions by other hordes from Thrace which had crossed
+      the Bosphorus a few years earlier, and among whom the ancient historians
+      particularly make mention of the Treres;* the results of the Scythian
+      invasion had probably been felt by all the tribes on the banks of the
+      Dnieper, and had been the means of forcing them in the direction of the
+      Danube and the Balkans, whence they drove before them, as they went, the
+      inhabitants of the Thracian peninsula across into Asia Minor. It was about
+      the year 750 B.C. that the Cimmerians had been forced to quit their first
+      home, and towards 720 that they came into contact with the empires of the
+      East; the Treres had crossed the Bosphorus about 710, and the meeting of
+      the two streams of immigration may be placed in the opening years of the
+      seventh century.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Strabo says decisively that the Treres were both
+     Cimmerians and Thracians; elsewhere he makes the Treres
+     synonymous with the Cimmerians. The Treres were probably the
+     predominating tribe among the people which had come into
+     Asia on that side.
+
+     ** Gelzer thinks that the invasion by the Bosphorus took
+     place about 705, and Radet about 708; and their reckoning
+     seems to me to be so likely to be correct, that I do not
+     hesitate to place the arrival of the Treres in Asia about
+     the time they have both indicated&mdash;roughly speaking, about
+     710 B.C.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The combined hordes did not at once attack Phrygia itself, but spread
+      themselves along the coast, from the mouths of the Ehyndakos to those of
+      Halys, constituting a sort of maritime confederation of which Heraclea and
+      Sinôpê were the chief towns. This confederation must not be regarded as a
+      regularly constituted state, but rather as a vast encampment in which the
+      warriors could leave their families and their spoil in safety; they issued
+      from it nearly every year to spread themselves over the neighbouring
+      provinces, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. The ancient
+      sanctuaries of Pteria and the treasures they contained excited their
+      cupidity, but they were not well enough equipped to undertake the siege of
+      a strongly fortified place, and for want of anything better were content
+      to hold it to ransom. The bulk of the indigenous population lived even
+      then in those subterranean dwellings so difficult of access, which are
+      still used as habitations by the tribes on the banks of the Halys, and it
+      is possible that they helped to swell the marauding troops of the
+      new-comers. In the declining years of Sennacherib, it would appear that
+      the Ninevite provinces possessed an irresistible attraction for these
+      various peoples. The fame of the wealth accumulated in the regions beyond
+      the Taurus and the Euphrates, in Syria and Mesopotamia, provoked their
+      cupidity beyond all bounds, and the time was at hand when the fear alone
+      of the Assyrian armies would no longer avail to hold them in check.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last years of Sennacherib had been embittered by the intrigues which
+      usually gathered around a monarch enfeebled by age and incapable of
+      bearing the cares of government with his former vigour. A fierce rivalry
+      existed between those of his sons who aspired to the throne, each of whom
+      possessed his following of partisans, both at court and among the people,
+      who were ready to support him, if need be even with the sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0022" id="linkBimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/115.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="115.jpg Inhabited Caves on the Banks of The Halys " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph sent by Alfred Boissier.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One of these princes, probably the eldest of the king&rsquo;s remaining sons,*
+      named Assur-akhê-iddin, called by us Esarhaddon, bad already been
+      nominated his successor, and had received the official investiture of the
+      Babylonian kingdom under the name of Assur-etilmukîn-pal.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The eldest was perhaps that Assur-nadin-shumu who reigned
+     in Babylon, and who was taken prisoner to Elam by King
+     Khalludush.
+
+     ** The idea of an enthronisation at Babylon in the lifetime
+     of Sennacherib, put forward by the earlier Assyriologists,
+     based on an inscription on a lion&rsquo;s head discovered at
+     Babylon, has been adopted and confirmed by Winckler. It was
+     doubtless on this occasion that Esarhaddon received as a
+     present from his father the objects mentioned in the
+     document which Sayce and Budge have called, without
+     sufficient reason, <i>The Will of Sennacherib</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The catastrophe of 689 had not resulted in bringing about the ruin of
+      Babylon, as Sennacherib and his ministers had hoped. The temples, it is
+      true, had been desecrated and demolished, the palaces and public buildings
+      razed to the ground, and the ramparts thrown down, but, in spite of the
+      fact that the city had been set on fire by the conquerors, the quarters
+      inhabited by the lower classes still remained standing, and those of the
+      inhabitants who had escaped being carried away captive, together with such
+      as had taken refuge in the surrounding country or had hidden themselves in
+      neighbouring cities, had gradually returned to their desolated homes. They
+      cleared the streets, repaired the damage inflicted during the siege, and
+      before long the city, which was believed to be hopelessly destroyed, rose
+      once more with the vigour, if not with the wealth, which it had enjoyed
+      before its downfall. The mother of Esarhaddon was a Babylonian, by name
+      Nakïa; and as soon as her son came into possession of his inheritance, an
+      impulse of filial piety moved him to restore to his mother&rsquo;s city its
+      former rank of capital. Animated by the strong religious feeling which
+      formed the groundwork of his character, Esarhaddon had begun his reign by
+      restoring the sanctuaries which had been the cradle of the Assyrian
+      religion, and his intentions, thus revealed at the very outset, had won
+      for him the sympathy of the Babylonians;* this, indeed, was excited sooner
+      than he expected, and perhaps helped to secure to him his throne. During
+      his absence from Nineveh, a widespread plot had been formed in that city,
+      and on the 20th day of Tebeth, 681, at the hour when Sennacherib was
+      praying before the image of his god, two of his sons, Sharezer and
+      Adarmalik (Adrammelech), assassinated their father at the foot of the
+      altar.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * A fragment seems to show clearly that the restoration of
+     the temples was begun even in the lifetime of Sennacherib.
+
+     ** We possess three different accounts of the murder of
+     Sennacherib: 1. In the <i>Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches</i>. 2.
+     In the Bible (2 Kings xix. 36, 37; cf. Isa. xxxvii. 37, 38;
+     2 Chron. xxxii. 21). 3. In Berosus. The biblical account
+     alone mentions both murderers; the <i>Chronicle</i> and Berosus
+     speak of only one, and their testimony seems to prevail with
+     several historians. I believe that the silence of the
+     <i>Chronicle</i> and of Berosus is explained by the fact that
+     Sharezer was chief in the conspiracy, and the one among the
+     sons who aspired to the kingdom: the second murderer merely
+     acted for his brother, and consequently had no more right to
+     be mentioned by name than those accomplices not of the
+     blood-royal who shared in the murder. The name Sharezer is
+     usually considered as an abbreviation of the Assyrian name
+     Nergal-sharuzur, or Assur-sharuzur. Winckler thinks that he
+     sees in it a corruption of Sharitir, abbreviated from
+     Sharitir-assur, which he finds as a royal name on a fragment
+     in the British Museum; he proposes to recognise in this
+     Sharitir-assur, Sharezer enthroned after his father&rsquo;s death.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One half of the army proclaimed Sharezer king; the northern provinces
+      espoused his cause; and Esarhaddon must for the moment have lost all hope
+      of the succession. His father&rsquo;s tragic fate overwhelmed him with fear and
+      grief; he rent his clothes, groaned and lamented like a lion roaring, and
+      could be comforted only by the oracles pronounced by the priests of
+      Babylon. An assurance that the gods favoured his cause reached him even
+      from Assyria, and Nineveh, after a few weeks of vacillation, acknowledged
+      him as its sovereign, the rebellion being mercilessly crushed on the 2nd
+      of Adar.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Bible alone tells us that Sharezer retired to Urartu
+     (2 Kings xix. 37). To explain the plan of this campaign, it
+     is usually supposed that at the time of his father&rsquo;s death
+     Esarhaddon was either beyond Mount Taurus or else on the
+     Armenian frontier; the sequence of the dates in the
+     <i>Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches</i>, compels me to revert to
+     the opinion that Esarhaddon marched from Babylon against the
+     rebels, and pursued them as far as Mount Taurus, and beyond
+     it to Khanigalbat.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Although this was a considerable advantage to Esarhaddon&rsquo;s cause, it could
+      not be considered as decisive, since the provinces of the Euphrates still
+      declared for Sharezer; the gods, therefore, once more intervened. Ishtar
+      of Arbela had long been considered as the recognised patroness and oracle
+      of the dynasty. Whether it were a question of a foreign expedition or a
+      rebellion at home, of a threatened plague or invasion, of a marriage or an
+      alliance with some powerful neighbour, the ruling sovereign would
+      invariably have recourse to her, always with the same formula, to demand
+      counsel of her for the conduct of affairs in hand, and the replies which
+      she vouchsafed in various ways were taken into consideration; her will, as
+      expressed by the mouth of her ministers, would hasten, suspend, or modify
+      the decisions of the king. Esarhaddon did not neglect to consult the
+      goddess, as well as Assur and Sin, Shamash, Bel, Nebo, and Nergal; and
+      their words, transcribed upon a tablet of clay, induced him to act without
+      further delay: &ldquo;Go, do not hesitate, for we march with thee and we will
+      cast down thine enemies!&rdquo; Thus encouraged, he made straight for the scene
+      of danger without passing through Nineveh, so as to prevent Sharezer and
+      his party having time to recover. His biographers depict Esarhaddon
+      hurrying forward, often a day or more in advance of his battalions,
+      without once turning to see who followed him, and without waiting to allow
+      the horses of his baggage-waggons to be unharnessed or permitting his
+      servant^ to pitch his tent; he rested merely for a few moments on the bare
+      ground, indifferent to the cold and nocturnal frosts of the month of
+      Sebat. It would appear as if Sharezer had placed his hopes on the
+      Cimmerians, and had expected their chiefs to come to the rescue. This
+      hypothesis seems borne out by the fact that the decisive battle took place
+      beyond the Euphrates and the Taurus, in the country of Khanigalbat.
+      Esarhaddon attributed his success to Ishtar, the goddess of bravery and of
+      combat; she alone had broken the weapons of the rebels, she alone had
+      brought confusion into their lines, and had inclined the hearts of the
+      survivors to submit. They cried aloud, &ldquo;This is our king!&rdquo; and Sharezer
+      thereupon fled into Armenia. The war had been brought to a close with such
+      rapidity that even the most unsettled of the Assyrian subjects and vassals
+      had not had time to take advantage of it for their own purposes; the Kaldâ
+      on the Persian Gulf, and the Sidonians on the Mediterranean, were the only
+      two peoples who had openly revolted, and were preparing to enter on a
+      struggle to preserve their independence thus once more regained. Yet the
+      events of the preceding months had shaken the power of Nineveh more
+      seriously than we should at first suppose. For the first time since the
+      accession of Tiglath-pileser III. the almost inevitable troubles which
+      accompany the change of a sovereign had led to an open war. The vast army
+      of Sargon and Sennacherib had been split up, and the two factions into
+      which it was divided, commanded as they were by able generals and composed
+      of troops accustomed to conquer, must have suffered more keenly in an
+      engagement with each other than in the course of an ordinary campaign
+      against a common enemy. One part at least of the military staff had become
+      disorganised; regiments had been decimated, and considerable contingents
+      were required to fill the vacancies in the ranks. The male population of
+      Assyria, suddenly called on to furnish the necessary effective force,
+      could not supply the demand without drawing too great a proportion of men
+      from the country; and one of those crises of exhaustion was imminent which
+      come upon a nation after an undue strain, often causing its downfall in
+      the midst of its success, and yielding it an easy prey to the wiles of its
+      adversaries.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The information we possess concerning Esarhaddon is
+     gathered from: 1. <i>The Insertion of Cylinders A, B, C</i>, the
+     second of the three better known as the <i>Broken Cylinder</i>.
+     These texts contain a summary of the king&rsquo;s wars, in which
+     the subject-matter is arranged geographically, not
+     chronologically: they cease with the <i>eponymy</i> of Akhazilu,
+     i.e. the year 673. 2. Some mutilated fragments, of the
+     <i>Annals</i>. 3. <i>The Blade Stone of Aberdeen</i>, on which the
+     account of the rebuilding of Babylon is given. 4. <i>The Stele
+     of Zindjirli</i>. 5. The consultations of the god Shamash by
+     Esarhaddon in different circumstances of his reign. 6. A
+     considerable number of small inscriptions and some tablets.
+     The classification of the events of this reign presents
+     serious difficulties, which have been partly overcome by
+     passages in the <i>Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Esarhaddon was personally inclined for peace, and as soon as he was
+      established on the throne he gave orders that the building works, which
+      had been suspended during the late troubles, should be resumed and
+      actively pushed forward; but the unfortunate disturbances of the times did
+      not permit of his pursuing his favourite occupation without interruption,
+      and, like those of his warlike predecessors, his life was passed almost
+      entirely on the field of battle. Babylon, grateful for what he had done
+      for her, tendered him an unbroken fidelity throughout the stormy episodes
+      of his reign, and showed her devotion to him by an unwavering obedience.
+      The Kaldâ received no support from that quarter, and were obliged to bear
+      the whole burden of the war which they had provoked. Their chief,
+      Nabu-zîru-kînish-lîshir, who had been placed over them by Sennacherib, now
+      harassed the cities of Karduniash, and Ningal-shumiddin, the prefect of
+      Uru, demanded immediate help from Assyria. Esarhaddon at once despatched
+      such a considerable force that the Kaldu chief did not venture to meet it
+      in the open field, and after a few unimportant skirmishes he gave up the
+      struggle, and took refuge in Elam. Khumbân-khaldash, had died there in
+      680, a few months before the murder of Sennacherib, and his son, a second
+      Khumbân-khaldash, had succeeded him; this prince appears either to have
+      shared the peaceful tastes of his brother-king of Assyria, or more
+      probably did not feel himself sufficiently secure of his throne to risk
+      the chance of coming into collision with his neighbour. He caused
+      Nabu-zîru-kînish-lîshir to be slain, and Nâîd-marduk, the other son of
+      Merodach-baladan, who had shared his brother&rsquo;s flight, was so terrified at
+      his murder that he at once sought refuge in Nineveh; he was reinstated in
+      his paternal domain on condition of paying a tribute, and, faithful to his
+      oath of allegiance, he thenceforward came yearly in person to bring his
+      dues and pay homage to his sovereign (679). The Kaldâ rising had, in
+      short, been little more than a skirmish, and the chastisement of the
+      Sidonians would have involved neither time nor trouble, had not the
+      desultory movements of the barbarians obliged the Assyrians to concentrate
+      their troops on several points which were threatened on their northern
+      frontier. The Cimmerians and the Scythians had not suffered themselves to
+      be disconcerted by the rapidity with which the fate of Sharezer had been
+      decided, and after a moment&rsquo;s hesitation they had again set out in various
+      directions on their work of conquest, believing, no doubt, that they would
+      meet with a less vigorous resistance after so serious an upheaval at
+      Nineveh. The Cimmerians appear to have been the first to have provoked
+      hostilities; their king Tiushpa, who ruled over their territory on the
+      Black Sea, ejected the Assyrian garrisons placed on the Cappadocian
+      frontier, and his presence in that quarter aroused all the insubordinate
+      elements still remaining in the Cilician valleys. Esarhaddon brought him
+      to a stand on the confines of the plain of Saros, defeated him in
+      Khubushna,* and drove the remains of the horde back across the Halys.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Several Assyriologists have thought that Khubushna might
+     be an error for Khubushkhia, and have sought the seat of war
+     on the eastern frontier of Assyria: in reality the context
+     shows that the place under discussion is a district in Asia
+     Minor, identified with Kamisene by Gelzcr, but left
+     unidentified by most authorities. Jensen has shown that the
+     name is mot with as early as the inscriptions of Tiglath-
+     pileser III., where we should read Khubishna, and he places
+     the country in Northern Syria, or perhaps further north in
+     the western part of Taurus. The determinative proves that
+     there was a town of this name as well as a district, and
+     this consideration encourages mo to recognise in Khubushna
+     or Khubishna the town of Kabissos-Kabessos, the Sis of the
+     kingdom of Lesser Armenia.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having thus averted the Cimmerian danger, he was able, without much
+      difficulty, to bring the rebels of the western provinces into subjection.*
+      His troops thrust back the Cilicians and Duha into the rugged fastnesses
+      of the Taurus, and razed to the ground one and twenty of their
+      strongholds, besides burning numberless villages and carrying the
+      inhabitants away captive.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * These expeditions are not dated in any of the documents
+     that deal with them: the fact that they are mentioned along
+     with the war against Tiushpa and Sidon makes me inclined to
+     consider them as being a result of the Cimmerian invasion.
+     They were, strictly speaking, the quelling of revolts caused
+     by the presence of the Cimmerians in that part of the
+     empire.
+
+     ** The Duua or Duha of this campaign, who are designated as
+     neighbours of the Tabal, lived in the Anti-taurus: the name
+     of the town, Tyana, <i>Tuana</i>, is possibly composed of their
+     name and of the suffix <i>-na</i>, which is met with in Asianio
+     languages.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The people of Parnaki, in the bend of the Euphrates between Tel-Assur and
+      the sources of the Balîkh, had taken up arms on hearing of the brief
+      successes of Tiushpa, but were pitilessly crushed by Esarhaddon. The
+      sheikh of Arzani, in the extreme south of Syria, close to the brook of
+      Egypt, had made depredations on the Assyrian frontier, but he was seized
+      by the nearest governor and sent in chains to Nineveh. A cage was built
+      for him at the gate of the city, and he was exposed in it to the jeers of
+      the populace, in company with the bears, dogs, and boars which the
+      Ninevites were in the habit of keeping confined there. It would appear
+      that Esarhaddon set himself to come to a final reckoning with Sidon and
+      Phoenicia, the revolt of which had irritated him all the more, in that it
+      showed an inexcusable ingratitude towards his family. For it was
+      Sennacherib who, in order to break the power of Blulai, had not only
+      rescued Sidon from the dominion of Tyre, but had enriched it with the
+      spoils taken from its former rulers, and had raised it to the first rank
+      among the Phoenician cities. Ethbaal in his lifetime had never been
+      wanting in gratitude, but his successor, Abdimilkôt, forgetful of recent
+      services, had chafed at the burden of a foreign yoke, and had recklessly
+      thrown it off as soon as an occasion presented itself. He had thought to
+      strengthen himself by securing the help of a certain Sanduarri, who
+      possessed the two fortresses of Kundu and Sîzu, in the Cilician
+      mountains;* but neither this alliance nor the insular position of his
+      capital was able to safeguard him, when once the necessity for stemming
+      the tide of the Cimmerian influx was over, and the whole of the Assyrian
+      force was free to be brought against him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Some Assyriologists have proposed to locate these two
+     towns in Cilicia; others place them in the Lebanon, Kundi
+     being identified with the modern village of Ain-Kundiya. The
+     name of Kundu so nearly recalls that of Kuinda, the ancient
+     fort mentioned by Strabo, to the north of Anchialê, between
+     Tarsus and Anazarbus, that I do not hesitate to identify
+     them, and to place Kundu in Cilicia.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Abdimilkôt attempted to escape by sea before the last attack, but he was
+      certainly taken prisoner, though the circumstances are unrecorded, and
+      Sanduarri fell into the enemy&rsquo;s hands a short time after. The suppression
+      of the rebellion was as vindictive as the ingratitude which prompted it
+      was heinous. Sidon was given up to the soldiery and then burnt, while
+      opposite to the ruins of the island city the Assyrians built a fortress on
+      the mainland, which they called Kar-Esarhaddon. The other princes of
+      Phoenicia and Syria were hastily convoked, and were witnesses of the
+      vengeance wreaked on the city, as well as of the installation of the
+      governor to whom the new province was entrusted. They could thus see what
+      fate awaited them in the event of their showing any disposition to rebel,
+      and the majority of them were not slow to profit by the lesson. The spoil
+      was carried back in triumph to Nineveh, and comprised, besides the two
+      kings and their families, the remains of their court and people, and the
+      countless riches which the commerce of the world had brought into the
+      great ports of the Mediterranean&mdash;ebony, ivory, gold and silver,
+      purple, precious woods, household furniture, and objects of value from all
+      parts in such quantities that it was long before the treasury at Nineveh
+      needed any replenishing.* The reverses of the Cimmerians did not serve as
+      a warning to the Scythians. Settled on the borders of Manna, partly, no
+      doubt, on the territory formerly dependent on that state,** they secretly
+      incited the inhabitants to revolt, and to join in the raids which they
+      made on the valley of the Upper Zab, and they would even have urged their
+      horses up to the very walls of Nineveh had the occasion presented itself.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The importance of the event and the amount of the spoil
+     captured are apparent, if we notice that Esarhaddon does not
+     usually record the booty taken after each campaign; he does
+     so only when the number of objects and of prisoners taken
+     from the enemy is extraordinary. The <i>Babylonian Chronicle
+     of Pinches</i> places the capture of Sidon in the second, and
+     the death of Abdimilkôt in the fifth year of his reign.
+     Hence Winckler has concluded that Abdimilkôt held out for
+     fully two years after the loss of Sidon. The general tenor
+     of the account, as given by the inscriptions, seems to me to
+     be that the capture of the king followed closely on the fall
+     of the town: Abdimilkôt and Sanduarri probably spent the
+     years between 679 and 676 in prison.
+
+     ** One of the oracles of Shamash speaks of the captives as
+     dwelling in a canton of the Mannai.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Esarhaddon, warned of their intrigues by the spies which he sent among
+      them, could not bring himself either to anticipate their attack or to
+      assume the offensive, but anxiously consulted the gods with regard to
+      them: &ldquo;O Shamash,&rdquo; he wrote to the Sun-god, &ldquo;great lord, thou whom I
+      question, answer me in sincerity! From this day forth, the 22nd day of
+      this month of Simanu, until the 21st day of the month of Duzu of this
+      year, during these thirty days and thirty nights, a time has been
+      foreordained favourable to the work of prophecy. In this time thus
+      foreordained, the hordes of the Scythians who inhabit a district of the
+      Mannai, and who have crossed the Mannian frontier,&mdash;will they succeed
+      in their undertaking? Will they emerge from the passes of Khubushkia at
+      the towns of Kharrânia and Anîsuskia; will they ravage the borders of
+      Assyria and steal great booty, immense spoil? that doth thy high divinity
+      know. Is it a decree, and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash,
+      great lord, ordained and promulgated? He who sees, shall he see it; he who
+      hears, shall he hear it?&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The town of Anîsuskia is not mentioned elsewhere, but
+     Kharrânia is met with in the account of the thirty-first
+     campaign of Shalmaneser III. with Kharrâna as its variant.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The god comforted his faithful servant, but there was a brief delay before
+      his answer threw light on the future, and the king&rsquo;s questions were
+      constantly renewed as fresh couriers brought in further information. In
+      678 B.C. the Scythians determined to try their fortune, and their king,
+      Ishpakai,* took the field, followed by the Mannai. He was defeated and
+      driven back to the north of Lake Urumiah, the Mannai were reduced to
+      subjection, and Assyria once more breathed freely. The victory, however,
+      was not a final one, and affairs soon assumed as threatening an aspect as
+      before. The Scythian tribes came on the scene, one after another, and
+      allied themselves to the various peoples subject either directly or
+      indirectly to Nineveh.** On one occasion it was Kashtariti, the regent of
+      Karkashshi,*** who wrote to Mamitiarshu, one of the Median princes, to
+      induce him to make common cause with himself in attacking the fortress of
+      Kishshashshu on the eastern border of the empire. At another time we find
+      the same chief plotting with the Mannai and the Saparda to raid the town
+      of Kilmân, and Esarhaddon implores the god to show him how the place may
+      be saved from their machinations.****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This king&rsquo;s name seems to be of Iranian origin. Justi has
+     connected it with the name Aspakos, which is read in a Greek
+     inscription of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; both forms have been
+     connected with the Sanskrit Açvalca.
+
+     ** This subdivision of the horde into several bodies seems
+     to be indicated by the number of different royal names among
+     the Scythians which are mentioned in the Assyrian documents.
+
+     *** The site of Karkashshi is unknown, but the list of
+     Median princes subdued by Sargon shows that it was situated
+     in Media. Kishshashshu is very probably the same as Kishisim
+     or Kishisu, the town which Sargon subdued, and which he
+     called Kar-nergal or Kar-ninib, and which is mentioned in
+     the neighbourhood of Parsuash, Karalla, Kharkhar, Media, and
+     Ellipi. I think that it would be in the basin of the Gave&mdash;
+     Rud; Billerbeck places it at the ruins of Siama, in the
+     upper valley of the Lesser Zab.
+
+     **** The people of Saparda, called by the Persians Sparda,
+     have been with good reason identified with the Sepharad of
+     the prophet Obadiah (ver. 20): the Assyrian texts show that
+     this country should be placed in the neighbourhood of the
+     Mannai of the Medes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He opens negotiations in order to gain time, but the barbarity of his
+      adversary is such that he fears for his envoy&rsquo;s safety, and speculates
+      whether he may not have been put to death. The situation would indeed have
+      become critical if Kashtariti had succeeded in bringing against Assyria a
+      combined force of Medes, Scythians, Mannai, and Cimmerians, together with
+      Urartu and its king, Eusas III.; but, fortunately, petty hatreds made the
+      combination of these various elements an impossibility, and they were
+      unable to arrive at even a temporary understanding. The Scythians
+      themselves were not united as to the best course to be pursued, and while
+      some endeavoured to show their hostility by every imaginable outrage and
+      annoyance, others, on the contrary, desired to enter into friendly
+      relations with Assyria. Esarhaddon received on one occasion an embassy
+      from Bartatua,* one of their kings, who humbly begged the hand of a lady
+      of the blood-royal, swearing to make a lasting friendship with him if
+      Esarhaddon would consent to the marriage. It was hard for a child brought
+      up in the harem, amid the luxury and comfort of a civilised court, to be
+      handed over to a semi-barbarous spouse; but state policy even in those
+      days was exacting, and more than one princess of the line of Sargon had
+      thus sacrificed herself by an alliance which was to the interest of her
+      own people.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Bartatua is, according to Winckler&rsquo;s ingenious
+     observation, the Proto-thyes of Herodotus, the father of
+     Madyes. [The name should more probably be read Masta-tua&mdash;
+     Ed.]
+
+     ** Sargon had in like manner given one of his daughters in
+     marriage to Ambaris, King of Tabal, in order to attach him
+     to the Assyrian cause, but without permanent success.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      What troubled Esarhaddon was not the thought of sacrificing a sister or a
+      daughter, but a misgiving that the sacrifice would not produce the desired
+      result, and in his difficulty he once more had recourse to Shamash. &ldquo;If
+      Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, grants a daughter of the blood (royal) to
+      Bartatua, the King of the Iskuza, who has sent an embassy to him to ask a
+      wife, will Bartatua, King of the Iskuza, act loyally towards Esarhaddon,
+      King of Assyria? will he honestly and faithfully enter into friendly
+      engagements with Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he observe the
+      conditions (made by) Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he fulfil them
+      punctually? that thy high divinity knoweth. His promises, in a decree and
+      in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash, great lord, are they
+      decreed, promulgated?&rdquo; It is not recorded what came of these negotiations,
+      nor whether the god granted the hand of the princess to her barbarian
+      suitor. All we know is, that the incursions and intrigues of the Scythians
+      continued to be a perpetual source of trouble to the Medes, and roused
+      them either to rebel against Assyria or to claim the protection of its
+      sovereign. Esarhaddon, in the course of his reign, was more than once
+      compelled to interfere in order to ensure peace and quietness to the
+      provinces on the table-land of Iran, which Sargon had conquered and which
+      Sennacherib had retained.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Several recent historians allege that Sennacherib did not
+     keep the territories that Sargon had conquered, and that the
+     Assyrian frontier became contracted on that side; whereas
+     the general testimony of the known texts seems to me to
+     prove the contrary, namely, that he preserved nearly all the
+     territory annexed by his father, and that Esarhaddon was far
+     from diminishing this inheritance. If these two kings
+     mention only insignificant deeds of arms in the western
+     region, it is because the population, exhausted by the wars
+     of the two preceding reigns, easily recognised the Ninevite
+     supremacy, and paid tribute to the Assyrian governors with
+     sufficient regularity to prevent any important military
+     expedition against them.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He had first to carry his arms to the extreme edge of the desert, into the
+      rugged country of Patusharra, lying at the foot of Demavend, rich in
+      lapis-lazuli, and as yet untrodden by any king of Assyria.* Having reached
+      his destination, he captured two petty kings, Eparna and Shîtirparna, and
+      exiled them to Assyria, together with their people, their thoroughbred
+      horses, and their two-humped camels,&mdash;in fine, all the possessions of
+      their subjects. Shortly after this, three other Median chiefs, hitherto
+      intractable&mdash;Uppis of Par-takka, Zanasana of Partukka,** Ramatea of
+      Urakazabarna&mdash;came to Nineveh to present the king with horses and
+      lapis-lazuli, the best of everything they possessed, and piteously
+      entreated him to forgive their misdeeds.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The country of Patusharra has been identified with that of
+     the Patischorians mentioned by Strabo in Persia proper, who
+     would have lived further north, not far from Demavend;
+     Sachau calls attention to the existence of a mountain chain
+     Patashwar-gar or Padishwar-gir, in front of Choarcnê, and he
+     places the country of Patusharra between Demavend and the
+     desert.
+
+     ** Partakka and Partukka seem to be two different
+     adaptations of the name Paraituka, the Parsetakênô of the
+     Greek geographers; Tiele thinks of Parthyênô. I think that
+     these two names designate the northern districts of
+     Partetakênô, the present Ashnakhor or the country near to
+     it.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They represented that the whole of Media was torn asunder by countless
+      strifes, prince against prince, city against city, and an iron will was
+      needed to bring the more turbulent elements to order. Esarhaddon lent a
+      favourable ear to their prayers; he undertook to protect them on condition
+      of their paying an annual tribute, and he put them under the protection of
+      the Assyrian governors who were nearest to their territory. Kharkhar,
+      securely entrenched behind its triple ramparts, assumed the position of
+      capital to these Iranian marches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult to determine the precise dates of these various events; we
+      learn merely that they took place before 673, and we surmise that they
+      must have occurred between the second and sixteenth year of the king&rsquo;s
+      reign.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The facts relating to the submission of Patusharra and of
+     Partukka are contained in Cylinder A, dated from the
+     eponymous year of Akhazilu, in 673. Moreover, the version
+     which this document contains seems to have been made up of
+     two pieces placed one at the end of the other: the first an
+     account of events which occurred during an earlier period of
+     the reign, and in which the exploits are classified in
+     geographical order, from Sidon in the west the Arabs
+     bordering on Chaldæa in the east; and the second consisting
+     of additional campaigns carried out after the completion of
+     the former&mdash;which is proved by the place which these
+     exploits occupy, out of their normal position in the
+     geographical series&mdash;and making mention of Partusharra and
+     Partuhka, as well as of Belikisha. The editor of the <i>Broken
+     Cylinder</i> has tried to combine these latter elements with
+     the former in the order adopted by the original narrator. As
+     far as can be seen in what is left of the columns, he has
+     placed, after the Chaldsean events, the facts concerning
+     Partukka, then those concerning Patusharra, and finally the
+     campaign against Bazu, the extreme limit of Esarhaddon&rsquo;s
+     activity in the south. Knowing that the campaign in the
+     desert and the death of Abdimilkôt took place in 676, and
+     that we find them already alluded to in the first part of
+     the narrative, as well as the events of 675 relating to the
+     revolt of Dakkuri, we may conclude that the submission of
+     Patusharra and that of Partukka occurred in 674, or at
+     latest in the beginning of 673.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0023" id="linkBimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/131.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="131.jpg the Town of Kharkhar With Its Triple Rampart " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Flandin, in Botta.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The outcome of them was a distinct gain to Assyria, in the acquisition of
+      several new vassals. The recently founded kingdom of Ecbatana lacked as
+      yet the prestige which would have enabled it to hold its own against
+      Nineveh; besides which, Deïokes, the contemporary ruler assigned to it by
+      tradition, was of too complaisant a nature to seek occasions of quarrel.
+      The Scythians, after having declared their warlike intentions, seem to
+      have come to a more peaceable frame of mind, and to have curried favour
+      with Nineveh; but the rulers of the capital kept a strict watch upon them,
+      since their numbers, their intrepid character, and instinct for rapine
+      made them formidable enemies&mdash;the most dangerous, indeed, that the
+      empire had encountered on its north-eastern frontier for nearly a century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This policy of armed <i>surveillance</i>, which proved so successful in
+      these regions, was also carefully maintained by Esarhaddon on his
+      south-eastern border against Assyria&rsquo;s traditional enemy, the King of
+      Susa. Babylon, far from exhibiting any restlessness at her present
+      position, showed her gratitude for the favours which her suzerain had
+      showered upon her by resigning herself to become the ally of Assyria. She
+      regarded her late disaster as the punishment inflicted by Marduk for her
+      revolts against Sargon and Sennacherib. The god had let loose the powers
+      of evil against her, and the Arakhtu, overflowing among the ruins, had
+      swept them utterly away; indeed, for the space of ten years, destruction
+      and desolation seemed to have taken the place of her former wealth of
+      temples and palaces. In the eleventh year, the divine wrath was suddenly
+      appeased. No sooner had Esarhaddon mounted the throne, than he entreated
+      Shamash, Rammân, and even Marduk himself, to reveal to him their will with
+      regard to the city; whereupon the omens, interpreted by the seers,
+      commanded him to rebuild Babylon and to raise again the temple of
+      Ê-sagilla. For this purpose he brought together all the captives taken in
+      war that he had at his disposal, and employed them in digging out clay and
+      in brick-making; he then prepared the foundations, upon which he poured
+      libations of oil, honey, palm-wine, and other wines of various kinds; he
+      himself took the mason&rsquo;s hod, and with tools of ebony, cypress wood, and
+      oak, moulded a brick for the new sanctuary. The work was, indeed, a
+      gigantic undertaking, and demanded years of uninterrupted labour, but
+      Esarhaddon pushed it forward, sparing neither gold, silver, costly stone,
+      rare woods, or plates of enamel in its embellishment. He began to rebuild
+      at the same time all the other temples and the two city walls&mdash;Imgurbel
+      and Nimittibel; to clear and make good the canals which supplied the place
+      with water, and to replant the sacred groves and the gardens of the
+      palace. The inhabitants were encouraged to come back to their homes, and
+      those who had been dispersed among distant provinces were supplied with
+      clothes and food for their return journey, besides having their patrimony
+      restored to them. This rebuilding of the ancient city certainly displeased
+      and no doubt alarmed her two former rivals, the Kaldâ and Elam, who had
+      hoped one day to wrest her heritage from Assyria. Elam concealed its
+      ill-feeling, but the Kaldâ of Bît-Dakkuri had invaded the almost deserted
+      territory, and appropriated the lands which had belonged to the noble
+      families of Babylon, Borsippa, and Sippara. When the latter, therefore,
+      returned from exile, and, having been reinstituted in their rights,
+      attempted to resume possession of their property, the usurpers
+      peremptorily refused to relinquish it. Esarhaddon was obliged to interfere
+      to ensure its restoration, and as their king, Shamash-ibni, was not
+      inclined to comply with the order, Esarhaddon removed him from the throne,
+      and substituted in his place a certain Nabushallim, son of Belesys, who
+      showed more deference to the suzerain&rsquo;s wishes. It is possible that about
+      this time the Kaldâ may have received some support from the Aramaeans of
+      the desert and the Arab tribes encamped between the banks of the Euphrates
+      and Syria, or, on the other hand, the latter may have roused the wrath of
+      Assyria by inroads of a more than usually audacious character. However
+      this may be, in 676 Esarhaddon resolved to invade their desert territory,
+      and to inflict such reprisals as would force them thenceforward to respect
+      the neighbouring border provinces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His first relations with them had been of a courteous and friendly nature.
+      Hazael of Adumu, one of the sheikhs of Kedar, defeated by Sennacherib
+      towards the end of his reign, had taken the opportunity of the annual
+      tribute to come to Nineveh with considerable presents, and to implore the
+      restoration of the statues of his gods. Esarhaddon had caused these
+      battered idols to be cleaned and repaired, had engraved upon them an
+      inscription in praise of Assur, and had further married the suppliant
+      sheikh to a woman of the royal harem, named Tabua. In consideration of
+      this, he had imposed upon the Arab a supplementary tribute of sixty-five
+      camels, and had restored to him his idols. All this took place, no doubt,
+      soon after the king&rsquo;s accession. A few years later, on the death of
+      Hazael, his son Yauta solicited investiture, but a competitor for the
+      chieftaincy, a man of unknown origin, named Uahab, treacherously incited
+      the Arabs to rebel, and threatened to overthrow him. Esarhaddon caused
+      Uahab to be seized, and exposed him in chains at the gate of Nineveh; but,
+      in consideration of this service to the Arabs, he augmented the tribute
+      which already weighed upon the people by a further demand for ten gold <i>minas</i>,
+      one thousand precious stones, fifty camels, and a thousand measures of
+      spicery. The repression of these Arabs of Kedar thus confirmed
+      Esarhaddon&rsquo;s supremacy over the extreme northern region of Arabia, between
+      Damascus and Sippara or Babylon; but in a more southerly direction, in the
+      wadys which unite Lower Chaldæa to the districts of the Jordan and the
+      Dead Sea, there still remained several rich and warlike states&mdash;among
+      others, Bazu,* whose rulers had never done homage to the sovereigns of
+      either Assyria or Karduniash.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Bazu of this text is certainly the Buz which the
+     Hebrew books name among the children of Nahor (Gen. xxii.
+     21; Jer. xxv. 23). The early Assyriologists identified Khazu
+     with Uz, the son of Nahor; Delitzsch compares the name with
+     that of Hazo (Huz), the fifth son of Nahor (Gen. xxii. 22),
+     and his opinion is admitted by most scholars. For the site
+     of these countries I have followed the ideas of Delattro,
+     who identifies them with the oases of Jauf and Meskakeh, in
+     the centre of Northern Arabia. The Assyrians must have set
+     out by the Wady Haurân or by one of the wadys near to
+     Babylon, and have returned by a more southern wady.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0024" id="linkBimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/137.jpg"
+       alt="137.jpg Shabitoku, King of Egypt " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      To carry hostilities into the heart of their country was a bold and even
+      hazardous undertaking; it could be reached only by traversing miles of
+      arid and rocky plains, exposed to the rays of a burning sun, vast extents
+      of swamps and boggy pasture land, desolate wastes infested with serpents
+      and scorpions, and a mountain range of blackish lava known as Khâzu. It
+      would have been folly to risk a march with the heavy Assyrian infantry in
+      the face of such obstacles. Esarhaddon probably selected for the purpose a
+      force composed of cavalry, chariots, and lightly equipped foot-soldiers,
+      and despatched them with orders to reach the Jauf by forced marches
+      through the Wady Haurân. The Arabs, who were totally unprepared for such a
+      movement, had not time to collect their forces; eight of their chiefs were
+      taken by surprise and killed one after another&mdash;among them Kisu of
+      Khaldili, Agbaru of Ilpiati, Mansaku of Magalani,&mdash;and also some
+      reigning queens. La, the King of Yadi, at first took refuge in the
+      mountains, but afterwards gave himself up to the enemy, and journeyed as
+      far as Nineveh to prostrate himself at Esarhaddon&rsquo;s feet, who restored to
+      him his gods and his crown, on the usual condition of paying tribute. A
+      vassal occupying a country so remote and so difficult of access could not
+      be supposed to preserve an unbroken fidelity towards his suzerain, but he
+      no longer ventured to plunder the caravans which passed through his
+      territory, and that in reality was all that was expected of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esarhaddon thus pursued a prudent and unadventurous policy in the northern
+      and eastern portions of his empire, maintaining a watchful attitude
+      towards the Cimmerians and Scythians in the north, carrying on short
+      defensive campaigns among the Medes in the east, preserving peace with
+      Elam, and making occasional flying raids in the south, rather from the
+      necessity for repressing troublesome border tribes than with any idea of
+      permanent conquest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This policy must have been due to a presentiment of danger from the side
+      of Egypt, or to the inception of a great scheme for attacking the reigning
+      Pharaoh. After the defeat of his generals at Altaku, Shabîtoku had made no
+      further attempt to take the offensive; his authority over the feudal
+      nobility of Egypt was so widely acknowledged that it causes us no surprise
+      to meet with his cartouches on more than one ruin between Thebes and
+      Memphis,* but his closing years were marred by misfortune. There was then
+      living at Napata a certain Taharqa, one of those scions of the solar race
+      who enjoyed the title of &ldquo;Royal brothers,&rdquo; and from among whom Anion of
+      the Holy Mountain was wont to choose his representative to reign over the
+      land of Ethiopia whenever the throne became vacant. It does not appear
+      that the father of Taharqa ever held the highest rank; it was from his
+      mother, Âkaluka, that he inherited his pretensions to the crown, and
+      through her probably that he traced his descent from the family of the
+      high priests. Tradition asserts that he did not gain the regal power
+      without a struggle; having been proclaimed king in Ethiopia at the age of
+      twenty, as the result of some revolution, he is said to have marched
+      against Shabîtoku, and, coming up with him in the Delta, to have defeated
+      him, taken him prisoner, and put him to death.** These events took place
+      about 693 B.C.,*** and Taharqa employed the opening years of his reign in
+      consolidating his authority over the double kingdom.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * His name or monuments of his erection have been discovered
+     at Karnak.
+
+     ** Eusebius, who cites the fact, had his information from a
+     trustworthy Greek source, perhaps from Manetho himself. The
+     inscription of Tanis seems to say that Taharqa was twenty
+     years old at the time of his revolt.
+
+     *** Most of the lists of kings taken from Manetho assign
+     twelve years to the reign of Sébikhos; one alone, that of
+     Africanus, assigns him fourteen years.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He married the widow of Sabaco, Queen Dikahîtamanu, and thus assumed the
+      guardianship of Tanuatamanu, her son by her first husband, and this
+      marriage secured him supreme authority in Ethiopia.* That he regarded
+      Egypt as a conquered country can no longer be doubted, seeing that he
+      inserted its name on his monuments among those of the nations which he had
+      vanquished.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The text of several documents only mentioned that Tanuata-
+     manu was the &ldquo;son of his wife,&rdquo; which Opport interpreted to
+     mean son of Taharqa himself, while others see in him a son
+     of Kashto, a brother of Amenertas, or a son of Shabîtoku.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0025" id="linkBimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/139.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="139.jpg Taharqa and his Queen DikahÎtamanu " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured plate in Lepsius.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He nevertheless felt obliged to treat it with consideration; he respected
+      the rights of the feudal princes, and behaved himself in every way like a
+      Pharaoh of the old royal line. He summoned his mother from Napatà, where
+      he had left her, and after proclaiming her regent of the South and the
+      North, he associated her with himself in the rejoicings at his coronation.
+      This ceremony, celebrated at Tanis with the usages customary in the Delta,
+      was repeated at Karnak in accordance with the Theban ritual, and a chapel
+      erected shortly afterwards on the northern quay of the great sacred lake
+      has preserved to us the memory of it. Akaluka, installed with the rank and
+      prerogatives of the &ldquo;Divine Spouse&rdquo; of Amon, presented her son to the
+      deity, who bestowed upon him through his priests dominion over the whole
+      world. She bent the bow, and let fly the arrows towards the four cardinal
+      points, which she thereby symbolically delivered to him as wounded
+      prisoners; the king, on his part, hurled against them bullets of stone,
+      and by this attack figuratively accomplished their defeat. His wars in
+      Africa were crowned with a certain meed of success,* and his achievements
+      in this quarter won for him in after time so much popularity among the
+      Egyptians, that they extolled him to the Greeks as one of their most
+      illustrious conquering Pharaohs; they related that he had penetrated as
+      far as the Pillars of Hercules in the west, and that he had invaded Europe
+      in imitation of Sesostris.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The list inscribed on the base of the statue discovered by
+     Mariette contains a large number of names belonging to
+     Africa. They are the same as those met with in the time of
+     the XVIIIth dynasty, and were probably copied from some
+     monument of Ramses II., who had himself perhaps borrowed
+     them from a document of the time of Thûtmosis III. A bas-
+     relief at Medinet-Habu shows him to us in the act of smiting
+     a group of tribes, among which figure the Tepa, Doshrît, and
+     &ldquo;the humbled Kush;&rdquo; this bas-relief was appropriated later
+     on by Nectanebo.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      What we know to be a fact is, that he secured to the valley of the Nile
+      nearly twenty years of prosperity, and recalled the glories of the great
+      reigns of former days, if not by his victories, at least by the excellence
+      of his administration and his activity. He planned the erection at Karnak
+      of a hypostyle hall in front of the pylons of Ramses II., which should
+      equal, if not surpass, that of Seti I.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * These columns have been looked upon as triumphal pillars,
+     designed to support statues or divine emblems. Mariette
+     thinks that they supported &ldquo;an edifice in the architectural
+     style of the kiosk at Philæ and the small hypothral temple
+     on the roof of Denderah.&rdquo; I am of opinion that the architect
+     intended to make a hypostyle hall, but that when the columns
+     were erected, he perceived that the great width of the aisle
+     they formed would render the strength of the roof very
+     doubtful, and so renounced the execution of his first
+     design.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0026" id="linkBimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/142.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="142.jpg the Column of Taharqa, at Karnak " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The columns of the central aisle were disposed in two lines of six pillars
+      each, but only one of these now remains standing in its original place;
+      its height, which is the same as that of Seti&rsquo;s columns, is nearly
+      sixty-nine feet. The columns of the side aisles, like those which should
+      have flanked the immense colonnade at Luxor, were never even begun, and
+      the hall of Taharqa, like that of Seti I., remains unfinished to this day.
+      He bestowed his favour on Nubia and Ethiopia, as well as on Egypt proper;
+      even Napata owed to his munificence the most beautiful portions of its
+      temples. The temple of Amon, and subsequently that of Mût, were enlarged
+      by him; and he decorated their ancient halls with bas-reliefs,
+      representing himself, accompanied by his mother and his wife, in attitudes
+      of adoration before the deity. The style of the carving is very good, and
+      the hieroglyphics would not disgrace the walls of the Theban temples. The
+      Ethiopian sculptors and painters scrupulously followed the traditions of
+      the mother-country, and only a few insignificant details of ethnic type or
+      costume enable us to detect a slight difference between their works and
+      those of pure Egyptian art. At the other extremity of Napata, on the
+      western side of the Holy Mountain, Taharqa excavated in the cliff a
+      rock-hewn shrine, which he dedicated to Hathor and Bîsû (Bes), the patron
+      of jollity and happiness, and the god of music and of war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0027" id="linkBimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/143.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="143.jpg the Hemispeos Op HÂthor and BÎsÛ, At Gebel-barkal " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Caillaud.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Bîsû, who was at first relegated to the lowest rank among the crowd of
+      genii adored by the people, had gradually risen to the highest place in
+      the hierarchy of the gods, and his images predominated in chapels destined
+      to represent the cradle of the infant gods, and the sacred spots where
+      goddesses gave birth to their divine offspring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0028" id="linkBimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/144.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="144.jpg Entrance to the Hemispeos of BÎsÛ (bes), At Gebel-barkal " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Caillaud.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The portico erected in front of the pylon had a central avenue of pillars,
+      against which stood monstrous and grinning statues of Bîsû, his hands on
+      his hips, and his head crowned with a large bunch of lotus-flowers and
+      plumes. Two rows of columns with Hathor-headed capitals flanked the
+      central aisle, which led to a hall supported by massive columns, also with
+      Hathor capitals, and beyond it again lay the actual shrine similarly
+      excavated in the rocky hill; two statues of Bîsû, standing erect against
+      their supporting columns, kept guard over the entrance, and their
+      fantastic forms, dimly discernible in the gloom, must have appeared in
+      ancient times to have prohibited the vulgar throng from approaching the
+      innermost sanctuary. Half of the roof has fallen in since the building was
+      deserted, and a broad beam of light falling through the aperture thus made
+      reveals the hideous grotesqueness of the statues to all comers. The
+      portraits of Taharqa represent him with a strong, square-shaped head, with
+      full cheeks, vigorous mouth, and determined chin, such as belong to a man
+      well suited to deal with that troubled epoch, and the knowledge we as yet
+      possess of his conflict with Assyria fully confirms the character
+      exhibited by his portrait statues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0029" id="linkBimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/145.jpg" alt="145.jpg Taharqa " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-
+Gudin, from a cast
+of the fragment
+preserved at Gizeh
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      We may surmise that, when once absolute master of Egypt, he must have cast
+      his eyes beyond the isthmus, and considered how he might turn to his own
+      advantage the secret grudge borne by the Syrians against their suzerain at
+      Nineveh, but up to the present time we possess no indications as to the
+      policy he pursued in Palestine. We may safely assume, however, that it
+      gave umbrage to the Assyrians, and that Esarhaddon resolved to put an end
+      once for all to the uneasiness it caused him. More than half a century had
+      elapsed since the day when the kings of Syria, alarmed at the earliest
+      victories of Tiglath-pileser III., had conceived the idea of pitting their
+      former conquerors against those of the day, and had solicited help from
+      the Pharaohs against Assyria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of the sovereigns to whom they turned had refused to listen to their
+      appeals, or failed to promise subsidies and reinforcements; but these
+      engagements, however definite, had for the most part been left
+      unfulfilled, and when an occasion for their execution had occurred, the
+      Egyptian armies had merely appeared on the fields of battle to beat a
+      hasty retreat: they had not prevented the subjugation of Damascus, Israel,
+      Tyre, the Philistines, nor, indeed, of any of the princes or people who
+      trusted to their renown; yet, notwithstanding these numerous
+      disappointments, the prestige of the Egyptians was still so great that
+      insubordinate or rebel states invariably looked to them for support and
+      entreated their help. The Assyrian generals had learnt by experience to
+      meet them unmoved, being well aware that the Egyptian army was inferior to
+      their own in organisation, and used antiquated weapons and methods of
+      warfare; they were also well aware that the Egyptian and even the
+      Ethiopian soldiery had never been able successfully to withstand a
+      determined attack by the Assyrian battalions, and that when once the
+      desert which protected Egypt had been crossed, she would, like Babylon,
+      fall an easy prey to their arms. It would merely be necessary to guard
+      against the possible danger of opposition being offered to the passage of
+      the invading host by the Idumoan and Arab tribes sparsely scattered over
+      the country between the Nile and the Gulf of Akabah, as their hostility
+      would be a cause of serious uneasiness. An expedition, sent against
+      Milukhkha* in 675 B.C., had taught the inhabitants to respect the power of
+      Assyria; but the campaign had not been brought to a satisfactory
+      conclusion, for the King of Elam, Khumbân-khaldash II., seeing his rival
+      occupied at the opposite extremity of his empire, fell unexpectedly upon
+      Babylon, and pushing forward as far as Sippara, laid waste the surrounding
+      country; and his hateful presence even prevented the god Shamash from
+      making his annual progress outside the walls of the city. The people of
+      Bît-Dakkuri seem to have plucked up courage at his approach, and invaded
+      the neighbouring territory, probably that of Borsippa. Esarhaddon was
+      absent on a distant expedition, and the garrisons scattered over the
+      province were not sufficiently strong in numbers to risk a pitched battle:
+      Khumbân-khaldash, therefore, marched back with his booty to Susa entirely
+      unmolested. He died suddenly in his palace a few days after his return,
+      and was succeeded by his brother, Urtaku, who was too intent upon seating
+      himself securely on the throne to send his troops on a second raid in the
+      following year.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name of Milukhkha, first applied to the countries in
+     the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, had been transferred
+     to the western coasts of Arabia, as well as that of Magan.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Esarhaddon deferred his revenge to a more convenient season, and utilised
+      the respite fate had accorded him on the Elamite border to hasten his
+      attack on Egypt (673 B.C.). The expedition was a failure, and Taharqa was
+      greatly elated at having issued with honour from this trial of strength.
+      As most of the countries over which his enemy exercised his supremacy were
+      those which had been ruled by his Theban ancestors in days gone by,
+      Taharqa engraved on the base of his statue a list of nations and towns
+      copied from one of the monuments of Ramses II. The Khâti, Carchemish,
+      Mitanni, Arvad&mdash;in short, a dozen peoples already extinct or in their
+      decline, and whose names were merely perpetuated in the stereotyped
+      official lists,&mdash;were enumerated in the list of his vanquished foes
+      side by side with Assyria. It was a mere piece of bravado, for never, even
+      when victorious, did he set foot on Syrian soil; but all the same the
+      victory had caused the invading host to retire, and the fame of this
+      exploit, spreading throughout Asia, was not without its effect on the
+      minds of the inhabitants. The island of Tyre had never officially
+      recognised the Assyrian suzerainty. The Tyrians had lived in peace since
+      the defeat of Elulai, and had maintained constant commercial relations
+      with the continent without interfering in active politics: they had,
+      perhaps, even been permitted to establish some settlements on the coast of
+      the mainland. Their king, Bâal, now deemed the moment a propitious one for
+      coming forward and recovering his lost territory, and since the Greek
+      princes of Cyprus had ranged themselves under the hegemony of Assyria, he
+      thought he could best counterbalance their influence by seeking support
+      from Egypt, whose ancient greatness was apparently reviving. He therefore
+      concluded an alliance with Taharqa,* and it would be no cause for
+      astonishment if we should one day discover that Judah had followed his
+      example.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The alliance of Bâal with Taharqa is mentioned in the
+     fragment of the <i>Annals</i>, under the date of year X., and the
+     name Bâal is still decipherable amid the defaced linos which
+     contained the account of events which took place before that
+     year. I think we may reasonably assign the first
+     understanding between the two sovereigns, either to the
+     actual year of the first campaign or to the following year.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hezekiah had devoted his declining years to religious reformation, and the
+      organisation of his kingdom under the guidance of Isaiah or the group of
+      prophets of which Isaiah was the leader. Judah had increased in
+      population, and had quickly recovered its prosperity; when Hezekiah died,
+      about 686 B.C., it had entirely regained its former vigour, but the memory
+      of the disasters of 701 was still sufficiently fresh in the minds of the
+      people to prevent the change of sovereign being followed by a change of
+      policy. Manasseh, who succeeded his father, though he did not walk, as
+      Hezekiah had done, in the ways of the Lord, at least remained loyal to his
+      Assyrian masters. It is, however, asserted that he afterwards rebelled,
+      though his reason for doing so is not explained, and that he was carried
+      captive to Babylon as a punishment for this crime: he succeeded,
+      nevertheless, in regaining favour, and was reinstated at Jerusalem on
+      condition of not repeating his offence. If this statement is true, as I
+      believe it to be, it was probably after the Egyptian campaign of 673 B.C.*
+      that his conspiracy with Baal took place.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The fact of Manasseh&rsquo;s captivity is only known to us from
+     the testimony of 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10-13, and most modern
+     critics consider it apocryphal. The moral development which
+     accompanies the narrative, and the conversion which follows
+     it, are certainly later additions, but the story may have
+     some foundation in fact; we shall see later on that Necho
+     I., King of Sais, was taken prisoner, led into captivity,
+     and received again into favour in the same way as Manasseh
+     is said to have been. The exile to Babylon, which at one
+     time appeared to demonstrate the unauthenticity of the
+     passage, would be rather in favour of its authenticity.
+     Esarhaddon was King of Babylon during the whole of his
+     reign, and the great works which he executed in that city
+     obliged him, we know, to transport thither a large
+     proportion of the prisoners whom he brought back from his
+     wars.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Assyrian governors of the neighbouring provinces easily crushed these
+      attempts at independence, but, the islands of Tyre being secure from
+      attack, they were obliged to be content with establishing a series of
+      redoubts along the coast, and with prohibiting the Tyrians from having
+      access to the mainland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The promptitude of their action quenched the hopes of the Egyptian party
+      and prevented the spread of the revolt. Esarhaddon was, nevertheless,
+      obliged to put off the fulfilment of his schemes longer than he desired:
+      complications arose on his northern frontiers, near the sources of the
+      Tigris, which distracted his attention from the intrigues taking place on
+      the banks of the Nile. Urartu, hard pressed by the Cimmerians and
+      Scythians, had lived for a quarter of a century in a condition of sullen
+      peace with Assyria, and its kings avoided anything which could bring them
+      into conflict with their hereditary rival. Argistis II. had been succeeded
+      by one of his sons, Eusas IL, and both of them had been more intent upon
+      strengthening their kingdom than on extending its area; they had rebuilt
+      their capital, Dhuspas, on a magnificent scale, and from the security of
+      their rocky home they watched the course of events without taking any part
+      in it, unless forced to do so by circumstances. Andaria, chief of Lubdi,
+      one of the remote mountain districts, so difficult of access that it
+      always retained its independence in spite of frequent attacks, had seized
+      Shupria, a province which had been from very early times subject to the
+      sovereigns of Nineveh, and was the first to be colonised by them. The
+      inhabitants, forgetful of their origin, had yielded voluntarily to
+      Andaria; but this prince, after receiving their homage, was seized with
+      alarm at his own audacity. He endeavoured to strengthen his position by an
+      alliance with the Cimmerians,* and the spirit of insubordination which he
+      aroused spread beyond the Euphrates; Mugallu of Milid, a king of the
+      Tabal, resorted to such violent measures that Esarhaddon was alarmed lest
+      the wild mountaineers of the Taurus should pour down upon the plain of Kuî
+      and lay it waste. The danger would indeed have been serious had all these
+      tribes risen simultaneously; but the Cimmerians were detained in Asia
+      Minor by their own concerns,** and Mugallu, when he saw the Assyrian
+      troops being concentrated to bring him to reason, remained quiet.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This seems, indeed, to be proved by a tablet in which
+     Esarhaddon, addressing the god Shamash, asks him if the
+     Cimmerians or Urartians will unite with a certain prince who
+     can be no other than the King of Shupria.
+
+     ** It was about this time they were dealing the death-blow
+     to the kingdom of Phrygia.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The extension of Lubdi was not likely to meet with favour in the eyes of
+      Eusas; he did not respond to the advances made to him, and Esarhaddon
+      opened his campaign against the rebels without having to dread the
+      intervention of Urartu. Andaria, besieged in his capital of Ubbumi, laid
+      aside his royal robes, and, assuming the ragged garments of a slave,
+      appeared upon the ramparts and pleaded for mercy in a voice choked with
+      tears: &ldquo;Shupria, the country which has sinned against thee, will yield to
+      thee of her own accord; place thy officers over her, she will vow
+      obedience to thee; impose on her a ransom and an annual tribute for ever.
+      I am a robber, and for the crime I have committed I will make amends
+      fifty-fold.&rdquo; Esarhaddon would listen to no terms before a breach had been
+      effected in the city walls. This done, he pardoned the prince who had
+      taken refuge in the citadel, but resumed possession of Shupria: its
+      inhabitants were mercilessly punished, being condemned to slavery, and
+      their lands and goods divided among new colonists. Many Urartians were
+      numbered among the captives: these Esarhaddon separated from the rest, and
+      sent back to Rusas as a reward for his having remained neutral. All this
+      had barely occupied the space of one month, the month of Tebet. The
+      first-fruits of the spoil reserved for Uruk had already reached that town
+      by the month Kislev, and the year was not so far advanced as to render
+      further undertakings impossible, when the death of the queen, on the 5th
+      Adar, suspended all warlike enterprises. The last months of the year were
+      given up to mourning, and the whole of 671 B.C. passed without further
+      action. The Ethiopian king was emboldened by this inactivity on the part
+      of his foe to renew his intrigues with Syria with redoubled energy; at one
+      moment, indeed, the Philistines of Ashkelon, secretly instigated, seemed
+      on the point of revolt.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Ashkelon is mentioned in two of the prayers in which
+     Esarhaddon consults Shamash on the subject of his intended
+     campaign in Egypt; he seems to fear lest that city and the
+     Bedâwin of the Idumoan desert should espouse the cause of
+     the King of Ethiopia.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They held themselves, however, in check, and Esarhaddon, reassured as to
+      their attitude, entered into negotiations with the sheikhs of the Arab
+      tribes, and purchased their assistance to cross the desert of Sinai. He
+      bade them assemble at Raphia, at the western extremity of Palestine, each
+      chief bringing all the camels he could command, and as many skins of water
+      as their beasts could carry: this precaution, a wise one at any time,
+      might secure the safety of the army in case Taharqa should have filled up
+      the wells which marked the stages in the caravan route.* When all was
+      ready, Esarhaddon consulted the oracle of Shamash, and, on receiving a
+      favourable reply from the god, left Nineveh in the beginning of the month
+      Nisân, 670 B.C., to join the invading army in Syria.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This information is furnished by the fragment of the
+     <i>Annals</i>. The Assyrian text introduces this into the
+     narrative in such a manner that it would appear as if these
+     negotiations were carried on at the very commencement of the
+     campaign; it is, however, more probable that they were
+     concluded beforehand, as occurred later on, in the time of
+     Cambyses, when the Persians invaded Egypt.
+
+     ** The published texts refer to the second Egyptian campaign
+     of Esarhaddon. The reply of the god is not easy to
+     interpret, but it was certainly favourable, since the
+     expedition took place.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He made a detour in order to inspect the lines of forts which his generals
+      had established along the coast opposite Tyre, and strengthened their
+      garrisons to prevent Bâal from creating a diversion in the rear of his
+      base of operations; he then proceeded southwards to the neighbourhood of
+      Aphek, in the territory of the tribe of Simeon. The news which there met
+      him must doubtless have informed him that the Bedâwin had been won over in
+      the interval by the emissaries of Taharqa, and that he would run great
+      risk by proceeding with his campaign before bringing them back to a sense
+      of their duty. On leaving Aphek* he consequently turned southwards, and
+      plunged into the heart of the desert, as if he had renounced all designs
+      upon Egypt for that season, and was bent only on restoring order in
+      Milukhkha and Magân before advancing further. For six weeks he marched in
+      short stages, without other water than the supply borne, in accordance
+      with his commands, by the Arab camels, passing through tracts of desert
+      infested by strange birds and double-headed serpents; when he had at
+      length dispersed the bands which had endeavoured to oppose his advance, he
+      suddenly turned in a north-westerly direction, and, following the dry bed
+      of the torrent of Muzur, at length reached Raphia. From thence he did not
+      select the usual route, which follows the coast-line and leads to
+      Pelusium, a place which he may have feared was too well defended, but he
+      again pressed forward across the sands of the desert, and in the first
+      days of Tammuz reached the cultivated land of the Delta by way of the Wady
+      Tumilât. The frontier garrisons, defeated on the 3rd of Tammuz near
+      Ishkhupri,** retreated in good order.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The defaced name of the country in which this Aphek was
+     situated was read as Samirina and translated &ldquo;Samaria&rdquo; by
+     the first editor. This interpretation has been adopted by
+     most historians, who have seen in Aphek the town of this
+     name belonging to the western portion of Manasseh. Budge
+     read it Samina, and this reading, verified by Craig, gave
+     Winckler the idea of identifying Samina or Simina with the
+     tribe of Simeon, and Aphek with the Aphckah (Josh. xv. 53)
+     in the mountains of Judah.
+
+     ** The text on the stele at Zinjirli gives a total of
+     fifteen days&rsquo; march from Ishkhupri to Memphis, while
+     Pinches&rsquo; Babyl. Chron. indicates three battles as having
+     been fought on the 3rd, 16th, and 18th of Tammuz, and the
+     taking of Memphis as occurring on the 22nd of the same
+     month. If fifteen days is precisely accurate for the length
+     of march, Esarhaddon would have reached Ishkhupri about the
+     27th of Sivan.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Taharqa, hastening to their succour, disputed the ground inch by inch, and
+      engaged the invaders in several conflicts, two at least of which, fought
+      on the 16th and 18th of Tammuz, were regular pitched battles, but in every
+      case the Assyrian tactics triumphed in spite of the dashing onslaught of
+      the Egyptians; Memphis succumbed on the 22nd, after an assault lasting
+      merely a few hours, and was mercilessly sacked. The Ethiopian king, with
+      his army decimated and exhausted, gave up the struggle, and beat a hasty
+      retreat southwards. The attack had been made with such rapidity that he
+      had had no time to remove his court from the &ldquo;palace of the White Wall&rdquo; to
+      the Said; the queen, therefore, together with other women of less exalted
+      rank, fell into the hands of the conqueror, besides the crown-prince,
+      Ushana-horu, several younger sons and daughters, and such of the children
+      of Sabaco and Shabîtoku as resided at court. But the victory had cost the
+      Assyrians dearly, and the enemy still appeared to them so formidable that
+      Esarhaddon prudently abstained from pursuing him up the Nile Valley. He
+      favourably received those feudal lords and petty kings who presented
+      themselves to pay him homage, and confirmed them in possession of their
+      fiefs, but he placed over them Assyrian governors and imposed new official
+      names on their cities; thus Athribis was officially called
+      Limir-pateshî-assur, and other cities received the names
+      Assur-makan-tishkul, Bîfc-marduk-sha-assur-taru, Shaîmuk-assur. He further
+      imposed on them a heavy annual tribute of more than six talents of gold
+      and six hundred talents of silver, besides robes and woven stuffs, wine,
+      skins, horses, sheep, and asses; and having accomplished this, he retraced
+      his steps towards the north-east with immense booty and innumerable
+      convoys of prisoners. The complete defeat of the Ethiopian power filled
+      not only Esarhaddon himself but all Asia with astonishment. His return to
+      Nineveh was a triumphal progress; travelling through Syria by short
+      stages, he paraded his captives and trophies before the peoples and
+      princes who had so long relied on the invincible power of the Pharaoh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0030" id="linkBimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/156.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="156.jpg Southern Promontory at the Mouth of The Nahr-el-kelb " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph recently brought back by
+     Lortet.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Esarhaddon&rsquo;s predecessors had more than once inscribed the record of their
+      campaigns on the rocks of the Nahr-el-Kelb, beside the bas-relief engraved
+      there by Ramses II., and it had been no small gratification to their pride
+      thus to place themselves on a footing of equality with one of the most
+      illustrious heroes of the ancient Egyptian empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0031" id="linkBimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/157.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="157.jpg Stele of Esarhaddon at the Nahr-el-kelb " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lortet.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The footpath which skirts the southern bank of the river, and turning to
+      the south is continued along the seashore, was bordered by the great stelæ
+      in which, one after another, they had thought to immortalise their glory;
+      following their example, Esarhaddon was in like manner pleased to
+      celebrate his prowess, and exhibit the ancient lords of the world
+      subjugated to his will. He erected numerous triumphal monuments along his
+      route, and the stele which was discovered at one of the gates of Zinjirli
+      is, doubtless, but an example of those which he erected in other important
+      cities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0032" id="linkBimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:32%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/158.jpg" alt="158.jpg Stele of Zinjirli " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a photograph of
+the original in
+the Berlin Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      He is represented on the Zinjirli stele standing erect, while at his feet
+      are two kneeling prisoners, whom he is holding by a bridle of cord
+      fastened to metal rings passed through their lips; these figures represent
+      Bâal of Tyre and Taharqa of Napata, the latter with the uraaus on his
+      forehead. As a matter of fact, these kings were safe beyond his reach, one
+      surrounded by the sea, the other above the cataracts, and the people were
+      well aware that they did not form part of the band of prisoners which
+      denied before their eyes; but they were accustomed to the vain and
+      extravagant boastings of their conquerors, and these very exaggerations
+      enabled them to understand more fully the extent of the victory.
+      Esarhaddon thenceforward styled himself King of Egypt, King of the Kings
+      of Egypt, of the Said and of Kush, so great was his pride at having
+      trampled underfoot the land of the Delta. And, in fact, Egypt had, for a
+      century, been the only one of the ancient Eastern states which had always
+      eluded the grasp of Assyria. The Elamites had endured disastrous defeats,
+      which had cost them some of their provinces; the Urartians had been driven
+      back into their mountains, and no longer attempted to emerge from them;
+      Babylon had nearly been annihilated in her struggles for independence;
+      while the Khâti, the Phoenicians, Damascus, and Israel had been absorbed
+      one after another in the gradual extension of Ninevehe supremacy. Egypt,
+      although she had had a hand in all then-wars and revolutions, had never
+      herself paid the penalty of her intrigues, and even when she had sometimes
+      risked her troops on the battle-fields of Palestine, her disasters had not
+      cost her more than the loss of a certain number of men: having once
+      retired to the banks of the Nile, no one had dared to follow, and the idea
+      had gained credence among her enemies as well as among her friends that
+      Egypt was effectually protected by the desert from every attack. The
+      victory of Esarhaddon proved that she was no more invulnerable than the
+      other kingdoms of the world, and that before a bold advance the obstacles,
+      placed by nature in the path of an invader, disappeared; the protecting
+      desert had been crossed, the archers and chariots of Egypt had fled before
+      the Assyrian cavalry and pikemen, her cities had endured the ignominy and
+      misery of being taken by storm, and the wives and daughters of her
+      Pharaohs had been carried off into servitude in common with the numerous
+      princesses of Elam and Syria of that day. Esarhaddon filled his palaces
+      with furniture and woven stuffs, with vases of precious metal and
+      sculptured ivories, with glass ornaments and statuettes looted from
+      Memphis: his workers in marble took inspiration from the sphinxes of Egypt
+      to modify the winged, human-headed lions upon which the columns of their
+      palaces rested, and the plans of his architects became more comprehensive
+      at the mere announcement of such a vast amount of spoil. The palace they
+      had begun to build at Nineveh, on the ruins of an ancient edifice, already
+      surpassed all previous architectural efforts. The alabaster quarries of
+      the Assyrian mountains and the forests of Phoenicia had alike been put
+      under contribution to face the walls of its state apartments; twenty-two
+      chiefs of the country of the Khâti, of Phoenicia, and of the Mediterranean
+      littoral&mdash;among them the Greek kings of Cyprus&mdash;had vied with
+      one another in supplying Esarhaddon with great beams of pine, cedar, and
+      cypress for its construction. The ceilings were of cedar supported by
+      pillars of cypress-wood encircled by silver and iron; stone lions and
+      bulls stood on either side of the gates, and the doors were made of cedar
+      and cypress, incrusted or overlaid with iron, silver and ivory. The
+      treasures of Egypt enabled Esarhaddon to complete this palace and begin a
+      new one at Calah, where the buildings erected somewhat hurriedly by
+      Tiglath-pileser III. had already fallen into ruin. Some of the slabs on
+      which the latter conqueror had engraved his Annals, and recounted the
+      principal episodes of his campaigns, were removed and transferred to the
+      site selected by Esarhaddon, and one of the surfaces of each was pared
+      down in order to receive new pictures and fresh inscriptions. They had,
+      however, hardly been placed in the stonemason&rsquo;s hands when the work was
+      interrupted.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The date of the building of the palace at Calah is
+     furnished by the inscriptions, in which Esarhaddon assumes
+     the title of King of Egypt.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0033" id="linkBimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:47%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/161.jpg"
+       alt="161.jpg Assyrian Sphinx in Egyptian Style Supporting The Base of a Column " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from the alabaster
+sculpture reproduced
+by Layard.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It may have been that Esarhaddon had to suspend all his operations while
+      putting down some conspiracy. At any rate, we know that in 669 B.C. many
+      high personages of his court were seized and executed. The question of the
+      succession to the throne was still undecided; Sinidina-bal, the son whom
+      Esarhaddon had previously designated as his heir presumptive, was dead,
+      and the people feared lest he should choose from among his other sons some
+      prince who had not their interests at heart. The king&rsquo;s affection for
+      Babylon had certainly aroused jealousy and anxiety among his Assyrian
+      subjects, and perhaps some further tokens of preference made them uneasy
+      lest&rsquo; he should select Shamash-shumukîn, one of his children who
+      manifested the same tendencies, and who was, moreover, the son of a
+      Babylonian wife. Most of the nobles who had been led to join the
+      conspiracy paid for their indiscretion with their heads, but their
+      opposition gave the sovereign cause for reflection, and decided him to
+      modify his schemes. Convinced that it was impossible to unite Babylon and
+      Nineveh permanently under the same ruler, he reluctantly decided to divide
+      his kingdom into two parts&mdash;Assyria, the strongest portion, falling
+      naturally to his eldest son, Assur-bani-pal, while Babylonia was assigned
+      to Shamash-shumukîn, on condition of his paying homage to his brother as
+      suzerain.* The best method to ensure his wishes being carried into effect
+      was to prepare their way for the fulfilment while he was still alive; and
+      rebellions which broke out about this time beyond the isthmus afforded a
+      good opportunity for so doing. Egypt was at this period divided into
+      twenty states of various dimensions, very nearly the same as had existed a
+      century before, when Piônkhi had, for the first time, brought the whole
+      country under Ethiopian rule.** In the south, the extensive Theban
+      province occupied both sides of the river from Assuan to Thinis and
+      Khemmis.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* Winokler considers that Assur-bani-pal
+was the leader of the conspiracy, and that
+he obliged his father to recognise him as
+heir to the crown of Assyria, and to
+associate him on the throne.
+
+     ** The list of the principalities in the time of Esarhaddon
+     and Assur-bani-pal is found on the cylinders of Assur-bani-
+     pal.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was nominally governed by Amenertas or her daughter, Shapenuapît, but
+      the administration was, as usual, entrusted to a member of the priestly
+      college, at that time to Montumihâît, Count of Thebes, and fourth prophet
+      of Anion.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Assyrian name of this personage, spelt first
+     Mantimiankhi, has been more accurately transcribed
+     Mantimikhi. The identification with the Montumihâît of the
+     Theban documents, is now generally adopted.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The four principalities of Thinis, Siut, Hermopolis, and Heracleopolis
+      separated it from the small kingdom of Memphis and Sais, and each of the
+      regions of the Delta was divided into one or two fiefs, according to the
+      number and importance of the towns it contained. In the south, Thebes was
+      too directly under the influence of Ethiopia to be able to exercise an
+      independent policy with regard to the rest of the country. In the north,
+      two families contested the supremacy more or less openly. One of them,
+      whose hereditary domains included the Arabian, and parts of the
+      surrounding nomes, was then represented by a certain Pakruru. He had
+      united under his banner the numerous petty chiefs of the eastern side of
+      the Delta, the heirs of the ancient dynasties of Tanis and Bubastis, and
+      his energy or ability must have made a good impression on the minds of his
+      contemporaries, for they handed down his memory to their successors, who
+      soon metamorphosed him into a popular legendary hero, famed both for his
+      valour and wisdom. The nobles of the western nomes acknowledged as their
+      overlords the regents of Sais, the descendants of that Bocchoris who had
+      for a short while brought the whole valley of the Nile under his sway.
+      Sabaco, having put his rival to death, had installed in his hereditary
+      domains an Ethiopian named Ammeris, but this Ammeris had disappeared from
+      the scene about the same time as his patron, in 704 B.C., and after him
+      three princes at least had succeeded to the throne, namely, Stephinates,
+      Nekhepsos, and Necho.* Stephinates had died about 680 B.C., without
+      accomplishing anything which was worth recording. Nekhepsos had had no
+      greater opportunities of distinguishing himself than had fallen to the lot
+      of his father, and yet legends grew up round his name as round that of
+      Pakruru: he was reputed to have been a great soothsayer, astrologist, and
+      magician, and medical treatises were ascribed to him, and almanacs much
+      esteemed by the superstitious in the Roman period.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The lists of Eusebius give the series Ammeres,
+     Stephinates, Nekhepsos, Necho I., but Lepsius displaced
+     Ammeres and identified him with the queen Amenertas; others
+     have thought to recognise in him Miamun Piônkhi, or
+     Tanuatamanu, the successor of Taharqa. He must, however, be
+     left in this place in the list, and we may perhaps consider
+     him as the founder of the XXVIth dynasty. If the number of
+     seven years for the reign of Stephinates is adopted, we must
+     suppose either that Manetho passed over the name of a prince
+     at the beginning of the XXVIth dynasty, or that Ammeris was
+     only enthroned at Memphis after the death of Sabaco; but the
+     lists of the Syncellus and of Sothis assign 27 years to the
+     reign of Stephinates.
+
+     ** The astrological works of Nekhepsos are cited, among
+     others, by Pliny, and it is probably he whom a Greek papyrus
+     of the Salt Collection mentions under the name of Nekheus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Necho had already occupied the throne for three or four years when the
+      invasion of 670 B.C. delivered him from the Ethiopian supremacy. He is
+      represented as being brave, energetic, and enterprising, ready to hazard
+      everything in order to attain the object towards which the ambition of his
+      ancestors had been tending for a century past, namely, to restore unity to
+      the ancient kingdom under the rule of the house of Sais. The extent of his
+      realm, and, above all, the possession of Memphis, gave him a real
+      superiority, and Esarhaddon did not hesitate to esteem him above his
+      competitors; the Ninevite scribes placed him in the first rank, and he
+      heads the list of the Egyptian vassals. He soon had an opportunity of
+      proving his devotion to his foreign suzerain. Taharqa did not quietly
+      accept his defeat, and Egypt looked to him to be revenged on the Assyrian
+      as soon as he should have reorganised his army. He once more, accordingly,
+      took the field in the middle of 669 B.C.; the barons of the Said rallied
+      to his standard without hesitation, and he soon re-entered the &ldquo;White
+      Wall,&rdquo; but there his advance was arrested. Necho and the neighbouring
+      chiefs of the Delta, held in check by the presence of Semitic garrisons,
+      did not venture to proclaim themselves on his side, and awaited under arms
+      the arrival of Assyrian reinforcements.* Esarhaddon, in spite of failing
+      health, assumed command of the troops, and before leaving home carried out
+      the project to which the conspiracy of the preceding year had given rise;
+      he assigned the government of Babylon to Shamash-shumukin, and solemnly
+      designated Assur-bani-pal as the heir to Assyria proper, and to the
+      suzerainty over the whole empire.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The first Egyptian campaign of Assur-bani-pal is also the
+     last campaign of Esarhaddon, and Assur-bani-pal appropriated
+     all the earlier incidents of it, some of which belong to the
+     sole reign of his father, and some to the few weeks in which
+     he shared the throne with him.
+
+     ** The association of Assur-bani-pal with his father on the
+     throne was pointed out by G. Smith, who thought he could fix
+     the date about 673 B.C., three or four years before the
+     death of Esarhaddon. Tielo showed that Assur-bani-pal was
+     then only made viceroy, and assigned his association in the
+     sovereignty to the year 671 or 670 B.C., about the time of
+     the second Egyptian campaign, while Hommel brought it down
+     to 669. Winckler has, with much reason, placed the date in
+     668 B.C. The Assyrian documents do not mention the
+     coronation of Shamash-shuniukîn, for Assur-bani-pal
+     afterwards affected to consider his brother a mere viceroy,
+     appointed by himself after the death of his father
+     Esarhaddon; but an examination of all the circumstances has
+     shown that the enthronement of Shamash-shumukîn at Babylon
+     was on a par with that of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh, and
+     that both owed their elevation to their father.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the 12th of Lyyar, 668 B.C., on the day of the feast of Gula, he
+      presented their new lord to all the inhabitants of Assyria, both small and
+      great, who had assembled to be present at the ceremony, which ended in the
+      installation of the prince in the palace of Bîtriduti, reserved for the
+      heirs-apparent. A few weeks later Esarhaddon set out for Egypt, but his
+      malady became more serious on the journey, and he died on the 10th of
+      Arakhsamna, in the twelfth year of his reign.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Arakhsamna corresponds to the Jewish Marcheswân, and to
+     our month of May.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When we endeavour to conjure up his image before us, we fancy we are right
+      in surmising that he was not cast in the ordinary mould of Assyrian
+      monarchs. The history of his campaigns shows that he was as active and
+      resolute as Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., but he did not add to
+      these good qualities their inflexible harshness towards their subjects,
+      nor their brutal treatment of conquered foes. Circumstances in which they
+      would have shown themselves merciless, he seized upon as occasions for
+      clemency, and if massacres and executions are recorded among the events of
+      his reign, at least he does not class them among the most important: the
+      records of his wars do not continually speak of rebels flayed alive, kings
+      impaled before the gates of their cities, and whole populations decimated
+      by fire and sword. Of all the Assyrian conquerors, he is almost the only
+      one for whom the historian can feel any regard, or from the study of whose
+      reign he passes on with regret to pursue that of others in due course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0034" id="linkBimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:36%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/168.jpg"
+       alt="168.jpg Assur-banipal As a Bearer of Offerings " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from a photograph
+in Lehmann.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Esarhaddon had passed away, the separation of the two parts of
+      the empire which he had planned was effected almost automatically:
+      Assur-bani-pal proclaimed himself King of Assyria, and Shamash-shumukîn,
+      in like manner, King of Babylon. One fact, which seems insignificant
+      enough to us when we read it in the Annals, but was decisive in the eyes
+      of their contemporaries, sanctioned the transformation thus accomplished:
+      Bel and the gods of Accad quitted Assur in the month of Iyyâr and returned
+      to their resting-place in Babylon. The restoration of the images to their
+      own country became necessary as soon as it was decided to have a king in
+      Karduniash, even though he were an Assyrian. To enable him to exercise
+      legitimate authority, he must have celebrated the rites and &ldquo;taken the
+      hands of Bel,&rdquo; but it was a question whether this obligation could be
+      fulfilled if Bel remained a prisoner in the neighbouring capital.
+      Assur-bani-pal believed for a moment that this difficulty could be
+      obviated, and consulted Shamash on this delicate question:
+      &ldquo;Shamash-shumukîn, the son of Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria, can he in
+      this year take the hands of Bel, the mighty lord Marduk, in this very
+      city, and then go to Babylon with the favour of Bel! If that would be
+      pleasing to thy great divinity and to the mighty lord Marduk, thy great
+      divinity must know it.&rdquo; The reply was not favourable, and Shamash gave it
+      as his opinion that Bel could not act as a sovereign lord while still
+      languishing in prison in a city which was not his own. Assur-bani-pal had
+      to resign himself to the release of his captive, and he did it with a good
+      grace. He proceeded in pomp to the temple of Assur, where Marduk was shut
+      up, and humbly entreated the exiled deity to vouchsafe to return to his
+      own country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0035" id="linkBimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/169.jpg"
+       alt="169.jpg Sihamash-shumukin As a Bearer of Offerings " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from a photograph in Lehmann.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think on Babylon, which thou didst bring to nought in the rage of thy
+      heart, and turn thy face towards the temple of E-sagilla, the lofty seat
+      of thy divinity! Revisit thy city which thou hast forsaken to inhabit a
+      place which is not worthy of thee, and do thou thyself, O Marduk, lord of
+      the gods, give the command to return to Babylon.&rdquo; The statue set out on
+      its journey, and was escorted by a solemn procession headed by the two
+      kings. The gods, by one accord, came forth from their cities and saluted
+      the traveller as he passed by&mdash;Beltis of Agadê, Nebo of Borsippa,
+      Shamash of Sippara, and Nirgal. At length he reached his beloved city, and
+      entered E-sagilla in the midst of an immense throng of people. The kings
+      headed the <i>cortège</i>, and the delighted multitude joined their two
+      names with that of the god in their acclamations: it was a day never to be
+      forgotten. Assur-bani-pal, in his capacity of suzerain, opened the sacred
+      edifice, and then presented his brother, who thereupon &ldquo;took the hands of
+      Bel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarter of a century had not passed since the victorious Sennacherib
+      had, as he thought, inflicted a mortal blow on the one power which stood
+      in the way of Assyria&rsquo;s supremacy in Western Asia; already, in spite of
+      his efforts, the city had sprung up from its ruins as vigorous as ever,
+      and his sons and grandsons had felt themselves irresistibly drawn to
+      resuscitate that which their ancestors had desired to annihilate
+      irrevocably. Babylon had rebuilt her palaces, her walls, and her temples;
+      she had received back her gods without a war, and almost without any
+      agitation, by the mere force of the prestige she exercised over all around
+      her, and even over her conquerors. As a matter of fact, she had not
+      regained her former position, and was still depressed and enfeebled by the
+      blow which had laid her low; in addition to this, her king was an
+      Assyrian, and a vassal of Assyria, but nevertheless he was her own king,
+      and hers alone. Her independence was already half regained.
+      Shamash-shumukîn established his court at Babylon, and applied himself
+      from the outset to restore, as far as he was able, the material and moral
+      forces of his kingdom. Assur-bani-pal, on his side, met with no opposition
+      from his subjects, but prudence cautioned him not to estrange them; the
+      troubles of the preceding year were perhaps not so completely suppressed
+      as to prevent the chiefs who had escaped punishment from being encouraged
+      by the change of sovereign to renew their intrigues. The king, therefore,
+      remained in Nineveh to inaugurate his rule, and confided to his generals
+      the charge of conducting the expeditions which had been undertaken during
+      his father&rsquo;s lifetime.* One of these undertakings was unimportant. Tandaî
+      of Kirbît, a petty chief, was continually engaged in harassing the
+      inhabitants of Yamutbal; he bore down upon them every year, and, after
+      dealing a blow, retreated to his hiding-place in the mountains. He was
+      attacked in his stronghold, and carried away captive with all his people
+      into Egypt, at the furthest extremity of the empire, to serve in Assyrian
+      garrisons in the midst of the fellahîn.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In the numerous documents relating to the reign of Assur-
+     bani-pal the facts are arranged in geographical order, not
+     by the dates of the successive expeditions, and the
+     chronological order of the campaigns is all the more
+     difficult to determine accurately, as <i>Pinches&rsquo; Babylonian
+     Chronicle</i> fails us after the beginning of this reign,
+     immediately after the mention of the above-mentioned war
+     with Kirbît. Even the <i>Eponym Canon</i> is only accurate down
+     to 666 B.C.; in that year there is a break, and although we
+     possess for the succeeding period more than forty names of
+     eponyms, their classification is not at present absolutely
+     certain.
+
+     ** The expedition against Kirbît is omitted in certain
+     documents; it is inserted in the others in the fourth place,
+     between the wars in Asia Minor and the campaign against the
+     Mannai. The place assigned to it in the Bab. Chron. quite in
+     the beginning of the reign, is confirmed by a fragment of a
+     tablet quoted by Winckler. Perhaps it was carried out by a
+     Babylonian army: although Assur-bani-pal claimed the glory
+     of it, by reason of his suzerainty over Karduniash.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, the army which Esarhaddon had been leading against Taharqa
+      pursued its course under command of the Tartan.* Syria received it
+      submissively, and the twenty-two kings who still possessed a shadow of
+      autonomy in the country sent assurances of their devotion to the new
+      monarch: even Yakînlu, King of Arvad, who had aroused suspicion by
+      frequent acts of insubordination,** thought twice before rebelling against
+      his terrible suzerain, and joined the rest in paying both homage and
+      tribute. Cyprus and also Phoenicia remained faithful to their allegiance,
+      and, what was of still more consequence, the states which lay nearest to
+      Egypt&mdash;Philistia, Judah, Moab, and Ammon; the Assyrians were thus
+      able to push forward to the Delta without losing time in repressing
+      rebellions along their route. The Ethiopians had entrenched themselves at
+      Karbanîti;*** they were, however, once more defeated, and left; so many of
+      their soldiers dead upon the field, that Taharqa had not sufficient troops
+      left to defend Memphis.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The text of Tablet K 2675-K 228 of the Brit. Mus., states
+     distinctly that the Tartan commanded the first army.
+
+     ** Assur-bani-pal, acting in the name of his father,
+     Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, had consulted Shamash on the
+     desirability of sending troops against Arvad: the prince of
+     this city is called Ikkalu, which is a variant of Yakînlu.
+     Winckler concluded that the campaign against Arvad took
+     place before 668 B.C., in the reign of Esarhaddon. It seems
+     to me more natural to place it on the return from Egypt,
+     when the people of Arvad were demoralised by the defeat of
+     the Pharaoh whose alliance they had hoped for.
+
+     *** I had compared Karbanîti with the Qarbîna mentioned in
+     the <i>Great Harris Papyrus</i>, and this identification was
+     accepted by most Egyptologists, even after Brugsch
+     recognised in Qarbîna the name of Canopus or a town near
+     Canopus. It has been contested by Steindorf, and, in fact,
+     Karbanîti could not be identified with Canopus, any more
+     than the Qarbina of the Harris Papyrus; its site must be
+     looked for in the eastern or central part of the Delta.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He retreated upon Thebes, where he strongly fortified himself; but the
+      Tartan had not suffered less than his adversary, and he would have been
+      unable to pursue him, had not reinforcements promptly reached him. The
+      Bab-shakeh, who had been despatched from Nineveh with some Assyrian
+      troops, had summoned to his aid the principal Syrian feudal chiefs, who,
+      stimulated by the news of the victories achieved on the banks of the Nile,
+      placed themselves unreservedly at his disposal. He ordered their vessels
+      to proceed along the coast as far as the Delta, where he purposed to
+      collect a fleet to ascend the river, while their troops augmented the
+      force already under his command. The two Assyrian generals, the Tartan and
+      the Rabshakeh, quitted Memphis, probably in the early part of 667 B.C.,
+      and, cautiously advancing southwards, covered the distance separating the
+      two Egyptian capitals in a steady march of forty days. When the Assyrians
+      had advanced well up the valley, the princes of the Delta thought the
+      opportunity had arrived to cut them off by a single bold stroke. They
+      therefore opened cautious negotiations with the Ethiopian king, and
+      proposed an arrangement which should secure their independence: &ldquo;We will
+      divide the country between us, and neither of us shall exercise authority
+      over the other.&rdquo; However secretly these negotiations were conducted, they
+      were certain to come to the knowledge of the Assyrian generals: the
+      couriers were intercepted; and discovering from the despatches the extent
+      of the danger, the Assyrians seized as many of the leaders of the league
+      as they could. As a warning they sacked Sais, Mendes, and Tanis,
+      demolishing the fortifications, and flaying or impaling the principal
+      citizens before their city gates; they then sent two of the intriguing
+      chiefs, Necho and Sharludari of Pelusium, bound hand and foot with chains,
+      to Nineveh. Pakruru, of the Arabian nome, managed, however, to escape
+      them. Taharqa, thus bereft of his allies, was no longer in a condition to
+      repel the invader: he fled to Ethiopia, abandoning Thebes to its fate. The
+      city was ransomed by despoiling the temple of Amon of half its treasures:
+      Montumihâît transferred his allegiance unhesitatingly to Assur-bani-pal,
+      and the whole of Egypt from the Mediterranean to the first cataract once
+      more became Assyrian territory. The victory was so complete that
+      Assur-bani-pal thought he might without risk show clemency to his
+      prisoners. He summoned them to his presence, and there, instead of putting
+      out their eyes or subjecting them to some horrible form of torture, he
+      received them back into favour, and confirmed Necho in the possession of
+      all the honours which Esarhaddon had conceded to him. He clothed him in a
+      mantle of honour, and bestowed on him a straight-bladed sword with an iron
+      scabbard ornamented with gold, engraved with his names and titles, besides
+      rings, gold bracelets, chariots, horses, and mules; in short, all the
+      appurtenances of royalty. Not content with restoring to him the cities of
+      Sais and Memphis, he granted him the fief of Athribis for his eldest son,
+      Psammetichus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0036" id="linkBimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/174.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="174.jpg MontumihÂÎt, Prince of Thebes " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Miss Benson. It is
+     not quite certain that this statue represents Montumihâît,
+     as the inscription is wanting: the circumstances of the
+     discovery, however, render it very probable.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, he neglected no measure likely to show his supremacy. Athribis
+      received the new name of Limir-patesi-assur, <i>may the high priest of
+      Assur be glorious</i>, and Sais that of Kar-bel-matâti, <i>the fortress of
+      the lord of the countries</i>. Psammetichus was called Nebo-shezib-anni,
+      <i>Nebo, deliver me</i>, and residents were installed at his court and
+      that of his father, who were entrusted with the <i>surveillance</i> of
+      their conduct, and the task of keeping them to the path of duty: Necho,
+      thus well guarded, thenceforward never faltered in his allegiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subjection of Egypt reacted on Syria and Asia Minor. Of the only two
+      states still existing along the Phoenician seaboard, one, namely Tyre, had
+      been in revolt for many years, and the other, Arvad, showed symptoms of
+      disaffection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0037" id="linkBimage-0037">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:34%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/175.jpg" alt="175.jpg Psammetichus " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a bas-relief in
+the British Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Esarhaddon, from lack of a sufficient fleet, had never been able to subdue
+      the former, but he had interrupted the communications of the island with
+      the mainland, and the blockade, which was constantly increasing in
+      strictness, had already lasted for four years. On receipt of the news from
+      Egypt, Bâal realised that further resistance was hopeless; he therefore
+      delivered up to the victor his heir-apparent, Yahî-melek, and one of his
+      daughters, together with other hostages, besides silver, gold, and wood,
+      and intreated for pardon. Assur-bani-pal left him in possession of his
+      kingdom on condition of paying the regular tribute, but Yakînlu, the King
+      of Arvad, met with harsher treatment. In vain did he give up his sons, his
+      daughters, and all his treasures; his intractability had worn out the
+      patience of his suzerain: he was carried away captive to Nineveh, and
+      replaced by Azîbaal, his eldest son. Two chiefs of the Taurus&mdash;Mugallu
+      of Tabal, who had given trouble to Esarhaddon in the last years of his
+      life, and Sanda-sarme of Cilicia&mdash;purchased immunity from the
+      punishment due for various acts of brigandage, by gifts of horses, and by
+      handing over each of them a daughter, richly dowered, to the harem of the
+      king at Nineveh. But these were incidents of slight moment, and their very
+      insignificance proves how completely resigned to foreign domination the
+      nations of the Mediterranean coast had now become. Vassal kings, princes,
+      cities, peasants of the plain or shepherds of the mountains, all who were
+      subject directly or indirectly to Assyria, had almost ceased to imagine
+      that a change of sovereign afforded them any chance of regaining their
+      independence. They no longer considered themselves the subjects of a
+      conqueror whose death might free them from allegiance; they realised that
+      they were the subjects of an empire whose power did not depend on the
+      genius or incapacity of one man, but was maintained from age to age in
+      virtue of the prestige it had attained, whatever might be the qualities of
+      the reigning sovereign. The other independent states had at length come to
+      the same conclusion, and the news of the accession of a fresh Assyrian
+      king no longer awakened among them hopes of conquest or, at all events, of
+      booty; such an occasion was regarded as a suitable opportunity for
+      strengthening the bonds of neighbourly feeling or conciliatory friendship
+      which united them to Assyria, by sending an embassy to congratulate the
+      new sovereign. One of these embassies, which arrived about 667 B.C.,
+      caused much excitement at the court of Nineveh, and greatly flattered the
+      vanity of the king. Reports brought back by sailors or the chiefs of
+      caravans had revealed the existence of a kingdom of Lydia in the extreme
+      west of Asia Minor, at the place of embarcation for crossing the sea.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It is called <i>nagu sha nibirti tâmtim</i>, &ldquo;the country of
+     the crossing of the sea,&rdquo; or more concisely, &ldquo;the country
+     this side the sea.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      It was known to be celebrated for its gold and its horses, but no direct
+      relations between the two courts had ever been established, and the Lydian
+      kings had hitherto affected to ignore the existence of Assyria. A
+      revolution had broken out in this province a quarter of a century
+      previously, which had placed on the throne of the Heraclidse that family
+      of the Mermnado whose previous history had been so tragic. Dascylus, who
+      had made his home for a long time among the White Syrians, had no
+      intention of abandoning his adopted country, when one day, about the year
+      698 B.C., a messenger arrived bidding him repair to Sardes without delay.
+      His uncle Ardys, prince of Tyrrha, having no children, had applied to
+      Sadyattes, beseeching him to revoke the sentence of banishment passed on
+      his nephew. &ldquo;My house is desolate,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and all my kinsfolk are
+      dead; and furthermore, Dascylus and his house have already been pardoned
+      by thine ancestors.&rdquo; Sadyattes consented, but Dascylus, preferring not to
+      return, sent his son Gyges, then about eighteen years of age, in his
+      stead. Gyges was a tall and very beautiful youth, and showed unusual skill
+      as a charioteer and in the use of weapons, so that his renown soon spread
+      throughout the country. Sadyattes desired to see him, and being captivated
+      by his bold demeanour, enrolled him in his bodyguard, loaded him with
+      presents, and took him into his entire confidence. Gyges was clever enough
+      to utilise the king&rsquo;s favour in order to enlarge his domains and increase
+      his riches, and thus win partisans among the people and the body of
+      &ldquo;Friends.&rdquo; Carian mercenaries at that time formed one of the most vigorous
+      and best disciplined contingents in the armies of the period.* The Carians
+      were, above all, a military race, and are said to have brought the shield
+      and helmet to their highest perfection; at Sardes they formed the garrison
+      of the citadel, and their captains were in high favour with the king.
+      Gyges formed a fast friendship with Arselis of Mylasa, one of the chief of
+      these officers, and thus made sure of the support of the garrison, and of
+      the possibility of recruiting a corps among the Carian clans who remained
+      in their own country.** He thus incurred the bitter jealousy of the
+      Tylonidag, whose chief, Lixos, was ready to adopt any measures which might
+      damage his rival, even going so far as to simulate madness and run through
+      the streets of Sardes crying out that Gyges, the son of Dascylus, was
+      about to assassinate the king; but this stratagem did not succeed any
+      better than his other treacherous devices. Meanwhile Sadyattes had sought
+      the hand of Toudô,*** daughter of Arnossos of Mysia, and sent his
+      favourite to receive his affianced bride at the hand of her father.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Archilochus of Paros, a contemporary of Gyges, mentions
+     the Carian mercenaries, and later on Ephorus said of them,
+     that they had been the first to sell their services to
+     strangers.
+
+     ** The connection between Arselis and Gyges is mentioned by
+     Plutarch.
+
+     *** It is not certain whether the name is Toudô or Trydô.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Gyges fell in love with her on the journey, and tried in vain to win her
+      favour. She repulsed his advances with indignation, and on the very night
+      of her marriage complained to her husband of the insult which had been
+      offered her. Sadyattes swore that he would avenge her on the morrow; but
+      Gyges, warned by a servant, slew the king before daybreak. Immediately
+      after thus assassinating his sovereign, Gyges called together the
+      &ldquo;Friends,&rdquo; and ridding himself of those who were hostile to him, induced
+      the others by bribes to further his designs; then descending to the place
+      of public assembly, he summoned the people to a conclave. After a long and
+      stormy debate, it was decided to consult the oracle at Delphi, which,
+      corrupted by the gold from the Pactolus, enjoined on the Lydians to
+      recognise Gyges as their king. He married Toudô, and by thus espousing the
+      widow of the Heraclid sovereign, obtained some show of right to the crown;
+      but the decision of the oracle was not universally acceptable, and war
+      broke out, in which Gyges was victorious, thanks to the bravery of his
+      Carian mercenaries. His career soon served as the fabric on which the
+      popular imagination was continually working fresh embroideries. He was
+      reported at the outset to have been of base extraction, a mere soldier of
+      fortune, who had raised himself by degrees to the highest posts and had
+      finally supplanted his patron. Herodotus, following the poet Archilochus
+      of Paros, relates how the last of the Heraclidas, whom he calls by his
+      private name of Kandaules, and not his official name of Sadyattes,*
+      forcibly insisted on exposing to the admiration of Gyges the naked beauty
+      of his wife; the queen, thus outraged, called upon the favourite to avenge
+      the insult to her modesty by the blood of her husband, and then bestowed
+      on him her hand, together with the crown.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Schubert considers that the names Sadyattes and Kandaules
+     belong to two distinct persons. Kandaules, according to him,
+     was probably a second son of Myrsos, who, after the murder
+     of Sadyattes, disputed the possession of the crown with
+     Gyges; in this case he was killed in battle by the Carian
+     commander, Arselis, as related by Plutarch, and Gyges was
+     not really king till after the death of Kandaules.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Plato made this story the groundwork of a most fantastic tale. Gyges,
+      according to him, was originally a shepherd, who, after a terrible storm,
+      noticed a fissure in the ground, into which he crept; there he discovered
+      an enormous bronze horse, half broken, and in its side the corpse of a
+      giant with a gold ring on his finger. Chance revealed to him that this
+      ring rendered its wearer invisible: he set out for the court in quest of
+      adventures, seduced the queen, murdered the king and seized his crown,
+      accomplishing all this by virtue of his talisman.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This version is curious, because it has preserved for us
+     one of the earliest examples of a ring which renders its
+     wearer invisible; it is well known how frequently such a
+     talisman appears in Oriental tales of a later period.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0038" id="linkBimage-0038">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/181.jpg" alt="181.jpg Lydian Horsemen " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a
+Lydian bas-relief now in the
+British Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      According to a third legend, his crime and exaltation had been presaged by
+      a wondrous prodigy. Two eagles of supernatural size had alighted on the
+      roof of Toudô&rsquo;s room while she was still dwelling in her father&rsquo;s house,
+      and the soothsayers who were consulted prognosticated that the princess
+      would be the wife of two kings in a single night; and, in fact, Gyges,
+      having stabbed Sadyattes when his marriage was but just consummated,
+      forced Toudô to become his wife on the spot without waiting for the
+      morrow. Other stories were current, in which the events were related with
+      less of the miraculous element, and which attributed the success of Gyges
+      to the unbounded fidelity shown him by the Carian Arselis. In whatever
+      manner it was brought about, his accession marked the opening of a new era
+      for Lydia. The country had always been noted for its valiant and warlike
+      inhabitants, but the Heraclidse had not expended its abundant resources on
+      foreign conquest, and none of the surrounding peoples suspected that it
+      could again become the seat of a brilliant empire as in fabulous times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gyges endeavoured to awaken the military instincts of his subjects. If he
+      were not actually the first to organise that admirable cavalry corps which
+      for nearly a century proved itself invincible on the field of battle, at
+      least he enlarged and disciplined it, giving it cohesion and daring; and
+      it was well he did so, for a formidable danger already menaced his newly
+      acquired kingdom. The Cimmerians and Treres, so long as they did not act
+      in concert, had been unable to overcome the resistance offered by the
+      Phrygians; their raids, annually renewed, had never resulted in more than
+      the destruction of a city or the pillaging of an ill-defended district.
+      But from 690 to 680 B.C. the Cimmerians, held in check by the bold front
+      displayed by Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, had at last broken away from the
+      seductions of the east, and poured down in force on the centre of the
+      peninsula. King Midas, after an heroic defence, at length gave way before
+      their overwhelming numbers, and, rather than fall alive into the hands of
+      the barbarians, poisoned himself by drinking the blood of a bull (676
+      B.C.).* The flower of his nobility perished with him, and the people of
+      lower rank who survived were so terrified by the invasion, that they
+      seemed in one day to lose entirely the brave and energetic character which
+      had hitherto been their safeguard. The Cimmerians seized town after
+      town;** they descended from the basin of the Sangarios into that of the
+      Bhyndakos; they laid waste the Troad, and, about 670 B.C., they
+      established themselves securely in the stronghold of Antandros, opposite
+      the magnificent Æolian island of Lesbos, and ere long their advanced posts
+      were face to face on all sides with the outposts of Lydia.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The date of 676 B.C. has been borrowed from Julius
+     Africanus by the Christian chronologists of the Byzantine
+     period; these latter made the fall of the Phrygian kingdom
+     coincide with the reign of Amon in Judæa, and this date is
+     accepted by most modern historians.
+
+     ** One fact alone, probably taken from the Lydiaca of
+     Xanthus, is known to us concerning their operations in
+     Phrygia, namely, the taking of Syassos and the capture of
+     enormous stores of corn which were laid up in the silos in
+     that city.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Gyges resolutely held his own, and successfully repulsed them; but the
+      struggle was too unequal between their vast hordes, recruited incessantly
+      from their reserves in Thrace or the Caucasus, and his scanty battalions
+      of Lydians, Carians, and Creeks. Unaided, he had no chance of reopening
+      the great royal highway, which the fall of the Phrygian monarchy had laid
+      at the mercy of the barbarians along the whole of its middle course, and
+      yet he was aware that a cessation of the traffic which passed between the
+      Euphrates and the Hermos was likely to lead in a short time to the decay
+      of his kingdom. If the numerous merchants who were wont to follow this
+      ancient traditional route were once allowed to desert it and turn aside to
+      one of the coast-roads which might replace it&mdash;either that of the
+      Pontus in the north or of the Mediterranean in the south&mdash;they might
+      not be willing to return to it even when again opened to traffic, and
+      Lydia would lose for ever one of her richest sources of revenue.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Radet deserves credit for being the first to point out the
+     economic reasons which necessarily led Gyges to make his
+     attempt at forming an alliance with Assur-bani-pal. He has
+     thus definitely dismissed the objections which some recent
+     critics had raised against the authenticity of this episode
+     in order to defend classic tradition and diminish the
+     authority of the Assyrian texts.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We may well conceive that Gyges, whose fortune and very existence was thus
+      in jeopardy, would seek assistance against these barbarians from the
+      sovereign whose interests appeared identical with his own. The renown of
+      the Assyrian empire had penetrated far into the west; the Achæns of Cyprus
+      who were its subjects, the Greek colonists of Cilicia, and the soldiers
+      whom the exigencies of the coast-trade brought to Syrian ports, must all
+      have testified to its splendour; and the fame of its conquests over the
+      Tabal and the peoples on the Halys had spread abroad more than once during
+      the previous century, and had reached as far as the western extremity of
+      the peninsula of Asia Minor, by means of the merchants of Sardes or Ionia.
+      The Cimmerians had harassed Assyria, and still continued to be a source of
+      anxiety to her rulers; Gyges judged that participation in a common hatred
+      or danger would predispose the king in his favour, and a dream furnished
+      him with a pretext for notifying to the court of Nineveh his desire to
+      enter into friendly relations with it. He dreamed that a god, undoubtedly
+      Assur, had appeared to him in the night, and commanded him to prostrate
+      himself at the feet of Assur-bani-pal: &ldquo;In his name thou shalt overcome
+      thine enemies.&rdquo; The next morning he despatched horsemen to the great king,
+      but when the leader of the embassy reached the frontier and met the
+      Assyrians for the first time, they asked him, &ldquo;Who, then, art thou,
+      brother, thou from whose land no courier has as yet visited our country?&rdquo;
+       The language he spoke was unknown to them; they only gathered that he
+      desired to be conducted into the presence of the king, and consequently
+      sent him on to Nineveh under good escort. There the same obstacle
+      presented itself, for none of the official interpreters at the court knew
+      the Lydian tongue; however, an interpreter was at length discovered, who
+      translated the story of the dream as best he could. Assur-bani-pal
+      joyfully accepted the homage offered to him from such a far-off land, and
+      from thenceforward some sort of alliance existed between Assyria and Lydia&mdash;an
+      alliance of a very Platonic order, from which Gyges at least derived no
+      sensible advantage. Some troops sent into the country of the White Syrians
+      may have disquieted the Cimmerians, and, by causing a diversion in their
+      rear, procured a respite for Lydia; but the caravan route across Asia
+      Minor was only of secondary importance to the prosperity of Nineveh and
+      the Syrian provinces, since the Phoenician navy provided sufficient
+      outlets for their trade in the west. Assur-bani-pal lavished friendly
+      speeches on the Lydians, but left them to bear the brunt of the attack
+      alone, and devoutly thanked Assur for the security which their determined
+      courage procured for the western frontier of his empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cimmerian peril being, for the present at least, averted, there no
+      longer remained any foe to trouble the peace of the empire on the northern
+      or eastern frontier, Urartu, the Mannai, and the Medes having now ceased
+      to be formidable. Urartu, incessantly exposed to the ravages of the
+      barbarians, had drawn closer and closer to Assyria; and though not
+      actually descending to the point of owning its rival&rsquo;s superiority in
+      order to obtain succour against these terrible foes, it yet carefully
+      avoided all pretexts for war, and persistently maintained friendly
+      relations with its powerful neighbour. Its kings, Eusas II. and his
+      successor Erimenas, no longer meditated feats of arms and successful
+      raids, but devoted themselves to building their city walls, erecting
+      palaces and temples, and planning pleasant retreats in the mountain
+      fastnesses, where they lived surrounded by gardens planted at great cost,
+      watered by streams brought thither from distant springs. The Mannai
+      submitted without a murmur to their Assyrian governors, and the Medes,
+      kept in check by the garrisons of Parsua and Kharkhar, seemed to have laid
+      aside much of their fierce and turbulent disposition. Esarhaddon had
+      endeavoured to conciliate the good will of Elam by a signal service. He
+      had supplied its inhabitants with corn, wine, and provisions of all sorts
+      during a famine which had afflicted the country about 670 B.C.; nor had
+      his good will ended there. He refused to bring into servitude those
+      Elamite subjects who had taken refuge with their families on Assyrian
+      territory to escape the scourge, although the rights of nations authorised
+      him so to do, but having nourished them as long as the dearth lasted, he
+      then sent them back to their fellow-citizens. Urtaku of Elam had
+      thenceforward maintained a kind of sullen neutrality, entering only into
+      secret conspiracies against the Babylonian prefects on the Tigris. The
+      Aramaeans in the valleys of the Ulaî, indeed, were restless, and several
+      of their chiefs, Bel-ikîsha of the G-ambula, and Nabo-shumirîsh, plotted
+      in secret with Marduk-shumibni, the Elamite general in command on the
+      frontier. But no hint of this had yet transpired, and peace apparently
+      reigned there as elsewhere. Never had the empire been so respected; never
+      had it united so many diverse nations under one sceptre&mdash;Egyptians,
+      Syrians, tribes of the Taurus, and the mountain districts round the Tigris
+      and Euphrates, Mannai, Medes, Babylonians, and Arabs; never, moreover, had
+      it possessed greater resources wherewith to compel obedience from the
+      provinces or defend them against foreign attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0039" id="linkBimage-0039">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:24%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/187.jpg" alt="187.jpg Assur-bani-pal " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from one of the bas-reliefs
+from Kouyunjik in the
+British Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless the population of Assyria proper, and the ancient districts
+      whose contingents formed the nucleus of the army, were still suffering
+      from the results of the civil war which had broken out more than fifteen
+      years before, after the assassination of Sennacherib; but under the easy
+      rule of Esarhaddon the natural increase of population, unchecked by any
+      extraordinary call for recruits, must have almost repaired their losses.
+      The Egyptian campaigns, partially carried out by Syrian auxiliaries, had
+      not sensibly retarded this progress, and, provided that peace were
+      maintained for some years longer, the time seemed at hand when the king,
+      having repaired his losses, could call upon the nation to make fresh
+      efforts in offensive or defensive warfare, without the risk of seeing his
+      people melt and disappear before his eyes. It seems, indeed, as if
+      Assur-bani-pal, either by policy or natural disposition, was inclined for
+      peace. But this did not preclude, when occasion demanded, his directing
+      his forces and fighting in person like any other Assyrian monarch; he,
+      however, preferred repose, and when circumstances forced war upon him, he
+      willingly delegated the conduct of the army to his generals. He would
+      probably have renounced possession of Egypt if he could have done so with
+      safety and such a course would not have been without wisdom, the retention
+      of this newly acquired province being difficult and costly. Not to speak
+      of differences in language, religion, and manners, which would prevent it
+      from ever becoming assimilated to Assyria as Damascus, Hamath, and
+      Samaria, and most of the Asiatic states had been, it was merely connected
+      with the rest of the empire by the thin chain of rocks, desert, and
+      marshes stretching between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. A revolt of
+      the cities of the Philistines, or of one of the Idumsean sheikhs, would
+      have sufficed to isolate it, and, communications once interrupted, the
+      safety of the numerous Assyrian officers and garrisons would be seriously
+      jeopardised, all of whom must be maintained there if the country was to be
+      permanently retained. The inclination to meddle in the affairs of Syria
+      always displayed by the Pharaohs, and their obsolete claims to rule the
+      whole country as far as the Euphrates, did not allow of their autonomy
+      being restored to them at the risk of the immediate renewal of their
+      intrigues with Tyre or Judah, and the fomenting of serious rebellions
+      among the vassal princes of Palestine. On the other hand, Egypt was by its
+      natural position so detached from the rest of the empire that it was
+      certain to escape from the influence of Nineveh as soon as the pressure of
+      circumstances obliged the suzerain to relax his efforts to keep it in
+      subjection. Besides this, Ethiopia lay behind Egypt, almost inaccessible
+      in the fabled realms of the south, always ready to provoke conspiracies or
+      renew hostilities when the occasion offered. Montumihâît had already
+      returned to Thebes on the retreat of the Assyrian battalions, and though
+      Taharqa, rendered inactive, as it was said, by a dream which bade him
+      remain at Napata,* had not reappeared north of the cataract, he had sent
+      Tanuatamanu, the son of his wife by Sabaco, to administer the province in
+      his name.** Taharqa died shortly after (666 B.C.), and his stepson was
+      preparing to leave Thebes in order to be solemnly crowned at Gebel Barkal,
+      when he saw one night in a dream two serpents, one on his right hand, the
+      other on his left. The soothsayers whom he consulted on the matter
+      prognosticated for him a successful career: &ldquo;Thou holdest the south
+      countries; seize thou those of the north, and let the crowns of the two
+      regions gleam upon thy brow!&rdquo; He proceeded at once to present himself
+      before his divine father Amon of Napata, and, encountering no opposition
+      from the Ethiopian priests or nobles, he was able to fulfil the prediction
+      almost immediately after his coronation.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The legend quoted by Herodotus relates that Sabaco, having
+     slain Necho I., the father of Psammetichus, evacuated Egypt
+     which he had conquered, and retired to Ethiopia in obedience
+     to a dream. The name of Sabaco was very probably substituted
+     for that of Taharqa in the tradition preserved in Sais and
+     Memphis, echoes of which reached the Greek historian in the
+     middle of the fifth century B.C.
+
+     ** It appears, from the <i>Stele of the Dream</i>, that
+     Tanuatamanu was in the Thebaid at the time of his accession
+     to the throne.
+
+     *** Steindorff thinks that Tanuatamanu had been officially
+     associated with himself on the throne by Taharqa, and
+     Schsefer supposes that the dream dates from the first year
+     of their joint reign. The presence of Tanuatamanu beside
+     Taharqa, in the small Theban temple, the bas-reliefs of
+     which were published by Mariette, does not necessarily prove
+     that the two kings reigned conjointly: it may equally well
+     indicate that the one accomplished the work commenced by the
+     other.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Said hailed his return with joy, and the inhabitants, massed upon
+      either bank of the river, acclaimed him as he glided past them on his
+      boat: &ldquo;Go in peace! mayest thou have peace! Restore life to Egypt! Rebuild
+      the ruined temples, set up once more the statues and emblems of the
+      deities! Reestablish the endowments raised to the gods and goddesses, even
+      the offerings to the dead! Restore the priest to his place, that he may
+      minister at all the rites!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Assyrian officials and the princes of the north, with Necho at their
+      head, were drawn up beneath the walls of Memphis to defy him. He overcame
+      them, however, captured the city, and pushed on into the Delta in pursuit
+      of the retreating foe. Necho either fell in a skirmish, or was taken
+      prisoner and put to death: his son Psammetichus escaped to Syria, but the
+      remaining princes shut themselves up, each in his own stronghold, to await
+      reinforcements from Asia, and a series of tedious and interminable sieges
+      began. Impatient at this dilatory method of warfare, Tanuatamanu at length
+      fell back on Memphis, and there opened negotiations in the hope of
+      securing at least a nominal submission, which might enable him to withdraw
+      from the affair with honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0040" id="linkBimage-0040">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/190.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="190.jpg Mural Decorations from the Grottoes " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The princes of the east received his overtures favourably, and consented
+      to prostrate themselves before him at the White Wall under the auspices of
+      Pakruru. &ldquo;Grant us the breath of life, for he who acknowledges thee not
+      cannot live, and we will be thy vassals, as thou didst declare at the
+      beginning, on the day in which thou becamest king!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0041" id="linkBimage-0041">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/191.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="191.jpg King Tanuatamanu in Adoration Before the Gods Of Thebes " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Legrain, taken in the
+     small temple at Thebes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The heart of his Majesty was filled with joy when he heard this discourse:
+      he bestowed upon them in abundance bread, beer, and all manner of good
+      things. After sojourning some days at the court of Pharaoh their lord,
+      they said to him, &ldquo;Why stay we here, O prince our master?&rdquo; His Majesty
+      replied, &ldquo;Wherefore?&rdquo; They answered then, &ldquo;Graciously permit us to return
+      to our own cities, that we may give commands to our subjects, and may
+      bring thee our tribute offerings!&rdquo; They returned ere long, bringing the
+      promised gifts, and the king withdrew to Napata loaded with spoil.* The
+      Delta proper at once ceased to obey him, but Memphis, as well as Thebes,
+      still acknowledged his sway for some two or three years longer.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Tanuatamanu was at first identified by Haigh with the
+     person whose name Assyriologists read as Urdamani, but the
+     impossibility of recognising the name <i>Tanuatamanu</i> in
+     <i>Urdamani</i> decided E. de Rougé, and subsequently others, to
+     admit an Urdamani different from Tanuatamanu. The discovery
+     of the right reading of the name <i>Tandamanu</i> by Steindorff
+     has banished all doubts, and it is now universally admitted
+     that the person mentioned in the Assyrian documents is
+     identical with the king who erected the <i>Stele of the Dream</i>
+     at Gebel Barkal.
+
+     ** A monument still exists which was dedicated at Thebes in
+     the third year of Tanuatamanu.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was neither indolence nor fear which had kept Assur-bani-pal from
+      marching to the succour of his subjects as soon as the movement under
+      Tanuatamanu became manifest, but serious complications had arisen in the
+      south-east which had for the moment obliged him to leave Egypt to itself.
+      Elam had at last laid aside the mask, and Urtaku, yielding to the
+      entreaties of the Aramæan sheikhs, who were urged on by Marduk-shumibni,
+      had crossed the Tigris. Shamash-shumukîn, thus taken unawares, could only
+      shut himself up in Babylon, and in all haste send information of his
+      plight to his brother and suzerain. Assur-bani-pal, preoccupied with the
+      events taking place on the Nile, was for a moment in doubt whether this
+      incursion was merely a passing raid or the opening of a serious war, but
+      the reports of his scouts soon left no doubt as to the gravity of the
+      danger: &ldquo;The Elamite, like a swarm of grasshoppers, covers the fields, he
+      covers Accad; against Babylon he has pitched his camp and drawn out his
+      lines.&rdquo; The city was too strong to be taken by storm. The Assyrians
+      hastened to relieve it, and threatened to cut off the retreat of the
+      aggressors: the latter, therefore, gave up the siege, and returned to
+      their own country, but their demeanour was still so undaunted that
+      Assur-bani-pal did not cross the frontier in pursuit of them (665 B.C.).
+      He doubtless fully expected that they would soon return in larger numbers,
+      and perhaps his fear would not have proved unfounded had not fate suddenly
+      deprived them of all their leaders. Bel-ikîsha was killed in hunting by a
+      wild boar, Nabu-shumirîsh was struck down by dropsy, and Marduk-shumibni
+      perished in a mysterious manner. Finally Urtaku succumbed to an attack of
+      apoplexy, and the year which had been so fatal to his allies proved not
+      less so to himself (664 B.C.). It now seemed as if Assur-bani-pal might
+      breathe freely, and inflict his long-deferred vengeance on Tanuatamanu,
+      but the death of Urtaku did not remove all causes of uneasiness. Peace was
+      not yet concluded, and it depended on the new King of Elam whether
+      hostilities would be renewed. Fortunately for the Assyrians, the
+      transmission of power had rarely taken place at Susa for a century past
+      without a disturbance, and Urtaku himself had gained the throne by
+      usurpation, possibly accompanied by murder. As he had treated his elder
+      brother Khumbân-khaldash and the children of the latter, so did his
+      younger brother Tammaritu now treat his sons. Tammaritu was &ldquo;a devil&rdquo;
+       incarnate, whose whole thoughts were of murder and rapine; at least, this
+      was the idea formed of him by his Assyrian contemporaries, who declared
+      that he desired to put to death the sons of his two predecessors out of
+      sheer cruelty. But we do not need a very vivid imagination to believe that
+      these princes were anxious to dethrone him, and that in endeavouring to
+      rid himself of them he was merely forestalling their secret plots. They
+      escaped his murderous designs, however, and fled to Assyria,&mdash;Khumbân-igash,
+      Khumbân-appa, and Tammaritu, sons of Uxtaku, and Kuduru and Parru, sons of
+      Khumbân-khaldash, followed by sixty other princes of royal blood, together
+      with archers and servants&mdash;forming, in fact, a small army of
+      Elamites. Assur-bani-pal received them with honour, for their defection
+      furnished him with a powerful weapon against the usurper: by succouring
+      them he could rouse half Elam and involve it in civil war, in which the
+      pretenders would soon exhaust their resources. It was now a favourable
+      moment to renew hostilities in Egypt, while Tammaritu, still insecure on
+      his throne, would not venture to provoke a conflict.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The time of the war against Urtaku and the expedition
+     against Tanuatamanu is indicated by a passage in a cylinder
+     as yet unedited. There we read that the invasion of Urtaku
+     took place at the moment when Tanuatamanu ascended the
+     throne. These preliminary difficulties with Elam would thus
+     have coincided with the two years which elapsed between the
+     accession of Tanuatamanu and his conquest of Memphis, up to
+     the third year mentioned in the Berlin inscription; the
+     testimony of the Egyptian monuments would thus be in almost
+     complete accord with the Assyrian documents on this point.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Tanuatamanu did not risk the defence of Memphis, but
+      concentrated his forces at Thebes. Once more the Assyrian generals
+      ascended the Nile, and, after a voyage lasting six weeks, at length
+      reached the suburbs of the great city. Tanuatamanu had fled towards
+      Kipkip, leaving Thebes at the mercy of the invaders. It was given up to
+      pillage, its population was carried off into slavery, and its temples and
+      palaces were despoiled of their treasures&mdash;gold, silver, metals, and
+      precious stones, broidered and richly dyed stuffs, and horses of the royal
+      stud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the obelisks which adorned the temple of Amon were taken down from
+      their pedestals and placed on rafts to be transported to Nineveh, and we
+      shall perhaps unearth them some day from its ruins. This work of reprisal
+      accomplished, the conquerors made their way northwards, and the bulk of
+      the army recrossed the isthmus: Ethiopian rule had ceased north of the
+      cataract, and Egypt settled down once more under the Assyrian yoke
+      (663-662 B.C.).*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The dates which I have adopted follow from the date of 666
+     B.C. given for the death of Taharqa and the accession of
+     Psammetichus I. The expedition against Thebes must have
+     taken place at the end of the third or beginning of the
+     fourth year of the reign of Tanuatamanu, shortly after the
+     inscription of the third year, and was engraved either in
+     663 or 662 B.C. at the latest.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0042" id="linkBimage-0042">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/195.jpg"
+       alt="195.jpg Assyrian Helmet Found at Thebes " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-
+Gudin, from the
+photograph by Pétrie.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Impoverished and decayed as Thebes had now long since become, the nations
+      whom she had afflicted so sorely in the days of her glory had retained for
+      her feelings of respect and almost of awe: the rumour of her fall, spread
+      through the Eastern world, filled them with astonishment and pity. The
+      Hebrews saw in it the chastisement inflicted by their God on the tyrant
+      who had oppressed their ancestors, and their prophets used it to impress
+      upon the minds of their contemporaries the vanity of human prosperity.
+      Half a century later, when Nineveh, menaced in her turn, was desperately
+      arming herself to repel the barbarians, Nahum the Elkoshite demanded of
+      her, amid his fierce denunciations, whether she vaunted herself to be
+      better than &ldquo;No-amon (city of Amon), that was situate among the rivers,
+      that had the waters round about her; whose rampart was the sea, and her
+      wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was
+      infinite. Put and Lubim (Libya and the Nubians) came to her succour. Yet
+      was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also
+      were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots
+      for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.&rdquo;
+       Assur-bani-pal, lord of Egypt and conqueror of Ethiopia, might reasonably
+      consider himself invincible; it would have been well for the princes who
+      trembled at the name of Assur-bani-pal, if they had taken this lesson to
+      heart, and had learned from the downfall of Tanuata-manu what fate awaited
+      them in the event of their daring to arouse the wrath of Assyria by any
+      kind of intrigue. Unfortunately, many of them either failed to see the
+      warning or refused to profit by it. The Mannai had quickly recovered from
+      the defeat inflicted on them by Esarhaddon, and their king, Akhsheri, in
+      spite of his advancing years, believed that his own energy and resources
+      were sufficient to warrant him in anticipating a speedy revenge. Perhaps a
+      further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have induced
+      him to venture on hostilities. For the king&rsquo;s contemporaries had begun to
+      realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation, he was by
+      nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and luxury. When
+      not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures of the harem,
+      he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian plains, or in the
+      extensive parks which had been laid out by himself or his predecessors in
+      the vicinity of their summer palaces. Urus-stalking had become merely a
+      memory of the past: these animals had been so persistently hunted for
+      centuries that the species had almost become extinct; solitary specimens
+      only were occasionally met with in remote parts of the forest or in
+      out-of-the-way marshes. The wild ass was still to be found in large
+      numbers, as well as the goat, the ostrich, and small game, but the lion
+      was now rarely met with, and the beaters were no longer sure of finding
+      him in his ancient haunts. Specimens had to be sought by the royal
+      gamekeepers in the provinces, and when successfully trapped were forthwith
+      despatched to one or other of the king&rsquo;s country seats. The beast was
+      often kept for several days in a cage while preparations were made for a
+      fête, at which he was destined to form one of the chief attractions, and
+      when the time came he was taken to the appointed place and let loose; the
+      sovereign pursued him either in a chariot or on horseback, and did not
+      desist from the chase till he had pierced his quarry with arrows or lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frequently the beast would be turned loose in the park, and left there
+      till accustomed to his surroundings, so that later on he might be run down
+      under conditions somewhat resembling his native freedom. Assur-bani-pal
+      did not shun a personal encounter with an infuriated lion; he displayed in
+      this hazardous sport a bravery and skill which rivalled that of his
+      ancestors, and he never relegated to another the task of leading the
+      attack or dealing the final death-blow. This, however, was not the case
+      when it was a question of starting on some warlike expedition; he would
+      then leave to his Tartans, or to the Eabshakeh, or to some other chosen
+      officer, the entire conduct of all operations.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * We have seen, for example, that after the death of
+     Esarhaddon, the Egyptian campaign was conducted by one of
+     the Tartans and the Eabshakeh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0043" id="linkBimage-0043">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/198.jpg"
+       alt="198.jpg a Lion Issuing from Its Cage " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from
+a photograph taken from the
+original in the British Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      This did not preclude the king from taking an interest in what was passing
+      beyond the frontier, nor did he fail in his performance of the various
+      religious duties which custom imposed on an Assyrian sovereign: he
+      consulted the oracles of Shamash or Ishtar, he offered sacrifices, he
+      fasted and humbled himself in the temples to obtain the success of his
+      troops, and when they returned laden with spoil from the campaign, he
+      attributed their victories no less to his prayers than to their courage or
+      to the skill of their leaders. His generals, thoroughly equipped for their
+      task, and well supported by their troops, had no need of the royal
+      presence to ensure their triumph over any foe they might encounter;
+      indeed, in the absence of the king they experienced a liberty of action
+      and boldness in pressing their victories to the uttermost which they would
+      not have enjoyed had he been in command. Foreigners, accustomed to see the
+      sovereigns of Nineveh conduct their armies in person, as long as they were
+      not incapacitated by age, thought that the indolence of Assur-bani-pal was
+      the unconscious expression of weariness or of his feeble control of the
+      empire, and Akhsheri determined to be one of the first to take advantage
+      of it. Events proved that he was mistaken in his calculations. No sooner
+      had his intentions become known, than a division of Assyrian troops
+      appeared on his frontier, and prepared to attack him. Resolving to take
+      the initiative, he fell one night unexpectedly upon the Assyrian camp, but
+      fortune declared against him: he was driven back, and his broken ranks
+      were closely pursued for a distance of twenty-three miles. Eight of his
+      strongholds fell one after the other, and he was at length forced to
+      abandon his capital of Izirtu, and flee precipitately to his fortress of
+      Adrana in the heart of the mountains. Even there he did not find the
+      security he desired, for the conqueror pursued him thither, methodically
+      devastating by the way the districts through which he passed: he carried
+      off everything&mdash;men, slaves, and herds of cattle&mdash;and he never
+      retired from a city or village without previously setting it on fire.
+      Paddir, Arsiyanîsh, and Eristiana were thus laid waste, after which the
+      Assyrians returned to their camp, having re-established the authority of
+      their master over several districts which had been lost to them for some
+      generations previously. Akhsheri had shown no sign of yielding, but his
+      people, weary of a hopeless resistance, put him to death, and hurling his
+      corpse over the wall of Adrana, proclaimed his son Ualli as king. The new
+      sovereign hastened to conclude a treaty with the Assyrians on reasonable
+      terms: he gave up his eldest son, Erisinni, and one of his daughters as
+      hostages, and promised to pay the former tribute augmented by an annual
+      present of thirty horses; peace was not again disturbed on this side
+      except by some unimportant skirmishes. In one of these, a Median
+      chieftain, named Biriz-khadri, made an alliance with two princes of the
+      people of the Sakhi, Sarâti, and Parikhia, sons of Gâgu,* to ravage the
+      marches of the Greater Zab; but their territory was raided in return, and
+      they themselves taken prisoners.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name of Biriz-khadri has an Iranian appearance. The
+     first element <i>Biriz</i> recalls the Zend <i>bereza, berez</i>,
+     &ldquo;tall, large;&rdquo; the second, which appears in the names Bisi-
+     khadir and Khali-khadri, is of uncertain derivation, and has
+     been connected with <i>atar</i>, &ldquo;fire,&rdquo; or with <i>Ichwathra</i>,
+     &ldquo;brilliance.&rdquo; Gâgu, which is found as the name of a people
+     (Gagâti) in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, has been identified
+     from the first with the name of Gog, prince of Rosh,
+     Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix.) The name
+     of the country of Sakhi, which has not been met with
+     elsewhere, has been compared with that of the Sacaj, which
+     seems to have existed not only in the name of the province
+     of Sakascnô mentioned by the classical geographers, but in
+     that of Shake known to the old Armenian geographers; the
+     country itself, however, as it seems to me, cannot be sought
+     in the direction of Sakasenô, and consequently the proposed
+     identification cannot hold good.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A little later, Andaria, prince of Lubdi, forgetful of his oath of
+      allegiance to the aged Esarhad-don, made a night attack on the towns of
+      Kullimir and Ubbumî: the inhabitants armed in haste, and he was not only
+      defeated, but was taken captive, and his head cut off to be sent to
+      Nineveh. The garrisons and military colonies along the north-east frontier
+      were constantly required to be on the alert; but they usually had
+      sufficient available resources to meet any emergency, and the enemies who
+      molested them were rarely dangerous enough to necessitate the mobilisation
+      of a regular army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was not the case, however, in the south-west, where Tiummân, counting
+      on the military strength of Elam, made continual hostile demonstrations.
+      He was scarcely settled on his throne before he hastened to form alliances
+      with those Aramæan states which had so often invoked the aid of his
+      predecessors against the ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. The Kaldâ rejected
+      his proposals, as did most of the tribes of the littoral; but the Gambulâ
+      yielded to his solicitations, and their king, Dunânu, son of Bel-ikîsha,
+      entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Elam. Their
+      defection left the eastern frontier of Karduniash unprotected, and, by
+      opening to the Elamite the fords of the Tigris, permitted him to advance
+      on Babylon unhindered by any serious obstacle. As soon as the compact was
+      sealed, Tiummân massed his battalions on the middle course of the Uknu,
+      and, before crossing the frontier, sent two of his generals, the Susian
+      Khumba-darà and the Chaldean Nabu-damîq, as the bearers of an insolent
+      ultimatum to the court of Nineveh: he offered the king the choice between
+      immediate hostilities, or the extradition of the sons of Urtaku and
+      Khumbân-khaldash, as well as of their partisans who had taken refuge in
+      Assyria. To surrender the exiles would have been an open confession of
+      inferiority, and such a humiliating acknowledgment of weakness promptly
+      reported throughout the Eastern world might shortly have excited a general
+      revolt: hence Assur-bani-pal disdainfully rejected the proposal of the
+      Elamite sovereign, which had been made rather as a matter of form than
+      with any hope of its acceptance, but the issue of a serious war with Susa
+      was so uncertain that his refusal was accompanied with serious misgivings.
+      It needed many favourable omens from the gods to encourage him to believe
+      in his future success. The moon-god Sin was the first to utter his
+      prediction: he suffered eclipse in the month of Tammuz, and for three
+      successive days, at nightfall, showed himself in the sky surrounded by
+      strange appearances which heralded the death of a king in Elam, and
+      foretold calamity to that country. Then Assur and Ishtar struck Tiummân
+      with violent convulsions; they caused his lips and eyes to be horribly
+      distorted, but he despised their warning, and as soon as his seizure had
+      passed, set out to assume command of his army. The news of his action
+      reached Nineveh in the month of Ab, on the morning of the solemn festival
+      of Ishtar. Assur-bani-pal was at Arbela, celebrating the rites in honour
+      of the goddess, when the messenger appeared before him and repeated,
+      together with the terms of the declaration of war, the scornful words
+      which Tiummân had uttered against him and his patroness: &ldquo;This prince
+      whose wits have been crazed by Ishtar&mdash;I will let him escape no more,
+      when once I have gone forth and measured my strength against him!&rdquo; This
+      blasphemy filled the Assyrian king with horror. That very evening he
+      betook himself to the sanctuary, and there, prostrate before the image of
+      the goddess, he poured forth prayers mingled with tears: &ldquo;Lady of Arbela,
+      I am Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, the creature of thy hands, the
+      offspring of a father whom thou didst create! Behold now, this Tiummân,
+      the King of Elam, who despises the gods of Assyria, hath sent forth his
+      host and prepared himself for the conflict; he hath called for his arms to
+      rush to attack Assyria. Do thou, O archer of the gods, like a bolt falling
+      in the midst of the battle, overthrow him, and let loose upon him a
+      tempest, and an evil wind!&rdquo; Ishtar heard his prayer, and her voice sounded
+      through the gloom: &ldquo;Fear not,&rdquo; said she, comforting him: &ldquo;since thou hast
+      raised thy hands to me in supplication, and thine eyes are bedewed with
+      tears grant thee a boon!&rdquo; Towards the end of that night, a seer slept in
+      the temple and was visited by a dream. Ishtar of Arbela appeared to him,
+      with a quiver on either side, a bow in one hand and a drawn sword in the
+      other. She advanced towards the king, and spoke to him as if she had been
+      his mother: &ldquo;Make war boldly! whichever way thou turnest thy countenance,
+      there will I go!&rdquo; And the king replied to her, &ldquo;Where thou goest, will I
+      go with thee, sovereign lady!&rdquo; But she answered, &ldquo;Stay thou here. Dwell in
+      this home of Nebo, eat thy food and drink thy wine, listen to joyful songs
+      and honour my divinity, until I have gone and accomplished this work. Let
+      not thy countenance grow pale, nor thy feet fail under thee, and expose
+      not thyself to the danger of battle.&rdquo; &ldquo;And then, O king,&rdquo; added the seer,
+      &ldquo;she hid thee in her bosom as a mother, and protected thy image. A flame
+      shall spring forth before her, and shall spread abroad to destroy thine
+      enemies: against Tiummân, King of Elam, who has angered her, has she set
+      her face!&rdquo; Like Mînephtah of old, in the days of the Libyan invasions of
+      Egypt, Assur-bani-pal allowed himself to be readily convinced by the
+      decision of the gods; he did not quit Arbela, but gave orders to his
+      troops to proceed to the front. His generals opened the campaign in the
+      month of Em, and directed the main body of their forces against the
+      fortress of Durîlu, at the point on the frontier nearest to Susa. Tiummân
+      was not expecting such a prompt and direct attack: he had reckoned
+      doubtless on uniting his forces with those of Dunânu with a view to
+      invading Karduniash, and suddenly realised that his adversary had
+      forestalled him and was advancing on the heart of his empire. He slowly
+      withdrew his advanced guard, and concentrated his forces round the town of
+      Tullîz, a few leagues on this side of Susa, and there awaited the enemy&rsquo;s
+      attack.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The site of Tullîz is unknown. Billerbock considers, and
+     with reason, I think, that the battle took place to the
+     south of Susa, on the river Shavur, which would correspond
+     to the Ulaî, on the lowest spurs of the ridge of hills
+     bordering the alluvial plain of Susiana.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His position was a strong one, flanked on the right by a wood and on the
+      left by the Ulaî, while the flower of the Elamite nobility was ranged
+      around him. The equipment of his soldiers was simpler than that of the
+      enemy: consisting of a low helmet, devoid of any crest, but furnished with
+      a large pendant tress of horsehair to shade the neck; a shield of moderate
+      dimensions; a small bow, which, however, was quite as deadly a weapon as
+      that of the Assyrians, when wielded by skilful hands; a lance, a mace, and
+      a dagger. He had only a small body of cavalry, but the chariotry formed an
+      important force, and presented several original features. The chariot did
+      not follow the classic model, rounded in front and open at the back; it
+      was a kind of light car, consisting of a square footboard placed flat on
+      the axle of the wheels, and furnished with triangular side-pieces on two
+      sides only, the vehicle being drawn by a pair of horses. Such chariots
+      were easier to manage, better adapted for rapid motion, and must have been
+      more convenient for a reconnaissance or for skirmishes with infantry; but
+      when thrown in a mass against the heavy chariotry of the peoples of the
+      Euphrates, they were far too slightly built to overthrow the latter, and
+      at close quarters were of necessity crushed by the superior weight of the
+      adversary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0044" id="linkBimage-0044">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/206.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="206.jpg Ituni Breaks his Bow With a Blow of His Sword, And Gives Himself up to the Executioner " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the original
+     in the British Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0045" id="linkBimage-0045">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/206b.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="206b.jpg the Battle of Tulliz " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Tiummân had not succeeded in collecting all his forces before the first
+      columns of the Assyrian army advanced to engage his front line, but as he
+      was expecting reinforcements, he endeavoured to gain time by despatching
+      Ituni, one of his generals, with orders to negotiate a truce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Assyrian commander, suspecting a ruse, would not listen to any
+      proposals, but ordered the envoy to be decapitated on the spot: Ituni
+      broke his bow with a blow of his sword, and stoically yielded his neck to
+      the executioner. The issue of the battle was for a long time undecided,
+      but the victory finally remained with the heavy regiments of Assyria. The
+      left wing of the Susians, driven into the Ulaî, perished by drowning, and
+      the river was choked with the corpses of men and horses, and the débris of
+      arms and broken chariots. The right wing took to flight under cover of a
+      wood, and the survivors tried to reach the mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0046" id="linkBimage-0046">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/209.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="209.jpg Urtaku Cousin of TiummÂn, Surrendering to An Assyrian " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Urtaku, the cousin of Tiummân, was wounded by an arrow; perceiving an
+      Assyrian soldier coming up to him, he told him who he was, and recommended
+      him to carry his head to the general: &ldquo;He will pay you handsomely for it,&rdquo;
+       he added. Tiummân had led in person several charges of his body-guard; and
+      on being wounded, his son Tammaritu had succeeded in rescuing him from the
+      thick of the fight: both seated together in a chariot, were in full
+      flight, when one of the wheels caught against a tree and was shattered,
+      the shock flinging the occupants to the ground. A large body of Assyrians
+      were in close pursuit, led by one of the exiled Susian princes, a second
+      Tam-maritu, son of Urtaku.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0047" id="linkBimage-0047">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/210.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="210.jpg the Last Arrow of TiummÂn and his Son " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At the first discharge an arrow wounded Tiummân in the right side, and
+      brought him to his knee. He felt that all was over, and desiring at all
+      events to be revenged, he pointed out the deserter prince to his
+      companion, crying indignantly, &ldquo;Let fly at him.&rdquo; The arrow missed its
+      mark, and a flight of hostile darts stretched the young man on the ground:
+      the traitor Tammaritu dealt the son his death-blow with his mace, while an
+      Assyrian decapitated the father. The corpses were left on the field, but
+      the head of the king, after being taken to the general in command, was
+      carried through the camp on one of the chariots captured during the
+      action, and was eventually sent to the palace of Arbela by the hand of a
+      well-mounted courier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0048" id="linkBimage-0048">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/211.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="211.jpg Death of TiummÂn and his Son " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The day concluded with the making of an inventory of the spoil, and by an
+      enumeration of the heads of the slain: prisoners from the rank and file
+      were beaten to death according to custom, and several of the principal
+      officers had their tongues torn out or were flayed alive. The news of the
+      disaster was brought to Susa towards evening by the fugitives, and
+      produced a revolution in the city. The partisans of the exiled princes,
+      seizing the adherents of Tiummân, put them in chains, and delivered them
+      up to the conqueror. The shattered remnants of the army rallied round
+      them, and a throng of men and women in festal garb issued forth along the
+      banks of the Ulai to meet the Assyrians. The priests and sacred singers
+      marched to the sound of music, marking the rhythm with their feet, and
+      filling the air with the noise of their harps and double flutes, while
+      behind them came a choir of children, chanting a hymn under the direction
+      of the consecrated eunuchs. The Tartan met them, and, acting in accordance
+      with the orders of Assur-bani-pal, presented to the multitude
+      Khumbân-igash, the eldest son of Urtaku, as their king. The people
+      joyfully hailed the new sovereign, and the Assyrians, after exacting
+      tribute from him and conferring the fief of Khaîdalu on his brother
+      Tammaritu, withdrew, leaving to the new princes the task of establishing
+      their authority outside the walls of Susa and Madaktu. As they returned,
+      they attacked the Gambulâ, speedily reducing them to submission. Dunânu,
+      besieged in his stronghold of Shapîbel, surrendered at discretion, and was
+      carried away captive with all his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0049" id="linkBimage-0049">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/212.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="212.jpg Khumb.n-igash Proclaimed King " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Thus Assur-bani-pal had scrupulously obeyed the orders of Ishtar. While
+      his generals were winning his victories he had been eating and drinking,
+      hunting, dallying with his wives, and living in the open air. He was
+      taking his pleasure with the queen in the palace garden when the head of
+      Tiummân was brought to him: he caused it to be suspended from the branch
+      of a pine tree in full view of the whole court, and continued his banquet
+      to the sound of harps and singing. Rusas III., King of Urartu, died about
+      this time, and his successor, Sharduris III., thought it incumbent on him
+      to announce his accession at Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal received the embassy
+      at Arbela, with the graciousness befitting a suzerain whom a faithful
+      vassal honours by his dutiful homage, and in order to impress the
+      Urartians still further with an idea of his power, he showed them the two
+      Elamite delegates, Khumba-darâ and Nabu-damîq, in chains at his feet.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Belck and Lehmann have very ingeniously connected the
+     embassy, mentioned in the Assyrian documents, with the fact
+     of the accession of the king who sent it.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0050" id="linkBimage-0050">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/215.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="215.jpg the Head of Thumman Sent to Nineveh " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum. The chariot speeding along at a gallop in the
+     topmost series of pictures carries a soldier bearing the
+     head of Tiumraân in his hand; behind him, under a tent,
+     scribes are registering the heads which are brought in. In
+     the two lower bas-reliefs are displayed the closing scenes
+     of the battle.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These wretched men had a more cruel ordeal yet in store for them: when the
+      Assyrian army re-entered Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal placed them on the route
+      along which the cortège had to pass, and made them realise to the full the
+      humiliation of their country. Dunânu walked at the head of the band of
+      captive chiefs, with the head of Tiummân, taken from its tree, suspended
+      round his neck. When the delegates perceived it, they gave way to despair:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Khumba-darâ tore out his beard by handfuls, and Nabu-damîq, unsheathing
+      the dagger which hung from his belt, plunged it into his own breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0051" id="linkBimage-0051">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/216.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="216.jpg Assur-bani-pal Banqueting With his Queen " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum The head of Tiummân hangs on the second tree
+     on the left-hand side.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The triumphal entry was followed by the usual tortures. The head of
+      Tiummân was fixed over the gate of Nineveh, to rot before the eyes of the
+      multitude. Dunânu was slowly flayed alive, and then bled like a lamb; his
+      brother Shamgunu had his throat cut, and his body was divided into pieces,
+      which were distributed over the country as a warning. Even the dead were
+      not spared: the bones of Nabu-shumirîsh were disinterred and transported
+      to Assyria, where his sons were forced to bray them in a mortar.* We may
+      estimate the extent of the alarm which had been felt at Nineveh by the
+      outburst of brutal joy with which the victory was hailed.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The fullest text of all those which narrate the campaign
+     against Tiummân and Dunânu is that on <i>Cylinder B of the
+     British Museum</i>. It pretends, as usual, that the king led
+     the army in person, but the words which the seer places in
+     the mouth of Ishtar prove that the king remained at Arbela
+     by divine command, and the inscription on one of the bas-
+     reliefs, as well as <i>Tablet K 2674</i>, mentions, without
+     giving his name, the general who was sent against Susa.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0052" id="linkBimage-0052">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/217.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="217.jpg Two Elamite Chiefs Flayed Alive After the Battle Of TullÎz " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The experience of the past showed what a terrible enemy Assyria had in
+      Elam, and how slight was the chance of a successful issue in a war against
+      her. Her kings had often invaded Chaldæa, and had more than once brought
+      it directly under their sway; they had ravaged its cities and pillaged its
+      temples, and the sanctuary of Susa were filled with statues of the gods or
+      with bas-reliefs which they had dedicated after their campaigns on the
+      Euphrates. Although they had not been successful against Assyria to the
+      same extent, they had at least always victoriously repelled her attacks:
+      they had held their own against Sargon, given much trouble to Sennacherib,
+      and defied the power of Esarhaddon with impunity. Never till now had an
+      Assyrian army gained such an important victory over Elam, and though it
+      was by no means decisive, we can easily believe that Assur-bani-pal was
+      filled with pride and delight, since it was the first time that a king of
+      Nineveh had imposed on Elam a sovereign of his own choice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since homage was voluntarily rendered him by the rulers of foreign
+      nations, Assur-bani-pal doubtless believed that he might exact it without
+      hesitation from the vassal princes dependent on the empire; and not from
+      the weaker only like those who were still to be found in Syria, but also
+      from the more powerful, not excepting the lord of Karduniash.
+      Shamash-shumukîn had fully risen to his position as King of Babylon, and
+      the unbroken peace which he had enjoyed since the death of Urtaku had
+      enabled him almost to complete the restoration of the kingdom begun under
+      Esarhaddon. He had finished the rebuilding of the walls of Babylon, and
+      had fortified the approaches to the city, thus rendering it capable of
+      withstanding a long siege; he had repaired the temple of Sippara, which
+      had never recovered from the Elamite invasion; and while unstintingly
+      lavishing his treasures in honour of the gods and for the safety of his
+      capital, he watched with jealous care over the interests of his subjects.
+      He obtained for them the privilege of being treated on the same footing as
+      the Assyrians throughout his father&rsquo;s ancestral domains; they consequently
+      enjoyed the right of trading without restriction throughout the empire,
+      and met with the same degree of protection from the officials of Nineveh
+      as from the magistrates of their own country. Assur-bani-pal had at the
+      outset furthered the wishes of his brother to the utmost of his power: he
+      had granted the privileges demanded, and whenever a Chaldæan of noble
+      birth arrived at his court, he received him with special marks of favour.
+      The two states enjoyed a nearly absolute equality during the opening years
+      of his reign, and though the will of Esarhaddon had made Babylon dependent
+      on Assyria, the yoke of vassalage was far from heavy. The suzerain
+      reserved to himself the honour of dedicating the mighty works begun by his
+      father, the restoration of the temple of Bel-Marduk and of the double wall
+      of fortification; he claimed, in his inscriptions, the whole merit of the
+      work, but he none the less respected his brother&rsquo;s rights, and in no way
+      interfered in the affairs of the city except in state ceremonies in which
+      the assertion of his superior rank was indispensable. But with success his
+      moderation gradually gave place to arrogance. In proportion as his
+      military renown increased, he accentuated his supremacy, and accustomed
+      himself to treat Babylon more and more as a vassal state. After the
+      conquest of Elam his infatuated pride knew no bounds, and the little
+      consideration he still retained for Shamash-shumukîn vanished completely.
+      He thenceforward refused to regard him as being more than a prefect
+      bearing a somewhat higher title than his fellows, a viceroy owing his
+      crown, not to the will of their common father, but to the friendship of
+      his brother, and liable to be deprived of it at any moment through the
+      caprice of the sovereign. He affected to consider all that took place at
+      Babylon as his own doing, and his brother as being merely his docile
+      instrument, not deserving mention any more than the ordinary agents who
+      carried out his designs; and if, indeed, he condescended to mention him,
+      it was with an assumption of disdainful superiority. It is a question
+      whether Shamash-Shumukîn at this juncture believed that his brother was
+      meditating a design to snatch the reins of government from his hand, or
+      whether he merely yielded to the impulse of wounded vanity in resolving to
+      shake off a yoke which had become intolerable. Knowing that his power was
+      not equal to that of Assur-bani-pal, he sought to enter into relations
+      with foreign allies who shared the same fears, or nursed a similar feeling
+      of bitterness. The nobles and priests of the ancient Sumerian and Accadian
+      cities were already on his side, but the Aramaeans had shown themselves
+      hostile at his accession, and had brought down on him the forces of Elam.
+      He found means, however, to conciliate them, together with the tribes
+      which dwelt on the Tigris and the Uknu, as well as those of the lower
+      Euphrates and the Arabian desert. He won over to his projects
+      Nabu-bêlzikri, the chief of the Kaldâ&mdash;grandson of that
+      Merodach-baladan who had cherished invincible hatred against Sargon and
+      Sennacherib&mdash;besides the lords of the Bit-Dakkuri and Bît-Amukkâni,
+      and the sheikh of the Pukudu. Khumbân-igash ought to have remained loyal
+      to the friend to whom he owed his kingdom, but he chafed at the patronage
+      of Assyria, and Assur-bani-pal had just formulated a demand to which he,
+      not unreasonably, hesitated to accede. The archaic statue of Nana, stolen
+      from Uruk by Kutur-nakhunta sixteen centuries before, and placed by that
+      prince in one of the temples of Susa, had become so naturalised in its new
+      abode that the kings of Elam, not content with rendering it an official
+      cult, were wont to send presents to Babylonia, to the image which had
+      replaced it in its original sanctuary. Assur-bani-pal now required
+      Khumbân-igash to give back the original statue, but the Elamite could not
+      obey this mandate without imperilling both his throne and his person: he
+      would thereby have risked incurring the displeasure both of the nobles,
+      whose pride would have suffered at the loss of so precious a trophy, and
+      of the common people, who would have thus been deprived of one of their
+      most venerable objects of devotion. The messengers of Shamash-shumukîn,
+      arriving at the moment when this question was agitating the court of Susa,
+      found the way already prepared for a mutual understanding. Besides, they
+      held in their hands an irresistible argument, the treasures of Bel-Marduk
+      of Babylon, of Nebo of Borsippa, and of Nergal of Kuta, which had been
+      confided to them by the priests with a view to purchasing, if necessary,
+      the support of Elam. Khumbân-igash thereupon promised to send a detachment
+      of troops to Karduniash, and to invade the provinces of Assyria the moment
+      war should be declared. The tribes of Guti were easily won over, and were
+      followed by the kings of Phoenicia and the Bedâwin of Melukhkha, and
+      perhaps Egypt itself was implicated in the plot. The Prince of Kedar,
+      Amuladdin, undertook to effect a diversion on the frontiers of Syria, and
+      Uatê, son of Layali, one of the Arab kings who had paid homage to
+      Esarhaddon, was not behindhand in furnishing his contingent of horsemen
+      and wild native infantry. The coalition already extended from the shores
+      of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf before
+      Assur-bani-pal became aware of its existence. An unforeseen occurrence
+      suddenly broke in upon his peace and revealed the extent of the peril
+      which threatened him.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The chronology of this war has been determined by G. Smith
+     from the dates attached to the documents in the British
+     Museum, which give the names of three <i>limmi</i>, Assur-
+     durnzur, Zagabbu, and Bel-kharrân-shadua: these he assigned
+     respectively to the years 650, 649, and 648 B.C. Tiele has
+     shown that these three <i>limmi</i> must be assigned to the years
+     652-650 B.C. Though these dates seem in the highest degree
+     probable, we must wait before we can consider them as
+     absolutely certain till chance restores to us the missing
+     parts of the Canon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Kudur, the Assyrian prefect of Uruk, learnt from Sin-tabnî-uzur, the
+      governor of Uru, that certain emissaries of Shamash-shumukîn had
+      surreptitiously entered that city and were secretly fomenting rebellion
+      among the people. Sin-tabnî-uzur himself had been solicited to join the
+      movement, but had absolutely refused to do so, and considering himself
+      powerless to repress the disaffection with the few soldiers at his
+      disposal, he had demanded reinforcements. Kudur first furnished him with
+      five hundred men of his own troops, and subsequently sent some battalions
+      which were under the command of the governors of Arrapkha and Amidi, but
+      which were, for some unknown reason, encamped in the neighbourhood. It
+      would appear that Shamash-shumukîn, finding his projects interfered with
+      by this premature exposure, tried to counteract its effects by
+      protestations of friendship: a special embassy was despatched to his
+      brother to renew the assurances of his devotion, and he thus gained the
+      time necessary to complete his armaments. As soon as he felt himself fully
+      prepared, he gave up further dissimulation, and, throwing away the mask,
+      proclaimed himself independent of Assyria, while at the same moment
+      Khumbân-igash despatched his army to the frontier and declared war on his
+      former protector. Assur-bani-pal was touched to the quick by what he truly
+      considered the ingratitude of the Babylonians. &ldquo;As for the children of
+      Babylon, I had set them upon seats of honour, I had clothed them in robes
+      of many colours, I had placed rings of gold upon their fingers; the
+      children of Babylon had been established in Assyria, and were admitted
+      into my presence. But Shamash-shumukîn, the false brother, he has not
+      observed my ordinances, but has raised against me the peoples of Akkad,
+      the Kaldâ, the Aramaeans, the peoples of the country of the sea, from
+      Akabah to Bab-salimêti!&rdquo; Nineveh was at first in a state of trepidation at
+      this unexpected blow; the sacred oracles gave obscure replies, and
+      presaged evil four times out of five. At last, one day, a seer slept and
+      dreamed a dream, in which he saw this sentence written on the ground in
+      the temple of Sin: &ldquo;All those who are meditating evil against
+      Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, and who are preparing themselves to fight
+      with him, I will inflict on them a terrible death: by the swift sword, by
+      flinging them into fire, by famine and by pestilence, will I destroy their
+      lives!&rdquo; The courage of the people being revived by this prophecy,
+      Assur-bani-pal issued a proclamation to the Babylonians, in which he
+      denounced his brother&rsquo;s treason, and commanded them to remain quiet as
+      they valued their lives, and, having done this, he boldly assumed the
+      offensive (652 B.C.).*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The proclamation is dated in the eponymous year of Assur-
+     duruzur, corresponding to 652 B.C.; the events which
+     immediately preceded the proclamation ought, very probably,
+     to be assigned to the same year.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The only real danger came from the side of Elam; this state alone was in a
+      condition to oppose him with as numerous and determined an army as that
+      which he himself could put into the field; if Blam were disabled, it would
+      be impossible for Babylon to be victorious, and its fall would be a mere
+      question of time. The opening of the campaign was a difficult matter.
+      Khumbân-igash, having sold his support dearly, had at all events spared no
+      pains to satisfy his employer, and had furnished him with the flower of
+      his nobility, comprising Undashi, one of the sons of Tiumman; Zazaz,
+      prefect of Billatê; Parru, chief of Khilmu; Attamîtu, commanding the
+      archers; and Nesu, commander-in-chief of his forces. In order to induce
+      Undashi to serve under him, he had not hesitated to recall to his memory
+      the sad fate of Tiumman: &ldquo;Go, and avenge upon Assyria the murder of the
+      father who begat thee!&rdquo; The two opposing forces continued to watch one
+      another&rsquo;s movements without any serious engagement taking place during the
+      greater part of the year 651 B.C.; though the Assyrians won some slight
+      advantages, killing Attamîtu in a skirmish and sending his head to
+      Nineveh, some serious reverses soon counterbalanced these preliminary
+      successes. Nabo-bel-shumi had arrived on the scene with his Aramæan
+      forces, and had compelled the troops engaged in the defence of Uruk and
+      Uru to lay down their arms: their leaders, including Sin-tabni-uzur
+      himself, had been forced to renounce the supremacy of Assyria, and had
+      been enrolled in the rebel ranks.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The official accounts say nothing of the intervention of
+     Nabo-bel-shumi at this juncture, but the information
+     furnished by <i>Tablet K 159</i> in the British Museum makes up
+     for their silence. The objection raised by Tielo to the
+     interpretation given by G. Smith that this passage cannot
+     refer to Assyrian deserters, falls to the ground if one
+     admits that the Assyrian troops led into Elam at a
+     subsequent period by Nabo-bel-shumi, were none other than
+     the garrisons of the Lower Euphrates which were obliged to
+     side with the insurgents in 651 B.C. The two despatches, <i>K
+     4696</i> and <i>K 28</i> in the British Museum, which refer to the
+     defection of Sin-tabni-uzur, are dated the 8th and 11th Abu
+     in the eponymous year of Zagabbu, corresponding to the year
+     651 B.C., as indicated by Tiele with very good reason.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Operations seemed likely to be indefinitely prolonged, and Assur-bani-pal,
+      anxious as to the issue, importunately besought the gods to intervene on
+      his behalf, when discords breaking out in the royal family of Elam caused
+      the scales of fortune once more to turn in his favour. The energy with
+      which Khumbân-igash had entered on the present struggle had not succeeded
+      in effacing the disagreeable impression left on the minds of the majority
+      of his subjects, by the fact that he had returned to his country in the
+      chariots of the stranger and had been enthroned by the decree of an
+      Assyrian general. Tammaritu, of Khaîdalu, who had then fought at his side
+      in the ranks of the invaders, was now one of those who reproached him most
+      bitterly for his conduct. He frankly confessed that his hand had cut off
+      the head of Tiummân, but denied that he did so in obedience to the
+      hereditary enemies of his country; he had but avenged his personal
+      injuries, whereas Khumbân-igash, following the promptings of ambition, had
+      kissed the ground at the feet of a slave of Assur-bani-pal and had
+      received the crown as a recompense for his baseness. Putting his rival to
+      death, Tammaritu seized the throne, and in order to prove that he was
+      neither consciously nor unconsciously an instrument of Ninevite policy, he
+      at once sent reinforcements to the help of Babylon without exacting in
+      return any fresh subsidy. The Assyrians, taking advantage of the isolated
+      position of Shamash-shumukîn, had pressed forward one of their divisions
+      as far as the districts on the sea coast, which they had recovered from
+      the power of Nabo-bel-shumi, and had placed under the administration of
+      Belibni, a person of high rank. The arrival of the Elamite force was on
+      the point of further compromising the situation, and rekindling the flames
+      of war more fiercely than ever, when a second revolution broke out, which
+      shattered for ever the hopes of Shamash-shumukîn. Assur-bani-pal naturally
+      looked upon this event as the result of his supplications and sacrifices;
+      Assur and Ishtar, in answer to his entreaties, raised up Indabigash, one
+      of the most powerful feudal lords of the kingdom of Susa, and incited him
+      to revolt. Tarnmaritu fled to the marshes which bordered the Nâr-marratum,
+      and seizing a vessel, put out to sea with his brothers, his cousins,
+      seventeen princes of royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers: the
+      ship, driven by the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the
+      dethroned monarch, demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the
+      confusion had not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried
+      him safely to land across the mud. Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh
+      with all his suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble
+      himself before him, raised him from the ground, embraced him, and assigned
+      to him apartments in the palace and a train of attendants befitting the
+      dignity which he had enjoyed for a short time at Susa. Indabigash was too
+      fully occupied with his own affairs to interfere again in the quarrel
+      between the two brothers: his country, disorganised by the successive
+      shocks it had sustained, had need of repose, for some years at least,
+      before re-entering the lists, except at a disadvantage. He concluded no
+      direct treaty with the Assyrian king, but he at once withdrew the troops
+      which had entered Karduniash, and abstained from all hostile
+      demonstrations against the garrisons of the border provinces: for the
+      moment, indeed, this was all that was required of him (650 B.C.).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deprived of the support of Elam, Babylon was doomed to fall. The Aramaeans
+      deserted her cause, and Nabu-bel-shumi, grandson of Merodach-baladan,
+      despairing of ever recovering the heritage of his family, withdrew to his
+      haunts among the reed beds of the Uknu, taking back with him as hostages
+      the Assyrians whom he had forced to join his army at the beginning of the
+      campaign. Shamash-shumukîn, however, was not disconcerted: he probably
+      hoped that his distant allies might yet effect a diversion in his favour,
+      and thus oblige his brother to withdraw half of the forces employed
+      against him. Indeed, after the blockade had already begun, a band of Arabs
+      under the two sheikhs Abiyatê and Aamu forced a way through the besieging
+      lines and entered the city. This was the last succour which reached
+      Babylon from without: for many long months all communication between her
+      citizens and the outer world was completely cut off. The Assyrians laid
+      waste the surrounding country with ruthless and systematic cruelty,
+      burning the villages, razing to the ground isolated houses, destroying the
+      trees, breaking down the dykes, and filling up the canals. The year 649
+      B.C. was spent in useless skirmishes; the city offered an energetic and
+      obstinate resistance, and as the walls were thick and the garrison
+      determined, it would not have succumbed had not the supply of provisions
+      finally failed. Famine raged in the city, and the inhabitants devoured
+      even their own children, while pestilence spreading among them mowed them
+      down by thousands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0053" id="linkBimage-0053">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/228.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="228.jpg the Eastern World in The Reign of Assur-bani-pal " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Arab auxiliaries at this juncture deserted the cause of the defenders,
+      and their sheikhs surrendered to Assur-bani-pal, who received and pardoned
+      them; but the Babylonians themselves, knowing that they could expect no
+      mercy, held out some time longer: at length, their courage and their
+      strength exhausted, they rose against their chiefs, whose ambition or
+      patriotic pride had brought them to such a pass, and determined to
+      capitulate on any terms. Shamash-shumukm, not wishing to fall alive into
+      the hands of his brother, shut himself up in his palace, and there
+      immolated himself on a funeral pyre with his wives his children, his
+      slaves, and his treasures at the moment when his conquerors were breaking
+      down the gates and penetrating into the palace precincts.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * G. Smith thought that the Babylonians, rendered furious by
+     their sufferings, had seized Shamash-shumukîn and burnt him
+     to death. It is, however, certain that Shamash-shumukîn
+     killed himself, according to the Eastern custom, to escape
+     the tortures which awaited him if he fell alive into the
+     hands of his enemies. The memory of this event, transferred
+     by the popular imagination to Assur-bani-pal, appears lu the
+     concluding portion of the legendary history of Sardanapalus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The city presented a terrible spectacle, and shocked even the Assyrians,
+      accustomed as they were to horrors of this sort. Most of the numerous
+      victims to pestilence or famine lay about the streets or in the public
+      squares, a prey to the dogs and swine; such of the inhabitants and of the
+      soldiery as were comparatively strong had endeavoured to escape into the
+      country, and only those remained who had not sufficient strength left to
+      drag themselves beyond the walls. Assur-bani-pal pursued the fugitives,
+      and, having captured nearly all of them, vented on them the full fury of
+      his vengeance. He caused, the tongues of the soldiers to be torn out, and
+      then had them clubbed to death. He massacred the common folk in front of
+      the great winged bulls which had already witnessed a similar butchery half
+      a century before, under his grandfather Sennacherib; the corpses of his
+      victims remained long unburied, a prey to all unclean beasts and birds.
+      When the executioners and the king himself were weary of the slaughter,
+      the survivors were pardoned; the remains of the victims were collected and
+      piled up in specified places, the streets were cleansed, and the temples,
+      purified by solemn lustrations, were reopened for worship.* Assur-hani-pal
+      proclaimed himself king in his brother&rsquo;s room: he took the hands of Bel,
+      and, according to custom, his Babylonian subjects gave him a new name,
+      that of Kandalanu, by which he was henceforth known among them.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The date of 648-647 B.C. for the taking of Babylon and the
+     death of Shamash-shumukîn is corroborated by the Canon of
+     Ptolemy and the fragments of Berosus, both of which
+     attribute twenty or twenty-one years to the reign of
+     Saosdukhm (Sammughes). Lehmann points out a document dated
+     in the XXth year of Shamash-shumukîn, which confirms the
+     exactitude of the information furnished by the Greek
+     chronologists.
+
+     ** The Canon of Ptolemy gives as the successor of Saosdukhm
+     a certain Kinêladan, who corresponds to Kandalanu, whose
+     date has been fixed by contemporary documents. The identity
+     of Kinêladan with Assur-bani-pal was known from the Greek
+     chronologists, for whereas Ptolemy puts Kinêladan after
+     Saosdukhm, the fragments of Berosus state that the successor
+     of Sammughes was his <i>brother</i>; that is to say, Sardanapalus
+     or Assur-bani-pal. This identification had been proposed by
+     G. Smith, who tried to find the origin of the form Kinêladan
+     in the name of Sinidinabal, which seems to be borne by
+     Assur-bani-pal in <i>Tablet K 195 of the British Museum</i>, and
+     which is really the name of his elder brother; it found
+     numerous supporters as soon as Pinches had discovered the
+     tablets dated in the reign of Kandalanu, and the majority of
+     Assyriologists and historians hold that Kandalanu and Assur-
+     bani-pal are one and the same person.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Had he been wise, he would have completed the work begun by famine,
+      pestilence, and the sword, and, far from creating, a new Babylon, he would
+      have completed the destruction of the ancient city. The same religious
+      veneration which had disarmed so many of his predecessors probably
+      withheld him from giving free rein to his resentment, and not daring to
+      follow the example of Sennacherib, he fell back on the expedient adopted
+      by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon, adhering to their idea of two capitals
+      for two distinct states, but endeavouring to unite in his own person the
+      two irreconcilable sovereignties of Marduk and Assur. He delegated the
+      administration of Babylonian affairs to Shamash-danâni, one of his high
+      officers of State,* and re-entered Nineveh with an amount of spoil almost
+      equalling that taken from Egypt after the sack of Thebes.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Tin&rsquo;s Shamash-danâni, who was <i>limmu</i> in 644 B.C., was
+     called at that date prefect of Akkad, that is to say, of
+     Babylon. He probably entered on this office immediately
+     after the taking of the city.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Kuta, Sippara, and Borsippa, the vassal states of Babylon, which had
+      shared the misfortune of their mistress, were, like her, cleared of their
+      ruins, rebuilt and repeopled, and were placed under the authority of
+      Shamash-danâni: such was their inherent vitality that in the short space
+      of ten or a dozen years they had repaired their losses and reattained
+      their wonted prosperity. Soon no effect of their disaster remained except
+      an additional incentive for hating Nineveh, and a determination more
+      relentless than ever not to spare her when the day of her overthrow should
+      come and they should have her in their power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0054" id="linkBimage-0054">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/235.jpg" alt="235.jpg Psammetichus I. " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from a photograph.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It was impossible for so violent and so prolonged a crisis to take place
+      without in some degree injuring the prestige of the empire. Subjects and
+      allies of long standing remained loyal, but those only recently subjugated
+      by conquest, as well as the neighbouring independent kingdoms, without
+      hesitation threw off the yoke of suzerainty or of obligatory friendship
+      under which they had chafed. Egypt freed herself from foreign domination
+      as soon as the possibilities of war with Elam had shown themselves, and it
+      was Psammetichus of Sais, son of Necho, one of the princes most favoured
+      by the court of Nineveh, who set on foot this campaign against his former
+      patron. He expelled the Assyrian garrisons, reduced the petty native
+      princes to submission, and once more set up the kingdom of the Pharaohs
+      from Elephantine to the Syrian desert, without Assur-bani-pal having been
+      able to spare a single soldier to prevent him, or to bring him back to a
+      sense of his duty. The details of his proceedings are unknown to us: we
+      learn only that he owed his success to mercenaries imported from Asia
+      Minor, and the Assyrian chroniclers, unaccustomed to discriminate between
+      the different peoples dwelling on the shores of the Ægean, believed that
+      these auxiliaries were supplied to the Pharaoh by the only sovereign with
+      whom they had had any dealings, namely, Gyges, King of Lydia. That Gyges
+      had had negotiations with Psammetichus and procured assistance for him has
+      not yet been proved, but to assert that he was incapable of conceiving and
+      executing such a design is quite a different matter. On the contrary, all
+      the information we possess concerning his reign shows that he was daring
+      in his political undertakings, and anxious to court alliances with the
+      most distant countries. The man who tried to draw Assur-bani-pal into a
+      joint enterprise against the Cimmerians would not have hesitated to ally
+      himself with Psammetichus if he hoped to gain the least profit from so
+      doing. Constant intercourse by sea took place between Ionia or Caria and
+      Egypt, and no event of any importance could occur in the Delta without
+      being promptly reported in Ephesus or Miletus. Before this time the
+      Heraclid rulers of Sardes had lived on excellent terms with most of the
+      Æolian or Ionian colonies: during the anxious years which followed his
+      accession Gyges went still further, and entered into direct relations with
+      the nations of Greece itself. It was no longer to the gods of Asia, to
+      Zeus of Telmissos, that he addressed himself in order to legitimatise his
+      new sovereignty, but, like Midas of Phrygia, he applied to the prophetic
+      god of Hellas, to the Delphian Apollo and his priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recompensed them lavishly for pronouncing judgment in his favour:
+      beside the silver offerings with which he endowed the temple at Delphi, he
+      presented to it a number of golden vases, and, among others, six craters
+      weighing thirty talents each, which, placed by the side of the throne of
+      Midas, were still objects of admiration in the treasury of the Corinthians
+      in the time of Herodotus. To these he added at various times such valuable
+      gifts that the Pythian priestess, who had hitherto been poor, was in later
+      times accounted to have owed to him her wealth. Having made sure of the
+      good will of the immortals, Gyges endeavoured to extend his influence
+      among the Greek colonies along the coast, and if he did not in every case
+      gain a footing amongst them, his failure seems to have been due, not to
+      his incapacity, but to the force of circumstances or to the ambiguous
+      position which he happened to occupy with regard to these colonies.
+      Ambition naturally incited him to annex them and make them into Lydian
+      cities, but the bold disposition of their inhabitants and their impatience
+      of constraint never allowed any foreign rule to be established over them:
+      conquest, to be permanent, would have to be preceded by a long period of
+      alliance on equal terms, and of discreet patronage which might insensibly
+      accustom them to recognise in their former friend, first a protector, and
+      then a suzerain imbued with respect for their laws and constitution. Gyges
+      endeavoured to conciliate them severally, and to attach them to himself by
+      treaties favourable to their interests or flattering to their vanity, and
+      by timely and generous assistance in their internecine quarrels; and thus,
+      secretly fostering their mutual jealousies, he was able to reduce some by
+      force of arms without causing too much offence to the rest. He took
+      Colophon, and also, after several fruitless campaigns, the Magnesia which
+      lay near Sardes, Magnesia of Sipylos, tradition subsequently adorning this
+      fortunate episode in his history with various amusing anecdotes. According
+      to one account he had a favourite in a youth of marvellous beauty called
+      Magnes, whom the Magnesians, as an act of defiance to Gryges, had
+      mutilated till he was past recognition; and it was related that the king
+      appealed to the fortune of war to avenge the affront. By a bold stroke he
+      seized the lower quarters of Smyrna, but was unable to take the citadel,*
+      and while engaged in the struggle with this city, he entered into a
+      friendly understanding with Ephesus and Miletus.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus mentions this war without entering into any
+     details. We know from Pausanias that the people of Smyrna
+     defended themselves bravely, and that the poet Mimnermus
+     composed an elegy on this episode in their history.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Ephesus, situated at the mouth of the river Oayster, was the natural port
+      of Sardes, the market in which the gold of Lydia, and the commodities
+      imported from the East by the caravans which traversed the royal route,
+      might be exchanged for the products of Hellas and of the countries of the
+      West visited by the Greek mariners. The city was at this time under the
+      control of a family of rich shipowners, of whom the head was called Melas:
+      Gryges gave him his daughter in marriage, and by this union gained free
+      access to the seaboard for himself and his successors. The reason for his
+      not pushing his advantages further in this direction is not hard to
+      discover; since the fall of the kingdom of Phrygia had left his eastern
+      frontier unprotected, the attacks of the Cimmerians had obliged him to
+      concentrate his forces in the interior, and though he had always
+      successfully repulsed them, the obstinacy with which these inroads were
+      renewed year after year prevented him from further occupying himself with
+      the Greek cities. He had carefully fortified his vast domains in the basin
+      of the Ehyndakos, he had reconquered the Troad, and though he had been
+      unable to expel the barbarians from Adramyttium, he prevented them from
+      having any inland communications. Miletus rendered vigorous assistance in
+      this work of consolidating his power, for she was interested in
+      maintaining a buffer state between herself and the marauders who had
+      already robbed her of Sinope; and it was for this reason that Gyges, after
+      mercilessly harassing her at the beginning of his reign, now preferred to
+      enter into an alliance with her. He had given the Milesians permission to
+      establish colonies along the Hellespont and the Propontid at the principal
+      points where communication took place between Europe and Asia; Abydos,
+      Lampsacus, Parium, and Cyzicus, founded successively by Milesian admirals,
+      prevented the tribes which remained in Thrace from crossing over to
+      reinforce their kinsfolk who were devastating Phrygia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gryges had hoped that his act of deference would have obtained for him the
+      active support of Assur-bani-pal, and during the following years he
+      perseveringly continued at intervals to send envoys to Nineveh: on one
+      occasion he despatched with the embassy two Cimmerian chiefs taken in
+      battle, and whom he offered in token of homage to the gods of Assyria.
+      Experience, however, soon convinced him that his expectations were vain;
+      the Assyrians, far from creating a diversion in his favour, were careful
+      to avoid every undertaking which might draw the attention of the
+      barbarians on themselves. As soon as Gyges fully understood their policy,
+      he broke off all connection with them, and thenceforth relied on himself
+      alone for the protection of his interests. The disappointment he thus
+      experienced probably stirred up his anger against Assyria, and if he
+      actually came to the aid of Psammetichus, the desire of giving expression
+      to a secret feeling of rancour no doubt contributed to his decision.
+      Assur-bani-pal deeply resented this conduct, but Lydia was too far off for
+      him to wreak his vengeance on it in a direct manner, and he could only
+      beseech the gods to revenge what he was pleased to consider as base
+      ingratitude: he therefore prayed Assur and Ishtar that &ldquo;his corpse might
+      lie outstretched before his enemies, and his bones be scattered far and
+      wide.&rdquo; A certain Tugdami was at that time reigning over the Cimmerians,
+      and seems to have given to their hitherto undisciplined hordes some degree
+      of cohesion and guidance.*; He gathered under his standard not only the
+      Trêres, the Thracian kinsfolk of the Cimmerians, but some of the Asianic
+      tribes, such as the Lycians,** who were beginning to feel uneasy at the
+      growing prosperity of Gyges, and let them loose upon their Lydian quarry.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name Tugdami, mentioned in the hymn published by
+     Strong, has been identified by Sayce with the Cimmerian
+     chief mentioned by Strabo under the name of Lygdamis. The
+     opinion of Sayce has been adopted by other Assyriologists.
+     The inscription makes Tugdami a king of the Manda, and thus
+     overthrows the hypothesis that Lygdamis or Dygdamis was a
+     Lycian chief who managed to discipline the barbarian hordes.
+
+     ** The alliance of the Lycians with the Cimmerians and
+     Trêres is known from the evidence of Callisthenes preserved
+     for us by Strabo. It is probable that many of the marauding
+     tribes of the Taurus&mdash;Isaurians, Lycaonians, and
+     Painphylians&mdash;similarly joined the Cimmerians.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Their heavy cavalry, with metal helmets and long steel swords, overran the
+      peninsula from end to end, treading down everything under their horses&rsquo;
+      hoofs. Gyges did his best to stand up against the storm, but his lancers
+      quailed beneath the shock and fled in confusion: he himself perished in
+      the flight, and his corpse remained in the enemy&rsquo;s hands (652 B.C.). The
+      whole of Lydia was mercilessly ravaged, and the lower town of Sardes was
+      taken by storm.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Strabo states definitely that it was Lygdamis who took the
+     city. The account given by the same author of a double
+     destruction of Sardes in 652 and 682 B.C. is due to an
+     unfortunate borrowing from the work of Caliisthenes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0055" id="linkBimage-0055">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/240.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="240.jpg Battle of the Cimmerians Against The Greeks Accompanied by Their Dogs " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sarcophagus of Clazomenæ.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Ardys, who had succeeded his father on the throne, was able, however, to
+      save the citadel: he rallied around him the remnants of his army and once
+      more took the field. The cities of Ionia made common cause with him; their
+      hoplites issued victorious from more than one engagement, and their dogs,
+      trained to harry fearlessly the horses of the enemy, often took an active
+      part in the battle. City after city was attacked by the barbarians, and
+      the suburbs plundered. Ephesus, on account of the wealth it contained,
+      formed their chief attraction, but their forces dashed themselves
+      fruitlessly against its walls; they avenged themselves for their failure
+      by setting on fire the temple of Artemis which stood in the outskirts.
+      This act of sacrilege profoundly stirred the whole Hellenic world, and
+      when the first fury of pillage was exhausted, the barbarians themselves
+      seemed to have been struck with superstitious horror at their crime:
+      deadly fevers contracted in the marshes near the city thinned their ranks,
+      and in the scourge which struck down their forces they recognised the
+      chastisement of the goddess.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The invasion of Ionia by the Cimmerians is indicated in
+     general terms by Herodotus; the details of the attack on
+     Ephesus and the destruction of the temple of Artemis are
+     preserved in a passage of Callimachus, and in the fragments
+     quoted by Hesychius.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The survivors abandoned the siege and withdrew in disorder towards the
+      mountains of the interior. On their way they surprised Magnesia on the
+      Mæander and entirely destroyed it, but this constituted their sole
+      military success: elsewhere, they contented themselves with devastating
+      the fields without venturing to attack the fortified towns. Scarcely had
+      Ardys freed himself from their unwelcome presence, than, like his father
+      before him, he tried to win the support of Assyria. He sent an envoy to
+      Nineveh with a letter couched in very humble terms: &ldquo;The king whom the
+      gods acknowledge, art thou; for as soon as thou hadst pronounced
+      imprecations against my father, misfortune overtook him. I am thy
+      trembling servant; receive my homage graciously, and I will bear thy
+      yoke!&rdquo; Assur-bani-pal did not harden his heart to this suppliant who
+      confessed his fault so piteously, and circumstances shortly constrained
+      him to give a more efficacious proof of his favour to Ardys than he had
+      done in the days of Gyges. On quitting Lydia, Tugdami, with his hordes,
+      had turned eastwards, bent upon renewing in the provinces of the Taurus
+      and the Euphrates the same destructive raids which he had made among the
+      peoples of the Ægean seaboard; but in the gorges of Cilicia he came into
+      contact with forces much superior to his own, and fell fighting against
+      them about the year 645 B.C. His son Sanda-khshatru led the survivors of
+      this disaster back towards the centre of the peninsula, but the conflict
+      had been so sanguinary that the Cimmerian power never fully recovered from
+      it. Assur-bani-pal celebrated the victory won by his generals with a
+      solemn thanksgiving to Marduk, accompanied by substantial offerings of
+      gold and objects of great value.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Strabo was aware, perhaps from Xanthus of Lyclia, that
+     Lygdamis had fallen in battle in Cilicia. The hymn to
+     Marduk, published by Strong, informs us that the Cimmerian
+     chief fell upon the Assyrians, and that his son Sanda-
+     khshatru carried on hostilities some time longer. Sanda-
+     khshatru is an Iranian name of the same type as that of the
+     Median king Uva-khshatra or Cyaxares.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The tranquillity of the north-west frontier was thus for a time secured,
+      and this success most opportunely afforded the king leisure to turn his
+      attention to those of his vassals who, having thrown off their allegiance
+      during the war against Shamash-shumukîn, had not yet returned to their
+      obedience. Among these were the Arabs and the petty princes of Egypt. The
+      contingents furnished by Yauta, son of Hazael, had behaved valiantly
+      during the siege of Babylon, and when they thought the end was
+      approaching, their leaders, Abiyatê and Aamu, had tried to cut a way
+      through the Assyrian lines: being repulsed, they had laid down their arms
+      on condition of their lives being spared. There now remained the bulk of
+      the Arab tribes to be reduced to submission, and the recent experiences of
+      Esarhaddon had shown the difficulties attending this task. Assur-bani-pal
+      entrusted its accomplishment to his subjects in Edom, Moab, Ammon, the
+      Haurân, and Damascus, since, dwelling on the very borders of the desert,
+      they were familiar with the routes and the methods of warfare best suited
+      to the country. They proved victorious all along the line. Yauta, betrayed
+      by his own subjects, took refuge with the Nabatæans; but their king,
+      Nadanu, although he did not actually deliver him up to the Assyrians,
+      refused to grant him an asylum, and the unhappy man was finally obliged to
+      surrender to his pursuers. His cousin Uatê, son of Birdadda, was made
+      chief in his place by the Assyrians, and Yauta was sent to Nineveh, where
+      he was exposed at one of the city gates, chained in a niche beside the
+      watch-dogs. Amuladdin, the leading prince of Kedar, met with no better
+      fate: he was overcome, in spite of the assistance rendered him by Adîya,
+      the queen of a neighbouring tribe, and was also carried away into
+      captivity. His defeat completed the discouragement of the tribes who still
+      remained unsubdued. They implored mercy, which Assur-bani-pal granted to
+      them, although he deposed most of their sheikhs, and appointed as their
+      ruler that Abiyatê who had dwelt at his court since the capitulation of
+      Babylon. Abiyatê took the oath of fidelity, and was sent back to Kedar,
+      where he was proclaimed king of all the Arab tribes under the suzerainty
+      of Assyria.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The <i>Cylinder B of the Brit. Mus.</i> attributes to the reign
+     of Assur-bani-pala whole series of events, comprising the
+     first submission of Yauta and the restitution of the statues
+     of Atarsamain, which had taken place under Esarhaddon. The
+     Assyrian annalists do not seem to have always clearly
+     distinguished between Yauta, son of Hazael, and Uatè, son of
+     Birdadda.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Of all the countries which had thrown off their allegiance during the late
+      troubles, Egypt alone remained unpunished, and it now seemed as if its
+      turn had come to suffer chastisement for its rebellion. It was, indeed,
+      not to be tolerated that so rich and so recently acquired a province
+      should slip from the grasp of the very sovereign who had completed its
+      conquest, without his making an effort on the first opportunity to reduce
+      it once more to submission. Such inaction on his part would be a
+      confession of impotence, of which the other vassals of the empire would
+      quickly take advantage: Tyre, Judah, Moab, the petty kings of the Taurus,
+      and the chiefs of Media, would follow the example of Pharaoh, and the
+      whole work of the last three centuries would have to be done over again.
+      There can be no doubt that Assur-bani-pal cherished the secret hope of
+      recovering Egypt in a short campaign, and that he hoped to attach it to
+      the empire by more permanent bonds than before, but as a preliminary to
+      executing this purpose it was necessary to close and settle if possible
+      the account still open against Elam. Recent events had left the two rival
+      powers in such a position that neither peace nor even a truce of long
+      duration could possibly exist between them. Elam, injured, humiliated, and
+      banished from the plains of the Lower Euphrates, over which she had
+      claimed at all times an almost exclusive right of pillage, was yet not
+      sufficiently enfeebled by her disasters to be convinced of her decided
+      inferiority to Assyria. Only one portion of her forces, and that perhaps
+      the smallest, had taken the field and sustained serious reverses: she had
+      still at her disposal, besides the peoples of the plain and the marshes
+      who had suffered the most, those almost inexhaustible reserves of warlike
+      and hardy mountaineers, whose tribes were ranged on the heights which
+      bounded the horizon, occupying the elevated valleys of the Uknu, the Ulaî,
+      and their nameless affluents, on the western or southern slopes or in the
+      enclosed basins of the Iranian table-land. Here Elam had at her command at
+      least as many men as her adversaries could muster against her, and though
+      these barbarian contingents lacked discipline and systematic training,
+      their bravery compensated for the imperfection of their military
+      education. Elam not only refused to admit herself conquered, but she
+      believed herself sure of final victory, and, as a matter of fact, it is
+      not at all certain that Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s generals would ever have
+      completely triumphed over her, if internal discords and treason had not
+      too often paralysed her powers. The partisans of Khumbân-igash were
+      largely responsible for bringing about the catastrophe in which Tiummân
+      had perished, and those who sided with Tammaritu had not feared to provoke
+      a revolt at the moment when Khumbân-igash was occupied in Chaldæa;
+      Indabigash in his turn had risen in rebellion in the rear of Tammaritu,
+      and his intervention had enabled the Assyrians to deal their final blow at
+      Shamash-shumukîn. The one idea of the non-reigning members of the royal
+      house was to depose the reigning sovereign, and they considered all means
+      to this end as justifiable, whether assassination, revolt, desertion to
+      the enemy, or defection on the very field of battle. As soon as one of
+      them had dethroned another, hatred of the foreigner again reigned supreme
+      in his breast, and he donned his armour with a firm determination to bring
+      the struggle to an end, but the course he had pursued towards his
+      predecessor was now adopted by one of his relatives towards himself; the
+      enemy meanwhile was still under arms, and each of these revolutions
+      brought him a step nearer to the goal of his endeavours, the complete
+      overthrow of the Elamite kingdom and its annexation to the empire of
+      Nineveh. Even before the struggle with Babylon was concluded,
+      Assur-bani-pal had demanded of Indabigash the release of the Assyrians
+      whom Nabo-bel-shumu had carried off in his train, besides the extradition
+      of that personage himself. Indabigash had no desire for war at this
+      juncture, but hesitated to surrender the Kaldâ, who had always served him
+      faithfully: he entered into negotiations which were interminably
+      prolonged, neither of the two parties being anxious to bring them to a
+      close. After the fall of Babylon, Assur-bani-pal, who was tenacious in his
+      hatred, summoned the Elamite ambassadors, and sent them back to their
+      master with a message conceived in the following menacing terms: &ldquo;If thou
+      dost not surrender those men, I will go and destroy thy cities, and lead
+      into captivity the inhabitants of Susa, Madaktu, and Khaidalu. I will hurl
+      thee from thy throne, and will set up another thereon: as aforetime I
+      destroyed Tiummân, so will I destroy thee.&rdquo; A detachment of troops was
+      sent to enforce the message of defiance, but when the messengers had
+      reached the frontier town of Deri, Indabigash was no longer there: his
+      nobles had assassinated him, and had elected Khumbân-khaldash, the son of
+      Atta-mêtush, king in his stead. The opportunity was a favourable one to
+      sow the seeds of division in the Elamite camp, before the usurper should
+      have time to consolidate his power: Assur-bani-pal therefore threw himself
+      into the cause of Tammaritu, supporting him with an army to which many
+      malcontents speedily rallied. The Aramæans and the cities of the
+      marsh-lands on the littoral, Khilmu, Billatê, Dummuku, Sulâa, Lakhiru, and
+      Dibirîna, submitted without a struggle, and the invaders met with no
+      resistance till they reached Bît-Imbi. This town had formerly been
+      conquered by Sennacherib, but it had afterwards returned to the rule of
+      its ancient masters, who had strongly fortified it. It now offered a
+      determined resistance, but without success: its population was decimated,
+      and the survivors mutilated and sent as captives into Assyria&mdash;among
+      them the commander of the garrison, Imbappi, son-in-law of
+      Khumbân-khaldash, together with the harem of Tiummân, with his sons and
+      daughters, and all the members of his family whom his successors had left
+      under guard in the citadel. The siege had been pushed forward so rapidly
+      that the king had not been able to make any attempt to relieve the
+      defenders: besides this, a pretender had risen up against him, one
+      Umbakhabua, who had been accepted as king by the important district of
+      Bubîlu. The fall of Bît-Imbi filled the two competitors with fear: they
+      abandoned their homes and fled, the one to the mountains, the other to the
+      lowlands on the shores of the Nar-Marratum. Tammaritu entered Susa in
+      triumph and was enthroned afresh; but the insolence and rapacity of his
+      auxiliaries was so ruthlessly manifested, that at the end of some days he
+      resolved to rid himself of them by the sword. A traitor having revealed
+      the design, Tammaritu was seized, stripped of his royal apparel, and cast
+      into prison. The generals of Assur-bani-pal had no one whom they could
+      proclaim king in his stead, and furthermore, the season being well
+      advanced, the Elamites, who had recovered from their first alarm, were
+      returning in a body, and threatened to cut off the Assyrian retreat: they
+      therefore evacuated Susa, and regained Assyria with their booty. They
+      burnt all the towns along the route whose walls were insufficient to
+      protect them against a sudden escalade or an attack of a few hours&rsquo;
+      duration, and the country between the capital and the frontier soon
+      contained nothing but heaps of smoking ruins (647 e.g.).*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The difficulty we experience in locating on the map most
+     of the names of Elamite towns is the reason why we cannot
+     determine with any certainty the whole itinerary followed by
+     the Assyrian army.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0056" id="linkBimage-0056">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:53%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/251.jpg"
+       alt="251.jpg Statues of the Gods Carried off by Assyrian Soldiery " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard,
+<i>The Monuments of Nineveh</i>.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The campaign, which had been so successful at the outset, had not produced
+      all the results expected from it. The Assyrians had hoped henceforth to
+      maintain control of Elam through Tammaritu, but in a short time they had
+      been obliged to throw aside the instrument with which they counted on
+      effecting the complete humiliation of the nation: Khumbân-khaldash had
+      reoccupied Susa, following on the heels of the last Assyrian detachment,
+      and he reigned as king once more without surrendering Nabo-bel-shumi, or
+      restoring the statue of Nana, or fulfilling any of the conditions which
+      had been the price of a title to the throne. Assur-bani-pal was not
+      inclined to bear patiently this partial reverse; as soon as spring
+      returned he again demanded the surrender of the Chaldæan and the goddess,
+      under pain of immediate invasion. Khumbân-khaldash offered to expel
+      Nabo-bel-shumi from Lakhiru where he had entrenched himself, and to thrust
+      him towards the Assyrian frontier, where the king&rsquo;s troops would be able
+      to capture him. His offer was not accepted, and a second embassy, headed
+      by Tammaritu, who was once more in favour, arrived to propose more
+      trenchant terms. The Elamite might have gone so far as to grant the
+      extradition of Nabo-bel-shumi, but if he had yielded the point concerning
+      Nana, a rebellion would have broken out in the streets of Susa: he
+      preferred war, and prepared in desperation to carry it on to the bitter
+      end. The conflict was long and sanguinary, and the result disastrous for
+      Elam. Bît-Imbi opened its gates, the district of Kashi surrendered at
+      discretion, followed by the city of Khamanu and its environs, and the
+      Assyrians approached Madaktu: Khumbân-khaldash evacuated the place before
+      they reached it, and withdrew beneath the walls of Dur-Undasi, on the
+      western bank of the Ididi. His enemies pursued him thither, but the stream
+      was swift and swollen by rain, so that for two days they encamped on its
+      bank without daring to cross, and were perhaps growing discouraged, when
+      Ishtar of Arbela once more came to the rescue. Appearing in a dream to one
+      of her seers, she said, &ldquo;I myself go before Assur-bani-pal, the king whom
+      my hands have created;&rdquo; the army, emboldened by this revelation, overcame
+      the obstacle by a vigorous effort, and dashed impetuously over regions as
+      yet unvisited by any conqueror. The Assyrians burnt down fourteen royal
+      cities, numberless small towns, and destroyed the cornfields, the vines,
+      and the orchards; Khumbàn-khaldash, utterly exhausted, fled to the
+      mountains &ldquo;like a young dog.&rdquo; Banunu and the districts of Tasarra, twenty
+      cities in the country of Khumir, Khaîdalu, and Bashimu, succumbed one
+      after another, and when the invaders at length decided to retrace their
+      steps to the frontier, Susa, deserted by her soldiers and deprived of her
+      leaders, lay before them an easy prey. It was not the first time in the
+      last quarter of a century that the Assyrians had had the city at their
+      mercy. They had made some stay in it after the battle of Tullîz, and also
+      after the taking of Bît-Imbi in the preceding year; but on those occasions
+      they had visited it as allies, to enthrone a king owing allegiance to
+      their own sovereign, and political exigencies had obliged them to repress
+      their pillaging instincts and their long-standing hatred. Now that they
+      had come as enemies, they were restrained by no considerations of
+      diplomacy: the city was systematically pillaged, and the booty found in it
+      was so immense that the sack lasted an entire month. The royal treasury
+      was emptied of its gold and silver, its metals and the valuable objects
+      which had been brought to it from Sumir, Accad, and Karduniash at
+      successive periods from the most remote ages down to that day, in the
+      course of the successful invasions conducted by the princes of Susa beyond
+      the Tigris; among them, the riches of the Babylonian temples, which
+      Shamash-shumukîn had lavished on Tiumman to purchase his support, being
+      easily distinguishable. The furniture of the palace was sent to Nineveh in
+      a long procession; it comprised beds and chairs of ivory, and chariots
+      encrusted with enamel and precious stones, the horses of which were
+      caparisoned with gold. The soldiers made their way into the ziggurât, tore
+      down the plates of ruddy copper, violated the sanctuary, and desecrated
+      the prophetic statues of the gods who dwelt within it, shrouded in the
+      sacred gloom, and whose names were only uttered by their devotees with
+      trembling lips. Shumudu, Lagamar, Partikira, Ammankasibar, Udurân, Sapak,
+      Aîpaksina, Bilala, Panintimri, and Kindakarpu, were now brought forth to
+      the light, and made ready to be carried into exile together with their
+      belongings and their priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirty-two statues of the kings, both ancient and modern, in silver, gold,
+      bronze, and marble, escorted the gods on their exodus, among their number
+      being those of Khumbânigash, son of Umbadarâ, Shutruk-nakhunta, and
+      Tammaritu II., the sovereigns who had treated Assyria with the greatest
+      indignity. The effigy of Khalludush was subjected to humiliating outrage:
+      &ldquo;his mouth, with its menacing smile, was mutilated; his lips, which
+      breathed forth defiance, were slit; his hands, which had brandished the
+      bow against Assur, were cut off,&rdquo; to avenge, though tardily, the ill
+      success of Sennacherib. The sacred groves shared the fate of the temples,
+      and all the riches collected in them by generations of victors were
+      carried off in cartloads. They contained, amongst other edifices, the
+      tombs of the ancient heroes of Elam, who had feared neither Assur nor
+      Ishtar, and who had often brought trouble on the ancestors of
+      Assur-bani-pal. Their sepulchres were violated, their coffins broken open,
+      their bones collected and despatched to Nineveh, to crumble finally into
+      dust in the land of exile: their souls, chained to their mortal bodies,
+      shared their captivity, and if they were provided with the necessary
+      sustenance and libations to keep them from annihilation, it was not from
+      any motives of compassion or pity, but from a refinement of vengeance, in
+      order that they might the longer taste the humiliation of captivity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0057" id="linkBimage-0057">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/252.jpg" width="100%" alt="252.jpg the Tumulus of Suza " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The image of Nana was found among those of the native gods: it was now
+      separated from them, and after having been cleansed from pollution by the
+      prescribed ceremonies, it was conducted to Uruk, which it entered in
+      triumph on the 1st of the month Kislev. It was reinstated in the temple it
+      had inhabited of old: sixteen hundred and thirty-five years had passed
+      since it had been carried off, in the reign of Kutur-nakhunta, to dwell as
+      a prisoner in Susa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Assur-bani-pal had no intention of preserving the city of Susa from
+      destruction, or of making it the capital of a province which should
+      comprise the plain of Elam. Possibly it appeared to him too difficult to
+      defend as long as the mountain tribes remained unsubdued, or perhaps the
+      Elamites themselves were not so completely demoralised as he was pleased
+      to describe them in his inscriptions, and the attacks of their irregular
+      troops would have rendered the prolonged sojourn of the Assyrian garrison
+      difficult, if not impossible. Whatever the reason, as soon as the work of
+      pillage was fully accomplished, the army continued its march towards the
+      frontier, carrying with it the customary spoil of the captured towns, and
+      their whole population, or all, at least, who had not fled at the approach
+      of the enemy. The king reserved for himself the archers and pikemen, whom
+      he incorporated into his own bodyguard, as well as the artisans, smelters,
+      sculptors, and stonemasons, whose talents he turned to account in the
+      construction and decoration of his palaces; the remainder of the
+      inhabitants he apportioned, like so many sheep, to the cities and the
+      temples, governors of provinces, officers of state, military chiefs, and
+      private soldiers. Khumbân-khaldash reoccupied Susa after the Assyrians had
+      quitted it, but the misery there was so great that he could not endure it:
+      he therefore transferred his court to Madaktu, one of the royal cities
+      which had suffered least from the invasion, and he there tried to
+      establish a regular government. Rival claimants to the throne had sprung
+      up, but he overcame them without much difficulty: one of them, named Paê,
+      took refuge in Assyria, joining Tammaritn and that little band of
+      dethroned kings or pretenders to the throne of Susa, of whom
+      Assur-bani-pal had so adroitly made use to divide the forces of his
+      adversary. Khumbân-khaldash might well believe that the transportation of
+      the statue of Nana and the sack of Susa had satisfied the vengeance of the
+      Assyrians, at least for a time, and that they would afford him a respite,
+      however short; but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the
+      hatred which had pursued Nabo-bel-shumi during so many years: an envoy
+      followed him as far as Madaktu, and offered Khumbân-khaldash once more the
+      choice between the extradition of the Chaldean or the immediate reopening
+      of hostilities. He seems to have had a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, but when
+      Nabo-bel-shumi was informed of the terms offered by the envoy, &ldquo;life had
+      no more value in his eyes: he desired death.&rdquo; He ordered his shield-bearer
+      to slay him, and when the man refused to do so, declaring that he could
+      not live without his master, they stabbed each other simultaneously, and
+      perished, as they had lived, together. Khumbân-khaldash, delivered by this
+      suicide from his embarrassments, had the corpse of the master and the head
+      of the faithful shield-bearer duly embalmed, and sent them to Nineveh.
+      Assur-bani-pal mutilated the wretched body in order to render the
+      conditions of life in the other world harder for the soul: he cut off its
+      head, and forbade the burial of the remains, or the rendering to the dead
+      of the most simple offerings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0058" id="linkBimage-0058">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="260 (114K)" src="images/260.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      ><br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/260-text.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="256.jpg Prayer in the Desert After Painting by Gerome " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      About this time the inhabitants of Bît-Imbi, of Til-Khumba, and a dozen
+      other small towns, who had fled for refuge to the woods of Mount Saladri,
+      came forth from their hiding-places and cast themselves on the mercy of
+      the conqueror: he deigned to receive them graciously, and enrolled them in
+      his guard, together with the prisoners taken in the last campaign. He was
+      contented to leave Elam to itself for the moment, as he was disquieted at
+      the turn affairs were taking in Arabia. Abiyatê, scarcely seated on the
+      throne, had refused to pay tribute, and had persuaded Uatê and Nadanu to
+      join him in his contumacy; several cities along the Phoenician seaboard,
+      led away by his example, shut their gates and declared themselves
+      independent. Assur-bani-pal had borne all this patiently, while the mass
+      of his troops were engaged against Khumbân-khaldash; but after the
+      destruction of Susa, he determined to revenge himself. His forces left
+      Nineveh in the spring of 642 B.C., crossed the Euphrates, and the line of
+      wooded hills which bordered the course of the river towards the west,
+      provisioned themselves with water at the halting-place of Laribda, and
+      plunged into the desert in search of the rebels. The Assyrians overran the
+      country of Mash, from the town of Iarki to Azalla, where &ldquo;there dwell no
+      beasts of the field, where no bird of the sky builds its nest,&rdquo; and then,
+      after filling their water-skins at the cisterns of Azalla, they advanced
+      boldly into the thirsty lands which extend towards Qurazite; they next
+      crossed the territory of Kedar, cutting down the trees, filling up the
+      wells, burning the tents, and reached Damascus from the north-east side,
+      bringing in their train innumerable flocks of asses, sheep, camels, and
+      slaves. The Bedâwin of the north had remained passive, but the Nabathæans,
+      encouraged by the remoteness of their country and the difficulty of access
+      to it, persisted in their rebellion. The Assyrian generals did not waste
+      much time in celebrating their victory in the Syrian capital: on the 3rd
+      of Ab, forty days after leaving the Chaldsean frontier, they started from
+      Damascus towards the south, and seized the stronghold of Khalkhuliti, at
+      the foot of the basaltic plateau overlooked by the mountains of the
+      Haurân; they then destroyed all the fortresses of the country one after
+      another, driving the inhabitants to take shelter in the rugged range of
+      volcanic rocks, where they were blockaded, and finally reduced by famine:
+      Abiyatê capitulated, Nadanu ransomed himself by a promise of tribute, and
+      the whole desert between Syria and the Euphrates fell once more into the
+      condition of an Assyrian province. Before returning to Nineveh,
+      Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s generals inflicted chastisement on Akko and Ushu, the two
+      chief Tyrian cities which had revolted, and this vigorous action confirmed
+      the fidelity of the Assyrian vassals in Palestine. Uate&rsquo;s life was spared,
+      but his lip and cheek were pierced by the hand of the king himself, and he
+      was led by a cord passed through the wounds, as if he had been a wild
+      beast intended for domestication; a dog&rsquo;s collar was riveted round his
+      neck, and he was exposed in a cage at one of the gates of Nineveh. Aamu,
+      the brother of Abiyatê, was less fortunate, for he was flayed alive before
+      the eyes of the mob. Assyria was glutted with the spoil: the king, as was
+      customary, reserved for his own service the able-bodied men for the
+      purpose of recruiting his battalions, distributing the remainder among his
+      officers and soldiers. The camels captured were so numerous that their
+      market-value was for a long time much reduced; they were offered in the
+      open market, like sheep, for a half-shekel of silver apiece, and the
+      vendor thought himself fortunate to find a purchaser even at this price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The final ruin of Elam followed swiftly on the subjugation of Arabia.
+      While one division of the army was scouring the desert, the remainder were
+      searching the upland valleys of the Ulaî and the Uknu, and relentlessly
+      pursuing Khumbân-khaldash. The wretched monarch was now in command of
+      merely a few bands of tattered followers, and could no longer take the
+      field; the approach of the enemy obliged him to flee from Madaktu, and
+      entrench himself on the heights. Famine, misery, and probably also the
+      treachery of his last adherents, soon drove him from his position, and,
+      despairing of his cause, he surrendered himself to the officers who were
+      in pursuit of him. He was the third king of Elam whom fate had cast alive
+      into the hands of the conqueror: his arrival at Nineveh afforded the
+      haughty Assur-bani-pal an occasion for celebrating one of those triumphal
+      processions in which his proud soul delighted, and of going in solemn
+      state to thank the gods for the overthrow of his most formidable enemy. On
+      the day when he went to prostrate himself before Assur and Ishtar, he sent
+      for Tammaritu, Paê, and Khumbân-khaldash, and adding to them Uatê, who was
+      taken out of his cage for the occasion, he harnessed all four to his
+      chariot of state, and caused himself to be drawn through Nineveh by this
+      team of fallen sovereigns to the gate of the temple of Emashmash. And,
+      indeed, at that moment, he might reasonably consider himself as having
+      reached the zenith of his power. Egypt, it is true, still remained
+      unpunished, and its renewed vitality under the influence of the Saïte
+      Pharaohs allowed no hope of its being speedily brought back into
+      subjection, but its intrigues no longer exerted any influence over Syria,
+      and Tyre itself appeared to be resigned to the loss of its possessions on
+      the mainland. Lydia under the rule of Ardys continued to maintain
+      intermittent intercourse with its distant protector. The provinces of the
+      Taurus, delivered from the terror inspired by the Cimmerians, desired
+      peace above all things, and the Mannai had remained quiet since the defeat
+      of Akhsheri. Babylon was rapidly recovering from the ills she had endured.
+      She consoled herself for her actual servitude by her habitual simulation
+      of independence; she called Assur-bani-pal Kandalanu, and this new name
+      allowed her to fancy she had a separate king, distinct from the King of
+      Assyria. Elam no longer existed. Its plains and marsh lands were doubtless
+      occupied by Assyrian garrisons, and formed an ill-defined annexation to
+      Nineveh; the mountain tribes retained their autonomy, and although still a
+      source of annoyance to their neighbours by their raids or sudden
+      incursions, they no longer constituted a real danger to the state: if
+      there still remained some independent Elamite states, Elam itself, the
+      most ancient, except Babylon, of all the Asiatic kingdoms, was erased from
+      the map of the world. The memories of her actual history were soon
+      effaced, or were relegated to the region of legend, where the fabulous
+      Memnon supplanted in the memory of men those lines of hardy conquerors who
+      had levied tribute from Syria in the day when Nineveh was still an obscure
+      provincial town. Assyria alone remained, enthroned on the ruins of the
+      past, and her dominion seemed established for all time; yet, on closer
+      investigation, indications were not wanting of the cruel sufferings that
+      she also had endured. Once again, as after the wars of Tiglath-pileser I.
+      and those of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., her chiefs had
+      overtaxed her powers by a long series of unremitting wars against vigorous
+      foes. Doubtless the countries comprised within her wide empire furnished
+      her with a more ample revenue and less restricted resources than had been
+      at the command of the little province of ancient days, which had been
+      bounded by the Khabur and the Zab, and lay on the two banks of the middle
+      course of the Tigris; but, on the other hand, the adversaries against whom
+      she had measured her forces, and whom she had overthrown, were more
+      important and of far greater strength than her former rivals. She had paid
+      dearly for humiliating Egypt and laying Babylon in the dust. As soon as
+      Babylon was overthrown, she had, without pausing to take breath, joined
+      issue with Elam, and had only succeeded in triumphing over it by drawing
+      upon her resources to the utmost during many years: when the struggle was
+      over, she realised to what an extent she had been weakened by so lavish an
+      outpouring of the blood of her citizens. The Babylonian and Elamite
+      recruits whom she incorporated into her army after each of her military
+      expeditions, more or less compensated for the void which victory itself
+      had caused in her population and her troops; but the fidelity of these
+      vanquished foes of yesterday, still smarting from their defeat, could not
+      be relied on, and the entire assimilation of their children to their
+      conquerors was the work of at least one or two generations. Assyria,
+      therefore, was on the eve of one of those periods of exhaustion which had
+      so often enfeebled her national vitality and imperilled her very
+      existence. On each previous occasion she had, it is true, recovered after
+      a more or less protracted crisis, and the brilliancy of her prospects,
+      though obscured for a moment, appeared to be increased by their temporary
+      eclipse. There was, therefore, good reason to hope that she would recover
+      from her latest phase of depression; and the only danger to be apprehended
+      was that some foreign power, profiting by her momentary weakness, might
+      rise up and force her, while still suffering from the effects of her
+      heroic labours, to take the field once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="262 (25K)" src="images/262.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkCimage-0005" id="linkCimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/263.jpg" width="100%" alt="263.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0006" id="linkCimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/264.jpg" width="100%" alt="264.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDÆAN EMPIRE</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDÆAN AND MEDIAN EMPIRES&mdash;THE
+      XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND NEBUCHADREZZAR.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of
+      the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the Avesta&mdash;Media-proper,
+      its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning of the Median empire&mdash;Persia
+      proper and the Persians; conquest of Persia by the Medes&mdash;The last
+      monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library of Kouyunjik&mdash;Phraortes
+      defeated and slain by the Assyrians.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Cyaxares and his first attach on Nineveh&mdash;The Assyrian triangle
+      and the defence of Nineveh: Assur-bani-pal summons the Scythians to his
+      aid&mdash;The Scythian invasion&mdash;Judah under Manasseh and Amon:
+      development in the conceptions of the prophets&mdash;The Scythians in
+      Syria and on the borders of Egypt: they are defeated and driven back by
+      Cyaxares&mdash;The last kings of Nineveh and Naliopolassar&mdash;Taking
+      and, destruction of Nineveh: division of the Assyrian empire between the
+      Chaldæans and the Medes (608 B.C.).</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty&mdash;Psammetichus I. and the Ionian and
+      Carian mercenaries; final retreat of the Ethiopians and the annexation of
+      the Theban principality; the end of Egypt as a great power&mdash;First
+      Greek settlements in the Delta; flight of the Mashauasha and the
+      reorganisation of the army&mdash;Resumption of important works and the
+      renaissance of art in Egypt&mdash;The occupation of Ashdod, and the Syrian
+      policy of Psammetichus I.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Josiah, King of Judah: the discovery and public reading of the Book of
+      the Covenant; the religious reform&mdash;Necho II. invades Syria: Josiah
+      slain at Megiddo, the battle of Carchemish&mdash;Nebuchadrezzar II.: his
+      policy with regard to Media&mdash;The conquests of Cyaxares and the
+      struggles of the Mermnadæ against the Greek colonies&mdash;The war between
+      Alyattes and Cyaxares: the battle of the Halys and the peace of 585 B.C.&mdash;Necho
+      reorganises his army and his fleet: the circumnavigation of Africa&mdash;Jeremiah
+      and the Egyptian party in Jerusalem: the revolt of Jehoiakim and the
+      captivity of Jehoiachin.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Psammetichus I. and Zedekiah&mdash;Apries and the revolt of Tyre and of
+      Judah: the siege and destruction of Jerusalem&mdash;The last convulsions
+      of Judah and the submission of Tyre; the successes of Aprics in Phoenicia&mdash;The
+      Greeks in Libya and the founding of Cyrene: the defeat of Irasa and the
+      fall of Apries&mdash;Amasis and the campaign of Nebuchadrezzar against
+      Egypt&mdash;Relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages&mdash;The
+      fortifications of Babylon and the rebuilding of the Great Ziggurât&mdash;The
+      successors of Nebuchadrezzar: Nabonidus.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkC2HCH0001" id="linkC2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a><br /> <a name="linkCimage-0007"       id="linkCimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/265.jpg" width="100%" alt="265.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III&mdash;THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDÆAN EMPIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>The fall of Nineveh and the rise of the Chaldæan and Median empires&mdash;The
+      XXVIth Egyptian dynasty: Cyaxares, Alyattes, and Nebuchadrezzar.</i>
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase of
+     Tchertomlitsk, now in the museum of the Hermitage. The
+     vignette is also drawn by Faucher-Gudin, and represents an
+     Egyptian torso in the Turin museum; the cartouche which is
+     seen upon the arm is that of Psammetichus I.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The East was ever a land of kaleidoscopic changes and startling dramatic
+      incidents. An Oriental empire, even when built up by strong hands and
+      watched over with constant vigilance, scarcely ever falls to pieces in the
+      slow and gradual process of decay arising from the ties that bind it
+      together becoming relaxed or its constituent elements growing antiquated.
+      It perishes, as a rule, in a cataclysm; its ruin comes like a bolt from
+      the blue, and is consummated before the commencement of it is realised.
+      One day it stands proud and stately in the splendour of its glory; there
+      is no report abroad but that which tells of its riches, its industry, its
+      valour, the good government of its princes and the irresistible might of
+      its gods, and the world, filled with envy or with fear, deeming its good
+      fortune immutable, never once applies to it, even in thought, the usual
+      commonplaces on the instability of human things. Suddenly an ill wind,
+      blowing up from the distant horizon, bursts upon it in destructive
+      squalls, and it is overthrown in the twinkling of an eye, amid the glare
+      of lightning, the resounding crash of thunder, whirlwinds of dust and
+      rain: when the storm has passed away as quickly as it came, its mutterings
+      heralding the desolation which it bears to other climes, the brightening
+      sky no longer reveals the old contours and familiar outlines, but the sun
+      of history rises on a new empire, emerging, as if by the touch of a magic
+      wand, from the ruins which the tempest has wrought. There is nothing
+      apparently lacking of all that, in the eyes of the many, invested its
+      predecessor with glory; it seems in no wise inferior in national vigour,
+      in the number of its soldiers, in the military renown of its chiefs, in
+      the proud prosperity of its people, or in the majesty of its gods; the
+      present fabric is as spacious and magnificent, it would seem, as that
+      which has but just vanished into the limbo of the past. No kingdom ever
+      shone with brighter splendour, or gave a greater impression of prosperity,
+      than the kingdom of Assyria in the days succeeding its triumphs over Blam
+      and Arabia: precisely at this point the monuments and other witnesses of
+      its activity fail us, just as if one of the acts of the piece in which it
+      had played a chief part having come to an end, the drop-curtain must be
+      lowered, amid a flourish of trumpets and the illuminations of an
+      apotheosis, to allow the actors a little breathing-space. Half a century
+      rolls by, during which we have a dim perception of the subdued crash of
+      falling empires, and of the trampling of armies in fierce fight; then the
+      curtain rises on an utterly different drama, of which the plot has been
+      woven behind the scenes, and the exciting <i>motif</i> has just come into
+      play. We no longer hear of Assyria and its kings; their palaces are in
+      ruins; their last faithful warriors sleep in unhonoured graves beneath the
+      ashes of their cities, their prowess is credited to the account of half a
+      dozen fabulous heroes such as Ninus, Sardanapalus, and Semiramis&mdash;heroes
+      whose names call up in the memory of succeeding generations only vague but
+      terrible images, such as the phantasies of a dream, which, although but
+      dimly remembered in the morning, makes the hair to stand on end with
+      terror. The nations which erewhile disputed the supremacy with Assyria
+      have either suffered a like eclipse&mdash;such as the Khâti, Urartu, the
+      Cossæans, and Elam&mdash;or have fallen like Egypt and Southern Syria into
+      the rank of second-rate powers. It is Chaldaea which is now in the van of
+      the nations, in company with Lydia and with Media, whose advent to
+      imperial power no one would have ventured to predict forty or fifty years
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principality founded by Deïokes about the beginning of the seventh
+      century B.C., seemed at first destined to play but a modest part; it
+      shared the fortune of the semi-barbarous states with which the Ninevite
+      conquerors came in contact on the western boundary of the Iranian plateau,
+      and from which the governors of Arrapkha or of Kharkhar had extorted
+      tribute to the utmost as often as occasion offered. According to one
+      tradition, it had only three kings in an entire century: Deïokes up till
+      655 B.C., Phraortes from 655 to 633, and after the latter year Cyaxares,
+      the hero of his race.* Another tradition claimed an earlier foundation for
+      the monarchy, and doubled both the number of the kings and the age of the
+      kingdom.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This is the tradition gleaned by Herodotus, probably at
+     Sardes, from the mouths of Persians residing in that city.
+
+     ** This is the tradition derived from the court of
+     Artaxerxes by Ctesias of Cnidus. Volney discovered the
+     principle upon which the chronology of his Median dynasty
+     was based by Ctesias. If we place his list side by side with
+     that of Herodotus&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0008" id="linkCimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/268.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="268.jpg and 269.jpg Table of Median Dynasty" />
+    </div>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="269 (37K)" src="images/269.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     We see that, while rejecting the names given by Herodotus,
+     Ctesias repeats twice over the number of years assigned by
+     the latter to the reigns of his kings, at least for the four
+     last generations&mdash;
+
+     At the beginning Herodotus gives before Deïokes an
+     interregnum of uncertain duration. Ctesias substituted the
+     round number of fifty years for the fifty-three assigned to
+     Deïokes, and replaced the interregnum by a reign which he
+     estimated at the mean duration of a human generation, thirty
+     years; he then applied to this new pair of numbers the
+     process of doubling he had employed for the couple mentioned
+     above&mdash;
+
+     The number twenty-eight has been attributed to the reign of
+     Arbakes, instead of the number thirty, to give an air of
+     truthfulness to the whole catalogue.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This tradition ignored the monarchs who had rendered the second Assyrian
+      empire illustrious, and substituted for them a line of inactive
+      sovereigns, reputed to be the descendants of Ninus and Semiramis. The last
+      of them, Sardanapalus, had, according to this account, lived a life of
+      self-indulgence in his harem, surrounded by women, dressing himself in
+      their garb, and adopting feminine occupations and amusements. The satrap
+      of Media, Arbakes, saw him at his toilet, and his heart turned against
+      yielding obedience to such a painted doll: he rebelled in concert with
+      Belesys the Babylonian. The imminence of the danger thus occasioned roused
+      Sardanapalus from his torpor, and revived in him the warlike qualities of
+      his ancestors; he placed himself at the head of his troops, overcame the
+      rebels, and was about to exterminate them, when his hand was stayed by the
+      defection of some Bactrian auxiliaries. He shut himself up in Nineveh, and
+      for two whole years heroically repulsed all assaults; in the third year,
+      the Tigris, swollen by the rains, overflowed its banks and broke down the
+      city walls for a distance of twenty stadia. The king thereupon called to
+      mind an oracle which had promised him victory until the day when the river
+      should betray him. Judging that the prediction was about to be
+      accomplished, he resolved not to yield himself alive to the besieger, and
+      setting fire to his palace, perished therein, together with his children
+      and his treasures, about 788 B.C. Arbakes, thus rendered an independent
+      sovereign, handed down the monarchy to his son Mandaukas, and he in his
+      turn was followed successively by Sosarmos, Artykas, Arbianes, Artaios,
+      Artynes, and Astibaras.* These names are not the work of pure invention;
+      they are met with in more than one Assyrian text: among the petty kings
+      who paid tribute to Sargon are enumerated some which bear such names as
+      Mashdaku,** Ashpanda,*** Arbaku, and Khartukka,*** and many others, of
+      whom traces ought to be found some day among the archives of princely
+      families of later times.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Oppert thought that the names given by Herodotus
+     represented &ldquo;Aryanised forms of Turanian names, of which
+     Otesias has given the Persian translation.&rdquo;
+
+     ** Mashdaku is identified by Post with the Mandaukas or
+     Maydaukas of Ctesias, which would then be a copyist&rsquo;s error
+     for Masdaukas. The identification with Vashd[t]aku, Vashtak,
+     the name of a fabulous king of Armenia, is rejected by Rost;
+     Mashdaku would be the Iranian Mazdaka, preserved in the
+     Mazakes of Arrian.
+
+     *** Ashpanda is the Aspandas or Aspadas which Ctesias gives
+     instead of the Astyages of Herodotus.
+
+     **** The name of Artykas is also found in the secondary form
+     Kardikoas, which is nearer the Khartukka of the Assyrian
+     texts.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There were in these archives, at the disposal of scribes and strangers
+      inclined to reconstruct the history of Asia, a supply of materials of
+      varying value&mdash;authentic documents inscribed on brick tablets,
+      legends of fabulous exploits, epic poems and records of real victories and
+      conquests, exaggerated in accordance with the vanity or the interest of
+      the composer: from these elements it was easy to compile lists of Median
+      kings which had no real connection with each other as far as their names,
+      order of succession, or duration of reign were concerned. The Assyrian
+      chronicles have handed down to us, in place of these dynasties which were
+      alleged to have exercised authority over the whole territory, a
+      considerable number of noble houses scattered over the country, each of
+      them autonomous, and a rival of its neighbour, and only brought into
+      agreement with one another at rare intervals by their common hatred of the
+      invader. Some of them were representatives of ancient races akin to the
+      Susians, and perhaps to the first inhabitants of Chaldæa; others belonged
+      to tribes of a fresh stock, that of the Aryans, and more particularly to
+      the Iranian branch of the Aryan family. We catch glimpses of them in the
+      reign of Shalmaneser III., who calls them the Amadaî; then, after this
+      first brush with Assyria, intercourse and conflict between the two nations
+      became more and more frequent every year, until the &ldquo;distant Medes&rdquo; soon
+      began to figure among the regular adversaries of the Ninevite armies, and
+      even the haughtiest monarchs refer with pride to victories gained over
+      them. Rammân-nirâri waged ceaseless war against them, Tiglath-pileser III.
+      twice drove them before him from the south-west to the north-east as far
+      as the foot of Demavend, while Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, during
+      their respective reigns, kept anxious watch upon them, and endeavoured to
+      maintain some sort of authority over the tribes which lay nearest to them.
+      Both in the personal names and names of objects which have come down to us
+      in the records of these campaigns, we detect Iranian characteristics, in
+      spite of the Semitic garb with which the inscriptions have invested them:
+      among the names of countries we find Partukka, Diristânu, Patusharra,
+      Nishaîa, Urivzân, Abîruz, and Ariarma, while the men bear such names as
+      Ishpabarra, Eparna, Shîtirparna, Uarzân, and Dayaukku. As we read through
+      the lists, faint resemblances in sound awaken dormant classical memories,
+      and the ear detects familiar echoes in the names of those Persians whose
+      destinies were for a time linked with those of Athens and Sparta in the
+      days of Darius and of Xerxes: it is like the first breath of Greek
+      influence, faint and almost imperceptible as yet, wafted to us across the
+      denser atmosphere of the East.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iranians had a vague remembrance of a bygone epoch, during which they
+      had wandered, in company with other nations of the same origin as
+      themselves, in that cradle of the Aryan peoples, Aryanem-Vaêjô. Modern
+      historians at first placed their mythical birthplace in the wilder regions
+      of Central Asia, near the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and not far from the
+      so-called table-land of Pamir, which they regarded as the original point
+      of departure of the Indo-European races. They believed that a large body
+      of these primitive Aryans must have descended southwards into the basin of
+      the Indus and its affluents, and that other detachments had installed
+      themselves in the oases of Margiana and Khorasmia, while the Iranians
+      would have made their way up to the plateau which separates the Caspian
+      Sea from the Persian Gulf, where they sought to win for themselves a
+      territory sufficient for their wants. The compilers of the sacred books of
+      the Iranians claimed to be able to trace each stage of their
+      peregrinations, and to describe the various accidents which befell them
+      during this heroic period of their history. According to these records, it
+      was no mere chance or love of adventure which had led them to wander for
+      years from clime to clime, but rather a divine decree. While Ahurômazdaô,
+      the beneficent deity whom they worshipped, had provided them with
+      agreeable resting-places, a perverse spirit, named Angrômaînyus, had on
+      every occasion rendered their sojourn there impossible, by the plagues
+      which he inflicted on them. Bitter cold, for instance, had compelled them
+      to forsake Aryanem-Vaêjô and seek shelter in Sughdhâ and Mûru.* Locusts
+      had driven them from Sughdhâ; the incursions of the nomad tribes, coupled
+      with their immorality, had forced them to retire from Mûru to Bâkhdhî,
+      &ldquo;the country of lofty banners,&rdquo; ** and subsequently to Nisaya, which lies
+      to the south-east, between Mûru and Bâkhdhî. From thence they made their
+      way into the narrow valleys of the Harôyu, and overran Vaêkereta, the land
+      of noxious shadows.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Sughdhâ is Sogdiana; Mûru, in ancient Persian Margush, is
+     the modern Merv, the Margiana of classical geographers.
+
+     ** Bâkhdhî is identical with Bactriana, but, as Spiegel
+     points out, this Avestic form is comparatively recent, and
+     readily suggests the modern Balkh, in which the consonants
+     have become weakened.
+
+     *** The Avesta places Nisaya between Mûru and Bâkhdhî to
+     distinguish it from other districts of the same name to be
+     found in this part of Asia: Eugène Burnouf is probably
+     correct in identifying it with the Nêssea of Strabo and of
+     Ptolemy, which lay to the south of Margiana, at the junction
+     of the roads leading to Hyrcania in one direction and
+     Bactriana in the other.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      From this point forwards, the countries mentioned by their chroniclers are
+      divided into two groups, lying in opposite directions: Arahvaiti,
+      Haêtumant, and Haptahindu* on the east; and on the west, Urvâ,** Harôyu or
+      Haraêva is the Greek Aria, the modern province of Herat.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Arahvaiti, the Harauvatish of the Achsemenian
+     inscriptions, is the Greek Arachosia, and Haêtumant the
+     basin of their Etymander, the modern Helmend; in other
+     words, the present province of Seîstan. Hapta-Hindu is the
+     western part of the Indian continent, i.e. the Punjaub.
+
+     ** The Pehlevi commentators identify Urvâ with Mesônê,
+     mentioned by classical writers, at the confluence of the
+     Tigris and Euphrates, or perhaps the plain around Ispahan
+     which bore the name of Masân in the Sassanid period. Fr.
+     Lenormant had connected it with the name Urivzân, which is
+     applied in the Assyrian inscriptions to a district of Media
+     in the time of Tiglath-pileser III.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0009" id="linkCimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/274.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="274.jpg Map of the Lands Created by Ahura-mazda " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Pehlevi commentators identify Vaêkereta with Kabulistan, and also
+      volunteer the following interpretation of the title which accompanies the
+      name: &ldquo;The shadow of the trees there is injurious to the body, or as some
+      say, the shadow of the mountains,&rdquo; and it produces fever there. Arguing
+      from passages of similar construction, Lassen was led to recognise in the
+      epithet <i>duzhako-shayanem</i> a place-name, &ldquo;inhabitant of Duzhakô,&rdquo;
+       which he identified with a ruined city in this neighbourhood called
+      Dushak; Haug believed he had found a confirmation of this hypothesis in
+      the fact that the Pairika Khnâthaiti created there by Angrô-maînyus
+      recalls in sound, at any rate, the name of the people Parikani mentioned
+      by classical writers, as inhabiting these regions. Khnenta-Vehrkâna,*
+      Bhagâ,** and Chakhra,*** as far as the districts of Varena**** and the
+      basin of the Upper Tigris.^ This legend was composed long after the event,
+      in order to explain in the first place the relationship between the two
+      great families into which the Oriental Aryans were divided, viz. the
+      Indian and Iranian, and in the second to account for the peopling by the
+      Iranians of a certain number of provinces between the Indus and the
+      Euphrates. As a matter of fact, it is more likely that the Iranians came
+      originally from Europe, and that they migrated from the steppes of
+      Southern Russia into the plains of the Kur and the Araxes by way of Mount
+      Caucasus.^^
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name Khnenta seems to have been Hellenised into that
+     of Kharindas, borne by a river which formed the frontier
+     between Hyrcania and Media; according to the Pehlevi version
+     it was really a river of Hyrcania, the Djordjân. The epithet
+     Vehrkâna, which qualifies the name Khnenta, has been
+     identified by Burnouf with the Hyrcania of classical
+     geographers.
+
+     ** Raghâ is identified with Azerbaijan in the Pehlevi
+     version of the Vendidâd, but is, more probably, the Rhago of
+     classical geographers, the capital of Eastern Media.
+
+     *** Chakhra seems to be identical with the country of Karkh,
+     at the northwestern extremity of Khorassan.
+
+     **** Varena is identified by the Pehlevi commentators with
+     Patishkhvargâr, i.e. probably the Patusharra of the Assyrian
+     inscriptions.
+
+     ^ Haug proposed to identify this last station with the
+     regions situated on the shores of the Caspian, near the
+     south-western corner of that sea. But, as Garrez points out,
+     the Pehlevi commentators prove that it must be the countries
+     on the Upper Tigris.
+
+     ^^ Spiegel has argued that Aryanem-Vaôjô is probably Arrân,
+     the modern Kazabadagh, the mountainous district between the
+     Kur and the Aras, and his opinion is now gaining acceptance.
+     The settlement of the Iranians in Russia, and their entrance
+     into Asia by way of the Caucasus, have been admitted by
+     Rost. Classical writers reversed this order of things, and
+     derived the Sauromato and other Scythian tribes from Media.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is possible that some of their hordes may have endeavoured to wedge
+      themselves in between the Halys and the Euphrates as far as the centre of
+      Asia Minor. Their presence in this quarter would explain why we encounter
+      Iranian personal names in the Sargonide epoch on the two spurs of Mount
+      Taurus, such as that of the Kushtashpi, King of Kummukh, in the time of
+      Tiglath-pileser III., and of the Kundashpi mentioned in the <i>Annals</i>
+      of Shalmaneser III. in the ninth century B.C.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name Kushtashpi has been compared with that of
+     Vistâspa or Gushtâsp by Fr. Lenormant, the name Kundashpi
+     with that of Vindâspa by Gutschmid, and, later on, Ball has
+     added to these a long list of names in Egyptian and Assyrian
+     inscriptions which he looks upon as Iranian. Kundashpi
+     recalls at first sight Gundobunas, a name of the Sassanid
+     epoch, if this latter form be authentic. Tiele adopts the
+     identification of Kushtashpi with Vistâspa, and Justi has
+     nothing to say against it, nor against the identification of
+     Kundashpi with Vindâspa.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The main body, finding its expansion southwards checked by Urartu,
+      diverged in a south-easterly direction, and sweeping before it all the
+      non-Aryan or Turanian tribes who were too weak to stem its progress,
+      gradually occupied the western edge of the great plateau, where it soon
+      became mainly represented by the two compact groups, the Persians to the
+      south on the farthest confines of Elam, and the Medes between the Greater
+      Zab, the Turnât, and the Caspian. It is probable that the kingdom founded
+      by Deïokes originally included what was afterwards termed <i>Media Magna</i>
+      by the Græco-Roman geographers. This sovereignty was formed by the
+      amalgamation under a single monarch of six important tribes&mdash;the
+      Buzo, Paraatakeni, Struchatas, Arizanti, Budii, and Magi. It extended
+      north-westwards as far as the Kiziluzôn, which formed the frontier between
+      the Persians and the Mannai on this side. Northwards, it reached as far as
+      Demavend; the salt desert that rendered Central Iran a barren region,
+      furnished a natural boundary on the east; on both the south and west, the
+      Assyrian border-lands of Ellipi, Kharkhar, and Arrapkha prevented it from
+      extending to the chief ranges of the Zagros and Cordioan mountains. The
+      soil, though less fertile than that of Chaldæa or of Egypt, was by no
+      means deficient in resources. The mountains contained copper, iron, lead,
+      some gold and silver,* several kinds of white or coloured marble,** and
+      precious stones, such as topaz, garnets, emeralds, sapphires, cornelian,
+      and lapis-lazuli, the latter being a substance held in the highest esteem
+      by Eastern jewellers from time immemorial; Mount Bikni was specially
+      celebrated for the fine specimens of this stone which were obtained
+      there.*** Its mountains were in those days clothed with dense forests, in
+      which the pine, the oak, and the poplar grew side by side with the eastern
+      plane tree, the cedar, lime, elm, ash, hazel, and terebinth.****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Rawlinson has collected traditions in reference to gold
+     and silver mining among the mountains in the neighbourhood
+     of Takht-i-Suleiman; one of these is still called <i>Zerreh-
+     Shardn</i>, the mount of the <i>gold-washers</i>.
+
+     ** The best known was the so-called Tauris marble quarried
+     from the hills in the neighbourhood of Lake Urumiyah.
+
+     *** The list of precious stones which Pliny tells us were
+     found in Media, contains several kinds which we are unable
+     to identify, <i>e.g</i>. the Zathênê, the gassinades and
+     narcissitis. Pliny calls lapis-lazuli <i>sapphirus</i>, and
+     declares that the bright specks of pyrites it contained
+     rendered it unsuitable for engraving. In the Assyrian
+     inscriptions Mount Bikni, the modern Demavend, is described
+     as a mountain of Uknu, or lapis-lazuli.
+
+     **** A large part of the mountains and plains is now
+     treeless, but it is manifest, both from the evidence of the
+     inscriptions and from the observations of travellers, that
+     the whole of Media was formerly well wooded.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The intermediate valleys were veritable orchards, in which the vegetation
+      of the temperate zones mingled with tropical growths. The ancients
+      believed that the lemon tree came originally from Persia.* To this day the
+      peach, pear, apple, quince, cherry, apricot, almond, filbert, chestnut,
+      fig, pistachio-nut, and pomegranate still flourish there: the olive is
+      easily acclimatised, and the vine produces grapes equally suitable for the
+      table or the winepress.** The plateau presents a poorer and less promising
+      appearance&mdash;not that the soil is less genial, but the rivers become
+      lost further inland, and the barrenness of the country increases as they
+      come to an end one after another. Where artificial irrigation has been
+      introduced, the fertility of the country is quite as great as in the
+      neighbourhood of the mountains;*** outside this irrigated region no trees
+      are to be seen, except a few on the banks of rivers or ponds, but wheat,
+      barley, rye, oats, and an abundance of excellent vegetables grow readily
+      in places where water is present.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The apple obtained from Media was known as the Modicum
+     malum, and was credited with the property of being a
+     powerful antidote to poison: it was supposed that it would
+     not grow anywhere outside Media.
+
+     ** In some places, as, for instance, at Kirmânshahàn, the
+     vine stocks have to be buried during the winter to protect
+     them from the frost.
+
+     *** Irrigation was effected formerly, as now, by means of
+     subterranean canals with openings at intervals, known as
+     <i>kanât</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The fauna include, besides wild beasts of the more formidable kinds, such
+      as lions, tigers, leopards, and bears, many domestic animals, or animals
+      capable of being turned to domestic use, such as the ass, buffalo, sheep,
+      goat, dog, and dromedary, and the camel with two humps, whose gait caused
+      so much merriment among the Ninevite idlers when they beheld it in the
+      triumphal processions of their kings; there were, moreover, several breeds
+      of horses, amongst which the Nisasan steed was greatly prized on account
+      of its size, strength, and agility.* In short, Media was large enough and
+      rich enough to maintain a numerous population, and offered a stable
+      foundation to a monarch ambitious of building up a new empire.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In the time of the Seleucides, Media supplied nearly the
+     whole of Asia with these animals, and the grazing-lands of
+     Bagistana, the modern Behistun, are said to have supported
+     160,000 of them. Under the Parthian kings Media paid a
+     yearly tribute of 3000 horses, and the Nisæan breed was
+     still celebrated at the beginning of the Byzantine era.
+     Horses are mentioned among the tribute paid by the Medic
+     chiefs to the kings of Assyria.
+
+     ** The history of the Medes remains shrouded in greater
+     obscurity than that of any other Asiatic race. We possess no
+     original documents which owe their existence to this nation,
+     and the whole of our information concerning its history is
+     borrowed from Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, and from
+     the various legends collected by the Greeks, especially by
+     Herodotus and Ctesias, from Persian magnates in Asia Minor
+     or at the court of the Achæmenian kings, or from fragments
+     of vanished works such as the writings of Borosus. And yet
+     modern archaeologists and philologists have, during the last
+     thirty years, allowed their critical faculties, and often
+     their imagination as well, to run riot when dealing with
+     this very period. After carefully examining, one after
+     another, most of the theories put forward, I have adopted
+     those hypotheses which, while most nearly approximating to
+     the classical legends, harmonise best with the chronological
+     framework&mdash;far too imperfect as yet&mdash;furnished by the
+     inscriptions dealing with the closing years of Nineveh; I do
+     not consider them all to be equally probable, but though
+     they may be mere stop-gap solutions, they have at least the
+     merit of reproducing in many cases the ideas current among
+     those races of antiquity who had been in direct
+     communication with the Medes and with the last of their
+     sovereigns.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The first person to conceive the idea of establishing one was, perhaps, a
+      certain Fravartish, the Phraortes of the Greeks, whom Herodotus declares
+      to have been the son and successor of Deiokes.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The ancient form of the name, Fravartish or Frawarti, has
+     been handed down to us by a passage in the great inscription
+     of Behistun; it means the man who proclaims faith in Ahura-
+     mazda, the believer.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0011" id="linkCimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/280.jpg" width="100%" alt="280.jpg the Persian Realm " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0010" id="linkCimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/279.jpg"
+       alt="279.jpg NisÆan Houses Harnessed to a Royal Chariot " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph
+of the bas-relief from Persepolis
+now in the British Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      He came to the throne about 655 B.C. at a time when the styar of
+      Assur-bani-pal was still in the ascendant, and at first does not seem to
+      have thought of trying to shake off the incubus of Assyrian rule. He began
+      very wisely by annexing such of the petty neighbouring states as had
+      hitherto remained independent, and then set himself to attack the one
+      other nation of Iranian blood which, by virtue of the number and warlike
+      qualities of its clans, was in a position to enter into rivalry with his
+      own people. The Persians, originally concentrated in the interior, among
+      the steep valleys which divide the plateau on the south, had probably
+      taken advantage of the misfortunes of Elam to extend their own influence
+      at its expense. Their kings were chosen from among the descendants of a
+      certain Akhâmanish, the Achæmenes of the Greeks, who at the time of the
+      Iranian invasion had been chief of the Pasargadæ, one of the Persian
+      clans. Achæmenes is a mythical hero rather than a real person; he was, we
+      are told, fed during infancy by an eagle&mdash;that mighty eagle whose
+      shadow, according to a Persian belief in mediaeval times, assured the
+      sovereignty to him on whom it chanced to fall. Achæmenes would seem to
+      have been followed by a certain Chaispi&mdash;or Teispes&mdash;a less
+      fabulous personage, described in the legends as his son. It was,
+      doubtless, during his reign that Assur-bani-pal, in hot pursuit of Tiummân
+      and Khumbân-khaldash, completed the downfall of Susa; Chaispi claimed the
+      eastern half of Elam as his share of the spoil, and on the strength of his
+      victory styled himself King of Anshân&mdash;a title on which his
+      descendants still prided themselves a hundred years after his death.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The fact that Teispes was the immediate successor of
+     Achæmenes, indicated by Herodotus, is affirmed by Darius
+     himself in the Behistun inscription. According to Billet-
+     beck, the Anzân (Anshân) of the early Achæmenidæ was merely
+     a very small part of the ancient Anzân (Anshân), viz. the
+     district on the east and south-east of Kuh-i-Dena, which
+     includes the modern towns of Yezdeshast, Abadeh, Yoklîd, and
+     Kushkiserd.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Persia, as then constituted, extended from the mouths of the Oroatis&mdash;the
+      modern Tab&mdash;as far as the entrance to the Straits of Ormuzd.* The
+      coast-line, which has in several places been greatly modified since
+      ancient times by the formation of alluvial deposits, consists of banks of
+      clay and sand, which lie parallel with the shore, and extend a
+      considerable distance inland; in some places the country is marshy, in
+      others parched and rocky, and almost everywhere barren and unhealthy. The
+      central region is intersected throughout its whole length by several
+      chains of hills, which rise terrace-like, one behind the other, from the
+      sea to the plateau; some regions are sterile, more especially in the north
+      and east, but for the most part the country is well wooded, and produces
+      excellent crops of cereals. Only a few rivers, such as the Oroatis, which
+      forms the boundary between Persia and Susiana,** the Araxes, and the
+      Bagradas succeed in breaking through the barriers that beset their course,
+      and reach the Persian Gulf;*** most of the others find no outlet, and
+      their waters accumulate at the bottom of the valleys, in lakes whose areas
+      vary at the different seasons.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus imagined Carmania and Persia Proper to be one
+     and the same province; from the Alexandrine period onwards
+     historians and geographers drew a distinction between the
+     two.
+
+     ** The form of the name varies in different writers. Strabo
+     calls it the Oroatis, Nearchus the Arosis; in Pliny it
+     appears as Oratis and Zarotis, and in Ammianus Marcellinus
+     as Oroates.
+
+     *** The Araxes is the modern Bendamîr. The Kyros, which
+     flowed past Persepolis, is now the Pulwar, an affluent of
+     the Bendamîr. The Bagradas of Ptolemy, called the Hyperis by
+     Juba, is the modern Nabend.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0012" id="linkCimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/282.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="282.jpg Scene in the Mountains of Persia. " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Costs and Flandin, <i>Voyage en Perse</i>,
+     vol. i. pl. xcvi.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0013" id="linkCimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:39%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/285.jpg"
+       alt="285.jpg Head of a Persian Archer " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier, from
+a photograph of the
+Naksh-i-Rustem bas-relief
+taken by Dieulafoy.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The mountainous district is furrowed in all directions by deep ravines,
+      with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents
+      follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage
+      grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to the
+      sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep
+      precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail and
+      narrow that they seem likely to be swept away in the first gail that
+      blows. No country could present greater difficulties to the movements of a
+      regular army or lend itself more readily to a system of guerrilla warfare.
+      It was unequally divided between some ten or twelve tribes:* chief among
+      these were the Pasargadaa, from which the royal family took its origin;
+      after them came the Maraphii and Maspii.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus only mentions ten
+     Persian tribes; Xenophon
+     speaks of twelve.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The chiefs of these two tribes were elected from among the members of
+      seven families, who, at first taking equal rank with that of the
+      Pasargadaæ, had afterwards been reduced to subjection by the Achæmenidæ,
+      forming a privileged class at the court of the latter, the members of
+      which shared the royal prerogatives and took a part in the work of
+      government. Of the remaining tribes, the Panthialad, Derusiæi, and
+      Carmenians lived a sedentary life, while the Dai, Mardians, Dropici, and
+      Sagartians were nomadic in their habits. Each one of these tribes occupied
+      its own allotted territory, the limits of which were not always accurately
+      defined; we know that Sagartia, Parseta-kônê, and Mardia lay towards the
+      north, on the confines of Media and the salt desert,* Taokênê extended
+      along the seaboard, and Carmania lay to the east. The tribes had
+      constructed large villages, such as Armuza, Sisidôna, Apostana, Gogana,
+      and Taôkê, on the sea-coast (the last named possessing a palace which was
+      one of the three chief residences of the Achæmenian kings),** and Carmana,
+      Persepolis, Pasargadæ, and Gabæ in the interior.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Parsetakênê, which has already been identified with the
+     Partukkanu (or Partakkanu) of the Assyrian inscriptions, is
+     placed by Ptolemy in Persia; Mardia corresponds to the
+     mountainous district of Bebahan and Kazrun.
+
+     ** The position of most of these towns is still somewhat
+     doubtful. Armuza is probably Ormuz (or Hormuz) on the
+     mainland, the forerunner of the insular Hormuz of the
+     Portuguese, as the French scholar d&rsquo;Anville has pointed out;
+     Sisidôna has been identified with the modern village of
+     Mogu, near Ras-Jerd, Apostana with the town of Shewâr, the
+     name seeming to be perpetuated in that of the Jebel Asban
+     which rises not far from there. Gogana is probably Bender
+     Kongûn, and Taokô, at the mouth of the Granis, is either
+     Khor Gasseîr or Rohilla at the mouth of the Bishawer. The
+     palace, which was one of the three principal residences of
+     the Achæmenian kings, is probably mentioned by Strabo, and
+     possibly in Dionysius Periegetes.
+
+     *** Carmana is the modern Kermân; the exact position of
+     Gabæ, which also possesses a palace, is not known.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Persians were a keen-witted and observant race, inured to all kinds of
+      hardships in their occupation as mountain shepherds, and they were born
+      warriors. The type preserved on the monuments differs but little from that
+      which still exists at the present day in the more remote districts. It was
+      marked by a tall and slender figure, with sturdy shoulders and loins, a
+      small head, with a thick shock of hair and curling beard, a straight nose,
+      a determined mouth, and an eye steady and alert. Yet, in spite of their
+      valour, Phraortes overpowered them, and was henceforward able to reckon
+      the princes of Anshân among his vassals; strengthened by the addition of
+      their forces to his own, he directed his efforts to the subjection of the
+      other races of the plateau. If we may believe the tradition of the
+      Hellenic epoch, he reduced them to submission, and, intoxicated by his
+      success, ventured at last to take up arms against the Assyrians, who for
+      centuries past had held rule over Upper Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was about 635 B.C., or less than ten years after the downfall of
+      Elam, and it does not seem likely that the vital forces of Assyria can
+      have suffered any serious diminution within so short a space of time.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The date is indicated by the figures given by Herodotus in
+     regard to the Medic kings, based on the calculations of
+     himself or his authorities. Phraortes died in 634 B.C.,
+     after a reign of twenty-two years, and as the last year of
+     his reign coincides with the war against Assyria, the
+     preparations for it cannot have been much earlier than 635
+     or 636 B.C., a year or two before the catastrophe.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0014" id="linkCimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/287.jpg" alt="287.jpg a Persian " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from a photograph
+of one of the bas-
+reliefs at Persepolis,
+in Dieulafoy.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Assur-bani-pal, weary of fighting, even though he no longer directed
+      operations in person, had apparently determined to remain entirely on the
+      defensive, and not to take the field, unless absolutely compelled to do so
+      by rebellion at home or an attack from outside. In view of the growing
+      need of rest for the Assyrian nation, he could not have arrived at a wiser
+      decision, provided always that circumstances allowed of its being carried
+      into effect, and that the tributary races and frontier nations were
+      willing to fall in with his intentions. They did so at first, for the fate
+      of Elam had filled even the most unruly among them with consternation, and
+      peace reigned supreme from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.
+      Assur-bani-pal took advantage of this unexpected lull to push forward the
+      construction of public works in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.
+      The palace of Sennacherib, though it had been built scarcely fifty years
+      before, was already beginning to totter on its foundations; Assur-bani-pal
+      entirely remodeled and restored it&mdash;a proceeding which gave universal
+      satisfaction. The common people had, as usual, to make the bricks with
+      their own hands and convey them to the spot, but as the chariots employed
+      for this purpose formed part of the booty recently brought back from Elam,
+      the privilege of using these trophies did something to lighten the burden
+      of the tasks imposed on them. Moreover, they had the satisfaction of
+      seeing at work among the squads of labourers several real kings, the
+      Arabian chiefs who had been pursued and captured in the heart of the
+      desert by Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s generals; they plodded along under their heavy
+      baskets, stimulated by the crack of the whip, amid insults and jeers. This
+      palace was one of the largest and most ornate ever built by the rulers of
+      Assyria. True, the decoration does not reveal any novel process or theme;
+      we find therein merely the usual scenes of battle or of the chase, but
+      they are designed and executed with a skill to which the sculptor of
+      Nineveh had never before attained. The animals, in particular, are
+      portrayed with a light and delicate touch&mdash;the wild asses pursued by
+      hounds, or checked while galloping at full speed by a cast of the lasso;
+      the herds of goats and gazelles hurrying across the desert; the wounded
+      lioness, which raises herself with a last dying effort to roar at the
+      beaters. We are conscious of Egyptian influence underlying the Asiatic
+      work, and the skilful arrangement of the scenes from the Elamite campaigns
+      also reminds us of Egypt. The picture of the battle of Tullîz recalls, in
+      the variety of its episodes and the arrangement of the perspective, the
+      famous engagement at Qodshu, of which Ramses II. has left such numerous
+      presentments on the Theban pylons. The Assyrians, led by the vicissitudes
+      of invasion to Luxor and the Ramesseum, had, doubtless, seen these
+      masterpieces of Egyptian art in a less mutilated state than that in which
+      we now possess them, and profited by the remembrance when called upon to
+      depict the private life of their king and the victories gained by his
+      armies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0015" id="linkCimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/290.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="290.jpg a Herd of Wild Goats--a Bas-relief Of the Time Of Assur-bani-pal " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch by Place.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was in this magnificent residence that Assur-bani-pal led an existence
+      of indolent splendour, such as the chroniclers of a later age were wont to
+      ascribe to all the Assyrian monarchs from the time of Semiramis onwards.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Stories of the effeminacy of Sardanapalus had been
+     collected by Ctesias of Cnidus; they soon grew under the
+     hands of historians in the time of Alexander, and were
+     passed on by them to writers of the Roman and Byzantine
+     epochs.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0016" id="linkCimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/290b.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="290bth (150K)Illustrated Manuscript in Heiroglyphics"       src="images/290bth.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      We would gladly believe that he varied the monotony of his hunting
+      expeditions, his banquets, and entertainments in the gardens in company
+      with the women of the harem, by pleasures of a more refined nature, and
+      that he took an unusual interest in the history and literature of the
+      races who had become subject to his rule. As a matter of fact, there have
+      been discovered in several of the ruined chambers of his palaces the
+      remains of a regular library, which must originally have contained
+      thousands of clay tablets, all methodically arranged and catalogued for
+      his use. A portion of them furnish us at first-hand with the records of
+      his reign, and include letters exchanged with provincial governors,
+      augural predictions, consultation of oracles, observations made by the
+      royal astrologers, standing orders, accounts of income and expenditure,
+      even the reports of physicians in regard to the health of members of the
+      royal family or of the royal household: these documents reveal to us the
+      whole machinery of government in actual operation, and we almost seem to
+      witness the secret mechanism by which the kingdom was maintained in
+      activity. Other tablets contain authentic copies of works which were
+      looked upon as classics in the sanctuaries of the Euphrates. Probably,
+      when Babylon was sacked, Sennacherib had ordered the books which lay piled
+      up in E-Sagilla and the other buildings of the city to be collected and
+      carried away to Nineveh along with the statues and property of the gods.
+      They had been placed in the treasury, and there they remained until
+      Esarhaddon re-established the kingdom of Karduniash, and Assur-bani-pal
+      was forced to deliver up the statue of Marduk and restore to the
+      sanctuaries, now rebuilt, all the wealth of which his grandfather had
+      robbed them: but before sending back the tablets, he ordered copies to be
+      made of them, and his secretaries set to work to transcribe for his use
+      such of these works as they considered worthy of reproduction. The
+      majority of them were treatises compiled by the most celebrated adepts in
+      the sciences for which Chaldæa had been famous from time immemorial; they
+      included collections of omens, celestial and terrestrial, in which the
+      mystical meaning of each phenomenon and its influence on the destinies of
+      the world was explained by examples borrowed from the Annals of
+      world-renowned conquerors, such as Naramsin and Sargon of Agade; then
+      there were formulæ for exorcising evil spirits from the bodies of the
+      possessed, and against phantoms, vampires, and ghosts, the recognised
+      causes of all disease; prayers and psalms, which had to be repeated before
+      the gods in order to obtain pardon for sin; and histories of divinities
+      and kings from the time of the creation down to the latest date. Among
+      these latter were several versions of the epic of Grilgames, the story of
+      Etana, of Adapa, and many others; and we may hope to possess all that the
+      Assyrians knew of the old Chaldæan literature in the seventh century B.C.,
+      as soon as the excavators have unearthed from the mound at Kouyunjik all
+      the tablets, complete or fragmentary, which still lie hidden there. Even
+      from the shreds of information which they have already yielded to us, we
+      are able to piece together so varied a picture that we can readily imagine
+      Assur-bani-pal to have been a learned and studious monarch, a patron of
+      literature and antiquarian knowledge. Very possibly he either read
+      himself, or had read to him, many of the authors whose works found a place
+      in his library: the kings of Nineveh, like the Pharaohs, desired now and
+      then to be amused by tales of the marvellous, and they were doubtless
+      keenly alive to the delightful rhythm and beautiful language employed by
+      the poets of the past in singing the praises of their divine or heroic
+      ancestors. But the mere fact that his palace contained the most important
+      literary collection which the ancient East has so far bequeathed to us, in
+      no way proves that Assur-bani-pal displayed a more pronounced taste for
+      literature than his predecessors; it indicates merely the zeal and
+      activity of his librarians, their intelligence, and their respect and
+      admiration for the great works of the past. Once he had issued his edict
+      ordering new editions of the old masters to be prepared, Assur-bani-pal
+      may have dismissed the matter from his mind, and the work would go on
+      automatically without need for any further interference on his part. The
+      scribes enriched his library for him, in much the same way as the generals
+      won his battles, or the architects built his monuments: they were nothing
+      more than nameless agents, whose individuality was eclipsed by that of
+      their master, their skill and talent being all placed to his credit.
+      Babylonia shared equally with Assyria in the benefits of his government.
+      He associated himself with his brother Shamash-shumukin in the task of
+      completing the temple of Ê-Sagilla; afterwards, when sole monarch, he
+      continued the work of restoration, not only in Babylon, but in the lesser
+      cities as well, especially those which had suffered most during the war,
+      such as Uru, Uruk, Borsippa, and Cutha.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     He refers to the works at Borsippa and Kuta towards the end
+     of the account of his campaign against Shamash-shumukin, and
+     to those at Uruk in describing the war against Khumbân-
+     khaldash.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He remodelled the temple of Bel at Nippur, the walls built there by him
+      being even now distinguishable from the rest by the size of the bricks and
+      the careful dressing of the masonry. From the shores of the Persian Gulf
+      to the mountains of Armenia, Assyria and Karduniash were covered with
+      building-yards just as they had been in the most peaceful days of the
+      monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0017" id="linkCimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/294.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="294.jpg Remains of Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s Wall at Nippur " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph published by
+     Peters.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0018" id="linkCimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:49%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/297.jpg"
+       alt="297.jpg Medic and Persian Foot-soldiers " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Coste
+and Flandin. The first and third
+figures are Medes, the second and
+fourth Persians.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It was at this unique juncture of apparent grandeur and prosperity that
+      Phraortes resolved to attack Assur-bani-pal. There is nothing to indicate
+      that his action took place simultaneously with some movement on the part
+      of other peoples, or with a serious insurrection in any of the Assyrian
+      provinces. For my part, I prefer to set it down to one of those sudden
+      impulses, those irresistible outbursts of self-confidence, which from time
+      to time actuated the princes tributary to Nineveh or the kings on its
+      frontier. The period of inactivity to which some previous defeat inflicted
+      on them or on their predecessors had condemned them, allowed them to
+      regain their strength, and one or two victories over less powerful
+      neighbours served to obliterate the memory of former humiliation and
+      disaster; they flew to arms full of hope in the result, and once more drew
+      down defeat upon their heads, being lucky indeed if their abortive rising
+      led to nothing worse than the slaughter of their armies, the execution of
+      their generals, and an increase in the amount of their former tribute.
+      This was the fate that overtook Phraortes; the conqueror of the Persians,
+      when confronted by the veteran troops of Assyria, failed before their
+      superior discipline, and was left dead upon the field of battle with the
+      greater part of his army. So far the affair presented no unusual features;
+      it was merely one more commonplace repetition of a score of similar
+      episodes which had already taken place in the same region, under
+      Tiglath-pileser III. or the early Sargonides; but Huvakshatara, the son of
+      Phraortes, known to the Greeks as Cyaxares,* instead of pleading for
+      mercy, continued to offer a stubborn resistance. Cyaxares belongs to
+      history, and there can be no doubt that he exercised a decisive influence
+      over the destinies of the Oriental world, but precise details of his
+      exploits are wanting, and his personality is involved in such obscuring
+      mists that we can scarcely seize it; the little we have so far been able
+      to glean concerning him shows us, not so much the man himself, as a vague
+      shadow of him seen dimly through the haze.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The original form of the name is furnished by passages in
+     the Behistun inscription, where Chitrantakhma of Sagartia
+     and Fravartish of Media, two of the claimants for the throne
+     who rose against Darius, are represented as tracing their
+     descent from Huvakshatara.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His achievements prove him to have been one of those perfect rulers of
+      men, such as Asia produces every now and then, who knew how to govern as
+      well as how to win battles&mdash;a born general and lawgiver, who could
+      carry his people with him, and shone no less in peace than in war.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * G. Rawlinson takes a somewhat different view of Cyaxares&rsquo;
+     character; he admits that Cyaxares knew how to win
+     victories, but refuses to credit him with the capacity for
+     organisation required in order to reap the full benefits of
+     conquest, giving as his reason for this view the brief
+     duration of the Medic empire. The test applied by him does
+     not seem to me a conclusive one, for the existence of the
+     second Chaldæan empire was almost as short, and yet it would
+     be decidedly unfair to draw similar inferences touching the
+     character of Nabopolassar or Nebuchadrezzar from this fact.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The armies at the disposal of his predecessors had been little more than
+      heterogeneous assemblies of feudal militia; each clan furnished its own
+      contingent of cavalry, archers, and pikemen, but instead of all these
+      being combined into a common whole, with kindred elements contributed by
+      the other tribes, each one acted separately, thus forming a number of
+      small independent armies within the larger one. Cyaxares saw that defeat
+      was certain so long as he had nothing but these ill-assorted masses to
+      match against the regular forces of Assyria: he therefore broke up the
+      tribal contingents and rearranged the units of which they were composed
+      according to their natural affinities, grouping horsemen with horsemen,
+      archers with archers, and pikemen with pikemen, taking the Assyrian
+      cavalry and infantry as his models.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* Herodotus tells us that Cyaxares was &ldquo;the first to divide the Asiatics
+into different regiments, separating the pikemen from the archers and
+horsemen; before his time, these troops were all mixed up haphazard
+together.&rdquo; I have interpreted his evidence in the sense which seems
+most in harmony with what we know of Assyrian military tactics. It
+seems incredible that the Medic armies can have fought pell-mell, as
+Herodotus declares, seeing that for two hundred years past the Medes
+had been frequently engaged against such well-drilled troops as those
+of Assyria: if the statement be authentic, it merely means that Cyaxares
+converted all the small feudal armies which had hitherto fought side
+by side on behalf of the king into a single royal army in which the
+different kinds of troops were kept separate.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The foot-soldiers wore a high felt cap known as a tiara; they had long
+      tunics with wide sleeves, tied in at the waist by a belt, and sometimes
+      reinforced by iron plates or scales, as well as gaiters, buskins of soft
+      leather, and large wickerwork shields covered with ox-hide, which they
+      bore in front of them like a movable bulwark; their weapons consisted of a
+      short sword, which depended from the belt and lay along the thigh, one or
+      two light javelins, a bow with a strongly pronounced curve, and a quiver
+      full of arrows made from reeds.* Their horsemen, like those of other
+      warlike nations II of the East, used neither saddle nor stirrups, and
+      though they could make skilful use of lance and sword, their favourite
+      weapon was the bow.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus describes the equipment of the Persians in much
+     the same terms as I have used above, and then adds in the
+     following chapter that &ldquo;the Medes had the same equipment,
+     for it is the equipment of the Medes and not that of the
+     Persians.&rdquo;
+
+     ** Herodotus says that the Medic horsemen were armed in the
+     same manner as the infantry.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0019" id="linkCimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:47%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/298.jpg" alt="298.jpg a Medic Horseman " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a cast
+of the Medic intaglio in the Cabinet
+des Médailles.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Accustomed from their earliest childhood to all kinds of equestrian
+      exercises, they seemed to sit their horses as though they actually formed
+      part of the animal. They seldom fought in line, but, from the very
+      beginning of an action, hung like a dense cloud on the front and flanks of
+      the enemy, and riddled them with missiles, without, however, coming to
+      close quarters. Like the Parthians of a later epoch, they waited until
+      they had bewildered and reduced the foe by their ceaseless evolutions
+      before giving the final charge which was to rout them completely. No
+      greater danger could threaten the Assyrians than the establishment of a
+      systematically organised military power within the borders of Media. An
+      invader starting from Egypt or Asia Minor, even if he succeeded in
+      overthrowing the forces sent out to meet him, had still a long way to go
+      before he could penetrate to the heart of the empire. Even if Cilicia and
+      Syria should be conquered, nothing was easier than to oppose a further
+      advance at the barrier of the Euphrates; and should the Euphrates be
+      crossed, the Khabur still remained, and behind it the desert of Singar,
+      which offered the last obstacle between Nineveh and the invaders. The
+      distances were less considerable in the case of an army setting out from
+      Urartu and proceeding along the basin of the Tigris or its affluents; but
+      here, too, the difficulties of transit were so serious that the invader
+      ran a great risk of gradually losing the best part of his forces on the
+      road. On the north-east and east, however, the ancient heritage of Assur
+      lay open to direct and swift attack. An enemy who succeeded in destroying
+      or driving back the garrisons stationed as outposts on the rim of the
+      plateau, from Kharkhar to Parsua, if he ventured to pursue his advantage
+      and descended into the plain of the Tigris, had no less than three routes
+      to choose from&mdash;the Kirind road on the south, the Baneh road on the
+      north, and the Suleimanych road between the two. The last was the easiest
+      of all, and led almost straight to the fords of Altun-Keupri and the banks
+      of the Lesser Zab, on the confines of Assyria proper, close under the
+      walls of Arbela, the holy city of Ishtar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0020" id="linkCimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/300.jpg" width="100%" alt="300.jpg the Assyrian Triangle " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      He needed but to win two victories, one upon leaving the mountains, the
+      other at the passage of the Zab, and two or three weeks&rsquo; steady marching
+      would bring him from Hamadân right up to the ramparts of Nineveh. Cyaxares
+      won a victory over Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s generals, and for the first time in
+      over a hundred years Assyria proper suffered the ignominy of foreign
+      invasion. The various works constructed by twenty generations of kings had
+      gradually transformed the triangle enclosed between the Upper Zab, the
+      Tigris, and the Jebel-Makhlub into a regular fortified camp. The southern
+      point of this triangle was defended by Calah from the attacks of Chaldoa
+      or from foes coming down from Media by Iïolwân and Suleimanyeh, while
+      Nineveh guarded it on the northeast, and several lines of walled cities&mdash;among
+      which Dur-Sharrukîn and Imgur-Bel can still be identified&mdash;protected
+      it on the north and east, extending from the Tigris as far as the G-hazîr
+      and Zab. It was necessary for an enemy to break through this complex
+      defensive zone, and even after this had been successfully accomplished and
+      the walls of the capital had been reached, the sight which would meet the
+      eye was well calculated to dismay even the most resolute invader. Viewed
+      as a whole, Nineveh appeared as an irregular quadrilateral figure, no two
+      sides of which were parallel, lying on the left bank of the Tigris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0021" id="linkCimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/301.jpg" width="100%" alt="301.jpg Map of Nineveh " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The river came right up to the walls on the west, and the two mounds of
+      Kouyunjik and Nebi-Yunus, on which stood the palaces of the Sargonides,
+      were so skilfully fortified that a single wall connecting the two sufficed
+      to ward off all danger of attack on this side. The south wall, which was
+      the shortest of the four, being only about 870 yards in length, was
+      rendered inaccessible by a muddy stream, while the north wall, some 2150
+      yards long, was protected by a wide moat which could be filled from the
+      waters of the Khuzur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0022" id="linkCimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/302.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="302.jpg Part of the Fosse at Nineveh " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch in Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The eastern front had for a long time depended for its safety on a single
+      wall reinforced by a moat, but Sennacherib, deeming it insufficiently
+      protected against a sudden attack, had piled up obstacles in front of it,
+      so that it now presented a truly formidable appearance. It was skirted
+      throughout its whole length by a main rampart, 5400 yards long, which
+      described a gentle curve from north to south, and rose to a height of
+      about 50 feet, being protected by two small forts placed close to the main
+      gates. The fosse did not run along the foot of the wall, but at a distance
+      of about fifty yards in front of it, and was at least some 20 feet deep
+      and over 150 feet in width. It was divided into two unequal segments by
+      the Khuzur: three large sluice-gates built on a level with the wall and
+      the two escarpments allowed the river to be dammed back, so that its
+      waters could be diverted into the fosse and thus keep it full in case of
+      siege. In front of each segment was a kind of demi-lune, and&mdash;as
+      though this was not precaution enough&mdash;two walls, each over 4300
+      yards long, were built in front of the demi-lunes, the ditch which
+      separated them being connected at one end with the Khuzur, and allowed to
+      empty itself into a stream on the south. The number of inhabitants
+      sheltered behind these defences was perhaps 300,000 souls;* each separate
+      quarter of the city was enclosed by ramparts, thus forming, as it were, a
+      small independent town, which had to be besieged and captured after a
+      passage had been cut through the outer lines of defence.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jones and G. Rawlinson credit Nineveh with a population of
+     not more than 175,000.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Cyaxares might well have lost heart in the face of so many difficulties,
+      but his cupidity, inflamed by reports of the almost fabulous wealth of the
+      city, impelled him to attack it with extraordinary determination: the
+      spoils of Susa, Babylon, and Thebes, in fact, of the whole of Western Asia
+      and Ethiopia, were, he felt, almost within his reach, and would inevitably
+      fall into his hands provided his courage and perseverance did not fail
+      him. After shutting up the remnant of the Assyrian army inside Nineveh he
+      laid patient siege to the city, and the fame of his victories being noised
+      abroad on all sides, it awoke among the subject races that longing for
+      revenge which at one time appeared to have been sent to sleep for ever. It
+      almost seemed as though the moment was approaching when the city of blood
+      should bleed in its turn, when its kings should at length undergo the fate
+      which they had so long imposed on other monarchs. Nahum the Elkoshite,* a
+      Hebrew born in the Assyrian province of Samaria, but at that time an exile
+      in Judah, lifted up his voice, and the echo of his words still resounds in
+      our ears, telling us of the joy and hope felt by Judah, and with Judah, by
+      the whole of Asia, at the prospect. Speaking as the prophet of Jahveh, it
+      was to Jahveh that he attributed the impending downfall of the oppressor:
+      &ldquo;Jahveh is a jealous God and avengeth; Jahveh avengeth and is full of
+      wrath; Jahveh taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath
+      for His enemies. Jahveh is slow to anger and great in power, and will by
+      no means clear the guilty; Jahveh hath His way in the whirlwind and in the
+      storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea and
+      maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and
+      Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.&rdquo; * And, &ldquo;Behold upon the
+      mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.&rdquo; Then he goes on to
+      unfold before the eyes of his hearers a picture of Nineveh, humiliated and
+      in the last extremity.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Elkosh is identified by Eusebius with Elkese, which St.
+     Jerome declares to have been in Galileo, the modern el-
+     Kauzeh, two and a half hours&rsquo; walk south of Tibnin. The
+     prophecy of Nahum has been taken by some as referring to the
+     campaign of Phraortes against Assyria, but more frequently
+     to the destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Chaldæans. It
+     undoubtedly refers to the siege interrupted by the Scythian
+     invasion.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There she lies, behind her bastions of brick, anxiously listening for the
+      approach of the victorious Medes. &ldquo;The noise of the whip, and the noise of
+      the rattling of wheels; and prancing horses and jumping chariots; the
+      horsemen mounting, and the flashing sword, and the glittering spear; and a
+      multitude of slain and a great heap of carcases: and there is no end of
+      the corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: because of the multitude of
+      the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts,
+      that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her
+      witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith Jahveh of hosts, and I will
+      discover thy skirts upon they face; and I will show the nations thy
+      nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth
+      upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. And it
+      shall come to pass that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee,
+      and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek
+      comforters for thee?&rdquo; Thebes, the city of Amon, did not escape captivity;
+      why then should Nineveh prove more fortunate? &ldquo;All thy fortresses shall be
+      like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken they fall into
+      the mouth of the eater. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women;
+      the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire hath
+      devoured thy bars. Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy
+      fortresses: go into the clay and tread the mortar, make strong the
+      brick-kiln. There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee
+      off,... make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the
+      locusts. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants as the stars of heaven: the
+      cankerworm spoileth and flieth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts and
+      thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in
+      the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is
+      not known where they are. Thy shepherds slumber, O King of Assyria: thy
+      worthies are at rest: thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and
+      there is none to gather them. There is no assuaging of thy hurt; thy wound
+      is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee clap the hands over thee; for
+      upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0023" id="linkCimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:45%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/308.jpg"
+       alt="308.jpg Scythians Tending Their Wounded " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the
+reliefs on a silver vase from Kul-Oba.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion Nineveh escaped the fate with which the prophet had
+      threatened it, but its safety was dearly bought. According to the
+      tradition accepted in Asia Minor two hundred years later, a horde of
+      Scythians under King Madyes, son of Protothyes, setting out from the
+      Bussian steppes in pursuit of the Cimmerians, made their appearance on the
+      scene in the nick of time. We are told that they flung themselves through
+      the Caspian Gates into the basin of the Kur, and came into contact with
+      the Medes at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The defeat of the Medes here
+      would necessarily compel them to raise the siege of Nineveh. This crisis
+      in the history of Asia was certainly not determined by chance. For eighty
+      years Assyria had been in contact with the Scythians, and the Assyrian
+      kings had never ceased to keep an eye upon their movements, or lose sight
+      of the advantage to which their bellicose temper might be turned in
+      circumstances like the present. They had pitted them against the
+      Cimmerians, then against the Medes, and probably against the kings of
+      Urartu as well, and the intimacy between the two peoples came to be so
+      close that the Scythian king Bartatua did not hesitate to demand one of
+      the daughters of Bsarhaddon in marriage. From the very beginning of his
+      reign Assur-bani-pal had shown them the utmost consideration, and when
+      King Madyes, son of his ally Bartatua, intervened thus opportunely in the
+      struggle, he did so, not by mere chance, as tradition would have us
+      believe, but at the urgent request of Assyria. He attacked Media in the
+      rear, and Cyaxares, compelled to raise the siege of Nineveh, hastened to
+      join battle with him. The engagement probably took place on the banks of
+      the Lower Araxes or to the north of Lake Urumiah, in the region formerly
+      inhabited by the Mannai; but after defeating his foe and dictating to him
+      the terms of submission, Madyes, carried away by the lust of conquest, did
+      not hesitate to turn his arms against his ally. Exhausted by her recent
+      struggle, Assyria lay at his mercy, her fortresses alone being able to
+      offer any serious resistance: he overran the country from end to end, and
+      though the walled cities withstood the fury of his attack, the rural
+      districts were plundered right and left, and laid desolate for many a year
+      to come. The Scythians of this epoch probably resembled those whom we find
+      represented on the monuments of Greek art two centuries later. Tall
+      fierce-looking men, with unkempt beards, their long and straggling locks
+      surmounted by the <i>kyrbasis</i>, or pointed national cap of felt; they
+      wore breeches and a blouse of embroidered leather, and were armed with
+      lances, bows, and battle-axes. They rode bareback on untrained horses,
+      herds of which followed their tribes about on their wanderings; each man
+      caught the animal he required with the help of a lasso, put bit and bridle
+      on him, and vaulting on to his back at a single bound, reduced him to a
+      state of semi-obedience. No troops could stand their ground before the
+      frantic charge of these wild horsemen; like the Huns of Roman times, the
+      Scythians made a clean sweep of everything they found in their path. They
+      ruined the crops, carried off or slaughtered the herds, and set fire to
+      the villages from sheer love of destruction, or in order to inspire
+      terror; every one who failed to fly to the mountains or take refuge in
+      some fortress, was either massacred on the spot or led away into slavery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too ignorant of the arts of war to undertake a siege in the regular way,
+      they usually contented themselves with levying ransoms on fortified towns;
+      occasionally, however, when the wealth accumulated behind the walls held
+      out a prospect of ample booty, they blockaded the place until famine
+      compelled it to surrender. More than one ancient city which, thanks to the
+      good government of its rulers and the industry of its citizens, had
+      amassed treasure of inestimable value, was put to fire and sword, and more
+      than one fertile and populous region left unfilled and deserted.* Most of
+      the states which for the last three centuries had fought so stubbornly
+      against the Assyrians for independence, went down before the storm,
+      including the kingdoms of Urartu, of the Mushku, and of the Tabal,** the
+      miserable end furnishing the Hebrew prophets full fifty years later with a
+      theme of sombre rejoicing. &ldquo;There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her
+      multitude; her graves are round about her: all of them uncircumcised,
+      slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in the land of the
+      living. And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the
+      uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war, and
+      have laid their swords under their heads,*** and their iniquities are upon
+      their bones; for they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the
+      living.&rdquo; ****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This may be deduced from the passage in Herodotus, where
+     he says that &ldquo; the Scythians were masters of Asia for
+     twenty-eight years, and overturned everything by their
+     brutality and stupidity: for, in addition to tribute, they
+     exacted from every one whatever they chose, and, moreover,
+     they prowled here and there, plundering as they thought
+     good.&rdquo;
+
+     ** Strabo refers in general terms to the presence of
+     Scythians (or, as he calls them, Sacae) in Armenia,
+     Cappadocia, and on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+     *** This, doubtless, means that the Mushku and Tabal had
+     been so utterly defeated that they could not procure
+     honourable burial for their dead, i.e. with their swords
+     beneath their heads and their weapons on their bodies.
+
+     **** 1 Ezek. xxxii. 26, 27.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Cimmerians, who, since their reverses in Lydia and on Mount Taurus,
+      had concentrated practically the whole of their tribes in Cappadocia and
+      in the regions watered by the Halys and Thermodon, shared the good fortune
+      of their former adversaries. At that time they lived under the rule of a
+      certain Kôbos, who seems to have left a terrible reputation behind him;
+      tradition gives him a place beside Sesostris among the conquerors of the
+      heroic age, and no doubt, like his predecessor Dugdamis, he owed this
+      distinction to some expedition or other against the peoples who dwelt on
+      the shores of the Ægean Sea, but our knowledge of his career is confined
+      to the final catastrophe which overtook him. After some partial successes,
+      such as that near Zela, for instance, he was defeated and made prisoner by
+      Madyes. His subjects, as vassals of the Scythians, joined them in their
+      acts of brigandage,* and together they marched from province to province,
+      plundering as they went; they overran the western regions of the Assyrian
+      kingdom from Melitene and Mesopotamia to Northern Syria, from Northern
+      Syria to Phoenicia, Damascus, and Palestine,** and at length made their
+      appearance on the Judaean frontier.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It seems probable that this was so, when we consider the
+     confusion between the Scythians or Sakse, and the Cimmerians
+     in the Babylonian and Persian inscriptions of the
+     Achsemenian epoch.
+
+     ** Their migration from Media into Syria and Palestine is
+     expressly mentioned by Herodotus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Since the day when Sennacherib had been compelled to return to Assyria
+      without having succeeded in destroying Jerusalem, or even carrying it by
+      storm, Judah had taken little or no part in external politics. Divided at
+      first by a conflict between the party of prudence, who advised submission
+      to Nineveh, and the more warlike spirits who advocated an alliance with
+      Egypt, it had ended by accepting its secondary position, and had on the
+      whole remained fairly loyal to the dynasty of Sargon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Hezekiah, his successor, Manasseh, had, as we know, been
+      tempted to intervene in the revolutions of the hour, but the prompt
+      punishment which followed his first attempt put an end for ever to his
+      desire for independence. His successor, Amon, during his brief reign of
+      two years,* had no time to desert the ways of his father, and Josiah,**
+      who came to the throne in 638 B.C., at the age of eight, had so far
+      manifested no hostility towards Assyria.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 18-26; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 20-25. The reign
+     of fifty-five years attributed to Manasseh by the Jewish
+     annalists cannot be fitted into the chronology of the
+     period; we must either take off ten years, thus reducing the
+     duration of the reign to forty-five years, or else we must
+     assume the first ten of Manasseh to be synchronous with the
+     last ten of Hezekiah.
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxii. 1; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 1.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thus, for more than fifty years, Judah enjoyed almost unbroken peace, and
+      led as happy and prosperous an existence as the barrenness of its soil and
+      the unruly spirit of its inhabitants would permit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0024" id="linkCimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:46%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/311.jpg"
+       alt="311.jpg Iranian Soldier Fighting Against the Scythians " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast
+of a cylinder given byCunningham.
+The cylinder is usually described as
+Persian, but the dress is that of the
+Medes as well as of the Persians.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But though its political activity had been almost nothing during this
+      interval, its spiritual life had seldom been developed with a greater
+      intensity. The reverse sustained by Sennacherib had undoubtedly been a
+      triumph for Isaiah, and for the religious party of which we are accustomed
+      to regard him as the sole representative. It had served to demonstrate the
+      power of Jahveh, and His aversion for all idolatrous worship and for all
+      foreign alliances. In vain did the partisans of Egypt talk loudly of
+      Pharaoh and of all those principalities of this world which were drawn
+      round in Pharaoh&rsquo;s orbit; Egypt had shown herself incapable of
+      safeguarding her friends, and things had gone steadily from bad to worse
+      so long as these latter held the reins of government; their removal from
+      office had been, as it were, the signal for a welcome change in the
+      fortunes of the Jews. Jahveh had delivered His city the moment when,
+      ceasing to rely upon itself, it had surrendered its guidance into His
+      hands, and the means of avoiding disaster in the future was clearly
+      pointed out to it. Judah must be content to follow the counsels which
+      Isaiah had urged upon it in the name of the Most High, and submissively
+      obey the voice of its prophets. &ldquo;Thine eyes shall see thy teachers: and
+      thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye
+      in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. And
+      ye shall defile the over-laying of thy graven images of silver, and the
+      plating of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as an
+      unclean thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.&rdquo; Isaiah seems to
+      disappear after his triumph, and none of his later prophecies have come
+      down to us: yet the influence of his teaching lasted throughout the reign
+      of Hezekiah, and the court, supported by the more religious section of the
+      people, not only abjured the worship of false gods, but forsook the high
+      places and discontinued the practices which he had so strenuously
+      denounced. The great bulk of the nation, however, soon returned to their
+      idolatrous practices, if, indeed, they had ever given them up, and many of
+      the royal advisers grew weary of the rigid observances which it was sought
+      to impose upon them; rites abhorrent to Jahveh found favour even among
+      members of the king&rsquo;s own family, and on Hezekiah&rsquo;s death, about 686 B.C.,
+      a reaction promptly set in against both his religious views and the
+      material reforms he had introduced.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 2-7 (cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 2-7), where, in
+     spite of manifest recensions of the text, the facts
+     themselves seem to have been correctly set forth.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Manasseh was only thirteen years old when he came to the throne, and his
+      youth naturally inclined him towards the less austere forms of divine
+      worship: from the very first he tolerated much that his father had
+      forbidden, and the spirit of eclecticism which prevailed among his
+      associates rendered him, later on, an object of special detestation to the
+      orthodox historians of Jerusalem. Worshippers again began openly to
+      frequent the high places; they set up again the prostrate idols, replanted
+      the sacred groves, and even &ldquo;built altars for all the host of heaven in
+      the two courts of the house of Jahveh.&rdquo; The chariots and horses of the sun
+      reappeared within the precincts of the temple, together with the sacred
+      courtesans. Baal and the Phoenician Astarte were worshipped on Mount Sion.
+      The valley of Hinnom, where Ahaz had already burnt one of his children
+      during a desperate crisis in the Syrian wars, was again lighted up by the
+      flames of the sacred pyre. We are told that Manasseh himself set the
+      example by passing his son through the flames; he also had recourse to
+      astrologers, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, and sorcerers of the lowest
+      type. The example of Assyria in matters of this kind exercised a
+      preponderant influence on Jewish customs, and certainly it would have been
+      a miracle if Jerusalem had succeeded in escaping it; did not Nineveh owe
+      the lofty place it occupied to these occult sciences and to the mysterious
+      powers of its gods? In thus imitating its conqueror, Judah was merely
+      borrowing the weapons which had helped him to subdue the world. The
+      partisans of the ancient religions who were responsible for these
+      innovations must have regarded them as perfectly legitimate reforms, and
+      their action was received with favour in the provinces: before long the
+      latter contained as many sanctuaries as there were towns,* and by thus
+      multiplying the centres of worship, they hoped that, in accordance with
+      ancient belief, the ties which existed between Jahveh and His chosen
+      people would also be increased.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. ii. 26-30. For the quotation see also Jer. xi. 13:
+     &ldquo;For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O
+     Judah; and according to the number of the streets of
+     Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shameful thing, even
+     altars to burn incense unto Baal.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The fact that the provinces had been ravaged from end to end in the days
+      of Sennacherib, while Jerusalem had been spared, was attributed to the
+      circumstance that Hezekiah had destroyed the provincial sanctuaries,
+      leaving the temple on Mount Sion alone standing. Wherever Jahveh possessed
+      altars, He kept guard over His people, but His protection was not extended
+      to those places where sacrifices were no longer offered to Him. The
+      reaction was not allowed to take place without opposition on the part of
+      the prophets and their followers. We are told that Manasseh &ldquo;shed innocent
+      blood very much till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another;&rdquo;
+       there is even a Kabbinic tradition to the effect that, weary of the
+      admonitions of the aged Isaiah, he put him to death by shutting him up in
+      the hollow trunk of a tree, and causing him to be sawn in two.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 16. The tradition in regard to the fate of
+     Isaiah took its foundation in this text, and it is perhaps
+     indirectly referred to in Heb. xi. 37.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For a long time after this no instance can be found of a prophet
+      administering public affairs or directing the actions of the king himself;
+      the priests and reformers, finding no outlet for their energy in this
+      direction, fell back on private preaching and literary propaganda. And,
+      above all, they applied themselves to the task of rewriting the history of
+      Israel, which, as told by the chroniclers of the previous century,
+      presented the national Deity in too material a light, and one which failed
+      to harmonise with the ideals then obtaining. So long as there were two
+      separate Hebrew kingdoms, the existence of the two parallel versions of
+      the Elohist and Jahvist gave rise to but little difficulty: each version
+      had its own supporters and readers, whose consciences were readily
+      satisfied by the interpolation of a few new facts into the text as
+      occasion arose. But now that Samaria had fallen, and the whole political
+      and religious life of the Hebrew race was centred in Judah alone, the
+      necessity for a double and often contradictory narrative had ceased to
+      exist, and the idea occurred of combining the two in a single work. This
+      task, which was begun in the reign of Hezekiah and continued under
+      Manasseh, resulted in the production of a literature of which fragments
+      have been incorporated into the historical books of our Bible.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Amon witnessed no alteration in the policy initiated by his
+      predecessor Manasseh; but when, after less than two years&rsquo; rule, he was
+      suddenly struck down by the knife of an assassin, the party of reform
+      carried the day, and the views of Hezekiah and Isaiah regained their
+      ascendency. Josiah had been king, in name at any rate, for twelve years,**
+      and was learning to act on his own responsibility, when the Scythian
+      danger appeared on the horizon.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The scheme of the present work prevents me from doing more
+     than allude in passing to these preliminary stages in the
+     composition of the Priestly Code. I shall have occasion to
+     return briefly to the subject at the close of Volume IX.
+
+     ** The date is supplied by the opening passage of the
+     prophecy of Jeremiah, &ldquo;to whom the word of Jehovah came in
+     the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, King of Judah, in the
+     thirteenth year of his reign&rdquo; (i. 2). Volney recognised
+     that chaps, i., iv., v., and vi. of Jeremiah refer to the
+     Scythian invasion, and since his time it has been admitted
+     that, with the exception of certain interpolations in chaps,
+     i. and iii., the whole of the first six chapters date from
+     this period, but that they underwent slight modifications in
+     the recension which was made in the fourth year of
+     Jehoiachin in order to make them applicable to the
+     threatened Chaldæan invasion. The date is important, since
+     by using it as a basis we can approximately restore the
+     chronology of the whole period. If we assume the thirteenth
+     year of Josiah to have been 627-626 B.C., we are compelled
+     to place all the early Medic wars in the reign of Assur-
+     bani-pal, as I have done.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This barbarian invasion, which burst upon the peace of Assyria like a
+      thunderbolt from a cloudless sky, restored to the faithful that confidence
+      in the omnipotence of their God which had seemed about to fail them; when
+      they beheld the downfall of states, the sack of provinces innumerable,
+      whole provinces in flames and whole peoples irresistibly swept away to
+      death or slavery, they began to ask themselves whether these were not
+      signs of the divine wrath, indicating that the day of Jahveh was at hand.
+      Prophets arose to announce the approaching judgment, among the rest a
+      certain Zephaniah, a great-grandson of Hezekiah:* &ldquo;I will utterly consume
+      all things from off the face of the ground, saith Jahveh. I will consume
+      man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of
+      the sea, and the stumbling-blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man
+      from the face of the earth, saith Jahveh. And I will stretch out My hand
+      upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off
+      the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarim with the
+      priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and
+      them that worship, which swear to Jahveh and swear by Malcham; and them
+      that are turned back from following Jahveh; and those that have not sought
+      Jahveh nor inquired after Him. Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord
+      Jahveh; for the day of Jahveh is at hand; for Jahveh hath prepared a
+      sacrifice, He hath sanctified His guests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Zephaniah gives his own genealogy at the beginning of his
+     prophecy (i. 1), though, it is true, he does not add the
+     title &ldquo;King of Judah&rdquo; after the name of his ancestor
+     Hezekiah.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of
+      wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of
+      clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the
+      fenced cities, and against the high battlements. And I will bring distress
+      upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned
+      against Jahveh: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their
+      flesh as dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to
+      deliver them in the day of Jahveh&rsquo;s wrath; but the whole land shall be
+      devoured by the fire of His jealousy; for He shall make an end, yea, a
+      terrible end, of all them that dwell in the land.&rdquo; During this same period
+      of stress and terror, there came forward another prophet, one of the
+      greatest among the prophets of Israel&mdash;Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah. He
+      was born in the village of Anathoth, near Jerusalem, being descended from
+      one of those priestly families in which the faith had been handed down
+      from generation to generation in all its original purity.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The descent and birthplace of Jeremiah are given at the
+     beginning of his prophecies (i. 1). He must have been quite
+     young in the thirteenth year of Josiah, as is evident from
+     the statement in i. 6. We are told in chap, xxxvi. that in
+     the fourth year of Jehoiakim he dictated a summary of all
+     the prophecies delivered by him from the thirteenth year of
+     Josiah up to the date indicated to his servant Baruch, and
+     that later on he added a number of others of the same kind.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When Jahveh called him, he cried out in amazement, &ldquo;Ah, Lord God! behold,
+      I cannot speak: for I am a child.&rdquo; But Jahveh reassured him, and touching
+      his lips, said unto him, &ldquo;Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth: see, I
+      have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up
+      and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to
+      plant.&rdquo; Then the prophet perceived a seething cauldron, the face of which
+      appeared from the north, for the Eternal declared to him that &ldquo;Out of the
+      north evil shall break out upon all the inhabitants of the land.&rdquo; Already
+      the enemy is hastening: &ldquo;Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his
+      chariots shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles.
+      Woe unto us! for we are spoiled. O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from
+      wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts
+      lodge within thee? For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth evil
+      from the hills of Ephraim: make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish
+      against Jerusalem!&rdquo; The Scythians had hardly been mentioned before they
+      were already beneath the walls, and the prophet almost swoons with horror
+      at the sound of their approach. &ldquo;My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my
+      very heart: my heart is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because
+      thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
+      Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled, and
+      my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard and hear the
+      sound of the trumpet?&rdquo; It would seem that the torrent of invasion turned
+      aside from the mountains of Judah; it flowed over Galilee, Samaria, and
+      the Philistine Shephelah, its last eddies dying away on the frontiers of
+      Egypt. Psammetiehus is said to have bribed the barbarians to retire. As
+      they fell back they plundered the temple of Derketô, near Ashkelon: we are
+      told that in order to punish them for this act of sacrilege, the goddess
+      visited them with a disease which caused serious ravages amongst them, and
+      which the survivors carried back with them to their own country.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus calls the goddess Aphrodite Urania, by which we
+     must understand Derketô or Atargatis, who is mentioned by
+     several other classical authors, e.g. Xanthus of Lydia,
+     Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny. According to Justin, the
+     Scythians were stopped only by the marshes of the Delta. The
+     disease by which the Scythians were attacked is described by
+     Hippocrates; but in spite of what he tells us about it, its
+     precise nature has not yet been determined.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There was, however, no need to introduce a supernatural agency in order to
+      account for their rapid disappearance. The main body of invaders had never
+      quitted Media or the northern part of the Assyrian empire, and only the
+      southern regions of Syria were in all probability exposed to the attacks
+      of isolated bands. These stragglers, who year after year embarked in one
+      desperate adventure after another, must have found great difficulty in
+      filling up the gaps which even victories made in their ranks; enervated by
+      the relaxing nature of the climate, they could offer little resistance to
+      disease, and excess completed what the climate had begun, the result being
+      that most of them died on the way, and only a few survived to rejoin the
+      main body with their booty. For several months the tide of invasion
+      continued to rise, then it ebbed as quickly as it had risen, till soon
+      nothing was left to mark where it had passed save a pathway of ruins, not
+      easily made good, and a feeling of terror which it took many a year to
+      efface. It was long before Judah forgot the &ldquo;mighty nation, the ancient
+      nation, the nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest
+      thou what they say.&rdquo; * Men could still picture in imagination their
+      squadrons marauding over the plains, robbing the fellah of his crops, his
+      bread, his daughters, his sheep and oxen, his vines and fig trees, for
+      &ldquo;they lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their
+      voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in
+      array as a man to the battle,** against thee, O daughter of Sion. We have
+      heard the fame thereof; our hands wax feeble; anguish hath taken hold of
+      us, and pangs as of a woman in travail.&rdquo; *** The supremacy of the Scythians
+      was of short duration. It was said in after-times that they had kept the
+      whole of Asia in a state of terror for twenty-eight years, dating from
+      their defeat of Cyaxares; but the length of this period is
+      exaggerated.****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. v. 15; it seems curious that the Hebrew prophet
+     should use the epithet &ldquo;ancient,&rdquo; when we remember that the
+     Scythians claimed to be the oldest nation in the world,
+     older than even the Egyptians themselves.
+
+     ** An obvious allusion to the regular formation adopted by
+     the Scythian squadrons.
+
+     *** Jer. v. 17; vi. 23, 24.
+
+     **** The authenticity of the number of years given in
+     Herodotus has been energetically defended by some modern
+     historians, and not less forcibly denied by others, who
+     reduce it, for example, in accordance with a doubtful
+     passage of Justin, to eight years. By assigning all the
+     events relating to the Scythian invaders to the mean period
+     of twenty years, we should obtain the length of time which
+     best corresponds to what is actually known of the general
+     history of this epoch.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Medes soon recovered from their disaster, but before engaging their
+      foes in open conflict, they desired to rid themselves of the prince who
+      had conquered them, and on whom the fortunes of the whole Scythian nation
+      depended. Cyaxares, therefore, invited Madyes and his officers to a
+      banquet, and after plying them to excess with meat and drink, he caused
+      them all to be slain.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This episode is regarded as legendary by many modern
+     historians. Winckler even goes so far as to deny the defeat
+     of the Scythians: according to his view, they held
+     possession of Media till their chief, Astyages, was
+     overthrown by Cyrus; Rost has gone even further, deeming
+     even Cyaxares himself to have been a Scythian. For my part,
+     I see no reason to reject the tradition of the fatal
+     banquet. Without referring to more ancient illustrations,
+     Noldeke recalls the fact that in a period of only ten years,
+     from 1030 to 1040 a.d., the princes reigning over the
+     Iranian lands rid themselves by similar methods of the
+     Turcoman bands which harassed them. Such a proceeding has
+     never been repugnant to Oriental morality, and it is of a
+     kind to fix itself in the popular mind: far from wishing to
+     suppress it, I should be inclined to see in it the nucleus
+     of the whole tradition.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The barbarians made a brave resistance, in spite of the treason which had
+      deprived them of their leaders: they yielded only after a long and bloody
+      campaign, the details of which are unknown to us. Iranian legends wove
+      into the theme of their expulsion all kinds of fantastic or romantic
+      incidents. They related, for instance, how, in combination with the
+      Parthians, the Scythians, under the leadership of their queen Zarinsea,
+      several times defeated the Medes: she consented at last to conclude a
+      treaty on equal terms, and peace having been signed, she retired to her
+      capital of Boxanakê, there to end her days. One body of the survivors
+      re-entered Europe through the Caspian Gates, another wandered for some
+      time between the Araxes and the Halys, seeking a country adapted to their
+      native instincts and customs.* Cyaxares, relieved from the pressure put
+      upon him by the Scythians, immediately resumed his efforts against
+      Assyria, and was henceforward able to carry his plans to completion
+      without encountering any serious obstacle. It would be incorrect to say
+      that the Scythian invasion had overthrown the empire of the Sargonids: it
+      had swept over it like a whirlwind, but had not torn from it one province,
+      nor, indeed, even a single city. The nations, already exhausted by their
+      struggles for independence, were incapable of displaying any energy when
+      the barbarians had withdrawn, and continued to bow beneath the Ninevite
+      yoke as much from familiarity with habitual servitude as from inability to
+      shake themselves free. Assur-bani-pal had died about the year 625 B.C.,
+      after a reign of forty-two years, and his son Assur-etililâni had assumed
+      the double crown of Assyria and Babylon without opposition.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus speaks of these Scythians as having lived at
+     first on good terms with Cyaxares.
+
+     ** The date of Assur-bani-pal&rsquo;s death is not furnished by
+     any Assyrian monument, but is inferred from the Canon of
+     Ptolemy, where Saosduchîn or Shamash-shumukin and Chinaladan
+     or Assur-bani-pal each reigns forty-two years, from 668 or
+     667 to 626 or 625 B.C. The order of succession of the last
+     Assyrian kings was for a long time doubtful, and Sin-shar-
+     ishkun was placed before Assur-etililâni; the inverse order
+     seems to be now conclusively proved. The documents which
+     seemed at one time to prove the existence of a last king of
+     Assyria named Esarhaddon, identical with the Saracos of
+     classical writers, really belong to Esarhaddon, the father
+     of Assur-bani-pal. [Another king, Sin-sum-lisir, is
+     mentioned in a contract dated at Nippur in his accession
+     year. He may have been the immediate predecessor of
+     Sarakos.&mdash;? Ed.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nineveh had been saved from pillage by the strength of her ramparts, but
+      the other fortresses, Assur, Calah, and Dur-Sharrukîn, had been destroyed
+      during the late troubles; the enemy, whether Medes or Scythians, had taken
+      them by storm or reduced them by famine, and they were now mere heaps of
+      ruin, deserted save for a few wretched remnants of their population.
+      Assur-etililâni made some feeble attempts to restore to them a semblance
+      of their ancient splendour. He erected at Calah, on the site of the
+      palaces which had been destroyed by fire, a kind of castle rudely built,
+      and still more rudely decorated, the rooms of which were small and low,
+      and the walls of sun-dried brick were panelled only to the height of about
+      a yard with slabs of limestone roughly squared, and without sculpture or
+      inscription: the upper part of the walls was covered with a coating of
+      uneven plaster. We do not know how long the inglorious reign of
+      Assur-etililâni lasted, nor whether he was assassinated or died a natural
+      death. His brother, Sin-shar-ishkun,* who succeeded him about 620 B.C., at
+      first exercised authority, as he had done, over Babylon as well as
+      Nineveh,** and laboured, like his predecessor, to repair the edifices
+      which had suffered by the invasion, making war on his neighbours, perhaps
+      even on the Medes, without incurring serious losses.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name of this king was discovered by G. Smith on the
+     fragments of a cylinder brought from Kouyunjik, where he
+     read it as Bel-zakir-iskun. The real reading is Sin-shar-
+     ishkun, and the similarity of this name with that of
+     Saracos, the last king of Assyria according to Greek
+     tradition, strikes one immediately. The relationship of this
+     king to Assur-etililâni was pointed out by Father Scheil
+     from the fragment of a tablet on which Sin-shar-ishkun is
+     declared to be the son of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria.
+
+     ** This may be deduced from a passage of Abydenus, where
+     Saracos or Sin-shar-ishkun sends Bussalossoros (that is,
+     Nabopolassar) to defend Chaldæ against the invasion of the
+     peoples of the sea; so according to Abydenus, or rather
+     Berosus, from whom Abydenus indirectly obtained his
+     information, Saracos was King of Babylon as well as of
+     Nineveh at the beginning of his reign.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Chaldæans, however, merely yielded him obedience from force of habit,
+      and the moment was not far distant when they would endeavour to throw off
+      his yoke. Babylon was at that time under the rule of a certain
+      Nabu-bal-uzur, known to us as Nabopolassar, a Kaldu of ancient lineage,
+      raised possibly by Assur-bani-pal to the dignity of governor, but who, in
+      any case, had assumed the title of king on the accession of
+      Assur-etililâni.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Canon of Ptolemy makes Nabopolassar the direct
+     successor of Chinaladan, and his testimony is justified by
+     the series of Babylonian contracts which exist in fairly
+     regular succession from the second to the twenty-first years
+     of Nabopolassar. The account given by Berosus makes him a
+     general of Saracos, but the contradiction which this offers
+     to the testimony of the Canon can be explained if he is
+     considered as a vassal-king; the kings of Egypt and of Media
+     were likewise only satraps, according to Babylonian
+     tradition.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His was but a local sovereignty, restricted probably to the city and its
+      environs; and for twelve or thirteen years he had rested content with this
+      secondary position, when an unforeseen incident presented him with the
+      opportunity of rising to the first rank. Tradition asserted that an
+      immense army suddenly landed at the mouths of the Euphrates and the
+      Tigris; probably under this story is concealed the memory of one of those
+      revolts of the Bît-Yakîn and the tribes dwelling on the shores of the
+      Nar-Marratum, such as had often produced consternation in the minds of the
+      Sargonid kings.* Sin-shar-ishkun, distracted doubtless by other anxieties,
+      acted as his ancestors had done in similar circumstances, and enjoined on
+      his vassal to march against the aggressors and drive them into the sea;
+      but Nabopolassar, instead of obeying his suzerain, joined forces with the
+      rebels, and declared his independence. Assur-etililâni and his younger
+      brother had possibly neglected to take the hands of Bel, and were
+      therefore looked upon as illegitimate sovereigns. The annalists of later
+      times erased their names from the Royal Canon, and placed Nabopolassar
+      immediately after Assur-bani-pal, whom they called Kandalanu. But however
+      feeble Assyria had become, the cities on the Lower Euphrates feared her
+      still, and refused to ally themselves with the pretender. Nabopolassar
+      might perhaps have succumbed, as so many before him had done, had he been
+      forced to rely entirely on his own resources, and he might have shared the
+      sad fate of Merodach-baladan or of Shamash-shumukîn; but Marduk, who never
+      failed to show favour to his faithful devotees, &ldquo;raised up help for him
+      and secured him an ally.&rdquo; The eyes of all who were oppressed by the cruel
+      yoke of Nineveh were now turned on Cyaxares, and from the time that he had
+      dispersed the Scythian hordes it was to him that they looked for
+      salvation. Nabopolassar besought his assistance, which the Median king
+      graciously promised;** it is even affirmed that a marriage concluded
+      between one of his daughters, Amyfcis, and Nebuchadrezzar, the heir to the
+      throne of Babylon, cemented the alliance.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Formerly these barbarians were identified with the remains
+     of the Scythian hordes, and this hypothesis has been
+     recently revived by Prashek. G. Rawlinson long ago
+     recognised that the reference must be to the Chaldæans, who
+     were perhaps joined by the Susians.
+
+     ** The <i>Cylinder of Nabonichs</i>, the only original document
+     in which allusion is made to the destruction of Nineveh,
+     speaks of the Ummân-Manda and their king, whom it does not
+     name, and it has been agreed to recognise Cyaxares in this
+     sovereign. On the other hand, the name of Ummân-Manda
+     certainly designates in the Assyrian texts the wandering
+     Iranian tribes to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sakse or
+     Scythians; the result, in the opinions of several
+     Assyriologists of the present day, is that neither Astyages
+     nor Cyaxares were Medes in the sense in which we have
+     hitherto accepted them as such on the evidence of Herodotus,
+     but that they were Scythians, the Scythians of the great
+     invasion. This conclusion does not seem to me at present
+     justified. The Babylonians, who up till then had not had any
+     direct intercourse either with the Madai or the Ummân-Manda,
+     did as the Egyptians had done whether in Saite or Ptolemaic
+     times, continuing to designate as Kharî, Kafîti, Lotanu, and
+     Khâti the nations subject to the Persians or Macedonians;
+     they applied a traditional name of olden days to present
+     circumstances, and I see, at present, no decisive reason to
+     change, on the mere authority of this one word, all that the
+     classical writers have handed down concerning the history of
+     the epoch according to the tradition current in their days.
+
+     *** The name of the princess is written Amuhia, Amyitis. The
+     classical sources, the only ones which mention her, make her
+     the daughter of Astyages, and this has given rise to various
+     hypotheses. According to some, the notice of this princess
+     has no historical value. According to others, the Astyages
+     mentioned as her father is not Cyaxares the Mede, but a
+     Scythian prince who came to the succour of Nabopolassar,
+     perhaps a predecessor of Cyaxares on the Median throne, and
+     in this case Phraortes himself under another name. The most
+     prudent course is still to admit that Abydenus, or one of
+     the compilers of extracts to whom we owe the information,
+     has substituted the name of the last king of Media for that
+     of his predecessor, either by mistake, or by reason of some
+     chronological combinations. Amyitis, transported into the
+     harem of the Chaldæan monarch, served, like all princesses
+     married out of their own countries, as a pledge for the
+     faithful observance by her relatives of the treaty which had
+     been concluded.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The western provinces of the empire did not permit themselves to be drawn
+      into the movement, and Judah, for example, remained faithful to its
+      suzerain till the last moment,* but Sin-shar-ishkun received no help from
+      them, and was obliged to fight his last battles single-handed. He shut
+      himself up in Nineveh, and held out as long as he could; but when all his
+      resources were exhausted&mdash;ammunitions of war, men and food supplies&mdash;he
+      met his fate as a king, and burnt himself alive in his palace with his
+      children and his wives, rather than fall alive into the hands of his
+      conquerors (608 B.C.). The Babylonians would take no part in pillaging the
+      temples, out of respect for the gods, who were practically identical with
+      their own, but the Medes felt no such scruples. &ldquo;Their king, the intrepid
+      one, entirely destroyed the sanctuaries of the gods of Assur, and the
+      cities of Accad which had shown themselves hostile to the lord of Accad,
+      and had not rendered him assistance. He destroyed their holy places, and
+      left not one remaining; he devastated their cities, and laid them waste as
+      it were with a hurricane.&rdquo; Nineveh laid low, Assyria no longer existed.
+      After the lapse of a few years, she was named only among the legends of
+      mythical days: two centuries later, her very site was forgotten, and a
+      Greek army passed almost under the shadow of her dismantled towers,
+      without a suspicion that there lay before it all that remained of the city
+      where Semiramis had reigned in her glory.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It was to oppose the march of Necho <i>against the King of
+     Assyria</i> that Josiah fought the battle of Megiddo (2 Kings
+     xxiii. 29, 30; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-24, where the mention
+     of the King of Assyria is suppressed).
+
+     ** This is what the <i>Ten Thousand</i> did when they passed
+     before Larissa and Mespila. The name remained famous, and
+     later on the town which bore it attained a relative
+     importance.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is true that Egypt, Chaldæa, and the other military nations of the
+      East, had never, in their hours of prosperity, shown the slightest
+      consideration for their vanquished foes; the Theban Pharaohs had
+      mercilessly crushed Africa and Asia beneath their feet, and had led into
+      slavery the entire population of the countries they had subdued. But the
+      Egyptians and Chaldaeans had, at least, accomplished a work of
+      civilization whose splendour redeemed the brutalities of their acts of
+      reprisal. It was from Egypt and Chaldæa that the knowledge and the arts of
+      antiquity&mdash;astronomy, medicine, geometry, physical and natural
+      sciences&mdash;spread to the ancestors of the classic races; and though
+      Chaldæa yields up to us unwillingly, with niggard hand, the monuments of
+      her most ancient kings, the temples and tombs of Egypt still exist to
+      prove what signal advances the earliest civilised races made in the arts
+      of the sculptor and the architect. But on turning to Assyria, if, after
+      patiently studying the successive centuries during which she held supreme
+      sway over the Eastern world, we look for other results besides her
+      conquests, we shall find she possessed nothing that was not borrowed from
+      extraneous sources. She received all her inspirations from Chaldæa&mdash;her
+      civilisation, her manners, the implements of her industries and of
+      agriculture, besides her scientific and religious literature: one thing
+      alone is of native growth, the military tactics of her generals and the
+      excellence of her soldiery. From the day when Assyria first realised her
+      own strength, she lived only for war and rapine; and as soon as the
+      exhaustion of her population rendered success on the field of battle an
+      impossibility, the reason for her very existence vanished, and she passed
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two great kingdoms rose simultaneously from her ruins. Cyaxares claimed
+      Assyria proper and its dependencies on the Upper Tigris, but he specially
+      reserved for himself the yet unconquered lands on the northern and eastern
+      frontiers, whose inhabitants had only recently taken part in the political
+      life of the times. Nabopolassar retained the suzerainty over the lowlands
+      of Elam, the districts of Mesopotamia lying along the Euphrates, Syria,
+      Palestine, and most of the countries which had hitherto played a part in
+      history;* he claimed to exert his supremacy beyond the Isthmus, and the
+      Chaldæan government looked upon the Egyptian kings as its feudatories
+      because for some few years they had owned the suzerainty of Nineveh.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * There was no actual division of the empire, as has been
+     often asserted, but each of the allies kept the portion
+     which fell into his power at the moment of their joint
+     effort. The two new states gradually increased in power by
+     successive conquests, each annexing by degrees the ancient
+     provinces of Assyria nearest to its own frontier.
+
+     ** This seems to be implied by the terms in which Berosus
+     speaks of Necho: he considers him as a rebel satrap over the
+     provinces of Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, and
+     enumerates Egypt in conjunction with Syria, Phoenicia, and
+     Arabia among the dependencies of Nabopolassar and
+     Nebuchadrezzar. Just as the Egyptian state documents never
+     mentioned the Lotanu or the Kharu without entitling them
+     <i>Children of Rebellion</i>, so the Chaldæan government, the
+     heir of Assyria, could only look upon the kings of Syria,
+     Arabia, and Egypt as rebellious vassals.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0025" id="linkCimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/330.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="330. Map of the Eastern World in The Time Of Nebuchadnezzar " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Pharaoh, however, did not long tolerate this pretension, and far from
+      looking forward to bend the knee before a Chaldæan monarch, he believed
+      himself strong enough to reassert his ancestral claims to the possession
+      of Asia. Egypt had experienced many changes since the day when
+      Tanuatamanu, returning to Ethiopia, had abandoned her to the ambition of
+      the petty dynasties of the Delta. One of the romances current among the
+      people of Sais in the fifth century B.C. related that at that time the
+      whole land was divided between twelve princes. They lived peaceably side
+      by side in friendly relations with each other, until an oracle predicted
+      that the whole valley would finally belong to that prince among them who
+      should pour a libation to Phtah into a brazen cup, and thenceforward they
+      jealously watched each other each time they assembled to officiate in the
+      temple of Memphis. One day, when they had met together in state, and the
+      high priest presented to them the golden cups they were wont to use, he
+      found he had mistaken their number, and had only prepared eleven.
+      Psammetichus was therefore left without one, and in order not to
+      disarrange the ceremonial he took off his brazen helmet and used it to
+      make his libation; when the rest perceived this, the words of the oracle
+      came to their remembrance, and they exiled the imprudent prince to the
+      marshes along the sea-coast, and forbade him ever to quit them. He
+      secretly consulted the oracle of Isis of Buto to know what he might expect
+      from the gods, and she replied that the means of revenge would reach him
+      from the sea, on the day when brazen soldiers should issue from its
+      waters. He thought at first that the priests were mocking him, but shortly
+      afterwards Ionian and Carian pirates, clad in their coats of mail, landed
+      not far from his abode. The messenger who brought tidings of their advent
+      had never before seen a soldier fully armed, and reported that brazen men
+      had issued from the waves and were pillaging the country. Psammetichus,
+      realising at once that the prediction was being fulfilled, ran to meet the
+      strangers, enrolled them in his service, and with their aid overthrew
+      successively his eleven rivals.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The account given by Diodorus of these events is in
+     general derived from that of Herodotus, with additional
+     details borrowed directly or indirectly from some historian
+     of the same epoch, perhaps Hellanicus of Mitylene: the
+     reason of the persecution endured by Psammetichus is,
+     according to him, not the fear of seeing the prediction
+     fulfilled, but jealousy of the wealth the Saite prince had
+     acquired by his commerce with the Greeks. I have separated
+     the narrative of Herodotus from his account of the Labyrinth
+     which did not originally belong to it, but was connected
+     with a different cycle of legends. The original romance was
+     part of the cycle which grew up around the oracle of Buto,
+     so celebrated in Egypt at the Persian epoch, several other
+     fragments of which are preserved in Herodotus; it had been
+     mixed up with one of the versions of the stories relating to
+     the Labyrinth, probably by some dragoman of the Fayyûm. The
+     number twelve does not correspond with the information
+     furnished by the Assyrian texts, which enumerate more than
+     twenty Egyptian princes; it is perhaps of Greek origin, like
+     the <i>twelve</i> great gods which the informants of Herodotus
+     tried to make out in Egypt, and was introduced into the
+     Egyptian version by a Greek interpreter.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A brazen helmet and an oracle had dethroned him; another oracle and brazen
+      men had replaced him on his throne. A shorter version of these events made
+      no mention of the twelve kings, but related instead that a certain Pharaoh
+      named Tementhes had been warned by the oracle of Amon to beware of cocks.
+      Now Psammetichus had as a companion in exile a Carian named Pigres, and in
+      conversing with him one day, he learned by chance that the Carians had
+      been the first people to wear crested helmets; he recalled at once the
+      words of the oracle, and hired from Asia a number of these &ldquo;cocks,&rdquo; with
+      whose assistance he revolted and overthrew his suzerain in battle under
+      the walls of Memphis, close to the temple of Isis. Such is the legendary
+      account of the Saite renaissance; its true history is not yet clearly and
+      precisely known. Egypt was in a state of complete disintegration when
+      Psammetichus at length revived the ambitious projects of his family, but
+      the dissolution of the various component parts had not everywhere taken
+      place in the same manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the north, the Delta and the Nile valley, as far as Siut, were in the
+      power of a military aristocracy, supported by irregular native troops and
+      bands of mercenaries, for the most part of Libyan extraction, who were
+      always designated by the generic name of Mashauasha. Most of these nobles
+      were in possession of not more than two or three cities apiece: they had
+      barely a sufficient number of supporters to maintain their precarious
+      existence in their restricted domains, and would soon have succumbed to
+      the attacks of their stronger neighbours, had they not found a powerful
+      protector to assist them. They had finally separated themselves into two
+      groups, divided roughly by the central arm of the Nile. One group
+      comprised the districts that might be designated as the Asiatic zone of
+      the country&mdash;Heliopolis, Bubastis, Mendes, Tanis, Busiris, and
+      Seben-nytos&mdash;and it recognised as chief the lord of one or other of
+      those wealthy cities, now the ruler of Bubastis, now of Tanis, and lastly
+      Pakruru of Pisaptit. The second group centred in the lords of Sais, to
+      whom the possession of Memphis had secured a preponderating voice in the
+      counsels of the state for more than a century.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This grouping, which might already have been suspected
+     from the manner in which the Assyrian and Egyptian monuments
+     of the period show us the feudal princes rallying round
+     Necho I. and Pakruru, is indicated by the details in the
+     demotic romance published by Krall, where the foundation of
+     the story is the state of Egypt in the time of the &ldquo;twelve
+     kings.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0026" id="linkCimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/335.jpg"
+       alt="335.jpg Three Hoplites in Action " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from an
+archaic vase-painting in the
+collection of Salzmann.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The fiefs and kingdoms of Middle Egypt wavered between the two groups,
+      playing, however, a merely passive part in affairs: abandoning themselves
+      to the stream of events rather than attempting to direct it, they owed
+      allegiance to Sais and Tanis alternately as each prevailed over its rival.
+      On passing thence into the Thebaid a different world appeared to be
+      entered. There Amon reigned, ever increasingly supreme, and the steady
+      advance of his influence had transformed his whole domain into a regular
+      theocracy, where the women occupied the highest position and could alone
+      transmit authority. At first, as we have seen, it was passed on to their
+      husbands and their children, but latterly the rapidity with which the
+      valley had changed masters had modified this law of succession in a
+      remarkable way. Each time the principality shifted its allegiance from one
+      king to another, the new sovereign naturally hastened to install beside
+      the <i>divine female worshipper</i> a man devoted to his interests, who
+      should administer the fief to the best advantage of the suzerain. It is
+      impossible to say whether he actually imposed this minister on her as a
+      husband, or whether the time came when she was obliged to submit to as
+      many espousals as there occurred revolutions in the destinies of Egypt.*
+      However this may be, we know that from the first half of the seventh
+      century B.C. the custom arose of placing beside &ldquo;the divine worshipper&rdquo; a
+      princess of the dominant family, whom she adopted, and who thus became her
+      heiress-designate. Taharqa had in this way associated one of his sisters,
+      Shapenuapît II., with the queen Amenertas when the latter had lost her
+      husband, Piônkhi; and Shapenuapît, succeeding her adopted mother, had
+      reigned over Thebes in the Ethiopian interest during many years. There is
+      nothing to show that she was married, and perhaps she was compensated for
+      her official celibacy by being authorised to live the free life of an
+      ordinary Pallacide;** her minister Montumihâît directed her affairs for
+      her so completely that the Assyrian conquerors looked upon him as petty
+      king of Thebes. Tanuatamanu confirmed him in his office when the Assyrians
+      evacuated the Said, and the few years which had elapsed since that event
+      had in no way modified the <i>régime</i> established immediately on their
+      departure.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * They would have been, in fact, in the same condition as
+     the Hova queens of our century, who married the ministers
+     who reigned in their names.
+
+     ** It is perhaps these last female descendants of the high
+     priests that are intended in a passage where Strabo speaks
+     of the Pallacides who were chosen from among the most noble
+     families of the city. Diodorus mentions their tombs, quoting
+     from Hecatous of Abdera, but he does not appear to know the
+     nature of their life; but the name of Pallacides which he
+     applies to them proves that their manner of life was really
+     that which Strabo describes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is uncertain how long Assur-bani-pal in the north, and Tanuatamanu in
+      the south, respectively maintained a precarious sovereignty over the
+      portions of Egypt nearest to their own capitals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The opening of the reign of Psammetichus seems to have been fraught with
+      difficulties, and the tradition which represents him as proscribed by his
+      peers, and confined to the marshes of the sea-coast, has probably a
+      certain basis of truth. Pakruru, who had brought all the western part of
+      the Delta under his own influence, and who, incessantly oscillating
+      between Assyria and Ethiopia, had yet been able to preserve his power and
+      his life, had certainly not of his own free will renounced the hope of
+      some day wearing the double crown. It was against him or his successor
+      that Psammetichus must have undertaken his first wars, and it was perhaps
+      with the help of Assyrian governors that the federal coalition drove him
+      back to the coast. He extricated himself from this untoward situation by
+      the help of Greek and Asiatic mercenaries, his Ionians and Carians. Some
+      historians stated that the decisive battle was fought near Memphis, in
+      sight of the temple of Isis; others affirmed that it took place at
+      Momemphis, that several of the princes perished in the conflict, and that
+      the rest escaped into Libya, whence they never returned; others, again,
+      spoke of an encounter on the Nile, when the fleet of the Saite king
+      dispersed that of his rivals. It is, in fact, probable that a single
+      campaign sufficed for Psammetichus, as formerly for the Ethiopian
+      pretenders, to get the upper hand, and that the Egyptian feudal lords
+      submitted after one or two defeats at most, hoping that, as in days gone
+      by, when the first dash made by the new Pharaoh was over, his authority
+      would decline, and their own would regain the ascendency. Events showed
+      that they were deceived. Psammetichus, better served by his Hellenes than
+      Tafnakhti or Bocchoris had been by their Libyans, or Piônkhi and
+      Tanuatamanu by their Ethiopians, soon consolidated his rule over the
+      country he had conquered. From 660 or 659 B.C. he so effectively governed
+      Egypt that foreigners, and even the Assyrians themselves commonly accorded
+      him the title of king. The fall of the Ninevite rule had been involved in
+      that of the feudal lords, but it was generally believed that
+      Assur-bani-pal would leave no means untried to recall the countries of the
+      Nile to their obedience: Psammetichus knew this, and knew also that, as
+      soon as they were no longer detained by wars or rebellions elsewhere, the
+      Assyrian armies would reappear in Egypt. He therefore entered into an
+      alliance with Gyges,* and subsequently, perhaps, with Shamash-shumukîn
+      also; then, while his former suzerain was waging war in Elam and Chaldæa,
+      he turned southwards, in 658 B.C., and took possession of the Thebaid
+      without encountering any opposition from the Ethiopians, as his ancestor
+      Tafnakhti had from Piônkhi-Miamun. Mon-tumihâît** negotiated this
+      capitulation of Thebes, as he had already negotiated so many others; in
+      recompense for this service, he was confirmed in his office, and his queen
+      retained her high rank.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The annexation of the Thebaid and the consequent
+     pacification of Egypt was an accomplished fact in the year
+     IX. of Psammetichus I. The analogy of similar documents,
+     e.g. the stele of the high priest Menkhopirrî, shows that
+     the ceremony of adoption which consecrated the reunion of
+     Upper and Lower Egypt cannot have been separated by a long
+     interval from the completion of the reunion itself: in
+     placing this at the end of the year VIII., we should have
+     for the two events the respective dates of 658-657 and 657-
+     656 B.C.
+
+     ** The part played by Montumihâît in this affair is easily
+     deduced: (1) from our knowledge of his conduct some years
+     previously under Taharqa and Tanuatamanu; (2) from the
+     position he occupied at Thebes, in the year IX., with regard
+     to Shapenuapît, according to the stele of Legrain.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0027" id="linkCimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:21%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/338.jpg"
+       alt="338.jpg Statue of a Theban Queen " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier,
+from a photograph
+by M. de Bissing.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The statue, whose feet are missing, represents either Amenertas I. or
+      Mutertas; it was never completely finished, and several of the parts have
+      never received their final polish.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A century or two earlier Psammetichus would have married one of the
+      princesses of sacerdotal lineage, and this union would have sufficed to
+      legalise his position; perhaps he actually associated Shapenuapît with
+      himself by a show of marriage, but in any case he provided her with an
+      adopted daughter according to the custom instituted by the Ethiopian
+      Pharaohs. She already had one daughter by adoption, whom she had received
+      at the hands of Taharqa, and who, in changing her family, had assumed the
+      name of Amenertas in honour of the queen who had preceded Shapenuapît:
+      Psammetichus forced her to replace the Ethiopian princess by one of his
+      own daughters, who was henceforth called Shapenuapît, after her new
+      mother. A deputation of the nobles and priests of Thebes came to escort
+      the princess from Memphis, in the month of Tybi, in the ninth year of the
+      reign: Psammetichus formally presented her to them, and the ambassadors,
+      having listened to his address, expatiated in the customary eulogies on
+      his splendour and generosity. &ldquo;They shall endure as long as the world
+      lasteth; all that thou ordainest shall endure. How beautiful is that which
+      God hath done for thee, how glorious that which thy divine father hath
+      done for thee? He is pleased that thy double should be commemorated, he
+      rejoices in the pronouncing of thy name, for our lord Psammetichus has
+      made a gift to his father Amon, he has given him his eldest daughter, his
+      beloved Mtauqrît Shapenuapît, to be his divine spouse, that she may shake
+      the sistrum before him!&rdquo; On the 28th of Tybi the princess left the harem,
+      clothed in fine linen and adorned with ornaments of malachite, and
+      descended to the quay, accompanied by an immense throng, to set out for
+      her new home. Relays stationed along the river at intervals made the
+      voyage so expeditious that at the end of sixteen days the princess came in
+      sight of Thebes. She disembarked on the 14th of Khoiak, amid the
+      acclamations of the people: &ldquo;She comes, the daughter of the King of the
+      South, Nitauqrît, to the dwelling of Amon, that he may possess her and
+      unite her to himself; she comes, the daughter of the King of the North,
+      Shapenuapît, to the temple of Karnak, that the gods may there chant her
+      praises.&rdquo; As soon as the aged Shapenuapît had seen her coadjutor, &ldquo;she
+      loved her more than all things,&rdquo; and assigned her a dowry, the same as
+      that which she had received from her own parents, and which she had
+      granted to her first adopted daughter Amenertas. The magnates of Thebes&mdash;the
+      aged Montumihâît, his son Nsiphtah, and the prophets of Amon&mdash;vied
+      with each other in their gifts of welcome: Psammetichus, on his side, had
+      acted most generously, and the temples of Egypt assigned to the princess
+      an annual income out of their revenues, or bestowed upon her grants of
+      houses and lands, in all constituting a considerable inheritance, which
+      somewhat consoled the Thebans for their subjection to a dynasty emanating
+      from the cities of the north. The rest of the principality imitated the
+      example of Thebes and the whole of Egypt, from the shores of the
+      Mediterranean to the rocks of the first cataract, once more found itself
+      reunited under the sceptre of an Egyptian king. A small part of Nubia, the
+      portion nearest to Elephantine, followed this movement, but the greater
+      part refused to cut itself off from the Ethiopians. These latter were
+      henceforth confined to the regions along the middle course of the Nile,
+      isolated from the rest of the world by the deserts, the Red Sea, and
+      Egypt. It is probable that they did not give up without a struggle the
+      hope of regaining the ground they had lost, and that their armies made
+      more than one expedition in a northerly direction. The inhabitants of the
+      Thebaid could hardly fail to remain faithful to them at heart, and to
+      recognise in them the legitimate representatives of the posterity of Amon;
+      it is possible that now and again they succeeded in penetrating as far as
+      the ancient capital, but if so, their success was always ephemeral, and
+      their sojourn left no permanent traces. The same causes, however, which
+      had broken up the constituent elements, and destroyed the unity of Greater
+      Egypt at the end of the Theban period, were still at work in Saite times
+      to prevent the building up again of the empire. The preservation of the
+      balance of power in this long and narrow strip of country depended on the
+      centre of attraction and on the seat of government being nearly
+      equidistant from the two extremities. This condition had been fulfilled as
+      long as the court resided at Thebes; but as the removal of the seat of
+      government to the Delta caused the loss and separation of the southern
+      provinces, so its sudden return to the extreme south, with a temporary
+      sojourn at Napata, necessarily produced a similar effect, and led to the
+      speedy secession of the northern provinces. In either case, the dynasty
+      placed at one extremity of the empire was unable to sustain for any length
+      of time the weight depending on it at the other; when once the balance
+      became even slightly disturbed, it could not regain its equilibrium, and
+      there was consequently a sudden dislocation of the machinery of
+      government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The triumph of the Saite dynasty accomplished the final ruin of the work
+      begun under the Papis, and brought to completion by the Amenemhâîts and
+      the Usirtasens. Greater Egypt ceased to exist, after more than twenty
+      centuries of glorious life, and was replaced by the Little Egypt of the
+      first ages of history. The defeat of the military chiefs of the north, the
+      annexation of the principality of Amon, and the final expulsion of the
+      Ethiopians and the Asiatics had occupied scarcely nine years, but these
+      feats constituted only the smaller part of the work Psammetichus had to
+      accomplish: his subsequent task lay in restoring prosperity to his
+      kingdom, or, at all events, in raising it from the state of misery into
+      which two centuries of civil wars and invasions had plunged it. The
+      important cities had suffered grievously: Memphis had been besieged and
+      taken by assault by both Piônkhi and Esar-haddon, Thebes had been twice
+      sacked by the veterans of Assur-bani-pal, and from Syenê to Pelusium there
+      was not a township but had suffered at the hands of foreigners or of the
+      Egyptians themselves. The country had enjoyed a moment&rsquo;s breathing-space
+      under Sabaco, but the little good which this prince had been able to
+      accomplish was effaced immediately after his death: the canals and dykes
+      had been neglected, the supervision of the police relaxed, and the
+      population, periodically decimated or driven to take refuge in the
+      strongholds, had often allowed the lands to lie waste, so that famine had
+      been superadded to the other evils under which the land already groaned.
+      Psammetichus, having forced the feudal lords to submit to his supremacy,
+      deprived them of the royal titles they had unduly assumed; he no longer
+      tolerated their habits of private warfare, but restricted them to the
+      functions of hereditary governors, which their ancestors had exercised
+      under the conquering dynasties of former times,* and this enforced peace
+      soon allowed the rural population to devote themselves joyfully to their
+      regular occupations.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * During the last few years records of a certain number of
+     persons have been discovered whose names and condition prove
+     that they were the descendants of semi-independent princes
+     of the Ethiopian and Bubastite periods: e.g. a certain
+     Akaneshu, who was prince of Sebennytos under Psammetichus
+     I., and who very probably was the grandson of Akaneshu,
+     prince of the same town under Piônkhi; and a Sheshonq of
+     Busiris, who was perhaps a descendant of Sheshonq, prince of
+     Busiris under Piônkhi.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0028" id="linkCimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:47%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/347.jpg"
+       alt="347.jpg the Saite Fortress of Daphne " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a restoration by Fl. Petrie.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      With so fertile a soil, two or three years of security, during which the
+      fellahîn were able to sow and reap their crops free from the fear of
+      marauding bands, sufficed to restore abundance, if not wealth, to the
+      country, and Psammetichus succeeded in securing both these and other
+      benefits to Egypt, thanks to the vigilant severity of his administration.
+      He would have been unable to accomplish these reforms had he relied only
+      on the forces which had been at the disposal of his ancestors&mdash;the
+      native troops demoralised by poverty, and the undisciplined bands of
+      Libyan mercenaries, which constituted the sole normal force of the Tanite
+      and Bubastite Pharaohs and the barons of the Delta and Middle Egypt. His
+      experience of these two classes of soldiery had decided him to look
+      elsewhere for a less precarious support, and ever since chance had brought
+      him in contact with the Ionians and Carians, he had surrounded himself
+      with a regular army of Hellenic and Asiatic mercenaries. It is impossible
+      to exaggerate the terror that the apparition of these men produced in the
+      minds of the African peoples, or the revolution they effected, alike in
+      peace or war, in Oriental states: the charge of the Spanish soldiery among
+      the lightly clad foot-soldiers of Mexico and Peru could not have caused
+      more dismay than did that of the hoplites from beyond the sea among the
+      half-naked archers and pikemen of Egypt and Libya. With their bulging
+      corselets, the two plates of which protected back and chest, their greaves
+      made of a single piece of bronze reaching from the ankle to the knee,
+      their square or oval bucklers covered with metal, their heavy rounded
+      helmets fitting closely to the head and neck, and surmounted by crests of
+      waving plumes, they were, in truth, men of brass, invulnerable to any
+      Oriental weapon. Drawn up in close array beneath their &ldquo;tortoise,&rdquo; they
+      received almost unhurt the hail of arrows and stones hurled against them
+      by the lightly armed infantry, and then, when their own trumpet sounded
+      the signal for attack, and they let themselves fall with their whole
+      weight upon the masses of the enemy, brandishing their spears above the
+      upper edge of their bucklers, there was no force of native troops or
+      company of Mashauasha that did not waver beneath the shock and finally
+      give way before their attack. The Egyptians felt themselves incapable of
+      overcoming them except by superior numbers or by stratagem, and it was the
+      knowledge of their own hopeless inferiority which prevented the feudal
+      lords from attempting to revenge themselves on Psammetichus. To make
+      themselves his equals, they would have been obliged either to take a
+      sufficient number of similar warriors into their own pay&mdash;and this
+      they were not able to afford&mdash;or they must have won over those
+      already in the employ of their suzerain; but the liberality with which
+      Psammetichus treated his mercenaries gave them good cause to be faithful,
+      even if military honour had not sufficed to keep them loyal to their
+      employer. Psammetichus granted to them and their compatriots, who were
+      attracted by the fame of Egypt, a concession of the fertile lands of the
+      Delta stretching along the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and he was careful
+      to separate the Ionians from the Carians by the whole breadth of the
+      river: this was a wise precaution, for their union beneath a common flag
+      had not extinguished their inherited hatred of one another, and the
+      authority of the general did not always suffice to prevent fatal quarrels
+      breaking out between contingents of different nationalities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They occupied, moreover, regularly entrenched camps, enclosed within
+      massive walls, containing a collection of mud huts or houses of brick, the
+      whole enclosure commanded by a fortress which formed the headquarters of
+      the general and staff of officers. Some merchants from Miletus, emboldened
+      by the presence of their fellow-countrymen, sailed with thirty vessels
+      into the mouth of the Bolbitine branch of the Nile, and there founded a
+      settlement which they named the Port of the Milesians, and, following in
+      their wake, successive relays of emigrants arrived to reinforce the infant
+      colony. The king entrusted a certain number of Egyptian children to the
+      care of these Greek settlers, to be instructed in their language,* and the
+      interpreters thus educated in their schools increased in proportion as the
+      bonds of commercial and friendly intercourse between Greece and Egypt
+      became strengthened, so that ere long, in the towns of the Delta, they
+      constituted a regular class, whose function was to act as intermediaries
+      between the two races.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Diodorus, or rather the historian whom he follows, assures
+     us that Psammetichus went still further, and gave his own
+     children a Greek education; what is possible and even
+     probable, is, that he had them taught Greek. A bronze Apis
+     in the Gizeh Museum was dedicated by an interpreter who
+     inscribed on it a bilingual inscription in hieroglyphics and
+     Carian.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By thus bringing his subjects in contact with an active, industrious, and
+      enterprising nation, full of youthful vigour, Psammetichus no doubt hoped
+      to inspire them with some of the qualities which he discerned in the
+      colonists, but Egypt during the last two centuries had suffered too much
+      at the hands of foreigners of all kinds to be favourably disposed to these
+      new-comers. It would have been different had they presented themselves in
+      humble guise like the Asiatics and Africans to whom Egypt had opened her
+      doors so freely after the XVIIIth dynasty, and if they had adopted the
+      obsequious manners of the Phoenician and Hebrew merchants; but they landed
+      from their ships fully equipped for war, and, proud of their own courage
+      and ability, they vied with the natives of the ancient race, whether of
+      plebeian or noble birth, for the favour of the sovereign. Their language,
+      their rude military customs, their cunning devices in trade, even the
+      astonishment they manifested at the civilisation of the country, rendered
+      them objects of disdain, as well as of jealous hatred to the Egyptian. The
+      food of which they partook made them unclean in native estimation, and the
+      horrified fellah shunned contact with them from fear of defiling himself,
+      refusing to eat with them, or to use the same knife or cooking-vessel: the
+      scribes and members of the higher classes, astonished at their ignorance,
+      treated them like children with no past history, whose ancestors a few
+      generations back had been mere savages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although unexpressed at first, this hostility towards the Hellenes was not
+      long in manifesting itself openly. The Saite tradition attributed it to a
+      movement of wounded vanity. Psammetichus, to recompense the prowess of his
+      Ionian and Carian soldiers, had attached them to his own person, and
+      assigned to them the post of honour on the right wing when the army was
+      drawn up for review or in battle array.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Diodorus Siculus states that it was during the Syrian war
+     that the king thus honoured his mercenary troops. Wiedemann
+     thinks this is an erroneous inference drawn from the passage
+     of Herodotus, in which he explains the meaning of the word
+     Asmakh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0029" id="linkCimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:28%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/348a.jpg" alt="348a.jpg Egyptian Greek " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-
+Gudin, from Petrie.
+The original statuette
+in alabaster is
+now in the Gizeh Museum;
+the Cyprian style of the
+figure is easily recognised.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0030" id="linkCimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:12%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/348b.jpg" alt="348b.jpg Egyptian Greek " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by
+Faucher-Gudin,
+from Petrie.
+
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      They reaped thus the double advantage of the glory, which they greatly
+      prized, and of the higher pay attached to the title of body-guard, but the
+      troops who had hitherto enjoyed these advantages were naturally indignant
+      at losing them, and began to murmur. One particularly galling circumstance
+      at last caused their discontent to break out. The eastern and southern
+      frontiers of Egypt were conterminous with those of two conquering empires,
+      Assyria and Ethiopia, and on the west the Libyan tribes along the shores
+      of the Mediterranean were powerful enough to demand constant vigilance on
+      the part of the border garrisons. Psammetichus, among other reforms, had
+      reorganised the ancient system of defence. While placing outposts at the
+      entrance to the passes leading from the desert into the Nile valley, he
+      had concentrated considerable masses of troops at the three most
+      vulnerable points&mdash;the outlets of the road to Syria, the country
+      surrounding Lake Mareotis, and the first cataract; he had fortified
+      Daphnse, near the old town of Zalu, as a defence against the Assyrians,
+      Marea against the Libyan Bedâwin, and Elephantine against the Ethiopians.
+      These advanced posts had been garrisoned with native troops who were
+      quartered there for a year at a time. To be condemned to such an exile for
+      so long a period raised in them a sense of profound indignation, but when
+      the king apparently forgot them and left them there three years without
+      sending other troops to relieve them, their anger knew no bounds. They
+      resolved to put an end to such treatment, and as the hope of a successful
+      rebellion seemed but small, they decided to leave the country. Two hundred
+      and forty thousand of them assembled on a given day with their arms and
+      baggage, and marched in good order towards Ethiopia. Psammetichus, warned
+      of their intentions when ifc was too late, hastened after them with a
+      handful of followers, and coming up with them, besought them not to desert
+      their national gods, their wives, and their children. He had nearly
+      prevailed on them to return, when one soldier, with a significant gesture,
+      intimated that while manhood lasted they had power to create new families
+      wherever they might chance to dwell. The details of this story betray the
+      popular legend, but nevertheless have a basis of truth. The inscriptions
+      from the time of Psammetichus onwards never mention the Mashauasha, while
+      their name and their exploits constantly recur in the history of the
+      preceding dynasties: henceforth they and their chiefs vanish from sight,
+      and discord and brigandage simultaneously cease in the Egyptian nomes. It
+      was very probably the most turbulent among these auxiliaries who left the
+      country in the circumstances above narrated: since they could not contest
+      the superiority of their Greek rivals, they concluded that their own part
+      was played out, and rather than be relegated to the second rank, they
+      preferred to quit the land in a body. Psammetichus, thus deprived of their
+      support at the moment when Egypt had more than ever need of all her forces
+      to regain her rightful position in the world, reorganised the military
+      system as best he could. He does not seem to have relied much upon the
+      contingents from Upper Egypt, to whom was doubtless entrusted the defence
+      of the Nubian frontier, and who could not be withdrawn from their posts
+      without danger of invasion or revolt. But the source of imminent peril did
+      not lie in this direction, where Ethiopia, exhausted by the wars of
+      Taharqa and Tanuatamanu, perhaps needed repose even more than Egypt
+      itself, but rather on the Asiatic side, where Assur-bani-pal, in spite of
+      the complications constantly arising in Karduniash and Elam, had by no
+      means renounced his claims to the suzerainty of Egypt. The Pharaoh divided
+      the feudatory militia of the Delta into two classes, which resided apart
+      in different sets of nomes. The first group, who were popularly called
+      Hermotybies, were stationed at Busiris, Sais, and Khemmis, in the island
+      of Prosopitis, and in one half of Natho&mdash;in fact, in the district
+      which for the last century had formed the centre of the principality of
+      the Saite dynasty: perhaps they were mostly of Libyan origin, and
+      represented the bands of Mashauasha who, from father to son, had served
+      under Tafnakhti and his descendants. Popular report numbered them at
+      160,000 men, all told, and the total number of the other class, known as
+      the Calasiries, at 250,000; these latter belonged, in my opinion, to the
+      pure Egyptian race, and were met with at Thebes, while the troops of the
+      north, who were more generally called out, were scattered over the
+      territory which formerly supported the Tanite and Bubastite kings, and
+      latterly Pakruru, and which comprised the towns of Bubastis, Aphthis,
+      Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytos, Athribis, Pharbaathos, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anysis,
+      and Myecphoris. Each year one thousand Hermotybies and one thousand
+      Calasiries were chosen to form the royal body-guard, and these received
+      daily five minae of bread apiece, two minas of beef, and four bowls of
+      wine; the jealousy which had been excited by the Greek troops was thus
+      lessened, as well as the discontent provoked by the emigration.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * <i>Calasiris</i>, the exact transcription of <i>Khala-shiri,
+     Khala-shere</i>, signifying <i>young man</i>. The meaning and
+     original of the word transcribed Hermotybies by Herodotus,
+     and Hermotymbies according to a variant given by Stephen of
+     Byzantium, is as yet unknown, but it seems to me to conceal
+     a title analogous to that of <i>Hir-mazaîu</i>, and to designate
+     what remained of Libyan soldiers in Egypt. This organisation
+     of the army is described by Herodotus as existing in his own
+     days, and there were Calasiries and Hermotybies in the
+     Egyptian contingent which accompanied the army of Mardonius
+     to Greece; it is nowhere stated that it was the work of
+     Psammetichus, but everything points to the conclusion that
+     it was so, at all events in the form in which it was known
+     to the Greeks.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The King of Napata gladly welcomed the timely reinforcements which arrived
+      to fill up the vacancies in his army and among his people, weakened by a
+      century of rapid changes, and generously gave them permission to conquer
+      for themselves some territory in the possession of his enemies! Having
+      driven out the barbarians, they established themselves in the peninsula
+      formed by the White and Blue Niles, and their numbers increased so greatly
+      that in course of time they became a considerable nation. They called
+      themselves Asmakh, the men who stand on the king&rsquo;s left hand, in memory of
+      the affront put upon them, and which they had avenged by their self-exile:
+      Greek travellers and geographers called them sometimes Automoli, sometimes
+      Sembrites, names which clung to them till almost the beginning of our
+      present era.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This departure of the Mashauasha was as the last blast of wind after a
+      storm: the swell subsided by degrees, and peace reigned in the interior.
+      Thebes accommodated itself as best it could to the new order of things
+      under the nominal administration of the Divine Spouses, the two
+      Shapenuapîts. Building works were recommenced at all points where it
+      appeared necessary, and the need of restoration was indeed pressing after
+      the disorders occasioned by the Assyrian invasion and the Ethiopian
+      suzerainty. At Karnak, and in the great temples on both banks of the Nile,
+      Psammetichus, respecting the fiction which assigned the chief authority to
+      the Pallacides, effaced himself in favour of them, allowing them to claim
+      all the merit of the work; in the cities they erected small chapels, in
+      which they are portrayed as queens fulfilling their sacerdotal functions,
+      humbly escorted by the viceroy who in other respects exercised the real
+      power. The king&rsquo;s zeal for restoration is manifest all along the Nile, at
+      Coptos, Abydos,* and in the plains of the Delta, which are crowded with
+      memorials of him. His two favourite capitals were Memphis and Sais, on
+      both of which he impartially lavished his favours.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The first Egyptologists attributed the prénommai cartouche
+     of Psammetichus I. to Psammetichus II., and <i>vice versa</i>:
+     this error must always be kept in mind in referring to their
+     works.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At Memphis he built the propylons on the south side of the temple of
+      Phtah, and the court in which the living Apis took his exercise and was
+      fed: this court was surrounded by a colonnade, against the pillars of
+      which were erected statues twelve cubits high, probably representing
+      Osiris as in the Eames-seum and at Medinet-Habu. Apis even when dead also
+      received his share of attention. Since the days when Ramses II. had
+      excavated the subterranean Serapeum as a burial-place of the sacred bulls,
+      no subsequent Pharaoh who had reigned at Memphis had failed to embellish
+      their common tomb, and to celebrate with magnificence their rites of
+      sepulture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0031" id="linkCimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/355.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="355.jpg Chamber and Sarcophagus of an Apis " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving published in
+     Mariette.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The body of the Apis, carefully embalmed, was sealed up in a coffin or
+      sarcophagus of hard stone, the mouth of the vault was then walled up, and
+      against the fresh masonry, at the foot of the neighbouring rocks, on the
+      very floor of the passage, or wherever there was a clear space available,
+      the high dignitaries, the workmen or the priests who had taken any part in
+      the ceremonial, set up a votive stele calling down upon themselves and
+      their families divine benedictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0032" id="linkCimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/356.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="356.jpg the Great Gallery of The Serapeum " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving of Devéria.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The gallery was transformed by degrees into a kind of record-office, where
+      each dynasty in turn recorded its name, whenever a fresh apotheosis
+      afforded them the opportunity: these records were discovered in our own
+      time by Mariette, almost perfect in spite of the destroying hand of men,
+      and comprised inscriptions by the Bubastites, by Bocchoris, and even by
+      the Ethiopians. Taharqa, when menaced by the Assyrians, had stayed at
+      Memphis, only a year before his death, in the interval between two
+      campaigns, in order to bury an Apis, and Psammetichus likewise took care
+      not to neglect this part of his regal duties. He at first was content to
+      imitate his predecessors, but a subsidence having occurred in that part of
+      the Serapeum where the Apis who had died in the twentieth year of his
+      reign reposed, he ordered his engineers to bore another gallery in a
+      harder vein of limestone, and he performed the opening ceremony in his
+      fifty-second year. It was the commencement of a thorough restoration. The
+      vaults in which the sacred bulls were entombed were severally inspected,
+      the wrappings were repaired together with the mummy cases, the masonry of
+      the chapel was strengthened, and the building endowed with woods, stuffs,
+      perfumes, and the necessary oils. No less activity apparently was
+      displayed at Sais, the native home and favourite residence of the Pharaoh;
+      but all the monuments which adorned the place, including the temple of
+      Nit, and the royal palace, have been entirely destroyed; the enclosing
+      wall of unbaked bricks alone remains, and here and there, amid the <i>débris</i>
+      of the houses, may be seen some heaps of shattered stone where the public
+      buildings once stood. On several blocks the name and titles of
+      Psammetichus may yet be deciphered, and there are few cities in the Delta
+      which cannot make a similar show. From one end of the Nile valley to the
+      other the quarries were reopened, and the arts, stimulated by the orders
+      which flowed in, soon flourished anew. The engraving of hieroglyphics and
+      the art of painting both attained a remarkable degree of elegance; fine
+      statues and bas-reliefs were executed in large numbers, and a widely
+      spread school of art was developed. The local artists had scrupulously
+      observed and handed down the traditions which obtained in the time of the
+      Pyramids, and more especially those of the first Theban period; even the
+      few fragments that have come down to us of the works of these artists in
+      the age of the Ramessides recall rather the style of the VIth and XIIth
+      dynasties than that of their Theban contemporaries. Their style, brought
+      to perfection by evident imitation of the old Memphite masters, pleases us
+      by its somewhat severe elegance, the taste shown in the choice of detail,
+      and the extraordinary skill displayed in the working of the stone. The
+      Memphites had by preference used limestone for their sculpture, the
+      Thebans red and grey granite or sandstone; but the artists of the age of
+      Psammetichus unhesitatingly attacked basalt, breccia, or serpentine, and
+      obtained marvellous effects from these finely grained materials of regular
+      and even texture. The artistic renaissance which they brought to its
+      height had been already inaugurated under the Ethiopians, and many of the
+      statues we possess of the reign of Taharqa are examples of excellent
+      workmanship. That of Amenertas was over-praised at the time of its
+      discovery; the face, half buried by the wig which we usually associate
+      with the statues of the goddesses, has a dull and vacant expression in
+      spite of its set smile, and the modelling of the figure is rather weak,
+      but nevertheless there is something easy and refined in the gracefulness
+      of the statue as a whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkchieck" id="linkchieck"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="358 (103K)Chieck Beled&mdash;Gizeh Museum" src="images/358.jpg"
+       width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A statuette of another &ldquo;Divine Spouse,&rdquo; though mutilated and unfinished,
+      is pleasing from its greater breadth of style, although such breadth is
+      rarely found in the works of this school, which toned down, elongated, and
+      attenuated the figure till it often lost in vigour what it gained in
+      distinction. The one point in which the Saite artists made a real advance,
+      was in the treatment of the heads of their models.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0033" id="linkCimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/359.jpg"
+       alt="359.jpg Memphite Bas-relief of the Saite Epoch" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a heliogravure in Mariette. The bas-
+     relief was worked into the masonry of a house in Memphis in
+     the Byzantine period, and it was in order to fit it to the
+     course below that the masons bevelled the lower part of it.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The expression is often refined and idealised as in the case of older
+      works, but occasionally the portraiture is exact even to coarseness. It
+      was not the idealised likeness of Montumihâît which the artist wished to
+      portray, but Montumihâît himself, with his low forehead, his small
+      close-set eyes, his thin cheeks, and the deep lines about his nose and
+      mouth. And besides this, the wrinkles, the crows&rsquo; feet, the cranial
+      projections, the shape of ear and neck, are brought out with minute
+      fidelity. A statue was no longer, as in earlier days, merely a piece of
+      sacred stone, the support of the divine or human double, in which artistic
+      value was an accessory of no importance and was esteemed only as a
+      guarantee of resemblance: without losing aught of its religious
+      significance, a statue henceforward became a work of art, admired and
+      prized for the manner in which the sculptor faithfully represented his
+      model, as well as for its mystic utility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Psammetichus lasted till nearly the end of the century, and
+      was marked by peace both at home and abroad. No doubt skirmishes of some
+      kind took place in Lydia and Nubia, but we know nothing of them, nor have
+      we any account of engagements with the Asiatics which from time to time
+      must have taken place during this reign. Psammetichus followed with a
+      vigilant eye the revolutionary changes beyond the isthmus, actuated at
+      first by the fear of an offensive movement on the part of Syria, and when
+      that ceased to be a danger, by the hope of one day recovering, in Southern
+      Syria, at all events, that leading position which his predecessors had
+      held so long. Tradition asserts that he wisely confined his ambition to
+      the conquest of the Philistine Pentapolis; it is even reported that he
+      besieged Ashdod for twenty-nine years before gaining possession of it. If
+      we disregard the cipher, which is evidently borrowed from some popular
+      romance, the fact in itself is in no way improbable. Ashdod was a
+      particularly active community, and had played a far more important part in
+      earlier campaigns than any other member of the Pentapolis. It possessed
+      outside the town proper, which was situated some little distance from the
+      coast, a seaport similar to that of Gaza, and of sufficient size to
+      shelter a whole fleet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0034" id="linkCimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/361.jpg" width="100%" alt="361.jpg the Ruins of Sais " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudior, from a photograph by Golenischeff.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Whoever held this harbour could exercise effective control over the main
+      routes leading from Syria into Egypt. Psammetichus probably undertook this
+      expedition towards the end of his life, when the victories gained by the
+      Medes had demonstrated the incapacity of Assyria to maintain the defence
+      of her distant provinces.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * At one time I was inclined to explain this period of
+     twenty-nine years by assuming that the fall of Ashdod took
+     place in the twenty-ninth year of the king&rsquo;s reign, and that
+     Herodotus had mistaken the date of its surrender for the
+     duration of the siege: such an hypothesis is, however,
+     unnecessary, since it is very probable that we have here one
+     of those exaggerated estimates of time so dear to the hearts
+     of popular historians. If we are to believe the account
+     given by Diodorus, it was in Syria that Psammetichus granted
+     the honour of a place in the right wing of his army to the
+     Greek mercenaries: the capture of Ashdod must, in this case,
+     have occurred before the emigration of the native troops. In
+     Jer. xxv. 20, reference is made to &ldquo;the remnant of Ashdod,&rdquo;
+      in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e. about 603 B.C., and
+     the decadence of the city is generally attributed to the war
+     with Egypt; it might with equal probability be ascribed to
+     the Scythian invasion.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The attack of the Scythians, which might have proved dangerous to Egypt,
+      had it been pushed far enough, had left her unharmed, and was in the end
+      even advantageous to her. It was subsequent to the retreat of the
+      barbarians, no doubt, that Psam-metichus sent his troops into Philistia
+      and succeeded in annexing the whole or part of it. After this success he
+      was content to wait and watch the course of events. The surprising revival
+      of Egypt must have had the effect of infusing fresh life into the Egyptian
+      factions existing in all the autonomous states, and in the prefectures of
+      Syria. The appearance of the Pharaoh&rsquo;s troops, and the toleration of their
+      presence within the territory of the Assyrian empire, aroused on all sides
+      the hope of deliverance, and incited the malcontents to take some
+      immediate action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We do not know what may have happened at Tyre and Sidon, or among the
+      peoples of Edom and Arabia, but Judah, at any rate, under the rule of
+      Josiah, carefully abstained from any action inconsistent with the pledge
+      of fidelity which it had given to Assyria. Indeed, the whole kingdom was
+      completely absorbed in questions of a theological nature, and the
+      agitations which affected the religious life of the nation reacted on its
+      political life as well. Josiah, as he grew older, began to identify
+      himself more and more with the doctrines taught by the prophets, and,
+      thanks to his support, the party which sought to complete the reforms
+      outlined by Hezekiah gained fresh recruits every day. The opposition which
+      they had formerly aroused among the priests of the temple had gradually
+      died out, partly as the result of genuine conviction, and partly because
+      the priests had come to realise that the establishment of a single
+      exclusive sanctuary would work for their own interest and advantage. The
+      high priest Hilkiah took up the line followed by Jeremiah, and was
+      supported by a number of influential personages such as Shaphan the
+      scribe, son of Azaliah, Ahikam, Achbor son of Micaiab, and a prophetess
+      named Huldah, who had married the keeper of the royal wardrobe. The
+      terrors of the Scythian invasion had oppressed the hearts and quickened
+      the zeal of the orthodox. Judah, they declared, had no refuge save Jahveh
+      alone; all hope was lost if it persisted in the doctrines which had
+      aroused against the faithless the implacable wrath of Jahveh; it must
+      renounce at once those idols and superstitious rites with which His
+      worship had been disfigured, and overthrow the altars which were to be
+      found in every part of the country in order to concentrate all its
+      devotion on the temple of Solomon. In a word, Judah must return to an
+      observance of the strict letter of the law, as it had been followed by
+      their forefathers. But as this venerable code was not to be found either
+      in the &ldquo;Book of the Covenant&rdquo; or in any of the other writings held sacred
+      by Israel, the question naturally arose as to where it was now hidden. In
+      the eighteenth year of his reign, Josiah sent Shaphan the scribe to the
+      temple in order to audit the accounts of the sums collected at the gates
+      for the maintenance of the building. After the accounts had been checked,
+      Hilkiah suddenly declared that he had &ldquo;found the Book of the Law&rdquo; in the
+      temple, and thereupon handed the document to Shaphan, who perused it
+      forthwith. On his return to the palace, the scribe made his report: &ldquo;Thy
+      servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have
+      delivered it into the hand of the workmen;&rdquo; then he added &ldquo;Hilkiah the
+      priest hath delivered me a book,&rdquo; and proceeded to read it to the king.
+      When the latter had heard the words contained in this Book of the Law, he
+      was seized with anguish, and rent his garments; then, unable to arrive at
+      any decision by himself, he sent Hilkiah, Shaphan, Ahikam, Achbor, and
+      Asaiah to inquire of Jahveh for him and for his people, &ldquo;for great is the
+      wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not
+      hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which
+      is written concerning us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0035" id="linkCimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/364.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="364.jpg Decorations on the Wrappings of a Mummy. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The envoys betook themselves not to the official oracle or the recognised
+      prophets, but to a woman, the prophetess Huldah, who was attached to the
+      court in virtue of her husband&rsquo;s office; and she bade them, in the name of
+      the Most High, to summon a meeting of the faithful, and, after reading the
+      new code to them, to call upon all present to promise that they would
+      henceforth observe its ordinances: thus Jahveh would be appeased, and
+      since the king had &ldquo;rent his garments and wept before Me, I also have
+      heard thee, saith Jahveh. Therefore, behold, I will gather thee to thy
+      fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace.&rdquo; Josiah
+      thereupon having summoned the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, went up into
+      the temple, and there, standing on the platform, he read the Book of the
+      Law in the presence of the whole people.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxii. 3-20; xxiii. 1, 2. The narrative has
+     undergone slight interpolation in places, e.g. verses 46,
+     5a, 6, and 7, where the compiler has made it harmonise with
+     events previously recorded in connection with the reign of
+     Joash (2 Kings xii. 6-16). The beginning of Huldah&rsquo;s
+     prophecy was suppressed, when the capture of Jerusalem
+     proved that the reform of divine worship had not succeeded
+     in averting the wrath of Jahveh. It probably contained
+     directions to read the <i>Book of the Covenant</i> to the people,
+     and to persuade them to adopt its precepts, followed by a
+     promise to save Judah provided it remained faithful to its
+     engagements.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It dealt with questions which had been frequent subjects of debate in
+      prophetic circles since the days of Hezekiah, and the anonymous writer who
+      had compiled it was so strongly imbued with the ideas of Jeremiah, and had
+      so closely followed his style, that some have been inclined to ascribe the
+      work to Jeremiah himself. It has always been a custom among Orientals to
+      affirm that any work for which they profess particular esteem was
+      discovered in the temple of a god; the Egyptian priests, for instance,
+      invented an origin of this nature for the more important chapters of their
+      Book of the Dead, and for the leading treatises in the scientific
+      literature of Egypt. The author of the Book of the Law had ransacked the
+      distant past for the name of the leader who had delivered Israel from
+      captivity in Egypt. He told how Moses, when he began to feel the hand of
+      death upon him, determined to declare in Gilead the decrees which Jahveh
+      had delivered to him for the guidance of His people.* In these ordinances
+      the indivisible nature of God, and His jealousy of any participation of
+      other deities in the worship of His people, are strongly emphasised. &ldquo;Ye
+      shall surely destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall
+      possess served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills, and
+      under every green tree: and ye shall break down their altars, and dash in
+      pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew
+      down the graven images of their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out
+      of that place.&rdquo; **
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Even St. Jerome and St. John Chrysostom admitted that
+     Deuteronomy was the book discovered by Hilkiah in the temple
+     during the reign of Josiah, and this view is accepted at
+     present, though it is applied, not to the book of
+     Deuteronomy as it appears in the Pentateuch, but rather to
+     the nucleus of this book, and especially chaps, xii.-xxvi.
+
+     ** Deut. xii. 2, 3.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Even were a prophet or dreamer of dreams to arise in the midst of the
+      faithful and direct them by a sign or a miracle to turn aside after those
+      accursed gods, they must not follow the teaching of these false guides,
+      not even if the sign or miracle actually came to pass, but must seize and
+      slay them. Even &ldquo;if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy
+      daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own
+      soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,...
+      thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him: neither shall thine
+      eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
+      but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put
+      him to death, and, afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt
+      stone him with stones that he die; because he hath sought to draw thee
+      away from Jahveh!&rdquo;* And this Jahveh was not the Jahveh of any special
+      place. He was not the Jahveh of Bethel, or of Dan, or of Mizpah, or of
+      Geba, or of Beersheba; He is simply Jahveh.** Yet the seat of His worship
+      was not a matter of indifference to Him. &ldquo;Unto the place which Jahveh
+      shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there, even unto His
+      habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come: and thither shall
+      ye bring your... sacrifices and your tithes.&rdquo; *** Jerusalem is not
+      mentioned by name, but the reference to it was clear, since every one knew
+      that the suppression of the provincial sanctuaries must necessarily
+      benefit it. One part of the new code dealt with the relations between
+      different members of the community. The king was to approximate as closely
+      as possible to the ideal priest; he was not to lift up his heart above his
+      brethren, nor set his mind on the possession of many chariots, horses, or
+      wives, but must continually read the law of God and ponder over His
+      ordinances, and observe them word for word all the days of his life.****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Deut. xiii. 1-10.
+
+     ** Deut. vi. 4. The expression found in Zecli. xiv. 9 was
+     borrowed from the second of the introductions added to
+     <i>Deuteronomy</i> at a later date; the phrase harmonises so
+     closely with the main purpose of the book itself, that there
+     can be no objection to employing it here.
+
+     *** Deut. xii. 5, 6.
+
+     **** Deut. xvii. 14-20; cf. xx. 1-9 for the regulations in
+     regard to the levying of troops.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Even in time of war he was not to put his trust in his soldiers or in his
+      own personal valour; here again he must allow himself to be guided by
+      Jahveh, and must undertake nothing without first consulting Him through
+      the medium of His priests. The poor,* the widow, and the orphan,** the
+      bondservant,*** and even the stranger within the gates&mdash;in
+      remembrance of the bondage in Egypt ****&mdash;were all specially placed
+      under the divine protection; every Jew who had become enslaved to a
+      fellow-countryman was to be set at liberty at the end of six years, and
+      was to receive a small allowance from his master which would ensure him
+      for a time against starvation.^
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * As to the poor, and the charitable obligations towards
+     them imposed by their common religion, cf. Deut. xv. 7-11;
+     as to the rights of the hired servant, cf. xxiv. 14, 15.
+
+     ** Deut. xxiv. 17-22 forbids the taking of a widow&rsquo;s
+     clothing in pledge, and lays down regulations in regard to
+     gleaning permitted to widows and orphans (cf. Lev. xix. 9,
+     10); reference is also made to their share in triennial
+     tithe (Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13) and in the solemn
+     festivals (Deut. xvi. 11-14).
+
+     *** Slaves were allowed to share in the rejoicings during
+     the great festivals (Deut. xvi. 11, 14), and certain rights
+     were accorded to women taken prisoners in war who had become
+     their captors&rsquo; concubines (Deut. xxi. 10-14).
+
+     ****Participation of the stranger in the triennial tithe
+     (Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13).
+
+     ^ Deut. xv. 12-18.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The regulations in regard to divine worship had not as yet been drawn up
+      in that spirit of hair-splitting minuteness which, later on, became a
+      characteristic of Hebrew legislation. Only three great festivals are
+      mentioned in the Book of the Law. The Passover was celebrated in the month
+      of Abîb, when the grain is in the ear, and had already come to be regarded
+      as commemorative of the Exodus; but the other two, the Feast of Weeks and
+      the Feast of Tabernacles, were merely associated with the agricultural
+      seasons, and took place, the former seven weeks after the beginning of the
+      harvest, the latter after the last of the crops had been housed.* The
+      claim of the priest to a share in the victim and in the offerings made on
+      various occasions is maintained, and the lawgiver allows him to draw a
+      similar benefit from the annual and triennial tithes which he imposes on
+      corn and wine and on the firstborn of cattle, the produce of this tithe
+      being devoted to a sort of family festival celebrated in the Holy Place.**
+      The priest was thus placed on the same footing as the poor, the widow, the
+      orphan, and the stranger, and his influence was but little greater than it
+      had been in the early days of the monarchy. It was to the prophet and not
+      to the priest that the duty belonged of directing the public conscience in
+      all those cases for which the law had made no provision. &ldquo;I will put My
+      words into his mouth (said Jahveh), and he shall speak unto them all that
+      I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not
+      hearken unto My words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it
+      of him. But the prophet which shall speak a word presumptuously in My
+      name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the
+      name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine
+      heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?&mdash;when
+      a prophet speaketh in the name of Jahveh, if the thing follow not, nor
+      come to pass, that is the thing which Jahveh hath not spoken: the prophet
+      hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Deut. xvi. 1-17.
+
+     ** Deut. xviii. 1-8; as to the share in the triennial tithe,
+     cf. Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When the reading of the law had ended, Josiah implored the people to make
+      a covenant with Jahveh; that is to say, &ldquo;to walk after Jahveh, and to keep
+      His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all their
+      hearts and all their souls, to confirm the words of this covenant that
+      were written in this book.&rdquo; The final words, which lingered in every ear,
+      contained imprecations of even more terrible and gloomy import than those
+      with which the prophets had been wont to threaten Judah. &ldquo;If thou wilt not
+      hearken unto the voice of Jahveh thy God, to observe to do all His
+      commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; then all
+      these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be
+      in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy
+      basket and thy kneading-trough. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and
+      the fruit of thy ground, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy
+      flock.... Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her;
+      thou shalt build an house, and shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a
+      vineyard, and shalt not use the fruit thereof. Thine ox shall be slain
+      before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof.... Thy sons and thy
+      daughters shall be given unto another people; and thine eyes shall look,
+      and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be naught in
+      the power of thine hand.... Jahveh shall bring a nation against thee from
+      far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue
+      thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shalt not
+      regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young.&rdquo; This enemy
+      was to burn and destroy everything: &ldquo;and he shall besiege thee in all thy
+      gates, throughout all thy land, which Jahveh thy God hath given thee. And
+      thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of
+      thy daughters... in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall straiten
+      thee.&rdquo; Those who escape must depart into captivity, and there endure for
+      many a long year the tortures of direst slavery; &ldquo;thy life shall hang in
+      doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have none
+      assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were
+      even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear
+      of thine heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes
+      which thou shalt see.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Deut. xxviii. The two sets of imprecations (xxvii.,
+     xxviii.) which terminate the actual work are both of later
+     redaction, but the original MS. undoubtedly ended with some
+     analogous formula. I have quoted above the most
+     characteristic parts of the twenty-eighth chapter.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The assembly took the oath required of them, and the king at once
+      displayed the utmost zeal in exacting literal performance of the
+      ordinances contained in the Book of the Law. His first step was to purify
+      the temple: Hilkiah and his priests overthrew all the idols contained in
+      it, and all the objects that had been fashioned in honour of strange gods&mdash;the
+      Baals, the Asherim, and all the Host of Heaven&mdash;and, carrying them
+      out of Jerusalem into the valley of the Kidron, cast them into the flames,
+      and scattered the ashes upon the place where all the filth of the city was
+      cast out. The altars and the houses of the Sodomites which defiled the
+      temple courts were demolished, the chariots of the sun broken in pieces,
+      and the horses of the god sent to the stables of the king&rsquo;s chamberlain;*
+      the sanctuaries and high places which had been set up at the gates of the
+      city, in the public places, and along the walls were razed to the ground,
+      and the Tophet, where the people made their children pass through the
+      fire, was transformed into a common sewer.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * [The Hebrew text admits of this meaning, which is,
+     however, not clear in the English A.V.&mdash;Tr.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The provincial sanctuaries shared the fate of those of the capital; in a
+      short time, from Geba to Beersheba, there remained not one of those &ldquo;high
+      places,&rdquo; at which the ancestors of the nation and their rulers had offered
+      prayers for generations past. The wave of reform passed even across the
+      frontier and was borne into the Assyrian province of Samaria; the temple
+      and image which Jeroboam had set up at Bethel were reduced to ashes, and
+      human bones were burnt upon the altar to desecrate it beyond possibility
+      of purification.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 3-20, 24-27, where several glosses and
+     interpolations are easily recognisable, such as the episode
+     at Bethel (v. 15-20), the authenticity of which is otherwise
+     incontestable. The account in 2 Chron. xxxiv. is a defaced
+     reproduction of that of 2 Kings, and it places the reform,
+     in part at least, before the discovery of the new law.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The governor offered no objection to these acts; he regarded them, in the
+      first place, as the private affairs of the subjects of the empire, with
+      which he had no need to interfere, so long as the outburst of religious
+      feeling did not tend towards a revolt: we know, moreover, that Josiah,
+      guided on this point by the prophets, would have believed that he was
+      opposing the divine will had he sought to free himself from the Assyrian
+      yoke by ordinary political methods; besides this, in 621, under
+      Assur-etililâni, five years after the Scythian invasion, the prefect of
+      Samaria had possibly not sufficient troops at his disposal to oppose the
+      encroachments of the vassal princes. It was an affair of merely a few
+      months. In the following year, when the work of destruction was over,
+      Josiah commanded that the Passover should be kept in the manner prescribed
+      in the new book; crowds flocked into Jerusalem, from Israel as well as
+      from Judah, and the festival made a deep impression on the minds of the
+      people. Centuries afterwards the Passover of King Josiah was still
+      remembered: &ldquo;There was not kept such a Passover from the days of the
+      Judges... nor in all the days of the Kings of Israel, nor of the Kings of
+      Judah.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 2 Kings xxiii. 21-23; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-19. The text of
+     the Soptuagint appears to imply that it was the first
+     Passover celebrated in Jerusalem. It also gives in chap.
+     xxii. 3, after the mention of the eighteenth year, a date of
+     the seventh or eighth month, which is not usually accepted,
+     as it is in contradiction with what is affirmed in chap,
+     xxiii. 21-23, viz. that the Passover celebrated at Jerusalem
+     was in the same year as the reform, in the eighteenth year.
+     It is to do away with the contradiction between these two
+     passages that the Hebrew text has suppressed the mention of
+     the month. I think, however, it ought to be considered
+     authentic and be retained, if we are allowed to place the
+     celebration of the Passover in what would be one year after.
+     To do this it would not be needful to correct the regnal
+     date in the text: admitting that the reform took place in
+     621, the Passover of 620 would still quite well have taken
+     place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, that being dependent
+     on the time of year at which the king had ascended the
+     throne.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The first outburst of zeal having spent itself, a reaction was ere long
+      bound to set in both among the ruling classes and among the people, and
+      the spectacle that Asia at that time presented to their view was truly of
+      a nature to incite doubts in the minds of the faithful. Assyria&mdash;that
+      Assyria of which the prophets had spoken as the irresistible emissary of
+      the Most High&mdash;had not only failed to recover from the injuries she
+      had received at the hands, first of the Medes, and then of the Scythians,
+      but had with each advancing year seen more severe wounds inflicted upon
+      her, and hastening her irretrievably to her ruin. And besides this, Egypt
+      and Chaldæa, the ancient kingdoms which had for a short time bent beneath
+      her yoke, had now once more arisen, and were astonishing the world by
+      their renewed vigour. Psammetichus, it is true, after having stretched his
+      arm across the desert and laid hands upon the citadel which secured to him
+      an outlet into Syria for his armies, had proceeded no further, and thus
+      showed that he was not inclined to reassert the ancient rights of Egypt
+      over the countries of the Jordan and the Orontes; but he had died in 611,
+      and his son, Necho II., who succeeded him, did not manifest the same
+      peaceful intentions.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The last dated stele of Psammetichus I. is the official
+     epitaph of the Apis which died in his fifty-second year. On
+     the other hand, an Apis, born in the fifty-third year of
+     Psammetichus, died in the sixteenth year of Necho, after
+     having lived 16 years, 7 months, 17 days. A very simple
+     calculation shows that Psammetichus I. reigned fifty-four
+     years, as stated by Herodotus and Manetho, according to
+     Julius Africanus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If he decided to try his fortune in Syria, supported by his Greek and
+      Egyptian battalions, what would be the attitude that Judah would assume
+      between moribund Assyria and the kingdom of the Pharaohs in its renewed
+      vigour? It was in the spring of 608 that the crisis occurred. Nineveh,
+      besieged by the Medes, was on the point of capitulating, and it was easy
+      to foresee that the question as to who should rule there would shortly be
+      an open one: should Egypt hesitate longer in seizing what she believed to
+      be her rightful heritage, she would run the risk of finding the question
+      settled and another in possession. Necho quitted Memphis and made his way
+      towards the Asiatic frontier with the army which his father had left to
+      him. It was no longer composed of the ill-organised bands of the Ethiopian
+      kings or the princes of the Delta, temporarily united under the rule of a
+      single leader, but all the while divided by reciprocal hatreds and
+      suspicions which doomed it to failure. All the troops which constituted it&mdash;Egyptians,
+      Libyans, and Greeks alike&mdash;were thoroughly under the control of their
+      chief, and advanced in a compact and irresistible mass &ldquo;like the Nile:
+      like a river its volume rolls onward. It said: I arise, I inundate the
+      earth, I will drown cities and people! Charge, horses! Chariots, fly
+      forward at a gallop! Let the warriors march, the Ethiopian and the Libyan
+      under the shelter of his buckler, the fellah bending the bow!&rdquo;*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. xlvi. 7-9, where the prophet describes, not the army
+     which marched against Josiah, but that which was beaten at
+     Carchemish. With a difference of date of only three or four
+     years, the constituent elements of the army were certainly
+     the same, so that the description of one would apply to the
+     other.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Josiah heard the news, he called together his troops and
+      prepared to resist the attack. Necho affected not to take his
+      demonstrations seriously, and sent a disdainful message recommending him
+      to remain neutral: &ldquo;What have I to do with thee, thou King of Judah? I
+      come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have
+      war: and God hath commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling
+      with God who is with me, that He destroy thee not!&rdquo;*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The message of Necho to Josiah is known to us from 2
+     Chron. xxxv. 20-22.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having despatched the message, probably at the moment of entering the
+      Shephelah, he continued in a northerly direction, nothing doubting that
+      his warning had met a friendly reception; but however low Nineveh had
+      fallen, Josiah could not feel that he was loosed from the oaths which
+      bound him to her, and, trusting in the help of Jahveh, he threw himself
+      resolutely into the struggle. The Egyptian generals were well acquainted
+      with the route as far as the farther borders of Philistia, having passed
+      along it a few years previously, at the time of the campaign of
+      Psammetichus; but they had no experience of the country beyond Ashdod, and
+      were solely dependent for guidance on the information of merchants or the
+      triumphant records of the old Theban Pharaohs. These monuments followed
+      the traditional road which had led their ancestors from Gaza to Megiddo,
+      from Megiddo to Qodshu, from Qodshu to Carchemish, and they were reckoning
+      on passing through the valley of the Jordan, and then that of the Orontes,
+      without encountering any resistance, when, at the entrance to the gorges
+      of Carmel, they were met by the advance guard of the Judæan army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josiah, not having been warned in time to meet them as they left the
+      desert, had followed a road parallel to their line of march, and had taken
+      up his position in advance of them on the plain of Megiddo, on the very
+      spot where Thutmosis III. had vanquished the Syrian confederates nearly
+      ten centuries before. The King of Judah was defeated and killed in the
+      confusion of the battle, and the conqueror pushed on northwards without,
+      at that moment, giving the fate of the scattered Jews a further thought.*
+      He rapidly crossed the plain of the Orontes by the ancient caravan track,
+      and having reached the Euphrates, he halted under the walls of Carchemish.
+      Perhaps he may have heard there of the fall of Nineveh, and the fear of
+      drawing down upon himself the Medes or the Babylonians prevented him from
+      crossing the river and raiding the country of the Balikh, which, from the
+      force of custom, the royal scribes still persisted in designating by the
+      disused name of Mitanni.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 29; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 22, 23. It is
+     probably to this battle that Herodotus alludes when he says
+     that Necho overcame the Syrians at Magdôlos. The identity of
+     Magdôlos and Megiddo, accepted by almost all historians, was
+     disputed by Gutschmid, who sees in the Magdôlos of Herodotus
+     the Migdol of the Syro-Egyptian frontier, and in the
+     engagement itself, an engagement of Necho with the Assyrians
+     and their Philistine allies; also by Th. Reinach, who
+     prefers to identify Magdôlos with one of the Migdols near
+     Ascalon, and considers this combat as fought against the
+     Assyrian army of occupation. If the information in Herodotus
+     were indeed borrowed from Hecatasus of Miletus, and by the
+     latter from the inscription placed by Necho in the temple of
+     Branchidae, it appears to me impossible to admit that
+     Magdôlos does not here represent Megiddo.
+
+     ** The text of 2 Kings xxiii. 29 says positively that Necho
+     was marching towards the Euphrates. The name Mitanni is
+     found even in Ptolemaic times.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He returned southwards, after having collected the usual tributes and
+      posted a few garrisons at strategic points; at Biblah he held a kind of <i>Durbar</i>
+      to receive the homage of the independent Phoenicians* and of the old
+      vassals of Assyria, who, owing to the rapidity of his movements, had not
+      been able to tender their offerings on his outward march.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The submission of the Phoenicians to Necho is gathered
+     from a passage in Berosus, where he says that the Egyptian
+     army beaten at Carchemish comprised Phoenicians, besides
+     Syrians and Arabs.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0036" id="linkCimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:15%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/378.jpg" alt="378.jpg Victorious Necho " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-
+Gudin, from a
+photograph
+published in
+Mariette.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Jews had rescued the body of their king and had brought it back in his
+      chariot to Jerusalem; they proclaimed in his stead, not his eldest son
+      Eliakim, but the youngest, Shallum, who adopted the name of Jehoahaz on
+      ascending the throne. He was a young man, twenty-three years of age, light
+      and presumptuous of disposition, opposed to the reform movement, and had
+      doubtless been unwise enough to display his hostile feelings towards the
+      conqueror. Necho summoned him to Eiblah, deposed him after a reign of
+      three months, condemned him to prison, and replaced him by Eliakim, who
+      changed his name to that of Jehoiakim&mdash;&ldquo;he whom Jahveh exalts;&rdquo; and
+      after laying Judah under a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and
+      one of gold, the Egyptian monarch returned to his own country. Certain
+      indications lead us to believe that he was obliged to undertake other
+      punitive expeditions. The Philistines, probably deceived by false rumours
+      of his defeat, revolted against him about the time that he was engaged in
+      hostilities in Northern Syria, and on receiving news not only of his
+      safety, but of the victory he had gained, their alarm was at once aroused.
+      Judah forgot her own sorrows on seeing the peril in which they stood, and
+      Jeremiah pronounced against them a prophecy full of menace. &ldquo;Behold,&rdquo; he
+      cried, &ldquo;waters rise up out of the north, and shall become an overflowing
+      stream, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and
+      them that dwell therein; and the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of
+      the land shall howl... for the Lord will spoil the Philistines, the
+      remnant of the Isle of Caphtor. Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ascalon is
+      dumb with terror, and you, all that are left of the giants, how long will
+      ye tear your faces in your mourning?&rdquo; * Ascalon was sacked and then Gaza,**
+      and Necho at length was able to re-enter his domains, doubtless by the
+      bridge of Zalu, following in this his models, his heroic ancestors of the
+      great Theban dynasties.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * [R.V., &ldquo;Ashkolon is brought to nought, the remnant of
+     their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?&rdquo;&mdash;Tr.]
+
+     ** Jer. xlvii., which is usually attributed to a period
+     subsequent to the defeat at Carchemish or even later; the
+     title, which alone mentions the Egyptians, is wanting in the
+     LXX. If we admit that the enemy coming from the north is the
+     Egyptian and not the Chaldaean, as do most writers, the only
+     time that danger could have threatened Philistia from the
+     Egyptians coming from the north, was when Necho, victorious,
+     was returning from his first campaign. In this case, the
+     Kadytis of Herodotus, which has caused so much trouble to
+     commentators, would certainly be Gaza, and there would be no
+     difficulty in explaining how the tradition preserved by the
+     Greek historian placed the taking of this town after the
+     battle of Megiddo.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He wished thereupon to perpetuate the memory of the Greeks who had served
+      him so bravely, and as soon as the division of the spoil had been made, he
+      sent as an offering to the temple of Apollo at Miletus, the cuirass which
+      he had worn throughout the campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can picture the reception which his subjects gave him, and how the
+      deputations of priests and nobles in white robes flocked out to meet him
+      with garlands of flowers in their hands, and with acclamations similar to
+      those which of old had heralded the return of Seti I. or Ramses II.
+      National pride, no doubt, was flattered by this revival of military glory,
+      but other motives than those of vanity lay at the root of the delight
+      exhibited by the whole country at the news of the success of the
+      expedition. The history of the century which was drawing to its close, had
+      demonstrated more than once how disadvantageous it was to Egypt to be
+      separated from a great power merely by the breadth of the isthmus. If
+      Taharqa, instead of awaiting the attack on the banks of the Nile, had met
+      the Assyrians at the foot of Carmel, or even before Gaza, it would have
+      been impossible for Esarhaddon to turn the glorious kingdom of the
+      Pharaohs into an Assyrian province after merely a few weeks of fighting.
+      The dictates of prudence, more than those of ambition, rendered,
+      therefore, the conquest of Syria a necessity, and Necho showed his wisdom
+      in undertaking it at the moment when the downfall of Nineveh reduced all
+      risk of opposition to a minimum; it remained to be seen whether the
+      conquerors of Sin-shar-ishkun would tolerate for long the interference of
+      a third robber, and would consent to share the spoil with these Africans,
+      who, having had none of the trouble, had hastened to secure the profit.
+      All the Mediterranean dependencies of Assyria, such as Mesopotamia, Syria,
+      and Judæ, fell naturally within the sphere of Babylon rather than that of
+      Media, and, indeed, Cyaxares never troubled himself about them; and
+      Nabopolassar, who considered them his own by right, had for the moment too
+      much in hand to permit of his reclaiming them. The Aramæans of the Khabur
+      and the Balikh, the nomads of the Mesopotamian plain, had not done homage
+      to him, and the country districts were infested with numerous bands of
+      Cimmerians and Scythians, who had quite recently pillaged the sacred city
+      of Harrân and violated the temple of the god Sin.* Nabopolassar, who was
+      too old to command his troops in person, probably entrusted the conduct of
+      them to Nebuchadrezzar, who was the son he had appointed to succeed him,
+      and who had also married the Median princess. Three years sufficed this
+      prince to carry the frontier of the new Chaldæan empire as far as the
+      Syrian fords of the Euphrates, within sight of Thapsacus and Carchemish.
+      Harrân remained in the hands of the barbarians,** probably on condition of
+      their paying a tribute, but the district of the Subaru was laid waste, its
+      cities reduced to ashes, and the Babylonian suzerainty established on the
+      southern slopes of the Masios.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * <i>Inscrip. of the Cylinder of Nabonidus</i> mentions the
+     pillage of Harrân as having taken place fifty-four years
+     before the date of its restoration by Nabonidus. This was
+     begun, as we know, in the third year of that king, possibly
+     in 554-3. The date of the destruction is, therefore, 608-7,
+     that is to say, a few months before the destruction of
+     Nineveh.
+
+     ** The passage in the <i>Cylinder of Nabonidus</i> shows that the
+     barbarians remained in possession of the town.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having brought these preliminary operations to a successful issue,
+      Nabopolassar, considering himself protected on the north and north-east by
+      his friendship with Cyaxares, no longer hesitated to make an effort to
+      recover the regions dominated by Egyptian influence, and, if the occasion
+      presented itself, to reduce to submission the Pharaoh who was in his eyes
+      merely a rebellious satrap. Nebuchadrezzar again placed himself at the
+      head of his troops; Necho, warned of his projects, hastened to meet him
+      with all the forces at his disposal, and, owing probably to the resistance
+      offered by the garrisons which he possessed in the Hittite fortresses, he
+      had time to continue his march as far as the Euphrates. The two armies
+      encountered each other at Carchemish; the Egyptians were completely
+      defeated in spite of their bravery and the skilful tactics of their Greek
+      auxiliaries, and the Asiatic nations, who had once more begun to rely on
+      Egypt, were obliged to acknowledge that they were as unequal to the task
+      of overcoming Chaldaea as they had been of sustaining a struggle with
+      Assyria.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. xlvi. 2; cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 7, where the editor,
+     without mentioning the battle of Carchemish, recalls in
+     passing that &ldquo;the King of Babylon had taken, from the brook
+     of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the
+     King of Egypt.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The religious party in Judah, whose hopes had been disappointed by the
+      victory of Pharaoh at Megiddo, now rejoiced at his defeat, and when the
+      remains of his legions made their way back across the Philistine plain,
+      closely pressed by the enemy, Jeremiah hailed them as they passed with
+      cutting irony. Two or three brief, vivid sentences depicting the spirit
+      that had fired them a few months before, and then the picture of their
+      disorderly flight: &ldquo;Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to
+      battle. Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with
+      your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail. Wherefore have
+      I seen it? They are dismayed and turn backward; and their mighty ones are
+      beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back; terror is on every
+      side, saith the Lord. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man
+      escape; in the north by the river Euphrates have they stumbled and
+      fallen.... Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt;
+      in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no healing for thee. The
+      nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is full of thy cry: for the
+      mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, they are fallen both of them
+      together.&rdquo; * Nebuchadrezzar received by the way the submission of
+      Jehoiakim, and of the princes of Ammon, Moab, and the Philistines;** he
+      was nearing Pelusium on his way into Egypt, when a messenger brought him
+      the news of his father&rsquo;s death.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. xlvi. 3-6, 11, 12.
+
+     ** The submission of all these peoples is implied by the
+     passage already cited in 2 Kings xxiv. 7; Berosus speaks of
+     the Phoenician, Jewish, and Syrian prisoners whom
+     Nebuchadrezzar left to his generals, when he resolved to
+     return to Babylon by the shortest route.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He feared lest a competitor should dispute his throne&mdash;perhaps his
+      younger brother, that Nabu-shum-lishir who had figured at his side at the
+      dedication of a temple to Marduk. He therefore concluded an armistice with
+      Necho, by the terms of which he remained master of the whole of Syria
+      between the Euphrates and the Wady el-Arish, and then hastily turned
+      homewards. But his impatience could not brook the delay occasioned by the
+      slow march of a large force, nor the ordinary circuitous route by
+      Carchemish and through Mesopotamia. He hurried across the Arabian desert,
+      accompanied by a small escort of light troops, and presented himself
+      unexpectedly at the gates of Babylon. He found all in order. His Chaldæan
+      ministers had assumed the direction of affairs, and had reserved the
+      throne for the rightful heir; he had only to appear to be acclaimed and
+      obeyed (B.C. 605).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His reign was long, prosperous, and on the whole peaceful. The recent
+      changes in Asiatic politics had shut out the Chaldæans from the majority
+      of the battle-fields on which the Assyrians had been wont to wage warfare
+      with the tribes on their eastern and northern frontiers. We no longer see
+      stirring on the border-land those confused masses of tribes and
+      communities of whose tumultuous life the Ninevite annals make such
+      frequent record: Elam as an independent state no longer existed, neither
+      did Philipi and Namri, nor the Cossæans, nor Parsua, nor the Medes with
+      their perpetual divisions, nor the Urartians and the Mannai in a constant
+      state of ferment within their mountain territory; all that remained of
+      that turbulent world now constituted a single empire, united under the
+      hegemony of the Medes, and the rule of a successful conqueror. The greater
+      part of Blam was already subject to those Achæmenides who called
+      themselves sovereigns of Anshân as well as of Persia, and whose fief was
+      dependent on the kingdom of Ecbatana:* it is probable that Chaldasa
+      received as her share of the ancient Susian territory the low countries of
+      the Uknu and the Ulai, occupied by the Aramæan tribes of the Puqudu, the
+      Eutu, and the Grambulu;** but Susa fell outside her portion, and was soon
+      transformed into a flourishing Iranian town.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * &ldquo;The king and the princes of Elam&rdquo; mentioned in Jer. xxv.
+     25, xlix.35-39, and in Ezele. xxxii. 24, 25, in the time of
+     Nebuchadrezzar, are probably the Persian kings of Anshân and
+     their Elamite vassals&mdash;not only, as is usually believed, the
+     kings and native princes conquered by Assur-bani-pal; the
+     same probably holds good of the Elam which an anonymous
+     prophet associates with the Medes under Nabonidus, in the
+     destruction of Babylon (Isa. xxi. 2). The princes of Malamîr
+     appear to me to belong to an anterior epoch.
+
+     ** The enumeration given in Ezelc. xxiii. 23, &ldquo;the
+     Babylonians and all the Chaldæans, Pelted, and Shoa, and
+     Koa,&rdquo; shows us probably that the Aramæans of the Lower
+     Tigris represented by Pekôd, as those of the Lower Euphrates
+     are by the Chaldæans, belonged to the Babylonian empire in
+     the time of the prophet. They are also considered as
+     belonging to Babylon in the passage of an anonymous prophet
+     (Jer. I. 21), who wrote in the last days of the Chaldæn
+     empire: &ldquo;Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against
+     it and the inhabitants of Pekod.&rdquo; Translators and
+     commentators have until quite recently mistaken the import
+     of the name Pekôd.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The plains bordering the right bank of the Tigris, from the Uknu to the
+      Turnat or the Eadanu, which had belonged to Babylon from the very earliest
+      times, were no doubt still retained by her;* but the mountain district
+      which commanded them certainly remained in the hands of Cyaxares, as well
+      as the greater part of Assyria proper, and there is every reason to
+      believe that from the Eadanu northwards the Tigris formed the boundary
+      between the two allies, as far as the confluence of the Zab.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This is what appears to me to follow from the account of
+     the conquest o£ Babylon by Cyrus, as related by Herodotus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The entire basin of the Upper Tigris and its Assyrian colonies, Amidi and
+      Tushkân were now comprised in the sphere of Medic influence, and the
+      settlement of the Scythians at Harrân, around one of the most venerated of
+      the Semitic sanctuaries, shows to what restrictions the new authority of
+      Chaldasa was subjected, even in the districts of Mesopotamia, which were
+      formerly among the most faithful possessions of Nineveh. If these
+      barbarians had been isolated, they would not long have defied the King of
+      Babylon, but being akin to the peoples who were subject to Cyaxares, they
+      probably claimed his protection, and regarded themselves as his liege men;
+      it was necessary to treat them with consideration, and tolerate the
+      arrogance of their presence upon the only convenient road which connected
+      the eastern with the western provinces of the kingdom. It is therefore
+      evident that there was no opening on this side for those ever-recurring
+      struggles in which Assyria had exhausted her best powers; one war was
+      alone possible, that with Media, but it was fraught with such danger that
+      the dictates of prudence demanded that it should be avoided at all costs,
+      even should the alliance between the two courts cease to be cemented by a
+      royal marriage. However great the confidence which he justly placed in the
+      valour of his Chaldæans, Nebuchadrezzar could not hide from himself the
+      fact that for two centuries they had always been beaten by the Assyrians,
+      and that therefore he would run too great a risk in provoking hostilities
+      with an army which had got the better of the conquerors of his people.
+      Besides this, Cyaxares was fully engaged in subjecting the region which he
+      had allotted to himself, and had no special desire to break with his ally.
+      Nothing is known of his history during the years which followed the
+      downfall of Nineveh, but it is not difficult to guess what were the
+      obstacles he had to surmount, and the result of the efforts which he made
+      to overcome them. The country which extends between the Caspian and the
+      Black Sea&mdash;the mountain block of Armenia, the basins of the Araxes
+      and the Kur, the valleys of the Halys, the Iris, and the Thermodon, and
+      the forests of the Anti-Taurus and the Taurus itself&mdash;had been thrown
+      into utter confusion by the Cimmerians and the Scythians. Nothing remained
+      of the previous order of things which had so long prevailed there, and the
+      barbarians who for a century and a half had destroyed everything in the
+      country seemed incapable of organising anything in its place. Urartu had
+      shrunk within its ancient limits around Ararat, and it is not known who
+      ruled her; the civilisation of Argistis and Menuas had almost disappeared
+      with the dynasty which had opposed the power of Assyria, and the people,
+      who had never been much impregnated by it, soon fell back into their
+      native rude habits of life. Confused masses of European barbarians were
+      stirring in Etiaus and the regions of the Araxes, seeking a country in
+      which to settle themselves, and did not succeed in establishing themselves
+      firmly till a much later period in the district of Sakasênê, to which was
+      attached the name of one of their tribes.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Strabo states that Armenia and the maritime regions of
+     Cappadocia suffered greatly from the invasion of the
+     Scythians.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Such of the Mushku and the Tabal as had not perished had taken refuge in
+      the north, among the mountains bordering the Black Sea, where they were
+      ere long known to the Greeks as the Moschi and the Tibarenians. The
+      remains of the Cimmerian hordes had taken their place in Cappadocia, and
+      the Phrygian population which had followed in their wake had spread
+      themselves over the basin of the Upper Halys and over the ancient Milidu,
+      which before long took from them the name of Armenia.* All these elements
+      constituted a seething, struggling, restless mass of people, actuated by
+      no plan or method, and subject merely to the caprice of its chiefs; it
+      was, indeed, the &ldquo;seething cauldron&rdquo; of which the Hebrew prophets had had
+      a vision, which at times overflowed over the neighbouring nations, and at
+      others was consumed within and wasted itself in fruitless ebullition.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Phrygian origin of the Armenians is pointed out by
+     Herodotus and by Eudoxius.
+
+     ** Jer. i. 13.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It took Cyaxares years to achieve his conquests; he finally succeeded,
+      however, in reducing the various elements to subjection&mdash;Urartians,
+      Scythians, Cimmerians, Chaldæ, and the industrious tribes of the Chalybes
+      and the White Syrians&mdash;and, always victorious, appeared at last on
+      the right hank of the Halys; but having reached it, he found himself face
+      to face with foes of quite a different calibre from those with whom he had
+      hitherto to deal. Lydia had increased both in wealth and in vigour since
+      the days when her king Ardys informed his ally Assur-bani-pal that he had
+      avenged the death of his father and driven the Cimmerians from the valley
+      of the Msoander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had by so doing averted all immediate danger; but as long as the
+      principal horde remained unexterminated, another invasion was always to be
+      feared; besides which, the barbarian inroad, although of short duration,
+      had wrought such havoc in the country that no native power in Asia Minor
+      appeared, nor in reality was, able to make the effort needful to destroy
+      them. Their king Dugdamis, it will be remembered, met his death in Cilicia
+      at the hands of the Assyrians about the year 640, and Kôbos, his
+      successor, was defeated and killed by the Scythians under Madyes about
+      633. The repeated repulses they had suffered had the effect of quickly
+      relieving Lydia, Phrygia, and the remaining states of the Ægean and the
+      Black Sea from their inroads; the Milesians wrested Sinope from them about
+      630, and the few bands left behind when the main body set out for the
+      countries of the Euphrates were so harried and decimated by the people
+      over whom they had terrorised for nearly a century, that they had soon no
+      refuge except round the fortress of Antandros, in the mountains of the
+      Troad. Most of the kingdoms whose downfall they had caused never recovered
+      from their reverses; but Lydia, which had not laid down its arms since the
+      death of Gyges, became possessed by degrees of the whole of their
+      territory; Phrygia proper came back to her in the general redistribution,
+      and with it most of the countries which had been under the rule of the
+      dynasty of Midas, from the mountains of Lycia to the shores of the Black
+      Sea. The transfer was effected, apparently, with very slight opposition
+      and with little loss of time, since in the four or five years which
+      followed the death of Kôbos, Ardys had risen in the estimation of the
+      Greeks to the position enjoyed by Gyges; and when, in 628, Aristomenes,
+      the hero of the Messenian wars, arrived at Rhodes, it is said that he
+      contemplated proceeding from thence, first to Sardes and then to Ecbatana,
+      for the purpose of gaining the adherence of Lydia and Media to his cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0037" id="linkCimage-0037">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/390.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="390.jpg View in the Mountains of The Messogis " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Rayet and Thomas.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Death put an end to his projects, but he would not for a moment have
+      entertained them had not Ardys been at that time at the head of a renowned
+      and flourishing kingdom. The renewal of international commerce followed
+      closely on the re-establishment of peace, and even if the long period of
+      Scythian invasion, followed by the destruction of Nineveh, rendered the
+      overland route less available for regular traffic than before, at all
+      events relations between the inhabitants of the Euphrates valley and those
+      of the iEgean littoral were resumed to such good purpose that before long
+      several fresh marts were opened in Lydia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0038" id="linkCimage-0038">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/391.jpg" width="100%" alt="391.jpg the Site of Priênê. " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Rayet and Thomas.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Kymê and Ephesus put the region of the Messogis and the Tmolus into
+      communication with the sea, but the lower valleys of the Hermos and the
+      Masander were closed by the existence of Greek colonies at Smyrna,
+      Clazomenas, Colophon, Priênê, and Miletus&mdash;all hostile to the
+      Mermnadæ&mdash;which it would be necessary to overcome if these countries
+      were to enjoy the prosperity shared by other parts of the kingdom; hence
+      the principal effort made by the Lydians was either directly to annex
+      these towns, or to impose such treaties on them as would make them their
+      dependencies. Ardys seized Priênê towards 620, and after having thus
+      established himself on the northern shore of the Latrnio Gulf,* he
+      proceeded to besiege Miletus in 616, at the very close of his career.
+      Hostilities were wearily prolonged all through the reign of Sadyattes
+      (615-610), and down to the sixth year of Alyattes.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The well-known story that Priênê was saved under Alyattes
+     by a stratagem of the philosopher Bias is merely a fable, of
+     which several other examples are found. It would not be
+     possible to conclude from it, as Grote did, that Ardys&rsquo; rule
+     over the town was but ephemeral.
+
+     ** The periods of duration assigned here to the reigns of
+     these princes are those of Euschius&mdash;that is to say, 15
+     years for Crosus, 37 for Alyattes, 5 for Sadyattes, 37 for
+     Ardys; Julius Africanus gives 15 for Sadyattes and 38 for
+     Ardys, while Herodotus suggests 14 for Crosus, 57 for
+     Alyattes, 12 for Sadyattes, and 59 for Ardys.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The position of Miletus was too strong to permit of its being carried by a
+      <i>coup de main</i>; besides which, the Lydians were unwilling to destroy
+      at one blow a town whose colonies, skilfully planted at the seaports from
+      the coasts of the Black Sea to those of Egypt, would one day furnish them
+      with so many outlets for their industrial products. Their method of
+      attacking it resolved itself into a series of exhausting raids. &ldquo;Every
+      year, as soon as the fruit crops and the harvests began to ripen, Alyattes
+      set out at the head of his troops, whom he caused to march and encamp to
+      the sound of instruments. Having arrived in the Milesian territory, he
+      completely destroyed the crops and the orchards, and then again withdrew.&rdquo;
+       In these expeditions he was careful to avoid any excesses which would have
+      made the injury inflicted appear irretrievable; his troops were forbidden
+      to destroy dwelling-houses or buildings dedicated to the gods; indeed, on
+      one occasion, when the conflagration which consumed the lands accidentally
+      spread to the temple of Athena near Assêsos, he rebuilt two temples for
+      the goddess at his own expense. The Milesians sustained the struggle
+      courageously, until two reverses at Limeneion and in the plain of the
+      Maeander at length induced them to make terms. Their tyrant, Thrasybulus,
+      acting on the advice of the Delphic Apollo and by the mediation of
+      Periander of Corinth, concluded a treaty with Alyattes in which the two
+      princes, declaring themselves the guest and the ally one of the other,
+      very probably conceded extensive commercial privileges to one another both
+      by land and sea (604).*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Thrasybulus&rsquo; stratagem is said to have taken place at
+     Priênê by Diogenes Laertes and by Polysenus. The war begins
+     under Ardys, lasts for five years under Sadyattes, instead
+     of the six years which Herodotus attributes to it, and five
+     years under Alyattes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Alyattes rewarded the oracle by the gift of a magnificent bowl, the work
+      of Glaucus of Chios, which continued to be shown to travellers of the
+      Roman period as one of the most remarkable curiosities of Delphi. Alyattes
+      continued his expeditions against the other Greek colonies, but directed
+      them prudently and leisurely, so as not to alarm his European friends, and
+      provoke the formation against himself of a coalition of the Hellenic
+      communities shattered over the isles or along the littoral of the Ægean.
+      We know that towards the end of his reign he recovered Colophon, which had
+      been previously acquired by Gyges, but had regained its independence
+      during the Cimmerian crisis;* he razed Smyrna to the ground, and forced
+      its inhabitants to occupy unfortified towns, where his suzerainty could
+      not be disputed;** he half devastated Clazomense, whose citizens saved it
+      by a despairing effort, and he renewed the ancient alliances with Ephesus,
+      Kymê, and the cities of the region of the Caicus and the Hellespont,***
+      though it is impossible to attribute an accurate date to each of these
+      particular events.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Polysenus tells the story of the trick by which Alyattes,
+     after he had treated with the people of Colophon, destroyed
+     their cavalry and seized on their town. The fact that a
+     treaty was made seems to be confirmed by a fragment of
+     Phylarchus, and the surrender of the town to the Lydians by
+     a fragment of Xenophanes, quoted in Athenseus. Schubert does
+     not seem to believe that the town was taken by Alyattes; I
+     have adopted the opinion of Ladet on this point.
+
+     ** Herodotus and Nicolas of Damascus confine themselves to
+     relating the capture of the city; adds that the Lydians
+     compelled the inhabitants to dwell in unfortified towns.
+     Schubert thinks that the passage in Strabo refers, not to
+     the time of Alyattes, but to a subsequent event in the fifth
+     century; he relies for this opinion on a fragment of Pindar,
+     which represents Smyrna as still flourishing in his time.
+     But, as Busolt has pointed out, the intention of the text of
+     Pindar is to represent the state of the city at about the
+     time of Homer&rsquo;s birth, and not in the fifth century.
+
+     *** The peace between Ephesus and Lydia must have been
+     troubled for a little while in the reign of Sadyattes, but
+     it was confirmed under Alyattes by the marriage of Melas II.
+     with one of the king&rsquo;s daughters.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Most of them had already taken place or were still proceeding when the
+      irruption of the Medes across the Halys obliged him to concentrate all his
+      energies on the eastern portion of his kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The current tradition in Lydia of a century later attributed the conflict
+      of the two peoples to a romantic cause. It related that Cyaxares had
+      bestowed his favour on the bands of Scythians who had become his
+      mercenaries on the death of Madyes, and that he had entrusted to them the
+      children of some of the noblest Medic families, that they might train them
+      to hunt and also teach them the use of the bow. One day, on their
+      returning from the chase without any game, Cyaxares reproached them for
+      their want of skill in such angry and insulting terms, that they resolved
+      on immediate revenge. They cut one of the children in pieces, which they
+      dressed after the same manner as that in which they were accustomed to
+      prepare the game they had killed, and served up the dish to the king;
+      then, while he was feasting upon it with his courtiers, they lied in haste
+      and took refuge with Alyattes. The latter welcomed them, and refused to
+      send them back to Cyaxares; hence the outbreak of hostilities. It is, of
+      course, possible that the emigration of a nomad horde may have been the
+      cause of the war,* but graver reasons than this had set the two nations at
+      variance.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Grote has collected a certain number of examples in later
+     times to show that the journeying of a nomad horde from one
+     state to another may provoke wars, and he concludes
+     therefrom that at least the basis of Herodotus&rsquo; account may
+     be considered as true.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The hardworking inhabitants of the valleys of the Iris and the Halys were
+      still possessed of considerable riches, in spite of the losses they had
+      suffered from the avaricious Cimmerians, and their chief towns, Comana,
+      Pteria and Teiria, continued to enjoy prosperity under the rule of their
+      priest-kings. Pteria particularly had developed in the course of the
+      century, thanks to her favourable situation, which had enabled her to
+      offer a secure refuge to the neighbouring population during the late
+      disasters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0039" id="linkCimage-0039">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/396.jpg" width="100%" alt="396.jpg the Ruins of Pteria " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Charles Texier.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The town itself was crowded into a confined plain, on the left bank of a
+      torrent which flowed into the Halys, and the city walls may still be
+      clearly traced upon the soil; the outline of the houses, the silos,
+      cisterns, and rock-cut staircases are still visible in places, besides the
+      remains of a palace built of enormous blocks of almost rough-hewn
+      limestone. The town was defended by wide ramparts, and also by two
+      fortresses perched upon enormous masses of rock, while a few thousand
+      yards to the east of the city, on the right bank of the torrent, three
+      converging ravines concealed the sanctuary of one of those mysterious
+      oracles whose fame attracted worshippers from far and wide during the
+      annual fairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0040" id="linkCimage-0040">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/397.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="397.jpg the Entrance to The Sanctuary of Pteria " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Chantre.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The bas-reliefs which decorate them belong to that semi-barbarous art
+      which we have already met with in the monuments attributed to the Khâfci,
+      near the Orontes and Euphrates, on both slopes of the Amanus, in Cilioia,
+      and in the ravines of the Taurus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0041" id="linkCimage-0041">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/398.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="398.jpg One of the Processions in The Ravine Of Pteria " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Long processions of priests and votaries defile before figures of the gods
+      and goddesses standing erect upon their sacred animals; in one scene, a
+      tall goddess, a Cybele or an Anaitis, leans affectionately upon her chosen
+      lover, and seems to draw him with her towards an image with a lion&rsquo;s body
+      and the head of a youth.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * These bas-reliefs seem to me to have been executed at
+     about the time with which we are dealing, or perhaps a few
+     years later&mdash;in any case, before the Persian conquest.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Pteria and its surrounding hills formed a kind of natural fortress which
+      overlooked the whole bend of the Halys; it constituted, in the land of the
+      Lydians, an outpost which effectually protected their possessions in
+      Phrygia and Papnlagonia against an attack from the East; in the hands of
+      the Medes it would be a dominant position which would counteract the
+      defensive features of the Halys, and from it they might penetrate into the
+      heart of Asia Minor without encountering any serious obstacles. The
+      struggle between the two sovereigns was not so unequal as might at first
+      appear. No doubt the army of Alyattes was inferior in numbers, but the
+      bravery of its component forces and the ability of its leaders compensated
+      for its numerical inferiority, and Cyaxares had no troop to be compared
+      with the Carian lancers, with the hoplites of Ionia, or with the heavy
+      Mæonian cavalry. During six years the two armies met again and again&mdash;fate
+      sometimes favouring one and sometimes the other&mdash;and were about to
+      try their fortune once more, after several indecisive engagements, when an
+      eclipse of the sun suspended operations (585). The Iranian peoples would
+      fight only in full daylight, and their adversaries, although warned, so it
+      is said, by the Milesian philosopher Thaïes of the phenomenon about to
+      take place in the heavens, were perhaps not completely reassured as to its
+      significance, and the two hosts accordingly separated without coming to
+      blows.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This eclipse was identified at one time with that of Sept.
+     30, 610, at another with that of May 28, 585. The latter of
+     these two dates appears to me to be the correct one, and is
+     the only one which agrees with what we know of the general
+     history of the sixth century.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nebuchadrezzar had followed, not without some misgivings, the vicissitudes
+      of the campaign, and his anxiety was shared by the independent princes of
+      Asia Minor, who were allies of the Lydians; he and they alike awaited with
+      dread a decisive action, which, by crushing one of the belligerents beyond
+      hope of recovery, would leave the onlookers at the mercy of the victor in
+      the full flush of his success. Tradition relates that Syennesis of Cilicia
+      and the Babylonian Nabonidus had taken advantage of the alarm produced by
+      the eclipse to negotiate an armistice, and that they were soon successful
+      in bringing the rival powers to an agreement.* The Halys remained the
+      recognised frontier of the two kingdoms, but the Lydians probably obtained
+      advantages for their commerce, which they regarded as compensatory for the
+      abandonment of their claim to the district of Pteria. To strengthen the
+      alliance, it was agreed that Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis in
+      marriage to Ishtuvigu, or, as the Greeks called him, Astyages, the son of
+      Cyaxares.** According to the custom of the times, the two contracting
+      parties, after taking the vow of fidelity, sealed the compact by pricking
+      each other&rsquo;s arms and sucking the few drops of blood which oozed from the
+      puncture.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name Labynetos given by Herodotus is a transcript of
+     Nabonidus, but cannot here designate the Babylonian king of
+     that name, for the latter reigned more than thirty years
+     after the peace was concluded between the Lydians and the
+     Medes. If Herodotus has not made the mistake of putting
+     Labynetos for Nebuchadrezzar, we may admit that this
+     Labynetos was a prince of the royal family, or simply a
+     general who was commanding the Chaldoan auxiliaries of
+     Cyaxares.
+
+     ** The form Ishtuvigu is given us by the Chaldoan documents.
+     Its exact transcript was Astuigas, Astyigas, according to
+     Ctosias; in fact, this coincides so remarkably with the
+     Babylonian mode of spelling, that we may believe that it
+     faithfully reproduces the original pronunciation.
+
+     *** Many ancient authors have spoken of this war, or at
+     least of the eclipse which brought it to an end. Several of
+     them place the conclusion of peace not in the reign of
+     Cyaxares, but in that of Astyages&mdash;Cicero, Solinus, and the
+     Armenian Eusebius&mdash;and their view has been adopted by some
+     modern historians. The two versions of the account can be
+     reconciled by saying that Astyages was commanding the Median
+     army instead of his father, who was too old to do so, but
+     such an explanation is unnecessary, and Cyaxares, though
+     over seventy, might still have had sufficient vigour to wage
+     war. The substitution of Astyages for Cyaxares by the
+     authors of Roman times was probably effected with the object
+     of making the date of the eclipse agree with a different
+     system of chronology from that followed by Herodotus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Cyaxares died in the following year (584), full of days and renown, and
+      was at once succeeded by Astyages. Few princes could boast of having had
+      such a successful career as his, even in that century of unprecedented
+      fortunes and boundless ambitions. Inheriting a disorganised army,
+      proclaimed king in the midst of mourning, on the morrow of a defeat in
+      which the fate of his kingdom had hung in the balance, he succeeded within
+      a quarter of a century in overthrowing his enemies and substituting his
+      supremacy for theirs throughout the whole of Western Asia. At his
+      accession Media had occupied only a small portion of the Iranian
+      table-land; at his death, the Median empire extended to the banks of the
+      Halys. It is now not difficult to understand why Nebuchadrezzar abstained
+      from all expeditions in the regions of the Taurus, as well as in those of
+      the Upper Tigris. He would inevitably have come into contact with the
+      allies of the Lydians, perchance with the Lydians themselves, or with the
+      Medes, as the case might be; and he would have been drawn on to take an
+      active part in their dangerous quarrels, from which, after all, he could
+      not hope to reap any personal advantage. In reality, there was one field
+      of action only open to him, and that was Southern Syria, with Egypt in her
+      rear. He found himself, at this extreme limit of his dominions, in a
+      political situation almost identical with that of his Assyrian
+      predecessors, and consequently more or less under the obligation of
+      repeating their policy. The Saites, like the Ethiopians before them, could
+      enjoy no assured sense of security in the Delta, when they knew that they
+      had a great military state as their nearest neighbour on the other side of
+      the isthmus; they felt with reason that the thirty leagues of desert which
+      separated Pelusium from Gaza was an insufficient protection from invasion,
+      and they desired to have between themselves and their adversary a tract of
+      country sufficiently extensive to ward off the first blows in the case of
+      hostilities. If such a buffer territory could be composed of feudal
+      provinces or tributary states, Egyptian pride would be flattered, while at
+      the same time the security of the kingdom would be increased, and indeed
+      the victorious progress of Necho had for the moment changed their most
+      ambitious dreams into realities. Driven back into the Nile valley after
+      the battle of Carchemish, their pretensions had immediately shrunk within
+      more modest limits; their aspirations were now confined to gaining the
+      confidence of the few surviving states which had preserved some sort of
+      independence in spite of the Assyrian conquest, to detaching them from
+      Chaldoan interests and making them into a protecting zone against the
+      ambition of a new Esarhaddon. To this work Necho applied himself as soon
+      as Nebuchadrezzar had left him in order to hasten back to Babylon. The
+      Egyptian monarch belonged to a persevering race, who were never kept, down
+      by reverses, and had not once allowed themselves to be discouraged during
+      the whole of the century in which they had laboured to secure the crown
+      for themselves; his defeat had not lessened his tenacity, nor, it would
+      seem, his certainty of final success. Besides organising his Egyptian and
+      Libyan troops, he enrolled a still larger number of Hellenic mercenaries,
+      correctly anticipating that the restless spirits of the Phoenicians and
+      Jews would soon furnish him with an opportunity of distinguishing himself
+      upon the scene of action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was perhaps at this juncture that he decided to strengthen his position
+      by the co-operation of a fleet. The superiority of the Chaldoan battalions
+      had been so clearly manifested, that he could scarcely hope for a decisive
+      victory if he persisted in seeking it on land; but if he could succeed in
+      securing the command of the sea, his galleys, by continually cruising
+      along the Syrian coast, and conveying troops, provisions, arms, and money
+      to the Phoenician towns, would so successfully foster and maintain a
+      spirit of rebellion, that the Chaldæans would not dare to venture into
+      Egypt until they had dealt with this source of danger in their rear. He
+      therefore set to work to increase the number of his war-vessels on the Bed
+      Sea, but more especially on the Mediterranean, and as he had drawn upon
+      Greece for his troops, he now applied to her for shipbuilders.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus tells us that in his time the ruins of the docks
+     which Necho had made for the building of his triremes could
+     still be seen on the shore of the Red Sea as well as on that
+     of the Mediterranean. He seems also to say that the building
+     of the fleet was anterior to the first Syrian expedition.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0042" id="linkCimage-0042">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:31%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/404.jpg"
+       alt="404.jpg an Egyptian Vessel of the Saite Period " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a photograph sent
+by G. Benédite.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The trireme, which had been invented by either the Samian or Corinthian
+      naval constructors, had as yet been little used, and possibly Herodotus is
+      attributing an event of his own time to this earlier period when he
+      affirms that Necho filled a dockyard with a whole fleet of these vessels;
+      he possessed, at any rate, a considerable number of them, and along with
+      them other vessels of various build, in which the blunt stem and curved
+      poop of the Greeks were combined with the square-cabined barque of the
+      Egyptians. At the same time, in order to transport the squadron from one
+      sea to another when occasion demanded, he endeavoured to reopen the
+      ancient canal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He improved its course and widened it so as to permit of two triremes
+      sailing abreast or easily clearing each other in passing. The canal
+      started from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, not far from Patumos, and
+      skirted the foot of the Arabian hills from west to east; it then plunged
+      into the Wady Tumilat, and finally entered the head of the bay which now
+      forms the Lake of Ismaïlia. The narrow channel by which this sheet of
+      water was anciently connected with the Gulf of Suez was probably
+      obstructed in places, and required clearing out at several points, if not
+      along its entire extent. A later tradition states that after having lost
+      100,000 men in attempting this task, the king abandoned the project on the
+      advice of an oracle, a god having been supposed to have predicted to him
+      that he was working for the barbarians.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The figures, 100,000 men, are evidently exaggerated, for
+     in a similar undertaking, the digging of the Mahmudiyeh
+     canal, Mehemet-Ali lost only 10,000 men, though the work was
+     greater.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0043" id="linkCimage-0043">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/405.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="405.jpg the Ancient Head of The Red Sea, Now The Northern Extremity of the Bitter Lakes " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the railway
+     between Ismaïlia and Suez, on the eastern shore of the lake.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Another of Necho&rsquo;s enterprises excited the admiration of his
+      contemporaries, and remained for ever in the memory of the people. The
+      Carthaginians had discovered on the ocean coast of Libya, a country rich
+      in gold, ivory, precious woods, pepper, and spices, but their political
+      jealousy prevented other nations from following in their wake in the
+      interests of trade. The Egyptians possibly may have undertaken to dispute
+      their monopoly, or the Phoenicians may have desired to reach their colony
+      by a less frequented highway than the Mediterranean. The merchants of the
+      Said and the Delta had never entirely lost touch with the people dwelling
+      on the shores of the Red Sea, and though the royal fleets no longer
+      pursued their course down it on their way to Punt as in the days of
+      Hâtshopsîtu and Ramses III., private individuals ventured from time to
+      time to open trade communications with the ancient &ldquo;Ladders of Incense.&rdquo;
+       Necho despatched the Phoenician captains of his fleet in search of new
+      lands, and they started from the neighbourhood of Suez, probably
+      accompanied by native pilots accustomed to navigate in those waters. The
+      undertaking, fraught with difficulty even in the last century, was,
+      indeed, a formidable one for the small vessels of the Saite period. They
+      sailed south for months with the east to the left of them, and on their
+      right the continent which seemed to extend indefinitely before them.
+      Towards the autumn they disembarked on some convenient shore, sowed the
+      wheat with which they were provided, and waited till the crop was ripe;
+      having reaped the harvest, they again took to the sea. Any accurate
+      remembrance of what they saw was soon effaced; they could merely recollect
+      that, having reached a certain point, they observed with astonishment that
+      the sun appeared to have reversed its course, and now rose on their right
+      hand. This meant that they had turned the southern extremity of Africa and
+      were unconsciously sailing northwards. In the third year they passed
+      through the pillars of Hercules and reached Egypt in safety. The very
+      limited knowledge of navigation possessed by the mariners of that day
+      rendered this voyage fruitless; the dangerous route thus opened up to
+      commerce remained unused, and its discovery was remembered only as a
+      curious feat devoid of any practical use.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Greek writers after Herodotus denied the possibility
+     of such a voyage, and they thought that it could not be
+     decided whether Africa was entirely surrounded by water, and
+     that certainly no traveller had ever journeyed above 5000
+     stadia beyond the entrance to the Red Sea. Modern writers
+     are divided on the point, some denying and others
+     maintaining the authenticity of the account. The observation
+     made by the navigators of the apparent change in the course
+     of the sun, which Herodotus has recorded, and which neither
+     he nor his authorities understood, seems to me to be so
+     weighty an argument for its authenticity, that it is
+     impossible to reject the tradition until we have more
+     decided grounds for so doing.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In order to obtain any practical results from the arduous voyage, it would
+      have been necessary for Egypt to devote a considerable part of its
+      resources to the making of such expeditions, whereas the country preferred
+      to concentrate all its energies on its Tyrian policy. Necho certainly
+      possessed the sympathies of the Tyrians, who had transferred their
+      traditional hatred of the Assyrians to the Chaldæans. He could also count
+      with equal certainty on the support of a considerable party in Moab,
+      Ammon, and Edom, as well as among the Nabatæans and the Arabs of Kedar;
+      but the key of the whole position lay with Judah&mdash;that ally without
+      whom none of Necho&rsquo;s other partisans would venture to declare openly
+      against their master. The death of Josiah had dealt a fatal blow to the
+      hopes of the prophets, and even long after the event they could not recall
+      it without lamenting the fate of this king after their own heart. &ldquo;And
+      like unto him,&rdquo; exclaims their chronicler, &ldquo;was there no king before him,
+      that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with
+      all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose
+      there any like him.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 25.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The events which followed his violent death&mdash;the deposition of
+      Jehoahaz, the establishment and fall of the Egyptian supremacy, the
+      proclamation of the Chaldæan suzerainty, the degradation of the king and
+      the misery of the people brought about by the tribute exacted from them by
+      their foreign masters,&mdash;all these revolutions which had succeeded
+      each other without break or respite had all but ruined the belief in the
+      efficacy of the reform due to Hilkiah&rsquo;s discovery, and preached by
+      Jeremiah and his followers. The people saw in these calamities the
+      vengeance of Jahveh against the presumptuous faction which had overthrown
+      His various sanctuaries and had attempted to confine His worship to a
+      single temple; they therefore restored the banished attractions, and set
+      themselves to sacrifice to strange gods with greater zest than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A like crisis occurred and like party divisions had broken out around
+      Jehoiakim similar to those at the court of Ahaz and Hezekiah a century
+      earlier. The populace, the soldiery, and most of the court officials, in
+      short, all who adhered to the old popular form of religion or were
+      attracted to strange devotions, hoped to rid themselves of the Chaldæans
+      by earthly means, and since Necho declared himself an implacable enemy of
+      their foe, their principal aim was to come to terms with Egypt. Jeremiah,
+      on the contrary, and those who remained faithful to the teaching of the
+      prophets, saw in all that was passing around them cogent reasons for
+      rejecting worldly wisdom and advice, and for yielding themselves
+      unreservedly to the Divine will in bowing before the Chaldæan of whom
+      Jahveh made use, as of the Assyrian of old, to chastise the sins of Judah.
+      The struggle between the two factions constantly disturbed the public
+      peace, and it needed little to cause the preaching of the prophets to
+      degenerate into an incitement to revolt. On a feast-day which occurred in
+      the early months of Jehoiakim&rsquo;s reign, Jeremiah took up his station on the
+      pavement of the temple and loudly apostrophised the crowd of worshippers.
+      &ldquo;Thus saith the Lord: If ye will not hearken unto Me, to walk in My law,
+      which I have set before you, to hearken to the words of My servants the
+      prophets, whom I send unto you, even rising up early and sending them, but
+      ye have not hearkened; then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will
+      make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.&rdquo; Such a speech,
+      boldly addressed to an audience the majority of whom were already moved by
+      hostile feelings, brought their animosity to a climax; the officiating
+      priests, the prophets, and the pilgrims gathered round Jeremiah, crying,
+      &ldquo;Thou shalt surely die.&rdquo; The people thronged into the temple, the princes
+      of Judah went up to the king&rsquo;s house and to the house of the Lord, and sat
+      in council in the entry of the new gate. They decreed that Jeremiah,
+      having spoken in the name of the Lord, did not merit death, and some of
+      their number, recalling the precedent of Micaiah the Morasthite, who in
+      his time had predicted the ruin of Jerusalem, added, &ldquo;Did Hezekiah King of
+      Judah and all Judah put him at all to death?&rdquo; Ahikam, the son of Shaphan,
+      one of those who had helped in restoring the law, took the prophet under
+      his protection and prevented the crowd from injuring him, but some others
+      were not able to escape the popular fury. The prophet Uriah of
+      Kirjath-jearim, who unweariedly prophesied against the city and country
+      after the manner of Jeremiah, fled to Egypt, but in vain; Jehoiakim
+      despatched Elnathan, the son of Achbor, &ldquo;and certain men with him,&rdquo; who
+      brought him back to Judah, &ldquo;slew him with the sword, and cast his dead
+      body into the graves of the common people.&rdquo; * If popular feeling had
+      reached such a pitch before the battle of Carchemish, to what height must
+      it have risen when the news of Nebuchadrezzar&rsquo;s victory had given the
+      death-blow to the hopes of the Egyptian faction! Jeremiah believed the
+      moment ripe for forcibly arresting the popular imagination while it was
+      swayed by the panic of anticipated invasion. He dictated to his disciple
+      Baruch the prophecies he had pronounced since the appearance of the
+      Scythians under Josiah, and on the day of the solemn fast proclaimed
+      throughout Judah during the winter of the fifth year of the reign, a few
+      months after the defeat of the Egyptians, he caused the writing to be read
+      to the assembled people at the entry of the new gate.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. xxvi., where the scene takes place at the beginning
+     of Jehoiakim&rsquo;s reign, i.e. under the Egyptian domination.
+
+     ** The date given in Jer. xxxvi. 9 makes the year begin in
+     spring, since the ninth month occurs in winter; this date
+     belongs, therefore, to the later recensions of the text. It
+     is nevertheless probably authentic, representing the exact
+     equivalent of the original date according to the old
+     calendar.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Micaiah, the son of Gremariah, was among those who listened, and noting
+      that the audience were moved by the denunciations which revived the memory
+      of their recent misfortunes, he hastened to inform the ministers sitting
+      in council within the palace of what was passing. They at once sent for
+      Baruch, and begged him to repeat to them what he had read. They were so
+      much alarmed at its recital, that they advised him to hide himself in
+      company with Jeremiah, while they informed the king of the matter.
+      Jehoiakim was sitting in a chamber with a brazier burning before him on
+      account of the severe cold: scarcely had they read three or four pages
+      before him when his anger broke forth; he seized the roll, slashed it with
+      the scribe&rsquo;s penknife, and threw the fragments into the fire. Jeremiah
+      recomposed the text from memory, and inserted in it a malediction against
+      the king. &ldquo;Thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim, King of Judah: He
+      shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall
+      be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I
+      will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity: and I
+      will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the
+      men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they
+      hearkened not.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. xxxvi. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the
+     contents of Jeremiah&rsquo;s roll, and most of the authors who
+     have dealt with this subject think that the roll contained
+     the greater part of the fragments which, in the book of the
+     prophet, occupy chaps, i. 4-11, ii., iii. 1-5, 19-25, iv.-
+     vi., vii., viii., ix. 1-21, x. 17-25, xi., xii. 1-6, xvii.
+     19-27, xviii., xix. 1-13, which it must be admitted have not
+     in every case been preserved in their original form, but
+     have been abridged or rearranged after the exile. Other
+     chapters evidently belong to the years previous to the fifth
+     year of Jehoiakim, as well as part of the prophecies against
+     the barbarians, but they could not have been included in the
+     original roll, as the latter would then have been too long
+     to have been read three times in one day.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian tendencies evinced at court, at first discreetly veiled, were
+      now accentuated to such a degree that Nebuchadrezzar became alarmed, and
+      came in person to Jerusalem in the year 601. His presence frustrated the
+      intrigues of Pharaoh. Jehoiakim was reduced to order for a time, but three
+      years later he revolted afresh at the instigation of Necho, and this time
+      the Chaldæan satraps opened hostilities in earnest. They assembled their
+      troops, which were reinforced by Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite
+      contingents, and laid siege to Jerusalem.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxiv. 1-4. The passage is not easy to be
+     understood as it stands, and it has been differently
+     interpreted by historians. Some have supposed that it refers
+     to events immediately following the battle of Carchemish,
+     and that Jehoiakim defended Jerusalem against Nebuchadrezzar
+     in 605. Others think that, after the battle of Carchemish,
+     Jehoiakim took advantage of Nebuchadrezzar&rsquo;s being obliged
+     to return at once to Babylon, and would not recognise the
+     authority of the Chaldæans; that Nebuchadrezzar returned
+     later, towards 601, and took Jerusalem, and that it is to
+     this second war that allusion is made in the Book of Kings.
+     It is more simple to consider that which occurred about 600
+     as a first attempt at rebellion which was punished lightly
+     by the Chaldæans.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Jehoiakim, left to himself, resisted with such determination that
+      Nebuchadrezzar was obliged to bring up his Chaldæan forces to assist in
+      the attack. Judah trembled with fear at the mere description which her
+      prophet Habakkuk gave of this fierce and sturdy people, &ldquo;which march
+      through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling-places which are not
+      theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity
+      proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and
+      are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen spread
+      themselves; yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an eagle that
+      hasteneth to devour. They come all of them for violence; their faces are
+      set eagerly as the east wind, and they gather captives as the sand. Yea,
+      he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a derision unto him: he derideth
+      every stronghold: for he heapeth up dust and taketh it. Then shall he
+      sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over the guilty, even he whose might is
+      his god.&rdquo; Nebuchadrezzar&rsquo;s army must have presented a spectacle as strange
+      as did that of Necho. It contained, besides its nucleus of Chaldæn and
+      Babylonian infantry, squadrons of Scythian and Median cavalry, whose
+      cruelty it was, no doubt, that had alarmed the prophet, and certainly
+      bands of Greek hoplites, for the poet Alcasus had had a brother,
+      Antimenidas by name, in the Chaldæan monarch&rsquo;s service. Jehoiakim died
+      before the enemy appeared beneath the walls of Jerusalem, and was at once
+      succeeded by his son Jeconiah,* a youth of eighteen years, who assumed the
+      name of Jehoiachin.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * [Jehoiachin is called Coniah in Jer. xxii. 24 and xxiv. 1,
+     and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.&mdash;Tr.]
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxiv. 5-10; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6-9, where the
+     writer says that Nebuchadrezzar bound Jehoiakim &ldquo;in
+     fetters, to carry him to Babylon.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The new king continued the struggle at first courageously, but the advent
+      of Nebuchadrezzar so clearly convinced him of the futility of the defence,
+      that he suddenly decided to lay down his arms. He came forth from the city
+      with his mother Nehushta, the officers of his house, his ministers, and
+      his eunuchs, and prostrated himself at the feet of his suzerain. The
+      Chaldæn monarch was not inclined to proceed to extremities; he therefore
+      exiled to Babylon Jehoiachin and the whole of his seditious court who had
+      so ill-advised the young king, the best of his officers, and the most
+      skilful artisans, in all 3023 persons, but the priests and the bulk of the
+      people remained at Jerusalem. The conqueror appointed Mattaniah, the
+      youngest son of Josiah, to be their ruler, who, on succeeding to the
+      crown, changed his name, after the example of his predecessors, adopting
+      that of Zedekiah. Jehoiachin had reigned exactly three months over his
+      besieged city (596).*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptians made no attempt to save their ally, but if they felt
+      themselves not in a condition to defy the Chaldasans on Syrian territory,
+      the Chaldaeans on their side feared to carry hostilities into the heart of
+      the Delta. Necho died two years after the disaster at Jerusalem, without
+      having been called to account by, or having found an opportunity of
+      further annoying, his rival, and his son Psammetichus II. succeeded
+      peacefully to the throne.** He was a youth at this time,*** and his
+      father&rsquo;s ministers conducted the affairs of State on his behalf, and it
+      was they who directed one of his early campaigns, if not the very first,
+      against Ethiopia.****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10.
+
+     ** The length of Necho&rsquo;s reign is fixed at sixteen years by
+     Herodotus, and at six or at nine years by the various
+     abbreviators of Manetho. The contemporaneous monuments have
+     confirmed the testimony of Herodotus on this point as
+     against that of Manetho, and the stelse of the Florentine
+     Museum, of the Leyden Museum, and of the Louvre have
+     furnished certain proof that Necho died in the sixteenth
+     year, after fifteen and a half years&rsquo; reign.
+
+     *** His sarcophagus, discovered in 1883, and now preserved
+     in the Gizeh Museum, is of such small dimensions that it can
+     have been used only for a youth.
+
+     **** The graffiti of Abu-Simbel have been most frequently
+     attributed to Psammetichus I., and until recently I had
+     thought it possible to maintain this opinion. A. von
+     Gutsehmid was the first to restore them to Psammetichus IL,
+     and his opinion has gained ground since Wiedemann&rsquo;s vigorous
+     defence of it. The Alysian mercenary&rsquo;s graffito contains
+     the Greek translation of the current Egyptian phrase &ldquo;when
+     his Majesty came on his first military expedition into this
+     country,&rdquo; which seems to point to no very early date in a
+     reign for a first campaign. Moreover, one of the generals in
+     command of the expedition is a Psammetichus, son of
+     Theocles, that is, a Greek with an Egyptian name. A
+     considerable lapse of time must have taken place since
+     Psammetichus&rsquo; first dealings with the Greeks, for otherwise
+     the person named after the king would not have been of
+     sufficiently mature age to be put at the head of a body of
+     troops.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They organised a small army for him composed of Egyptians, Greeks, and
+      Asiatic mercenaries, which, while the king was taking up his residence at
+      Elephantine, was borne up the Nile in a fleet of large vessels.* It
+      probably went as far south as the northern point of the second cataract,
+      and not having encountered any Ethiopian force,** it retraced its course
+      and came to anchor at Abu-Simbel.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The chief graffito at Abu-Simbel says, in fact, that the
+     king came to Elephantine, and that only the troops
+     accompanying the General Psammetichus, the son of Theocles,
+     went beyond Kerkis. It was probably during his stay at
+     Elephantine, while awaiting the return of the expedition,
+     that Psammetichus II. had the inscriptions containing his
+     cartouches engraved upon the rocks of Bigga, Abaton, Philo,
+     and Konosso, or among the ruins of Elephantine and of
+     Phila?.
+
+     ** The Greek inscription says <i>above Kerlcis</i>. Wiedemann has
+     corrected <i>Kerkis</i> into <i>Kortis</i>, the Korte of the first
+     cataract, but the reading Kerkis is too well established for
+     there to be any reason for change. The simplest explanation
+     is to acknowledge that the inscription refers to a place
+     situated a few miles above Abu-Simbel, towards Wady-Halfa.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The officers in command, after having admired the rock-cut chapel of
+      Ramses II., left in it a memento of their visit in a fine inscription cut
+      on the right leg of one of the colossi. This inscription informs us that
+      &ldquo;King Psammatikhos having come to Elephantine, the people who were with
+      Psammatikhos, son of Theocles, wrote this. They ascended above Kerkis, to
+      where the river ceases; Potasimto commanded the foreigners, Amasis the
+      Egyptians. At the same time also wrote Arkhôn, son of Amoibikhos, and
+      Peleqos, son of Ulamos.&rdquo; Following the example of their officers, the
+      soldiers also wrote their names here and there, each in his own language&mdash;Ionians,
+      Rhodians, Carians, Phoenicians, and perhaps even Jews; e.g. Elesibios of
+      Teos, Pabis of Colophon, Telephos of Ialysos, Abdsakon son of Petiehvê,
+      Gerhekal son of Hallum. The whole of this part of the country, brought to
+      ruin in the gradual dismemberment of Greater Egypt, could not have
+      differed much from the Nubia of to-day; there were the same narrow strips
+      of cultivation along the river banks, gigantic temples half buried by
+      their own ruins, scattered towns and villages, and everywhere the yellow
+      sand creeping insensibly down towards the Nile. The northern part of this
+      province remained in the hands of the Saite Pharaohs, and the districts
+      situated further south just beyond Abu-Simbel formed at that period a sort
+      of neutral ground between their domain and that of the Pharaohs of Napata.
+      While all this was going on, Syria continued to plot in secret, and the
+      faction which sought security in a foreign alliance was endeavouring to
+      shake off the depression caused by the reverses of Jehoiakim and his son;
+      and the tide of popular feeling setting in the direction of Egypt became
+      so strong, that even Zedekiah, the creature of Nebuchadrezzar, was unable
+      to stem it. The prophets who were inimical to religious reform, persisted
+      in their belief that the humiliation of the country was merely temporary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0044" id="linkCimage-0044">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/417.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="417.jpg the Façade of The Great Temple Of Abu-simbel " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Those of them who still remained in Jerusalem repeated at every turn, &ldquo;Ye
+      shall not serve the King of Babylon... the vessels of the Lord&rsquo;s house
+      shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon.&rdquo; Jeremiah endeavoured to
+      counteract the effect of their words, but in vain; the people, instead of
+      listening to the prophet, waxed wroth with him, and gave themselves more
+      and more recklessly up to their former sins. Incense was burnt every
+      morning on the roofs of the houses and at the corners of the streets in
+      honour of Baal, lamentations for Tammuz again rent the air at the season
+      of his festival; the temple was invaded by uncircumcised priests and their
+      idols, and the king permitted the priests of Moloch to raise their pyres
+      in the valley of Hinnom. The exiled Jews, surrounded on all sides by
+      heathen peoples, presented a no less grievous spectacle than their
+      brethren at Jerusalem; some openly renounced the God of their fathers,
+      others worshipped their chosen idols in secret, while those who did not
+      actually become traitors to their faith, would only listen to such
+      prophets as promised them a speedy revenge&mdash;Ahab, Zedekiah, son of
+      Maaseiah, and Shemaiah. There was one man, however, who appeared in their
+      midst, a priest, brought up from his youth in the temple and imbued with
+      the ideas of reform&mdash;Ezekiel, son of Buzi, whose words might have
+      brought them to a more just appreciation of their position, had they not
+      drowned his voice by their clamour; alarmed at their threats, he refrained
+      from speech in public, but gathered round him a few faithful adherents at
+      his house in Tel-AMb, where the spirit of the Lord first came upon him in
+      their presence about the year 592.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Ezelc. i. 1, 2. We see him receiving the elders in his
+     house in chaps, viii. 1, xiv. 1, xx. 1, et. seq.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This little band of exiles was in constant communication with the
+      mother-country, and the echo of the religious quarrels and of the
+      controversies provoked between the various factions by the events of the
+      political world, was promptly borne to them by merchants, travelling
+      scribes, or the king&rsquo;s legates who were sent regularly to Babylon with the
+      tribute.* They learnt, about the year 590, that grave events were at hand,
+      and that the moment had come when Judah, recovering at length from her
+      trials, should once more occupy, in the sight of the sun, that place for
+      which Jahveh had destined her. The kings of Moab, Ammon, Edom, Tyre, and
+      Sidon had sent envoys to Jerusalem, and there, probably at the dictation
+      of Egypt, they had agreed on what measures to take to stir up a general
+      insurrection against Chaldæa.** The report of their resolutions had
+      revived the courage of the national party, and of its prophets; Hananiah,
+      son of Azzur, had gone through the city announcing the good news to
+      all.***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Jer. xxix. 3 gives the names of two of these transmitters
+     of the tribute&mdash;Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the
+     son of Hilkiah, to whom Jeremiah had entrusted a message for
+     those of the captivity.
+
+     ** Jer. xxvii. 1-3. The statement at the beginning of this
+     chapter: <i>In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim</i>,
+     contains a copyist&rsquo;s error; the reading should be: <i>In the
+     beginning of the reign of Zedekiah</i> (see ver. 12).
+
+     *** Jer. xxvii., xxviii.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken
+      the yoke of the King of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again
+      into this place all the vessels of the Lord&rsquo;s house .. . and Jeconiah the
+      son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, with all the captives of Judah that went
+      to Babylon!&rdquo; But Jeremiah had made wooden yokes and had sent them to the
+      confederate princes, threatening them with divine punishment if they did
+      not bow their necks to Nebuchadrezzar; the prophet himself bore one on his
+      own neck, and showed himself in the streets on all occasions thus
+      accoutred, as a living emblem of the slavery in which Jahveh permitted His
+      people to remain for their spiritual good. Hananiah, meeting the prophet
+      by chance, wrested the yoke from him and broke it, exclaiming, &ldquo;Thus saith
+      the Lord: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar, King of
+      Babylon, within two full years from off the neck of all the nations.&rdquo; The
+      mirth of the bystanders was roused, but on the morrow Jeremiah appeared
+      with a yoke of iron, which Jahveh had put &ldquo;upon the neck of all the
+      nations, that they may serve Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon.&rdquo; Moreover,
+      to destroy in the minds of the exiled Jews any hope of speedy deliverance,
+      he wrote to them: &ldquo;Let not your prophets that be in the midst of you, and
+      your diviners, deceive you, neither hearken ye to your dreams which ye
+      cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in My name: I have
+      not sent them, saith the Lord.&rdquo; The prophet exhorted them to resign
+      themselves to their fate, at all events for the time, that the unity of
+      their nation might be preserved until the time when it might indeed please
+      Jahveh to restore it: &ldquo;Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant
+      gardens and eat the fruit of them: take ye wives and beget sons and
+      daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to
+      husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply ye there and
+      be not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused
+      you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the
+      peace thereof shall ye have peace.&rdquo; Psammetichus II. died in 589,* and his
+      reign, though short, was distinguished by the activity shown in rebuilding
+      and embellishing the temples.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus reckoned the length of the reign of Psammetichus
+     II. at six years, in which he agrees with the Syncellus,
+     while the abbreviators of Manetho fix it at seventeen years.
+     The results given by the reading of a stele of the Louvre
+     enable us to settle that the figure 6 is to be preferred to
+     the other, and to reckon the length of the reign at five
+     years and a half.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0045" id="linkCimage-0045">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:46%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/422.jpg"
+       alt="422.jpg Apries, from a Sphinx in the Louvre " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier, from
+the bronze statuette
+in the Louvre Museum.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      His name is met with everywhere on the banks of the Nile&mdash;at Karnak,
+      where he completed the decoration of the great columns of Taharqa, at
+      Abydos, at Heliopolis, and on the monuments that have come from that town,
+      such as the obelisk set up in the Campus Martius at Borne. The personal
+      influence of the young sovereign did not count for much in the zeal thus
+      displayed; but the impulse that had been growing during three or four
+      generations, since the time of the expulsion of the Assyrians, now began
+      to have its full effect. Egypt, well armed, well governed by able
+      ministers, and more and more closely bound to Greece by both mercantile
+      and friendly ties, had risen to a very high position in the estimation of
+      its contemporaries; the inhabitants of Elis had deferred to her decision
+      in the question whether they should take part in the Olympic games in
+      which they were the judges, and following the advice she had given on the
+      matter, they had excluded their own citizens from the sports so as to
+      avoid the least suspicion of partiality in the distribution of the
+      prizes.* The new king, probably the brother of the late Pharaoh, had his
+      prenomen of Uahibn from his grandfather Psammetichus I., and it was this
+      sovereign that the Greeks called indifferently Uaphres and Apries.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Diodorus Siculus has transferred the anecdote to Amasis,
+     and the decision given is elsewhere attributed to one of the
+     seven sages. The story is a popular romance, of which
+     Herodotus gives the version current among the Greeks in
+     Egypt.
+
+     ** According to Herodotus, Apries was the son of Psammis.
+     The size of the sarcophagus of Psammetichus II., suitable
+     only for a youth, makes this filiation improbable.
+     Psammetichus, who came to the throne when he was hardly more
+     than a child, could have left behind him only children of
+     tender age, and Apries appears from the outset as a prince
+     of full mental and physical development.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He was young, ambitious, greedy of fame and military glory, and longed to
+      use the weapon that his predecessors had for some fifteen years past been
+      carefully whetting; his emissaries, arriving at Jerusalem at the moment
+      when the popular excitement was at its height, had little difficulty in
+      overcoming Zede-kiah&rsquo;s scruples. Edoni, Moab, and the Philistines, who had
+      all taken their share in the conferences of the rebel party, hesitated at
+      the last moment, and refused to sever their relations with Babylon. Tyre
+      and the Ammonites alone persisted in their determination, and allied
+      themselves with Egypt on the same terms as Judah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0046" id="linkCimage-0046">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/423.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="423.jpg Stele of Nebuchadrezzar " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Pognon. The figures
+     have been carefully defaced with the hammer, but the outline
+     of the king can still be discerned on the left; he seizes
+     the rampant lion by the right paw, and while it raises its
+     left paw against him, he plunges his dagger into the body of
+     the beast.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nebuchadrezzar, thus defied by three enemies, was at a loss to decide upon
+      which to make his first attack. Ezekiel, whose place of exile put him in a
+      favourable position for learning what was passing, shows him to us as he
+      &ldquo;stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use
+      divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he
+      looked in the liver.&rdquo; Judah formed as it were the bridge by which the
+      Egyptians could safely enter Syria, and if Nebuchadrezzar could succeed in
+      occupying it before their arrival, he could at once break up the coalition
+      into three separate parts incapable of rejoining one another&mdash;Ammon
+      in the desert to the east, Tyre and Sidon on the seaboard, and Pharaoh
+      beyond his isthmus to the south-west. He therefore established himself in
+      a central position at Eiblah on the Orontes, from whence he could observe
+      the progress of the operations, and hasten with his reserve force to a
+      threatened point in the case of unforeseen difficulties; having done this,
+      he despatched the two divisions of his army against his two principal
+      adversaries. One of these divisions crossed the Lebanon, seized its
+      fortresses, and, leaving a record of its victories on the rocks of the
+      Wady Brissa, made its way southwards along the coast to blockade Tyre.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The account of this Phoenician campaign is contained in
+     one of the inscriptions discovered and commented on by
+     Pognon. Winckler, the only one to my knowledge who has tried
+     to give a precise chronological position to the events
+     recorded in the inscription, places them at the very
+     beginning of the reign, after the victory of Carchemish,
+     about the time when Nebuchadrezzar heard that his father had
+     just died. I think that this date is not justified by the
+     study of the inscription, for the king speaks therein of the
+     great works that he had accomplished, the restoration of the
+     temples, the rebuilding of the walls of Babylon, and the
+     digging of canals, all of which take us to the middle or the
+     end of his reign. We are therefore left to choose between
+     one of two dates, namely, that of 590-587, during the Jewish
+     war, and that from the King&rsquo;s thirty-seventh year to 568
+     B.C., during the war against Amasis which will be treated
+     below. I have chosen the first, because of Nebuchadrezzar&rsquo;s
+     long sojourn at Riblah, which gave him sufficient time for
+     the engraving of the stelse on Lebanon: the bas-reliefs of
+     Wady. Brissa could have been cut before the taking of
+     Jerusalem, for no allusion to the war against the Jews is
+     found in them. The enemy mentioned in the opening lines is
+     perhaps Apries, whose fleet was scouring the Phoenician
+     coasts.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The other force bore down upon Zedekiah, and made war upon him ruthlessly.
+      It burnt the villages and unwalled towns, gave the rural districts over as
+      a prey to the Philistines and the Edomites, surrounded the two fortresses
+      of Lachish and Azekah, and only after completely exhausting the provinces,
+      appeared before the walls of the capital. Jerusalem was closely beset when
+      the news reached the Chaldæans that Apries was approaching Gaza; Zedekiah,
+      in his distress, appealed to him for help, and the promised succour at
+      length came upon the scene. The Chaldæans at once raised the siege with
+      the object of arresting the advancing enemy, and the popular party,
+      reckoning already on a Chaldean defeat, gave way to insolent rejoicing
+      over the prophets of evil. Jeremiah, however, had no hope of final
+      success. &ldquo;Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldæans shall surely
+      depart from us; for they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the
+      whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but
+      wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and
+      burn this city with fire.&rdquo; What actually took place is not known;
+      according to one account, Apries accepted battle and was defeated;
+      according to another, he refused to be drawn into an engagement, and
+      returned haughtily to Egypt.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * That, at least, is what Jeremiah seems to say (xxxvii. 7):
+     &ldquo;Behold, Pharaoh&rsquo;s army, which is come forth to help you,
+     shall return to Egypt into their own land.&rdquo; There is no hint
+     here of defeat or even of a battle.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His fleet probably made some effective raiding on the Phoenician coast. It
+      is easy to believe that the sight of the Chaldoan camp inspired him with
+      prudence, and that he thought twice before compromising the effects of his
+      naval campaign and risking the loss of his fine army&mdash;the only one
+      which Egypt possessed&mdash;in a conflict in which his own safety was not
+      directly concerned. Nebuchadrezzar, on his side, was not anxious to pursue
+      so strongly equipped an adversary too hotly, and deeming himself fortunate
+      in having escaped the ordeal of a trial of strength with him, he returned
+      to his position before the walls of Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The city receiving no further succour, its fall was merely a question of
+      time, and resistance served merely to irritate the besiegers. The Jews
+      nevertheless continued to defend it with the heroic obstinacy and, at the
+      same time, with the frenzied discord of which they have so often shown
+      themselves capable. During the respite which the diversion caused by
+      Apries afforded them, Jeremiah had attempted to flee from Jerusalem and
+      seek refuge in Benjamin, to which tribe he belonged. Arrested at the city
+      gate on the pretext of treason, he was unmercifully beaten, thrown into
+      prison, and the king, who had begun to believe in him, did not venture to
+      deliver him. He was confined in the court of the palace, which served as a
+      gaol, and allowed a ration of a loaf of bread for his daily food.1 The
+      courtyard was a public place, to which all comers had access who desired
+      to speak to the prisoners, and even here the prophet did not cease to
+      preach and exhort the people to repentance: &ldquo;He that abideth in this city
+      shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that
+      goeth forth to the Chaldæans shall live, and his life shall be unto him
+      for a prey, and he shall live. Thus saith the Lord, This city shall surely
+      be given into the hand of the army of the King of Babylon, and he shall
+      take it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0047" id="linkCimage-0047">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/427.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="427.jpg Prisoners Under Torture Having Their Tongues Torn Out " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The princes and officers of the king, however, complained to Zedekiah of
+      him: &ldquo;Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he
+      weakeneth the hands of the men of war, and the hands of all the people in
+      speaking such words.&rdquo; Given up to his accusers and plunged in a muddy
+      cistern, he escaped by the connivance of a eunuch of the royal household,
+      only to renew his denunciations with greater force than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0048" id="linkCimage-0048">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/428.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="428.jpg a King Putting out the Eyes of A Prisoner " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from several engravings in Botta.
+     The mutilated remains of several bas-reliefs have been
+     combined so as to form a tolerably correct scene; the
+     prisoners have a ring passed through their lips, and the
+     king holds them by a cord attached to it.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The king sent for him secretly and asked his advice, but could draw from
+      him nothing but threats: &ldquo;If thou wilt go forth unto the King of Babylon&rsquo;s
+      princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with
+      fire, and thou shalt live and thine house: but if thou wilt not go forth
+      to the King of Babylon&rsquo;s princes, then shall this city be given into the
+      hand of the Chal-dseans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt
+      not escape out of their hand.&rdquo; Zedekiah would have asked no better than to
+      follow his advice, but he had gone too far to draw back now. To the
+      miseries of war and sickness the horrors of famine were added, but the
+      determination of the besieged was unshaken; bread was failing, and yet
+      they would not hear of surrender. At length, after a year and a half of
+      sufferings heroically borne, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the
+      eleventh month, and the fourth day of the month, a portion of the city
+      wall fell before the attacks of the battering-rams, and the Chaldæan army
+      entered by the breach. Zedekiah assembled his remaining soldiers, and took
+      counsel as to the possibility of cutting his way through the enemy to
+      beyond the Jordan; escaping by night through the gateway opposite the Pool
+      of Siloam, he was taken prisoner near Jericho, and carried off to Eiblah,
+      where Nebuchadrezzar was awaiting with impatience the result of the
+      operations. The Chaldæans were accustomed to torture their prisoners in
+      the fashion we frequently see represented on the monuments of Nineveh, and
+      whenever an unexpected stroke of good fortune brings to light any
+      decorative bas-relief from their palaces, we shall see represented on it
+      the impaling stake, rebels being flayed alive, and chiefs having their
+      tongues torn out. Nebuchadrezzar, whose patience was exhausted, caused the
+      sons of Zedekiah to be slain in the presence of their father, together
+      with all the prisoners of noble birth, and then, having put out his eyes,
+      sent the king of Babylon loaded with chains. As for the city which had so
+      long defied his wrath, he gave it over to Nebuzaradan, one of the great
+      officers of the crown, with orders to demolish it and give it up
+      systematically to the flames. The temple was despoiled of its precious
+      wall-coverings, the pillars and brazen ornaments of the time of Solomon
+      which still remained were broken up, and the pieces carried off to Chaldoa
+      in sacks, the masonry was overthrown and the blocks of stone rolled down
+      the hill into the ravine of the Kedron. The survivors among the garrison,
+      the priests, scribes, and members of the upper classes, were sent off into
+      exile, but the mortality during the siege had been so great that the
+      convoy barely numbered eight hundred and thirty-two persons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0049" id="linkCimage-0049">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/430b.jpg"
+       alt="430b.jpg a People Carried Away Into Captivity" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Some of the poorer population were allowed to remain in the environs, and
+      the fields and vineyards of the exiles were divided among them.1 Having
+      accomplished the work of destruction, the Chal-dseans retired, leaving the
+      government in the hands of Gedaliah, son of Ahikam,* a friend of Jeremiah.
+      Gedaliah established himself at Mizpah, where he endeavoured to gather
+      around him the remnant of the nation, and fugitives poured in from Moab,
+      Ammon, and Edom.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *Chron. xxxvi. 17-20. The following is the table of the
+     kings of Judah from the death of Solomon to the destruction
+     of Jerusalem:&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0050" id="linkCimage-0050">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/430.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="430.jpg Table of the Kings Of Judah " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that a Jewish principality was about to rise again from the
+      ruins of the kingdom. Jeremiah was its accredited counsellor, but his
+      influence could not establish harmony among these turbulent spirits, still
+      smarting from their recent misfortunes.* The captains of the bands which
+      had been roaming over the country after the fall of Jerusalem refused,
+      moreover, to act in concert with Gedaliah, and one of them, Ishmael by
+      name, who was of the royal blood, assassinated him, but, being attacked in
+      Gibeon by Johanan, the son of Kareah, was forced to escape almost alone
+      and take refuge with the Ammonites.** These acts of violence aroused the
+      vigilance of the Chaldasans; Johanan feared reprisals, and retired into
+      Egypt, taking with him Jeremiah, Baruch, and the bulk of the people.***
+      Apries gave the refugees a welcome, and assigned them certain villages
+      near to his military colony at Daphnae, whence they soon spread into the
+      neighbouring nomes as far as Migdol, Memphis, and even as far as the
+      Thebaid.****
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * For the manner in which Jeremiah was separated from the
+     rest of the captives, set at liberty and sent back to
+     Gedaliah, see Jer. xxxix. 11-18, xl. 1-6.
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxv. 23-25, and Jer. xl. 7-16, xli. 1-15, where
+     these events are recorded at length.
+
+     *** 2 Kings xxv. 26; Jer. xli. 16-18, xlii., xliii. 1-7.
+
+     **** Jer. xliv. 1, where the word of the Lord is spoken to
+     &ldquo;all the Jews... which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes
+     (Daphno), and at Moph (corr. Moph, Memphis), and in the
+     country of Pathros.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Even after all these catastrophes Judah&rsquo;s woes were not yet at an end. In
+      581, the few remaining Jews in Palestine allied themselves with the
+      Moabites and made a last wild effort for independence; a final defeat,
+      followed by a final exile, brought them to irretrievable ruin.* The
+      earlier captives had entertained no hope of advantage from these
+      despairing efforts, and Ezekiel from afar condemned them without pity:
+      &ldquo;They that inherit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying,
+      Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is
+      given us for inheritance.... Ye lift up your eyes unto your idols and shed
+      blood: and shall ye possess the land? Ye stand upon your sword, ye work
+      abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour&rsquo;s wife: and shall ye
+      possess the land?... Thus saith the Lord God: As I live, surely they that
+      are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the
+      open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in
+      the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.&rdquo; **
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Josephus, following Berosus, speaks of a war against the
+     Moabites and the Ammonites, followed by the conquest of
+     Egypt in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar. To this
+     must be added a Jewish revolt if we are to connect with
+     these events the mention of the third captivity, carried out
+     in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar by Nebuzaradan.
+
+     ** Ezek. xxxiii. 23-27.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0051" id="linkCimage-0051">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/436.jpg"
+       alt="436.jpg Bronze Lion of Bohbait " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from an engraving in Mariette.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The first act of the revolution foreseen by the prophets was over; the day
+      of the Lord, so persistently announced by them, had at length come, and it
+      had seen not only the sack of Jerusalem, but the destruction of the
+      earthly kingdom of Judah. Many of the survivors, refusing still to
+      acknowledge the justice of the chastisement, persisted in throwing the
+      blame of the disaster on the reformers of the old worship, and saw no hope
+      of salvation except in their idolatrous practices. &ldquo;As for the word that
+      thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto
+      thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of
+      our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink
+      offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our
+      princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then
+      had we plenty of victuals, and were well and saw no evil. But since we
+      left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink
+      offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by
+      the sword and by the famine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There still remained to these misguided Jews one consolation which they
+      shared in common with the prophets&mdash;the certainty of seeing the
+      hereditary foes of Israel involved in the common overthrow: Ammon had been
+      already severely chastised; Tyre, cut off from the neighbouring mainland,
+      seemed on the point of succumbing, and the turn of Egypt must surely soon
+      arrive in which she would have to expiate in bitter sufferings the wrongs
+      her evil counsels had brought upon Jerusalem. Their anticipated joy,
+      however, of witnessing such chastisements was not realised. Tyre defied
+      for thirteen years the blockade of Nebuchadrezzar, and when the city at
+      length decided to capitulate, it was on condition that its king, Ethbaal
+      III., should continue to reign under the almost nominal suzerainty of the
+      Chaldeans (574 B.C.).*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* The majority of Christian writers have imagined, contrary
+to the testimony of the Phoenician annals, that the island
+of Tyre was taken by Nebuchadrezzar; they say that the
+Chaldæans united the island to the mainland by a causeway
+similar to that constructed subsequently by Alexander. It is
+worthy of notice that a local tradition, still existing in
+the eleventh century of our era, asserted that the besiegers
+were not successful in their enterprise.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Egypt continued not only to preserve her independence, but seemed to
+      increase in prosperity in proportion to the intensity of the hatred which
+      she had stirred up against her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apries set about repairing the monuments and embellishing the temples: he
+      erected throughout the country stelæ, tables of offerings, statues and
+      obelisks, some of which, though of small size, like that which adorns the
+      Piazza della Minerva at Borne,* erected so incongruously on the back of a
+      modern elephant, are unequalled for purity of form and delicacy of
+      cutting. The high pitch of artistic excellence to which the schools of the
+      reign of Psam-metichus II. had attained was maintained at the same exalted
+      level. If the granite sphinxes** and bronze lions of this period lack
+      somewhat in grace of form, it must be acknowledged that they display
+      greater refinement and elegance in the technique of carving or moulding
+      than had yet been attained.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * [One of the two obelisks of the Campus Martius, on which
+     site the Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva was built.&mdash;Tr.]
+
+     ** Above the summary of the contents of the present chapter,
+     will be found one of these sphinxes which was discovered in
+     Rome.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0052" id="linkCimage-0052">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:44%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/437.jpg"
+       alt="437.jpg the Small Obelisk in The Piazza Della Minerva At Home " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      While engaged in these works at home, Apries was not unobservant of the
+      revolutions occurring in Asia, upon which he maintained a constant watch,
+      and in the years which followed the capitulation of Tyre, he found the
+      opportunity, so long looked for, of entering once more upon the scene. The
+      Phoenician navy had suffered much during the lengthy blockade of their
+      country, and had become inferior to the Egyptian, now well organised by
+      Thelonians: Apries therefore took the offensive by sea, and made a direct
+      descent on the Phoenician coasts. Nebuchadrezzar opposed him with the
+      forces of the recently subjugated Tyrians, and the latter, having cooled
+      in their attachment to Egypt owing to the special favour shown by the
+      Pharaoh to their rivals the Hellenes, summoned their Cypriote vassals to
+      assist them in repelling the attack. The Egyptians dispersed the combined
+      fleets, and taking possession of Sidon, gave it up to pillage. The other
+      maritime cities surrendered of their own accord,* including Gebal, which
+      received an Egyptian garrison, and where the officers of Pharaoh founded a
+      temple to the goddess whom they identified with the Egyptian Hâthor.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* The war of Apries against the Phoenicians
+cannot have taken place before the capitulation
+of Tyre in 574 B.C.,because the Tyrians took
+part in it by order of Nebuchadrezzar, and on
+the other hand it cannot be put later than
+569 B.C., the date of the revolt of Amasis;
+it must therefore be assigned to about 571 B.C.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The object at which Necho and Psammetichus II. had aimed for fifteen years
+      was thus attained by Apries at one fortunate blow, and he could
+      legitimately entitle himself &ldquo;more fortunate than all the kings his
+      predecessors,&rdquo; and imagine, in his pride, that &ldquo;the gods themselves were
+      unable to injure him.&rdquo; The gods, however, did not allow him long to enjoy
+      the fruits of his victory. Greeks had often visited Libya since the time
+      when Egypt had been thrown open to the trade of the iEgean. Their sailors
+      had discovered that the most convenient course thither was to sail
+      straight to Crete, and then to traverse the sea between this island and
+      the headlands of the Libyan plateau; here they fell in with a strong
+      current setting towards the east, which carried them quickly and easily as
+      far as Eakotis and Canopus, along the Marmarican shore. In these voyages
+      they learned to appreciate the value of the country; and about 631 B.C.
+      some Dorians of Thera, who had set out to seek for a new home at the
+      bidding of the Delphic oracle, landed in the small desert island of
+      Platsea, where they built a strongly fortified settlement. Their leader,
+      Battos,* soon crossed over to the mainland, where, having reached the high
+      plateau, he built the city of Cyrene on the borders of an extremely
+      fertile region, watered by abundant springs. The tribes of the Labu, who
+      had fought so valiantly against the Pharaohs of old, still formed a kind
+      of loose confederation, and their territory stretched across the deserts
+      from the Egyptian frontier to the shores of the Syrtes. The chief of this
+      confederation assumed the title of king, as in the days of Mînephtah or of
+      Ramses III.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Herodotus seems to have been ignorant of the real name of
+     the founder of Cyrene, which has been preserved for us by
+     Pindar, by Callimachus, by the spurious Heraclides of
+     Pontus, and by the chronologists of the Christian epoch.
+     Herodotus says that <i>Battos</i> signifies <i>king</i> in the
+     language of Libya.
+
+     ** The description given by Herodotus of these Libyan tribes
+     agrees with the slight amount of information furnished by
+     the Egyptian monuments for the thirteenth century B.C.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The most civilised of these tribes were those which now dwelt nearest to
+      the coast: first the Adyrmakhides, who were settled beyond Marea, and had
+      been semi-Egyptianised by constant intercourse with the inhabitants of the
+      Delta; then the Giligammes, who dwelt between the port of Plynus and the
+      island of Aphrodisias; and beyond these, again, the Asbystes, famed for
+      their skill in chariot-driving, the Cabales, and the Auschises. The oases
+      of the hinterland were in the hands of the Nasamones and of the
+      Mashauasha, whom the Greeks called Maxyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the revolutions so frequent among the desert tribes had compelled
+      the latter to remove from their home near the Nile valley, to a district
+      far to the west, on the banks of the river Triton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0053" id="linkCimage-0053">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/440.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="440.jpg the Oasis of Amok and The Spring Of The Sun " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Minutoli.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There they had settled down in a permanent fashion, dwelling in houses of
+      stone, and giving themselves up to the cultivation of the soil. They
+      continued, however, to preserve in their new life some of their ancient
+      customs, such as that of painting their bodies with vermilion, and of
+      shaving off the hair from their heads, with the exception of one lock
+      which hung over the right ear. The Theban Pharaohs had formerly placed
+      garrisons in the most important oases, and had consecrated temples there
+      to their god Amon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0054" id="linkCimage-0054">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/441.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="441.jpg Portion of the Ruins Of Cyrene " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      One of these sanctuaries, built close to an intermittent spring, which
+      gave forth alternately hot and cold water, had risen to great eminence,
+      and the oracle of these Ammonians was a centre of pilgrimage from far and
+      near. The first Libyans who came into contact with the Greeks, the
+      Asbystes and the Giligammes, received the new-comers kindly, giving them
+      their daughters in marriage; from the fusion of the two races thus brought
+      about sprang, first under Battos and then under his son Arkesilas I., an
+      industrious and valiant race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0055" id="linkCimage-0055">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/443a.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="443a.jpg Map of Lybia in the Vith Century B.c. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The main part of their revenues was derived from commerce in silphium and
+      woollen goods, and even the kings themselves did not deem it beneath their
+      dignity to preside in person at the weighing of the crop, and the storing
+      of the trusses in their magazines. The rapid increase in the wealth of the
+      city having shortly brought about a breach in the friendly relations
+      hitherto maintained between it and its neighbours, Battos the Fortunate,
+      the son of Arkesilas I., sent for colonists from Greece: numbers answered
+      to his call, on the faith of a second oracular prediction, and in order to
+      provide them with the necessary land, Battos did not hesitate to
+      dispossess his native allies. The latter appealed to Adikrân, king of the
+      confederacy, and this prince, persuaded that this irregular militia would
+      not be able to withstand the charge of the hoplites, thereupon applied in
+      his turn to Apries for assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was much tempting spoil to be had in Cyrene, and Apries was fully
+      aware of the fact, from the accounts of the Libyans and the Greeks. His
+      covetousness must have been aroused at the prospect of such rich booty,
+      and perhaps he would have thought of appropriating it sooner, had he not
+      been deterred from the attempt by his knowledge of the superiority of the
+      Greek fleets, and of the dangers attendant on a long and painful march
+      over an almost desert country through disaffected tribes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0057" id="linkCimage-0057">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/444.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="444.jpg Weighing Silphium in Presence of King Arkesilas " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
+     the Coin Room in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The
+     king here represented is Arkesilas II. the Bad.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Now that he could rely on the support of the Libyans, he hesitated no
+      longer to run these risks. Deeming it imprudent, with good reason, to
+      employ his mercenary troops against their own compatriots, Apries
+      mobilised for his encounter with Battos an army exclusively recruited from
+      among his native reserves. The troops set out full of confidence in
+      themselves and of disdain for the enemy, delighted moreover at an
+      opportunity for at length convincing their kings of their error in
+      preferring barbarian to native forces. But the engagement brought to
+      nought all their boastings. The Egyptians were defeated in the first
+      encounter near Irasa, hard by the fountain of Thestê, near the spot where
+      the high plateaus of Cyrene proper terminate in the low cliffs of
+      Marmarica: and the troops suffered so severely during the subsequent
+      retreat that only a small remnant of the army regained in safety the
+      frontier of the Delta.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The interpretation I have given to the sentiments of the
+     Egyptian army follows clearly enough from the observation of
+     Herodotus, that &ldquo;the Egyptians, having never experienced
+     themselves the power of the Greeks, had felt for them
+     nothing but contempt.&rdquo; The site of Irasa and the fountain of
+     Thestê has been fixed with much probability in the fertile
+     district watered still by the fountain of Ersen, Erazem, or
+     Erasân.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0056" id="linkCimage-0056">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:26%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/443b.jpg" alt="443b.jpg the Silphium " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from the cast of a
+coin of Cyrene.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      This unexpected reverse was the occasion of the outbreak of a revolution
+      which had been in preparation for years. The emigration to Ethiopia of
+      some contingents of the military class had temporarily weakened the
+      factions hostile to foreign influence; these factions had felt themselves
+      powerless under the rule of Psammetichus I., and had bowed to his will,
+      prepared all the while to reassert themselves when they felt strong enough
+      to do so successfully. The reorganisation of the native army furnished
+      them at once with the means of insurrection, of which they had temporarily
+      been deprived. Although Pharaoh had lavished privileges on the Hermotybies
+      and Calasiries, she had not removed the causes for discontent which had
+      little by little alienated the good will of the Mashauasha: to do so would
+      have rendered necessary the disbanding of the Ionian guard, the object of
+      their jealousy, and to take this step neither he nor his successors could
+      submit themselves. The hatred of these mercenaries, and the irritation
+      against the sovereigns who employed them, grew fiercer from reign to
+      reign, and now wanted nothing but a pretext to break forth openly: such a
+      pretext was furnished by the defeat at Irasa. When the fugitives arrived
+      at the entrenched camp of Marea, exasperated by their defeat, and alleging
+      doubtless that it was due to treachery, they found others who affected to
+      share their belief that Pharaoh had despatched his Egyptian troops against
+      Cyrene with the view of consigning to certain death those whose loyalty to
+      him was suspected, and it was not difficult to stir up the disaffected
+      soldiers to open revolt. It was not the first time that a military tumult
+      had threatened the sovereignty of Apries. Some time previous to this, in
+      an opposite quarter of the Nile valley, the troops stationed at
+      Elephantine, composed partly of Egyptians, partly of Asiatic and Greek
+      mercenaries&mdash;possibly the same who had fought in the Ethiopian
+      campaign under Psammetichus II.&mdash;had risen in rebellion owing to some
+      neglect in the payment of their wages: having devastated the Thebaid, they
+      had marched straight across the desert to the port of Shashirît, in the
+      hope of there seizing ships to enable them to reach the havens of Idumæa
+      or Nabatoa. The governor of Elephantine, Nsihor, had at first held them
+      back with specious promises; but on learning that Apries was approaching
+      with reinforcements, he attacked them boldly, and driving them before him,
+      hemmed them in between his own force and that of the king and massacred
+      them all. Apries thought that the revolt at Marea would have a similar
+      issue, and that he might succeed in baffling the rebels by fair words; he
+      sent to them as his representative Amasis, one of his generals, distantly
+      connected probably with the royal house. What took place in the camp is
+      not clearly known, for the actual events have been transformed in the
+      course of popular transmission into romantic legends. The story soon took
+      shape that Amasis was born of humble parentage in the village of Siuph,
+      not far from Sais; he was fond, it was narrated, of wine, the pleasures of
+      the table, and women, and replenished his empty purse by stealing what he
+      could lay his hands on from his neighbours or comrades&mdash;a gay
+      boon-companion all the while, with an easy disposition and sarcastic
+      tongue. According to some accounts, he conciliated the favour of Apries by
+      his invariable affability and good humour; according to others, he won the
+      king&rsquo;s confidence by presenting him with a crown of flowers on his
+      birthday.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The king to whom Amasis made this offering is called
+     Patarmis, and the similarity of this name with the
+     Patarbemis of Herodotus seems to indicate a variant of the
+     legend, in which Patarmis or Patarbemis took the place of
+     Apries.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The story goes on to say that while he was haranguing the rebels, one of
+      them, slipping behind him, suddenly placed on his head the rounded helmet
+      of the Pharaohs: the bystanders immediately proclaimed him king, and after
+      a slight show of resistance he accepted the dignity. As soon as the rumour
+      of these events had reached Sais, Apries despatched Patarbemis, one of his
+      chief officers, with orders to bring back the rebel chief alive. The
+      latter was seated on his horse, on the point of breaking up his camp and
+      marching against his former patron, when the envoy arrived. On learning
+      the nature of his mission, Amasis charged him to carry back a reply to the
+      effect that he had already been making preparation to submit, and besought
+      the sovereign to grant him patiently a few days longer, so that he might
+      bring with him the Egyptian subjects of Pharaoh. Tradition adds that, on
+      receiving this insolent defiance, Apries fell into a violent passion, and
+      without listening to remonstrance, ordered the nose and ears of Patarbemis
+      to be cut off, whereupon the indignant people, it is alleged, deserted his
+      cause and ranged themselves on the side of Amasis. The mercenaries,
+      however, did not betray the confidence reposed in them by their Egyptian
+      lords. Although only thirty thousand against a whole people, they
+      unflinchingly awaited the attack at Momemphis (569 B.C.); but, being
+      overwhelmed by the numbers of their assailants, disbanded and fled, after
+      a conflict lasting one day. Apries, taken prisoner in the rout, was at
+      first well treated by the conqueror, and seems even to have retained for a
+      time the external pomp of royalty; but the populace of Sais demanding his
+      execution with vehemence, Amasis was at length constrained to deliver him
+      up to their vengeance, and Apries was strangled by the mob. He was
+      honourably interred between the royal palace and the temple of Nit, not
+      far from the spot where his predecessors reposed in their glory,* and the
+      usurper made himself sole master of the country. It was equivalent to a
+      change of dynasty, and Amasis had recourse to the methods usual in such
+      cases to consolidate his power. He entered into a marriage alliance with
+      princesses of the Saite line, and thus legitimatised his usurpation as far
+      as the north was concerned.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It was probably from this necropolis that the coffin of
+     Psammetichus II. came.
+
+     ** The wife of Amasis, who was mother of Psammetichus III.,
+     the queen Tintkhiti, daughter of Petenit, prophet of Phtah,
+     was probably connected with the royal family of Sais.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the south, the &ldquo;divine worshippers&rdquo; had continued to administer the
+      extensive heritage of Amon, and Nitocris, heiress of Shapenuapît, had
+      adopted in her old age a daughter of her great-nephew, Psammetichus IL,
+      named Ankhnasnofiribrî: this princess was at this time in possession of
+      Thebes, and Amasis appears to have entered into a fictitious marriage with
+      her in order to assume to himself her rights to the crown. He had hardly
+      succeeded in establishing his authority on a firm basis when he was called
+      upon to repel the Chaldaean invasion. The Hebrew prophets had been
+      threatening Egypt with this invasion for a long time, and Ezekiel,
+      discounting the future, had already described the entrance of Pharaoh into
+      Hades, to dwell among the chiefs of the nations&mdash;Assur, Elam,
+      Meshech, Tubal, Edom, and Philistia&mdash;who, having incurred the
+      vengeance of Jahveh, had descended into the grave one after the other:
+      &ldquo;Pharaoh and all his army shall be slain by the sword, saith the Lord God!
+      For I have put this terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid
+      in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword,
+      even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God!&rdquo; Nebuchadrezzar
+      had some hesitation in hazarding his fortune in a campaign on the banks of
+      the Nile: he realised tolerably clearly that Babylon was not in command of
+      such resources as had been at the disposal of Nineveh under Esarhaddon or
+      Assur-bani-pal, and that Egypt in the hands of a Saite dynasty was a more
+      formidable foe than when ruled by the Ethiopians. The report of the
+      revolution of which Apries had become a victim at length determined him to
+      act; the annihilation of the Hellenic troops, and the dismay which the
+      defeat at Irasa had occasioned in the hearts of the Egyptians, seemed to
+      offer an opportunity too favourable to be neglected. The campaign was
+      opened by Nebuchadrezzar about 568, in the thirty-seventh year of his
+      reign,* but we have no certain information as to the issue of his
+      enterprise.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * A fragment of his Annals, discovered by Pinches, mentions
+     in the thirty-seventh year of his reign a campaign against
+     [Ah]masu, King of Egypt; and Wiedemann, from the evidence of
+     this document combined with the information derived from one
+     of the monuments in the Louvre, thought that the fact of a
+     conquest of Egypt as far as Syenô might be admitted; at that
+     point the Egyptian general Nsihor would have defeated the
+     Chaldæans and repelled the invasion, and this event would
+     have taken place during the joint reign of Apries and
+     Amasis. A more attentive examination of the Egyptian
+     monument shows that it refers not to a Chaldæan war, but to
+     a rebellion of the garrisons in the south of Egypt,
+     including the Greek and Semitic auxiliaries.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      According to Chaldæan tradition, Nebuchadrezzar actually invaded the
+      valley of the Nile and converted Egypt into a Babylonian province, with
+      Amasis as its satrap.* We may well believe that Amasis lost the conquests
+      won by his predecessor in Phoenicia, if, indeed, they still belonged to
+      Egypt at his accession: but there is nothing to indicate that the
+      Chaldæans ever entered Egypt itself and repeated the Assyrian exploit of a
+      century before.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * These events would have taken place in the twenty-third
+     year of Nebuchadrezzar; the reigning king (Apries) being
+     killed and his place taken by one of his generals (Amasis),
+     who remained a satrap of the Babylonian empire.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This was Nebuchadrezzar&rsquo;s last war, the last at least of which history
+      makes any mention. As a fact, the kings of the second Babylonian empire do
+      not seem to have been the impetuous conquerors which we have fancied them
+      to be. We see them as they are depicted to us in the visions of the Hebrew
+      prophets, who, regarding them and their nation as a scourge in the hands
+      of God, had no colours vivid enough or images sufficiently terrible to
+      portray them. They had blotted out Nineveh from the list of cities,
+      humiliated Pharaoh, and subjugated Syria, and they had done all this
+      almost at their first appearance in the field&mdash;such a feat as Assyria
+      and Egypt in the plenitude of their strength had been unable to
+      accomplish: they had, moreover, destroyed Jerusalem and carried Judah into
+      captivity. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that this
+      Nebuchadrezzar, whose history is known to us almost entirely from Jewish
+      sources, should appear as a fated force let loose upon the world. &ldquo;O thou
+      sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself
+      into the scabbard; rest and be still! How canst thou be quiet, seeing the
+      Lord hath given thee a charge?&rdquo; But his campaigns in Syria and Africa, of
+      which the echoes transmitted to us still seem so formidable, were not
+      nearly so terrible in reality as those in which Blam had perished a
+      century previously; they were, moreover, the only conflicts which troubled
+      the peace of his reign. The Arabian chroniclers affirm, indeed, that the
+      fabulous wealth of Yemen had incited him to invade that region.
+      Nebuchadrezzar, they relate, routed, not far from the town of Dhât-îrk,
+      the Joctanides of Jorhom, who had barred his road to the Kaabah, and after
+      seizing Mecca, reached the borders of the children of Himyrâ: the
+      exhausted condition of his soldiers having prevented him from pressing
+      further forward in his career of conquest, he retraced his steps and
+      returned to Babylon with a great number of prisoners, including two entire
+      tribes, those of Hadhurâ and Uabar, whom he established as colonists in
+      Chaldæa.* He never passed in this direction beyond the limits reached by
+      Assur-bani-pal, and his exploits were restricted to some successful raids
+      against the tribes of Kedar and Nabatsea.**
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Most of the Arabic legends relating to these conquests of Nebuchadrezzar
+      are indirectly derived from the biblical story; but it is possible that
+      the history of the expeditions against Central Arabia is founded on fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ** This seems to follow from Jeremiah&rsquo;s imprecations upon Kedar
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same reasons which at the commencement of his reign had restrained his
+      ambition to extend his dominions towards the east and north, were
+      operative up to the end of his life. Astyages had not inherited the
+      martial spirit of his father Cyaxares, and only one warlike expedition,
+      that against the Cadusians, is ascribed to him.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Moses of Chorene attributes to him long wars against an
+     Armenian king named Tigranes; but this is a fiction of a
+     later age.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Naturally indolent, lacking in decision, superstitious and cruel, he
+      passed a life of idleness amid the luxury of a corrupt court, surrounded
+      by pages, women, and eunuchs, with no more serious pastime than the chase,
+      pursued within the limits of his own parks or on the confines of the
+      desert. But if the king was weak, his empire was vigorous, and
+      Nebuchadrezzar, brought up from his youth to dread the armies of Media,
+      retained his respect for them up to the end of his life, even when there
+      was no longer any occasion to do so. Nebuchadrezzar was, after all, not so
+      much a warrior as a man of peace, whether so constituted by nature or
+      rendered so by political necessity in its proper sense, and he took
+      advantage of the long intervals of quiet between his campaigns to complete
+      the extensive works which more than anything else have won for him his
+      renown. During the century which had preceded the fall of Nineveh,
+      Babylonia had had several bitter experiences; it had suffered almost
+      entire destruction at the hands of Sennacherib; it had been given up to
+      pillage by Assur-bani-pal, not to mention the sieges and ravages it had
+      sustained in the course of continual revolts. The other cities of
+      Babylonia, Sippara, Borsippa, Kutha, Nipur, Uruk, and Uru, had been
+      subjected to capture and recapture, while the surrounding districts,
+      abandoned in turn to Elamites, Assyrians, and the Kaldâ, had lain
+      uncultivated for many years. The canals at the same time had become choked
+      with mud, the banks had fallen in, and the waters, no longer kept under
+      control, had overflowed the land, and the plains long since reclaimed for
+      cultivation had returned to their original condition of morasses and
+      reed-beds; at Babylon itself the Arakhtu, still encumbered with the <i>debris</i>
+      cast into it by Sennacherib, was no longer navigable, and was productive
+      of more injury than profit to the city: in some parts the aspect of the
+      country must have been desolate and neglected as at the present day, and
+      the work accomplished by twenty generations had to be begun entirely
+      afresh. Nabopolassar had already applied himself to the task in spite of
+      the anxieties of his Assyrian campaigns, and had raised many earthworks in
+      both the capital and the provinces. But a great deal more still remained
+      to be done, and Nebuchadrezzar pushed forward the work planned by his
+      father, and carried it to completion undeterred and undismayed by any
+      difficulties.* The combined system of irrigation and navigation introduced
+      by the kings of the first Babylonian empire twenty centuries previously,
+      was ingeniously repaired; the beds of the principal canals, the Royal
+      river and the Arakhtu, were straightened and deepened; the drainage of the
+      country between the Tigris and the Euphrates was regulated by means of
+      subsidiary canals and a network of dykes; the canals surrounding Babylon
+      or intersecting in the middle of the city were cleaned out, and a waterway
+      was secured for navigation from one river to the other, and from the
+      plateau of Mesopotamia to the Nar-Marratum.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The only long inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar which we
+     possess, are those commemorating the great works he designed
+     and executed.
+
+     ** The irrigation works of Nebuchadrezzar are described at
+     length, and perhaps exaggerated, by Abydenus, who merely
+     quotes Berosus more or less inaccurately. The completion of
+     the quays along the Arakhtu, begun by Nabopolassar, is
+     noticed in the <i>East India Company&rsquo;s Inscription</i>. A special
+     inscription, publ. by H. Rawlinson, gives an account of the
+     repairing of the canal Libil-khigallu, which crossed
+     Babylon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We may well believe that all Nebuchadrezzar&rsquo;s undertakings were carried
+      out in accordance with a carefully prepared scheme for perfecting the
+      defences of the kingdom while completing the system of internal
+      communication. The riches of Karduniash, now restored to vigour by
+      continued peace, and become the centre of a considerable empire, could not
+      fail to excite the jealousy of its neighbours, and particularly that of
+      the most powerful among them, the Medes of Ecbatana. It is true that the
+      relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages continued to be cordial, and
+      as yet there were no indications of a rupture; but it was always possible
+      that under their successors the good understanding between the two courts
+      might come to an end, and it was needful to provide against the
+      possibility of the barbarous tribes of Iran being let loose upon Babylon,
+      and attempting to inflict on her the fate they had brought upon Nineveh.
+      Nebuchadrezzar, therefore, was anxious to interpose, between himself and
+      these possible foes, such a series of fortifications that the most
+      persevering enemy would be worn out by the prolonged task of forcing them
+      one after another, provided that they were efficiently garrisoned. He
+      erected across the northern side of the isthmus between the two rivers a
+      great embankment, faced with bricks cemented together with bitumen, called
+      the <i>Wall of Media</i>; this wall, starting from Sippara, stretched from
+      the confluence of the Saklauiyeh with the Euphrates to the site of the
+      modern village of Jibbara on the Tigris; on both sides of it four or five
+      deep trenches were excavated, which were passable on raised causeways or
+      by bridges of boats, so arranged as to be easily broken up in case of
+      invasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0058" id="linkCimage-0058">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/456.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="456.jpg City Defended by a Triple Wall " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of the time of
+     Sargon, in the Museum of the Louvre.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The eastern frontier was furnished with a rampart protected by a wide
+      moat, following, between Jibbara and Nipur, the contours of a low-lying
+      district which could be readily flooded. The western boundary was already
+      protected by the Pallakottas, and the lakes or marshes of Bahr-î-Nejîf:
+      Nebuchadrezzar multiplied the number of the dikes, and so arranged them
+      that the whole country between the suburbs of Borsippa and Babylon could
+      be inundated at will. Babylon itself formed as it were the citadel in the
+      midst of these enormous outlying fortifications, and the engineers both of
+      Nabopo-lassar and of his son expended all the resources of their art on
+      rendering it impregnable. A triple rampart surrounded it and united it to
+      Borsippa, built on the model of those whose outline is so frequently found
+      on the lowest tier of an Assyrian bas-relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0059" id="linkCimage-0059">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/457.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="457.jpg Probable Section of the Triple Wall Of Babylon " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from the restoration by
+     Dieulafoy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A moat of great width, with banks of masonry, communicating with the
+      Euphrates, washed the foot of the outer wall, which retained the
+      traditional name of Imgur-bel: behind this wall rose Nimitti-bel, the true
+      city wall, to a height of more than ninety feet above the level of the
+      plain, appearing from a distance, with its battlements and towers, more
+      like a mountain chain than a rampart built by the hand of man; finally,
+      behind Nimitti-bel ran a platform on the same level as the curtain of
+      Imgur-bel, forming a last barrier behind which the garrison could rally
+      before finally owning itself defeated and surrendering the city. Large
+      square towers rose at intervals along the face of the walls, to the height
+      of some eighteen feet above the battlements: a hundred gates fitted with
+      bronze-plated doors, which could be securely shut at need, gave access to
+      the city.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The description of the fortifications of the city is
+     furnished by Herodotus, who himself saw them still partially
+     standing; the account of their construction has been given
+     by Nebuchadrezzar himself, in the <i>East India Company&rsquo;s
+     Inscription</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The space within the walls was by no means completely covered by houses,
+      but contained gardens, farms, fields, and, here and there, the ruins of
+      deserted buildings. As in older Babylon, the city proper clustered round
+      the temple of Merodach, with its narrow winding streets, its crowded
+      bazaars, its noisy and dirty squares, its hostelries and warehouses of
+      foreign merchandise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pyramid of Esarhad-don and Assur-bani-pal, too hastily built, had
+      fallen into ruins: Nebuchadrezzar reconstructed its seven stages, and
+      erected on the topmost platform a shrine furnished with a table of massive
+      gold, and a couch on which the priestess chosen to be the spouse of the
+      god might sleep at night. Other small temples were erected here and there
+      on both banks of the river, and the royal palace, built in the
+      marvellously short space of fifteen days, was celebrated for its hanging
+      gardens, where the ladies of the harem might walk unveiled, secure from
+      vulgar observation. No trace of all these extensive works remains at the
+      present day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0061" id="linkCimage-0061">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/459.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="459.jpg Ruins of the ZiggurÂt Of The Temple Of Bel " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0062" id="linkCimage-0062">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:48%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/460.jpg"
+       alt="460.jpg the Stone Lion of Babylon " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a photograph
+furnished by Father Scheil.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Some scattered fragments of crumbling walls alone betray the site of the
+      great ziggurât, a few bas-reliefs are strewn over the surface of the
+      ground, and a lion of timeworn stone, lying on its back in a depression of
+      the soil, is perhaps the last survivor of those which kept watch,
+      according to custom, at the gates of the palace. But the whole of this
+      vast work of reconstruction and ornamentation must not be attributed to
+      Nebuchadrezzar alone. The plans had been designed by Nabopolassar under
+      the influence of one of his wives, who by a strange chance bears in
+      classic tradition the very Egyptian name of Nitocris; but his work was
+      insignificant compared with that accomplished by his son, and the name of
+      Nebuchadrezzar was justly connected with the marvels of Babylon by all
+      ancient writers. But even his reign of fifty-five years did not suffice
+      for the completion of all his undertakings, and many details still
+      remained imperfect at his death in the beginning of 562 B.C. Though of
+      Kaldu origin, and consequently exposed to the suspicions and secret enmity
+      of the native Babylonians, as all of his race, even Mero-dach-Baladan
+      himself, had been before him, he had yet succeeded throughout the whole of
+      his reign in making himself respected by the turbulent inhabitants of his
+      capital, and in curbing the ambitious pretensions of the priests of
+      Merodach. As soon as his master-hand was withdrawn, the passions so long
+      repressed broke forth, and proved utterly beyond the control of his less
+      able or less fortunate successors.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The sequel of this history is known from the narrative of
+     Berosus. Its authenticity is proved by passages on the
+     <i>Cylinder of Nabonidus</i>. Messer-schmidt considers that Amil-
+     marduk and Labashi-marduk were overthrown by the priestly
+     faction, but a passage on the <i>Cylinder</i>, in which Nabonidus
+     represents himself as inheriting the political views of
+     Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur, leads me to take the
+     opposite view. We know what hatred Nabonidus roused in the
+     minds of the priests of Merodach because his principles of
+     government were opposed to theirs: the severe judgment he
+     passed on the rule of Amil-marduk and Labashi-marduk seems
+     to prove that he considered them as belonging to the rival
+     party in the state, that is, to the priestly faction. The
+     forms of the names and the lengths of the several reigns
+     have been confirmed by contemporary monuments, especially by
+     the numerous contract tablets. The principal inscriptions
+     belonging to the reign of Nergal-sharuzur deal only with
+     public works and the restoration of monuments.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0060" id="linkCimage-0060">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:39%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/458.jpg"
+       alt="458.jpg Fragment of a Babylonian Bas-relief " />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+from a sketch in Layard.
+</pre>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      As far as we are able to judge by the documents which have come down to
+      us, two factions had arisen in the city since the fall of Nineveh, both of
+      which aspired to power and strove to gain a controlling influence with the
+      sovereign. The one comprised the descendants of the Kaldâ who had
+      delivered the city from the Assyrian yoke, together with those of the
+      ancient military nobility. The other was composed of the great priestly
+      families and their adherents, who claimed for the gods or their
+      representatives the right to control the affairs of the state, and to
+      impose the will of heaven on the rulers of the kingdom. The latter faction
+      seems to have prevailed at first at the court of Amil-marduk, the sole
+      surviving son and successor of Nebuchadrezzar. This prince on his
+      accession embraced a policy contrary to that pursued by his father: and
+      one of his first acts was to release Jehoiachin, King of Judah, who had
+      been languishing in chains for twenty-seven years, and to ameliorate the
+      condition of the other expatriated Jews. The official history of a later
+      date represented him as having been an unjust sovereign, but we have no
+      information as to his misdeeds, and know only that after two years a
+      conspiracy broke out against him, led by his own brother-in-law,
+      Nergal-sharuzur, who assassinated him and seized the vacant throne (560
+      B.C.). Nergal-sharuzur endeavoured to revive the policy of Nebuchadrezzar,
+      and was probably supported by the military party, but his reign was a
+      short one; he died in 556 B.C., leaving as sole heir a youth of dissipated
+      character named Labashi-marduk, whose name is stigmatised by the
+      chroniclers as that of a prince who knew not how to rule. He was murdered
+      at the end of nine months, and his place taken by a native Babylonian, a
+      certain Nabonâîd (Nabonidus), son of Nabo-balatsu-ikbi, who was not
+      connected by birth with his immediate predecessors on the throne (556-555
+      B.C.).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No Oriental empire could escape from the effects of frequent and abrupt
+      changes in its rulers: like so many previous dynasties, that of
+      Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after the
+      death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and
+      decrepitude. Popular imagination, awe-struck by such a sudden downfall
+      from exalted prosperity, recognised the hand of God in the events which
+      brought about the catastrophe. A Chaldæan legend, current not long after,
+      related how Nebuchadrezzar, being seized towards the end of his life with
+      the spirit of prophecy, mounted to the roof of his palace, and was
+      constrained, as a punishment for his pride, to predict to his people, with
+      his own lips, the approaching ruin of their city; thereupon the glory of
+      its monarch suffered an eclipse from which there was no emerging. The
+      Jews, nourishing undying hatred for conqueror who had overthrown Jerusalem
+      and destroyed the Temple of Solomon, were not satisfied with a punishment
+      so inadequate. According to them, Nebuchadrezzar, after his victorious
+      career, was so intoxicated with his own glory that he proclaimed himself
+      the equal of God. &ldquo;Is not this great Babylon,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;which I have
+      built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the
+      glory of my majesty!&rdquo; and while he thus spake, there came a voice from
+      heaven, decreeing his metamorphosis into the form of a beast. &ldquo;He was
+      driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the
+      dew of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagles&rsquo; feathers, and his
+      nails like birds&rsquo; claws.&rdquo; For seven years the king remained in this state,
+      to resume his former shape at the end of this period, and recover his
+      kingdom after having magnified the God of Israel.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Dan. iv.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The founder of the dynasty which replaced that of Nebuchadrezzar,
+      Nabonidus, was certainly ill fitted to brave the storms already
+      threatening to break over his kingdom. It has not been ascertained whether
+      he had any natural right to the throne, or by what means he attained
+      supreme power, but the way in which he dwells on the names of
+      Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur renders it probable that he was raised
+      to the throne by the military faction. He did not prove, as events turned
+      turned out, a good general, nor even a soldier of moderate ability, and it
+      is even possible that he also lacked that fierce courage of which none of
+      his predecessors was ever destitute. He allowed his army to dwindle away
+      and his fortresses to fall into ruins; the foreign alliances existing at
+      his accession, together with those which he himself had concluded, were
+      not turned to the best advantage; his provinces were badly administered,
+      and his subjects rendered discontented: his most salient characteristic
+      was an insatiable curiosity concerning historical and religious
+      antiquities, which stimulated him to undertake excavations in all the
+      temples, in order to bring to light monuments of ages long gone by. He was
+      a monarch of peaceful disposition, who might have reigned with some
+      measure of success in a century of unbroken peace, or one troubled only by
+      petty wars with surrounding inferior states; but, unfortunately, the times
+      were ill suited to such mild sovereignty. The ancient Eastern world, worn
+      out by an existence reckoned by thousands of years, as well as by its
+      incessant conflicts, would have desired, indeed, no better fate than to
+      enjoy some years of repose in the condition in which recent events had
+      left it; but other nations, the Greeks and the Persians, by no means
+      anxious for tranquillity, were entering the lists. For the moment the
+      efforts of the Greeks were concentrated on Egypt, where Pharaoh manifested
+      for them inexhaustible good will, and on Cyprus, two-thirds of which
+      belonged to them; the danger for Chaldæa lay in the Persians, kinsfolk and
+      vassals of the Medes, whose semi-barbarous chieftains had issued from
+      their mountain homes some eighty years previously to occupy the eastern
+      districts of Elam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      END OF VOL. VIII. <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12), by G. Maspero
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12)
+
+Author: G. Maspero
+
+Editor: A.H. Sayce
+
+Translator: M.L. McClure
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2005 [EBook #17328]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT, CHALDAEA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Spines]
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
+
+By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen's
+College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of
+France
+
+Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
+
+Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
+Exploration Fund
+
+
+CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Volume VIII.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+THE GROLIER SOCIETY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg Frontispiece]
+
+     Arab Family at Dinner
+
+[Illustration: Titlepage]
+
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+_SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)_
+
+_THE STRUGGLE OF SENNACHERIB WITH JUDAEA AND EGYPT--DESTRUCTION OF
+BABYLON_
+
+_The upheaval of the entire Eastern world on the accession of
+Sennacherib--Revolt of Babylon: return of Merodach-baladan and his
+efforts to form a coalition against Assyria; the battle of Kish (703
+B.C.)--Belibni, King of Babylon (702-699 B.C.)--Sabaco, King of Egypt,
+Amenertas and Pionkhi, Shabi-toku--Tyre and its kings after Ethbaal II.:
+Phoenician colonisation in Libya and the foundation of Carthage--The
+Kingdom of Tyre in the time of Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon:
+Elulai--Judah and the reforms of Hezekiah; alliance of Judah and Tyre
+with Egypt, the downfall of the Tyrian kingdom (702 B.C.)--The battle of
+Altaku and the siege of Jerusalem: Sennacherib encamped before Lachish,
+his Egyptian expedition, the disaster at Pelusium._
+
+_Renewed revolt of Babylon and the Tabal (699 B.C.); flight of the
+people of Bit-Yakin into Elamite territory; Sennacherib's fleet and
+descent on Nagitu (697-696 B.C.)--Khalludush invades Karduniash
+(695 B.C.); Nirgal-ushezib and Mushesib-marduk at Babylon (693-689
+B.C.)--Sennacherib invades Elam (693 B.C.): battle of Khalule (692
+B.C.), siege and destruction of Babylon (689 B.C.)--Buildings of
+Sennacherib at Nineveh: his palace at Kouyunjik; its decoration with
+battle, hunting, and building scenes._
+
+[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)
+
+_The struggle of Sennacherib with Judaea and Egypt--Destruction of
+Babylon._
+
+
+Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or
+lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the
+energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against
+him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the
+adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage
+successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway.
+
+     * The two principal documents for the reign of Sennacherib
+     are engraved on cylinders: the Taylor Cylinder and the
+     Bellino Cylinder, duplicates of which, more or less perfect,
+     exist in the collections of the British Museum. The Taylor
+     Cylinder, found at Kouyunjik or Usebi-Yunus, contains the
+     history or the first eight years of this reign; the Bellino
+     Cylinder treats of the two first years of the reign.
+
+He lacked the wisdom to conciliate the vanquished, or opportunely to
+check his own repressive measures; he destroyed towns, massacred entire
+tribes, and laid whole tracts of country waste, and by failing to
+repeople these with captive exiles from other nations, or to import
+colonists in sufficient numbers, he found himself towards the end of
+his reign ruling over a sparsely inhabited desert where his father had
+bequeathed to him flourishing provinces and populous cities. His was
+the system of the first Assyrian conquerors, Shalmaneser III. and
+Assur-nazir-pal, substituted for that of Tiglath-pileser III. and
+Sargon. The assimilation of the conquered peoples to their conquerors
+was retarded, tribute was no longer paid regularly, and the loss of
+revenue under this head was not compensated by the uncertain increase
+in the spoils obtained by war; the recruiting of the army, rendered more
+difficult by the depopulation of revolted districts, weighed heavier
+still on those which remained faithful, and began, as in former times,
+to exhaust the nation. The news of Sargon's murder, published throughout
+the Eastern world, had rekindled hope in the countries recently
+subjugated by Assyria, as well as in those hostile to her. Phoenicia,
+Egypt, Media, and Elam roused themselves from their lethargy and
+anxiously awaited the turn which events should take at Nineveh and
+Babylon. Sennacherib did not consider it to his interest to assume the
+crown of Chaldaea, and to treat on a footing of absolute equality a
+country which had been subdued by force of arms: he relegated it to the
+rank of a vassal state, and while reserving the suzerainty for himself,
+sent thither one of his brothers to rule as king.*
+
+     * The events which took place at Babylon at the beginning of
+     Sennacherib's reign are known to us from the fragments of
+     Berosus, compared with the Canon of Ptolemy and Pinches'
+     Babylonian Canon. The first interregnum in the Canon of
+     Ptolemy (704-702 B.C.) is filled in Pinches' Canon by three
+     kings who are said to have reigned as follows: Sennacherib,
+     two years; Marduk-zakir-shumu, one month; Merodach-baladan,
+     nine months. Berosus substitutes for Sennacherib one of his
+     brothers, whose name apparently he did not know; and this is
+     the version I have adopted, in agreement with most modern
+     historians, as best tallying with the evident lack of
+     affection for Babylon displayed by Sennacherib throughout
+     his reign.
+
+The Babylonians were indignant at this slight. Accustomed to see their
+foreign ruler conform to their national customs, take the hands of Bel,
+and assume or receive from them a new throne-name, they could not resign
+themselves to descend to the level of mere tributaries: in less than
+two years they rebelled, assassinated the king who had been imposed upon
+them, and proclaimed in his stead Marduk-zakir-shumu,* who was merely
+the son of a female slave (704 B.C.).
+
+     * The servile origin of this personage is indicated in
+     Pinches' Babylonian Canon; he might, however, be connected
+     through his father with a princely, or even a royal, family,
+     and thereby be in a position to win popular support. Among
+     modern Assyriologists, some suppose that the name Akises in
+     Berosus is a corruption of [Marduk-]zakir[shumu]; others
+     consider Akises-Akishu as being the personal name of the
+     king, and Marduk-zakir-shumu his throne-name.
+
+This was the signal for a general insurrection in Chaldaea and the
+eastern part of the empire. Merodach-baladan, who had remained in hiding
+in the valleys on the Elamite frontier since his defeat in 709 B.C.,
+suddenly issued forth with his adherents, and marched at once to
+Babylon; the very news of his approach caused a sedition, in the midst
+of which Marduk-zakir-shumu perished, after having reigned for only one
+month. Merodach-baladan re-entered his former capital, and as soon as
+he was once more seated on the throne, he endeavoured to form alliances
+with all the princes, both small and great, who might create a diversion
+in his favour. His envoys obtained promises of help from Elam; other
+emissaries hastened to Syria to solicit the alliance of Hezekiah, and
+might have even proceeded to Egypt if their sovereign's good fortune had
+lasted long enough.* But Sennacherib did not waste his opportunities in
+lengthy-preparations.
+
+     * 2 Kings xx. 12-19; Isa. xxxix. The embassy to Hezekiah has
+     been assigned to the first reign of Merodach-baladan, under
+     Sargon. In accordance with the information obtained from the
+     Assyrian monuments, it seems to me that it could only have
+     taken place during his second reign, in 703 B.C.
+
+The magnificent army left by Sargon was at his disposal, and summoning
+it at once into the field, he advanced on the town of Kish, where the
+Kalda monarch was entrenched with his Aramaean forces and the Elamite
+auxiliaries furnished by Shutruk-nakhunta. The battle issued in the
+complete rout of the confederate forces. Merodach-baladan fled almost
+unattended, first to Guzum-manu, and then to the marshes of the Tigris,
+where he found a temporary refuge; the troops who were despatched in
+pursuit followed him for five days, and then, having failed to secure
+the fugitive, gave up the search.*
+
+     * The detail is furnished by the _Bellino Cylinder_. Berosus
+     affirmed that Merodach-baladan was put to death by Belibni.
+
+His camp fell into the possession of the victor, with all its
+contents--chariots, horses, mules, camels, and herds of cattle belonging
+to the commissariat department of the army: Babylon threw open its gates
+without resistance, hoping, no doubt, that Sennacherib would at length
+resolve to imitate the precedent set by his father and retain the royal
+dignity for himself. He did, indeed, consent to remit the punishment for
+this first insurrection, and contented himself with pillaging the
+royal treasury and palace, but he did not deign to assume the crown,
+conferring it on Belibni, a Babylonian of noble birth, who had been
+taken, when quite a child, to Nineveh and educated there under the eyes
+of Sargon.*
+
+     * The name is transcribed Belibos in Greek, and it seems as
+     if the Assyrian variants justify the pronunciation Belibush.
+
+While he was thus reorganising the government, his generals were
+bringing the campaign to a close: they sacked, one after another,
+eighty-nine strongholds and eight hundred and twenty villages of
+the Kalda; they drove out the Arabian and Aramaean garrisons which
+Merodach-baladan had placed in the cities of Karduniash, in Urak, Nipur,
+Kuta, and Kharshag-kalamma, and they re-established Assyrian supremacy
+over all the tribes on the east of the Tigris up to the frontiers of
+Elam, the Tumuna, the Ubudu, the Gambulu, and the Khindaru, as also over
+the Nabataeans and Hagarenes, who wandered over the deserts of Arabia to
+the west of the mouths of the Euphrates. The booty was enormous: 208,000
+prisoners, both male and female, 7200 horses, 11,073 asses, 5230 camels,
+80,100 oxen, 800,500 sheep, made their way like a gigantic horde of
+emigrants to Assyria under the escort of the victorious army. Meanwhile
+the Khirimmu remained defiant, and showed not the slightest intention
+to submit: their strongholds had to be attacked and the inhabitants
+annihilated before order could in any way be restored in the country.
+The second reign of Merodach-baladan had lasted barely nine months.
+
+The blow which ruined Merodach-baladan broke up the coalition which he
+had tried to form against Assyria. Babylon was the only rallying-point
+where states so remote, and such entire strangers to each other as Judah
+and Elam, could enter into friendly relations and arrange a plan of
+combined action. Having lost Babylon as a centre, they were once more
+hopelessly isolated, and had no means of concerting measures against the
+common foe: they renounced all offensive action, and waited under
+arms to see how the conqueror would deal with each severally. The
+most threatening storm, however, was not that which was gathering over
+Palestine, even were Egypt to be drawn into open war: for a revolt of
+the western provinces, however serious, was never likely to lead to
+disastrous complications, and the distance from Pelusium to the Tigris
+was too great for a victory of the Pharaoh to compromise effectually
+the safety of the empire. On the other hand, should intervention on the
+part of Elam in the affairs of Babylon or Media be crowned with success,
+the most disastrous consequences might ensue: it would mean the loss
+of Karduniash, or of the frontier districts won with such difficulty by
+Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon; it would entail permanent hostilities
+on the Tigris and the Zab, and perhaps the appearance of barbarian
+troops under the walls of Calah or of Nineveh. Elam had assisted
+Merodach-baladan, and its soldiers had fought on the plains of Kish.
+Months had elapsed since that battle, yet Shutruk-nakhunta showed no
+disposition to take the initiative: he accepted his defeat at all events
+for the time, but though he put off the day of reckoning till a more
+favourable opportunity, it argued neither weakness nor discouragement,
+and he was ready to give a fierce reception to any Assyrian monarch
+who should venture within his domain. Sennacherib, knowing both the
+character and resources of the Elamite king, did not attempt to meet him
+in the open field, but wreaked his resentment on the frontier tribes
+who had rebelled at the instigation of the Elamites, on the Cossoans,
+on Ellipi and its king Ishpabara. He pursued the inhabitants into the
+narrow valleys and forests of the Khoatras, where his chariots were
+unable to follow: proceeding with his troops, sometimes on horseback,
+at other times on foot, he reduced Bit-kilamzak, Khardishpi, and
+Bit-kubatti to ashes, and annexed the territories of the Cossoans and
+the Yasubigalla to the prefecture of Arrapkha. Thence he entered Ellipi,
+where Ishpabara did not venture to come to close quarters with him in
+the open field, but led him on from town to town. He destroyed the
+two royal seats of Marubishti and Akkuddu, and thirty-four of their
+dependent strongholds; he took possession of Zizirtu, Kummalu, the
+district of Bitbarru, and the city of Elinzash, to which he gave the
+name Kar-Sennacherib,--the fortress of Sennacherib,--and annexed them
+to the government of Kharkhar. The distant Medes, disquieted at his
+advance, sent him presents, and renewed the assurances of devotion they
+had given to Sargon, but Sennacherib did not push forward into
+their territory as his predecessors had done: he was content to have
+maintained his authority as far as his outlying posts, and to have
+strengthened the Assyrian empire by acquiring some well-situated
+positions near the main routes which led from the Iranian table-land to
+the plains of Mesopotamia. Having accomplished this, he at once turned
+his attention towards the west, where the spirit of rebellion was still
+active in the countries bordering on the African frontier. Sabaco, now
+undisputed master of Egypt, was not content, like Pionkhi, to bring
+Egypt proper into a position of dependence, and govern it at a distance,
+by means of his generals. He took up his residence within it, at least
+during part of every year, and played the role of Pharaoh so well that
+his Egyptian subjects, both at Thebes and in the Delta, were obliged to
+acknowledge his sovereignty and recognise him as the founder of a
+new dynasty. He kept a close watch over the vassal princes, placing
+garrisons in Memphis and the other principal citadels, and throughout
+the country he took in hand public works which had been almost
+completely interrupted for more than a century owing to the civil wars:
+the highways were repaired, the canals cleaned out and enlarged, and
+the foundations of the towns raised above the level of the inundation.
+Bubastis especially profited under his rule, and regained the ascendency
+it had lost ever since the accession of the second Tanite dynasty; but
+this partiality was not to the detriment of other cities. Several of the
+temples at Memphis were restored, and the inscriptions effaced by time
+were re-engraved. Thebes, happy under the government of Amenertas and
+her husband Pionkhi, profited largely by the liberality of its Ethiopian
+rulers. At Luxor Sabaco restored the decoration of the principal gateway
+between the two pylons, and repaired several portions of the temple of
+Amon at Karnak. History subsequently related that, in order to obtain
+sufficient workmen, he substituted forced labour for the penalty of
+death: a policy which, beside being profitable, would win for him a
+reputation for clemency. Egypt, at length reduced to peace and order,
+began once more to flourish, and to display that inherent vitality
+of which she had so often given proof, and her reviving prosperity
+attracted as of old the attention of foreign powers. At the beginning of
+his reign, Sabaco had attempted to meddle in the intrigues of Syria, but
+the ease with which Sargon had quelled the revolt of Ashdod had inspired
+the Egyptian monarch with salutary distrust in his own power; he had
+sent presents to the conqueror and received gifts in exchange, which
+furnished him with a pretext for enrolling the Asiatic peoples among
+the tributary nations whose names he inscribed on his triumphal lists.*
+Since then he had had some diplomatic correspondence with his powerful
+neighbour, and a document bearing his name was laid up in the archives
+at Calah, where the clay seal once attached to it has been discovered.
+Peace had lasted for a dozen years, when he died about 703 B.C., and his
+son Shabitoku ascended the throne.**
+
+     * It was probably with reference to this exchange of
+     presents that Sabaco caused the bas-relief at Karnak to be
+     engraved, in which he represents himself as victorious over
+     both Asiatics and Africans.
+
+     ** One version of Manetho assigns twelve years to the reign
+     of Sabaco, and this duration is confirmed by an inscription
+     in Hammamat, dated in his twelfth year. Sabaco having
+     succeeded to the throne in 716-715 B.C., his reign brings us
+     down to 704 or 703 B.C., which obliges us to place the
+     accession of Shabi-toku in the year following the death of
+     Sargon.
+
+[Illustration: 011.jpg clay seal with cartouche of sabaco]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Layard.
+
+The temporary embarrassments in which the Babylonian revolution had
+plunged Sennacherib must have offered a tempting opportunity for
+interference to this inexperienced king. Tyre and Judah alone of all the
+Syrian states retained a sufficiently independent spirit to cherish any
+hope of deliverance from the foreign yoke. Tyre still maintained her
+supremacy over Southern Phoenicia, and her rulers were also kings of
+Sidon.* The long reign of Eth-baal and his alliance with the kings of
+Israel had gradually repaired the losses occasioned by civil discord,
+and had restored Tyre to the high degree of prosperity which it had
+enjoyed under Hiram. Few actual facts are known which can enlighten us
+as to the activity which prevailed under Eth-baal: we know, however,
+that he rebuilt the small town of Botrys, which had been destroyed in
+the course of some civil war, and that he founded the city of Auza in
+Libyan territory, at the foot of the mountains of Aures, in one of the
+richest mineral districts of modern Algeria.**
+
+     * Eth-baal II., who, according to the testimony of the
+     native historians, belonged to the royal family of Tyre, is
+     called King of the Sidonians in the Bible (1 Kings xvi. 31),
+     and the Assyrian texts similarly call Elulai King of the
+     Sidonians, while Menander mentions him as King of Tyre. It
+     is probable that the King of Sidon, mentioned in the Annals
+     of Shal-maneser III. side by side with the King of Tyre, was
+     a vassal of the Tyrian monarch.
+
+     ** The two facts are preserved in a passage of Menander. I
+     admit the identity of the Auza mentioned in this fragment
+     with the Auzea of Tacitus, and with the _Colonia Septimia
+     Aur. Auziensium_ of the Roman inscriptions the present
+     Aumale.
+
+In 876 B.C. Assur-nazir-pal had crossed the Lebanon and skirted the
+shores of the Mediterranean: Eth-baal, naturally compliant, had loaded
+him with gifts, and by this opportune submission had preserved his
+cities and country from the horrors of invasion.*
+
+     * The King of Tyre who sent gifts to Assur-nazir-pal is not
+     named in the Assyrian documents: our knowledge of Tyrian
+     chronology permits us with all probability to identify him
+     with Eth-baal.
+
+Twenty years later Shalmaneser III. had returned to Syria, and had come
+into conflict with Damascus. The northern Phoenicians formed a league
+with Ben-hadad (Adadidri) to withstand him, and drew upon themselves the
+penalty of their rashness; the Tynans, faithful to their usual policy,
+preferred to submit voluntarily and purchase peace. Their conduct
+showed the greater wisdom in that, after the death of Eth-baal, internal
+troubles again broke out with renewed fierceness and with even more
+disastrous results. His immediate successor was Balezor (854-846 B.C.),
+followed by Mutton I. (845-821 B.C.), who flung himself at the feet of
+Shalmaneser III., in 842 B.c., in the camp at Baalirasi, and renewed
+his homage three years later, in 839 B.C. The legends concerning the
+foundation of Carthage blend with our slight knowledge of his history.
+They attribute to Mutton I. a daughter named Elissa, who was married
+to her uncle Sicharbal, high priest of Melkarth, and a young son named
+Pygmalion (820-774 B.c.). Sicharbal had been nominated by Mutton as
+regent during the minority of Pygmalion, but he was overthrown by
+the people, and some years later murdered by his ward. From that time
+forward Elissa's one aim was to avenge the murder of her husband.
+She formed a conspiracy which was joined by all the nobles, but being
+betrayed and threatened with death, she seized a fleet which lay ready
+to sail in the harbour, and embarking with all her adherents set sail
+for Africa, landing in the district of Zeugitane, where the Sidonians
+had already built Kambe. There she purchased a tract of land from
+larbas, chief of the Liby-phoenicians, and built on the ruins of the
+ancient factory a new town, Qart-hadshat, which the Greeks called
+Carchedo and the Romans Carthage. The genius of Virgil has rendered
+the name of Dido illustrious: but history fails to recognise in the
+narratives which form the basis of his tale anything beyond a legendary
+account fabricated after the actual origin (814-813 B.C.) of the great
+Punic city had been forgotten. Thus weakened, Tyre could less than ever
+think of opposing the ambitious designs of Assyria: Pygmalion took no
+part in the rebellions of the petty Syrian kings against Samsi-ramman,
+and in 803 B.C. he received his suzerain Ramman-nirari with the
+accustomed gifts, when that king passed through Phoenicia before
+attacking Damascus. Pygmalion died about 774 B.C., and the names of his
+immediate successors are not known;* it may be supposed, however, that
+when the power of Nineveh temporarily declined, the ties which held Tyre
+to Assyria became naturally relaxed, and the city released herself from
+the burden of a tribute which had in the past been very irregularly
+paid.
+
+     * The fragment of Menander 'which has preserved for us the
+     list of Tyrian kings from Abi-baal to Pygmalion, was only
+     quoted by Josephus, because, the seventh year of Pygmalion's
+     reign corresponding to the date of the foundation of
+     Carthage,--814--813 B.C. according to the chronological
+     system of Timssus,--the Hebrew historian found in it a fixed
+     date which seemed to permit of his establishing the
+     chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah on a trustworthy
+     basis between the reign of Pygmalion and Hiram I., the
+     contemporary of David and Solomon.
+
+The yoke was reassumed half a century later, at the mere echo of the
+first victories of Tiglath-pileser III.; and Hiram II., who then reigned
+in Tyre, hastened to carry to the camp at Arpad assurances of his
+fidelity (742 B.C.). He gave pledges of his allegiance once more in 738
+B.C.; then he disappears, and Mutton II. takes his place about 736 B.C.
+This king cast off, unhappily for himself, his hereditary apathy, and as
+soon as a pretext offered itself, abandoned the policy of neutrality to
+which his ancestors had adhered so firmly. He entered into an alliance
+in 734 B.C. with Damascus, Israel and Philistia, secretly supported
+and probably instigated by Egypt; then, when Israel was conquered and
+Damascus overthrown, he delayed repairing his error till an Assyrian
+army appeared before Tyre: he had then to pay the price of his temerity
+by 120 talents of gold and many loads of merchandise (728 B.C.). The
+punishment was light and the loss inconsiderable in comparison with
+the accumulated wealth of the city, which its maritime trade was daily
+increasing:* Mutton thought the episode was closed,** but the peaceful
+policy of his house, having been twice interrupted, could not be
+resumed.
+
+     *[For a description of the trade carried on by Tyre, cf.
+     Ezelc. xxvi., xxvii., and xxviii.---Tr.]
+
+     ** Pygmalion having died about 774 B.C., and Hiram II. not
+     appearing till 742 B.C., it is probable that we should
+     intercalate between these two Kings at least one sovereign
+     whose name is still unknown.
+
+Southern Phoenicia, having once launched on the stream of Asiatic
+politics, followed its fluctuations, and was compelled henceforth to
+employ in her own defence the forces which had hitherto been utilised
+in promoting her colonial enterprises. But it was not due to the foolish
+caprice of ignorant or rash sovereigns that Tyre renounced her former
+neutral policy: she was constrained to do so, almost perforce, by the
+changes which had taken place in Europe. The progress of the Greeks, and
+their triumph in the waters of the AEgean and Ionian Seas, and the rapid
+expansion of the Etruscan navy after the end of the ninth century, had
+gradually restricted the Phoenician merchantmen to the coasts of the
+Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic: they industriously exploited
+the mineral wealth of Africa and Spain, and traffic with the barbarous
+tribes of Morocco and Lusitania, as well as the discovery and working of
+the British tin mines, had largely compensated for the losses occasioned
+by the closing of the Greek and Italian markets. Their ships, obliged
+now to coast along the inhospitable cliffs of Northern Africa and to
+face the open sea, were more strongly and scientifically built than any
+vessels hitherto constructed. The Egyptian undecked galleys, with stem
+and stern curving inwards, were discarded as a build ill adapted to
+resist the attacks of wind or wave. The new Phoenician galley had a long,
+low, narrow, well-balanced hull, the stern raised and curving inwards
+above the steersman, as heretofore, but the bows pointed and furnished
+with a sharp ram projecting from the keel, equally serviceable to cleave
+the waves or to stave in the side of an enemy's ship. Motive power was
+supplied by two banks of oars, the upper ones resting in rowlocks on
+the gunwale, the lower ones in rowlocks pierced in the timbers of the
+vessel's side. An upper deck, supported by stout posts, ran from stem to
+stern, above the heads of the rowers, and was reserved for the soldiers
+and the rest of the crew: on a light railing surrounding it were hung
+the circular shields of the former, forming as it were a rampart on
+either side.
+
+[Illustration: 017.jpg A PHOENICIAN GALLEY WITH TWO BANKS OF OARS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard. Sennacherib affirms
+     that vessels of this type had been constructed by Syrian
+     shipwrights, and were manned by Tyrian, Sidonian, and Ionian
+     sailors.
+
+The mast, passing through both decks, was firmly fixed in the keel, and
+was supported by two stays made fast to stem and stern. The rectangular
+sail was attached to a yard which could be hoisted or lowered at will.
+The wealth which accrued to the Tyrians from their naval expeditions
+had rendered the superiority of Tyre over the neighbouring cities so
+manifest that they had nearly all become her vassals. Arvad and Northern
+Phoenicia were still independent, as also the sacred city of Bylos, but
+the entire coast from the Nahr-el-Kelb to the headland formed by
+Mount Carmel was directly subject to Tyre,* comprising the two Sidons,
+Bit-ziti, and Sarepta, the country from Mahalliba to the fords of the
+Litany, Ushu and its hinterland as far as Kana, Akzib, Akko, and Dora;
+and this compact territory, partly protected by the range of Lebanon,
+and secured by the habitual prudence of its rulers from the invasions
+which had desolated Syria, formed the most flourishing, and perhaps also
+the most populous, kingdom which still existed between the Euphrates and
+the Egyptian desert.**
+
+     * The kings of Arvad and Byblos are still found mentioned at
+     the beginning of Sennacherib's reign.
+
+     ** The extent of the kingdom of Tyro is indicated by the
+     passage in which Sennacherib enumerated the cities which he
+     had taken from Elulai. To these must be added Dor, to the
+     south of Carmel, which was always regarded as belonging to
+     the Tyrians, and whose isolated position between the
+     headland, the sea, and the forest might cause the Assyrians
+     to leave it unmolested.
+
+Besides these, some parts of Cyprus were dependent on Tyre, though
+the Achaean colonies, continually reinforced by fresh immigrants, had
+absorbed most of the native population and driven the rest into the
+mountains.
+
+[Illustration: 018.jpg MAP OF KINGDOM OF TYRE, THE CAMPAIGN OF
+SENNACHERIB]
+
+A hybrid civilisation had developed among these early Greek settlers,
+amalgamating the customs, religions, and arts of the ancient eastern
+world of Egypt, Syria, and Chaldoa in variable proportions: their script
+was probably derived from one of the Asianic systems whose monuments
+are still but partly known, and it consisted of a syllabary awkwardly
+adapted to a language for which it had not been designed. A dozen petty
+kings, of whom the majority were Greeks, disputed possession of the
+northern and eastern parts of the island, at Idalion, Khytros, Paphos,
+Soli, Kourion, Tamassos, and Ledron. The Phoenicians had given way at
+first before the invaders, and had grouped themselves in the eastern
+plain round Kition; they had, however, subsequently assumed the
+offensive, and endeavoured to regain the territory they had lost.
+Kition, which had been destroyed in one of their wars, had been rebuilt,
+and thus obtained the name of Qart-hadshat, "the new city."*
+
+     * The name of this city, at first read as Amtikhadashti, and
+     identified with Ammokhostos or with Amathous,--_Amti-
+     Khadash_ would in this case be equivalent to _New
+     Amathous_,--is really Karti-Khadashti, as is proved by the
+     variant reading discovered by Schrader, and this is
+     identical with the native name of Carthage in Africa. This
+     new city must have been of some antiquity by the time of
+     Elulai, for it is mentioned on a fragment of a bronze vase
+     found in Cyprus itself: this fragment belonged to a King
+     Hiram, who according to some authorities would be Hiram II.,
+     according to others, Hiram I.
+
+Mutton's successor, Elulai, continued, as we know, the work of defence
+and conquest: perhaps it was with a view to checking his advance that
+seven kings of Cyprus sent an embassy, in 709 B.C., to his suzerain,
+Sargon, and placed themselves under the protection of Assyria. If this
+was actually the case, and Elulai was compelled to suspend hostilities
+against these hereditary foes, one can understand that this grievance,
+added to the reasons for uneasiness inspired by the situation of his
+continental dominions, may have given him the desire to rid himself of
+the yoke of Assyria, and contributed to his resolution to ally himself
+with the powers which were taking up arms against her. The constant
+intercourse of his subjects with the Delta, and his natural anxiety to
+avoid anything which might close one of the richest markets of the world
+to the Tyrian trade, inclined him to receive favourably the overtures of
+the Pharaoh: the emissaries of Shabitoku found him as much disposed
+as Hezekiah himself to begin the struggle. The latter monarch, who
+had ascended the throne while still very young, had at first shown no
+ambition beyond the carrying out of religious reforms. His father Ahaz
+had been far from orthodox, in spite of the influence exerted over him
+by Isaiah. During his visit to Tiglath-pileser at Damascus (729 B.C.) he
+had noticed an altar whose design pleased him. He sent a description
+of it to the high priest Urijah, with orders to have a similar one
+constructed, and erected in the court of the temple at Jerusalem: this
+altar he appropriated to his personal use, and caused the priests to
+minister at it, instead of at the old altar, which he relegated to an
+inferior position. He also effected changes in the temple furniture,
+which doubtless appeared to him old-fashioned in comparison with the
+splendours of the Assyrian worship which he had witnessed, and he made
+some alterations in the approaches to the temple, wishing, as far as we
+can judge, that the King of Judah should henceforth, like his brother of
+Nineveh, have a private, means of access to his national god.
+
+This was but the least of his offences: for had he not offered his own
+son as a holocaust at the moment he felt himself most menaced by the
+league of Israel and Damascus? Among the people themselves there were
+many faint-hearted and faithless, who, doubting the power of the God of
+their forefathers, turned aside to the gods of the neighbouring nations,
+and besought from them the succour they despaired of receiving from any
+other source; the worship of Jahveh was confounded with that of Moloch
+in the valley of the children of Hinnom, where there was a sanctuary or
+Tophet, at which the people celebrated the most horrible rites: a large
+and fierce pyre was kept continually burning there, to consume the
+children whose fathers brought them to offer in sacrifice.* Isaiah
+complains bitterly of these unbelievers who profaned the land with their
+idols, "worshipping the work of their own hands, that which their own
+fingers had made."** The new king, obedient to the divine command,
+renounced the errors of his father; he removed the fetishes with which
+the superstition of his predecessors had cumbered the temple, and which
+they had connected with the worship of Jahveh, and in his zeal even
+destroyed the ancient brazen serpent, the Nehushtan, the origin of which
+was attributed to Moses.***
+
+     * Isa. xxx. 33, where the prophet describes the Tophet
+     Jahveh's anger is preparing for Assyria.
+
+     ** Isa. ii. 8.
+
+     *** 2 Kings xviii. 4. I leave the account of this religious
+     reformation in the place assigned to it in the Bible; other
+     historians relegate it to a time subsequent to the invasion
+     of Sennacherib.
+
+On the occasion of the revolt of Yamani, Isaiah counselled Hezekiah to
+remain neutral, and this prudence enabled him to look on in security at
+the ruin of the Philistines, the hereditary foes of his race. Under his
+wise administration the kingdom of Judah, secured against annoyance from
+envious neighbours by the protection which Assur freely afforded to its
+obedient vassals, and revived by thirty years of peace, rose rapidly
+from the rank of secondary importance which it had formerly been content
+to occupy. "Their land was full of silver and gold, neither was there
+any end of their treasures; their land also was full of horses, neither
+was there any end of their chariots."*
+
+     * Isa. ii. 7, where the description applies better to the
+     later years of Ahaz or the reign, of Hezekiah than to the
+     years preceding the war against Pekah and Rezin.
+
+Now that the kingdom of Israel had been reduced to the condition of an
+Assyrian province, it was on Judah and its capital that the hopes of the
+whole Hebrew nation were centred.
+
+Tyre and Jerusalem had hitherto formed the extreme outwork of the Syrian
+states; they were the only remaining barrier which separated the empires
+of Egypt and Assyria, and it was to the interest of the Pharaoh to
+purchase their alliance and increase their strength by every means in
+his power. Negotiations must have been going on for some time between
+the three powers, but up to the time of the death of Sargon and
+the return of Merodach-baladan to Babylon their results had been
+unimportant, and it was possible that the disasters which had befallen
+the Kalda would tend to cool the ardour of the allies. An unforeseen
+circumstance opportunely rekindled their zeal, and determined them to
+try their fortune.
+
+[Illustration: 023.jpg MAP OF THE CAMPAIGN OF SENNACHERIB IN JUDEA]
+
+The inhabitants of Ekron, dissatisfied with Padi, the chief whom the
+Assyrians had set over them, seized his person and sent him in chains to
+Hezekiah.*
+
+     * The name of the city, written Amgarruna, is really
+     Akkaron-Ekron.
+
+To accept the present was equivalent to open rebellion, and a
+declaration of war against the power of the suzerain. Isaiah, as usual,
+wished Judah to rely on Jahveh alone, and preached against alliance
+with the Babylonians, for he foresaw that success would merely result in
+substituting the Kalda for the Ninevite monarch, and in aggravating the
+condition of Judah. "All that is in thine house," he said to Hezekiah,
+"and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall
+be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy
+sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take
+away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon."
+Hezekiah did not pay much heed to the prediction, for, he reflected,
+"peace and truth shall be in my days," and the future troubled him
+little.* When the overthrow of Merodach-baladan had taken place, the
+prophet still more earnestly urged the people not to incur the vengeance
+of Assyria without other help than that of Tyre or Ethiopia, and
+Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, spoke in the same strain; but Shebna, the
+prefect of the palace, declaimed against this advice, and the latter's
+counsel prevailed with his master.**
+
+     * 2 Kings xx. 16-19.
+
+     ** This follows from the terms in which the prophet compares
+     the two men (Isa. xxii. 15-25).
+
+Hezekiah agreed to accept the sovereignty over Ekron which its
+inhabitants offered to him, but a remnant of prudence kept him from
+putting Padi to death, and he contented himself with casting him into
+prison. Isaiah, though temporarily out of favour with the king, ceased
+not to proclaim aloud in all quarters the will of the Almighty. "Woe to
+the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not
+of Me; and that cover with a covering (form alliances), but not of My
+spirit, that they may add sin to sin: that walk to go down into Egypt,
+and have not asked at My mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength
+of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the
+strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt
+your confusion. When your princes shall be at Tanis, and your messengers
+shall come to Heracleopolis,* [Heb. Hanes.--Tr.] you shall all be
+ashamed of a people that cannot profit you.... For Egypt helpeth in
+vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth
+still."* He returned, unwearied and with varying imagery, to his theme,
+contrasting the uncertainty and frailty of the expedients of worldly
+wisdom urged by the military party, with the steadfast will of Jahveh
+and the irresistible authority with which He invests His faithful
+servants. "The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh,
+and not spirit; and when the Lord shall stretch out His hand, both he
+that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is holpen shall fall, and they
+shall all fail together. For thus saith the Lord unto me, Like as when
+the lion growleth, and the young lion over his prey, if a multitude of
+shepherds be called forth against him, he will not be dismayed at their
+voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of
+hosts come down to fight upon Mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof.
+As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem: He will
+protect and deliver it. Turn ye unto Him from whom ye have deeply
+revolted, O children of Israel."**
+
+     * Isa. xxx. 1-5, 7. In verses 4, 5, the original text
+     employs the third person; I have restored the second person,
+     to avoid confusion.
+
+     ** Isa. xxxi. 3-6.
+
+No one, however, gave heed to his warnings, either king or people; but
+the example of Phoenicia soon proved that he was right. When Sennacherib
+bestirred himself, in the spring of 702 B.C., either the Ethiopians were
+not ready, or they dared not advance to encounter him in Coele-Syria,
+and they left Elulai to get out of his difficulties as best he might.
+He had no army to risk in a pitched battle; but fondly imagined that his
+cities, long since fortified, and protected on the east by the range of
+Lebanon, would offer a resistance sufficiently stubborn to wear out
+the patience of his assailant. The Assyrians, however, disconcerted his
+plans. Instead of advancing against him by the pass of Nahr-el-Kebir,
+according to their usual custom, they attacked him in flank, descending
+into the very midst of his positions by the _col_ of Legnia or one of
+the neighbouring passes.* They captured in succession the two Sidons,
+Bit-ziti, Sarepta, Mahalliba, Ushu, Akzib, and Acco: Elulai, reduced
+to the possession of the island of Tyre alone, retreated to one of his
+colonies in Cyprus, where he died some years later, without having set
+foot again on the continent. All his former possessions on the mainland
+were given to a certain Eth-baal, who chose Sidon for his seat of
+government, and Tyre lost by this one skirmish the rank of metropolis
+which she had enjoyed for centuries.** This summary punishment decided
+all the Syrian princes who were not compromised beyond hope of pardon to
+humble themselves before the suzerain. Menahem of Samsi-muruna,***
+
+     * This follows from the very order in which the cities were
+     taken in the course of this campaign.
+
+     ** The Assyrian text gives for the name of the King of Sidon
+     a shortened form Tu-baal instead of Eth-baal, paralleled by
+     Lulia for Elulai.
+
+     *** Several of the early Assyriologists read Usi-muruna, and
+     identified the city bearing this name with Samaria. The
+     discovery of the reading Samsi-muruna on a fragment of the
+     time of Assur-bani-pal no longer permits of this
+     identification, and obliges us to look for the city in
+     Phoenicia.
+
+Abdiliti of Arvad, Uru-malik of Byblos, Puduilu of Amnion, Chemosh-nadab
+of Moab, Malik-rammu of Edom, Mitinti of Ashdod, all brought their
+tribute in person to the Assyrian camp before Ushu: Zedekiah of Ashkelon
+and Hezekiah of Judah alone persisted in their hostility. Egypt had at
+length been moved by the misfortunes of her allies, and the Ethiopian
+troops had advanced to the seat of war, but they did not arrive in time
+to save Zedekiah: Sennacherib razed to the ground all his strongholds
+one after another, Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and Hazor,* took him
+prisoner at Ascalon, and sent him with his family to Assyria, setting
+up Sharludari, son of Bukibti, in his stead. Sennacherib then turned
+against Ekron, and was about to begin the siege of the city, when the
+long-expected Egyptians at length made their appearance. Shabitoku
+did not command them in person, but he had sent his best troops--the
+contingents furnished by the petty kings of the Delta, and the sheikhs
+of the Sinaitic peninsula, who were vassals of Egypt. The encounter
+took place near Altaku,** and on this occasion again, as at Raphia,
+the scientific tactics of the Assyrians prevailed over the stereotyped
+organisation of Pharaoh's army: the Ethiopian generals left some of
+their chariots in the hands of the conqueror, and retreated with the
+remnants of their force beyond the Isthmus.
+
+     * These are the cities attributed to the tribes of Dan and
+     Judah in Josh. xv. 25, 41; xix. 45. Beth-dagon is now Bet-
+     Dejan; Azuru is Yazur, to the south-east of Joppa; Beni-
+     barak is Ibn-Abrak, to the north-east of the same town.
+
+     ** Altaku is certainly Eltekeh of Dan (Josh. xix. 44), as
+     was seen from the outset; the site, however, of Eltekeh
+     cannot be fixed with any certainty. It has been located at
+     Bet-Lukkieh, in the mountainous country north-west of
+     Jerusalem, but this position in no way corresponds to the
+     requirements of the Assyrian text, according to which the
+     battle took place on a plain large enough for the evolutions
+     of the Egyptian chariots, and situated between the group of
+     towns formed by Beth-dagon, Joppa, Beni-barak, and Hazor,
+     which Sennacherib had just captured, and the cities of
+     Ekrbn, Timnath, and Eltekeh, which he took directly after
+     his victory: a suitable locality must be looked for in the
+     vicinity of Ramleh or Zernuka.
+
+Altaku capitulated, an example followed by the neighbouring fortress of
+Timnath, and subsequently by Ekron itself, all three being made to feel
+Sennacherib's vengeance. "The nobles and chiefs who had offended, I
+slew," he remarks, "and set up their corpses on stakes in a circle
+round the city; those of the inhabitants who had offended and committed
+crimes, I took them prisoners, and for the rest who had neither offended
+nor transgressed, I pardoned them."
+
+
+[Illustration: 028.jpg THE PASS OF LEGNIA, IN LEBANON]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph given in Lortet.
+
+[Illustration: 028b.jpg Esneh--Principal Abyssinian Trading Village]
+
+We may here pause to inquire how Hezekiah was occupied while his fate
+was being decided on the field of Altaku. He was fortifying Jerusalem,
+and storing within it munitions of War, and enrolling Jewish soldiers
+and mercenary troops from the Arab tribes of the desert. He had suddenly
+become aware that large portions of the wall of the city of David had
+crumbled away, and he set about demolishing the neighbouring houses to
+obtain materials for repairing these breaches: he hastily strengthened
+the weak points in his fortifications, stopped up the springs which
+flowed into the Gibon, and cut off the brook itself, constructing a
+reservoir between the inner and outer city walls to store up the waters
+of the ancient pool. These alterations* rendered the city, which from
+its natural position was well defended, so impregnable that Sennacherib
+decided not to attack it until the rest of the kingdom had been
+subjugated: with this object in view he pitched his camp before Lachish,
+whence he could keep a watch over the main routes from Egypt where they
+crossed the frontier, and then scattered his forces over the land of
+Judah, delivering it up to pillage in a systematic manner. He took
+forty-six walled towns, and numberless strongholds and villages,
+demolishing the walls and leading into captivity 200,150 persons of all
+ages and conditions, together with their household goods, their horses,
+asses, mules, camels, oxen, and sheep;** it was a war as disastrous in
+its effects as that which terminated in the fall of Samaria, or which
+led to the final captivity in Babylon.***
+
+     * Isa. xxii. 8-11.
+
+     * An allusion to the sojourn of Sennacherib near Lachish is
+     found in 2 Kings xviii. 14-17; xix. 8, and in Isa. xxxvi. 2;
+     xxxvii. 8
+
+     *** It seems that the Jewish historian Demetrios considered
+     the captivities under Nebuchadrezzar and Sennacherib to be
+     on the same footing.
+
+The work of destruction accomplished, the Rabshakeh brought up all his
+forces and threw up a complete circle of earthworks round Jerusalem:
+Hezekiah found himself shut up in his capital "like a bird in a cage."
+The inhabitants soon became accustomed to this isolated life, but
+Isaiah was indignant at seeing them indifferent to their calamities, and
+inveighed against them with angry eloquence: "What aileth thee now,
+that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops? O thou that art full of
+shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; thy slain are not slain
+with the sword, neither are they dead in battle. All thy rulers fled
+away together, they are made prisoners without drawing the bow; they are
+come hither from afar for safety, and all that meet together here shall
+be taken together."*
+
+     * [The R.V. gives this passage as follows: "They were bound
+     by the archers: all that were found of thee were bound
+     together, they fled afar off."--TR.]
+
+The danger was urgent; the Assyrians were massed in their entrenchments
+with their auxiliaries ranged behind them to support them: "Elam bare
+the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the
+shield (for the assault). And it came to pass that thy choicest valleys
+were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at thy
+gate, and he took away the covering of Judah."
+
+[Illustration: 029.jpg SENNACHERIB RECEIVING THE SUBMISSIONS OF THE
+JEWS]
+
+In those days, therefore, Jahveh, without pity for His people, called
+them to "weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with
+sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep,
+eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+shall die. And the Lord of hosts revealed Himself in mine ears, Surely
+this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the
+Lord, the Lord of Hosts."* The prophet threw the blame on the courtiers
+especially Shebna, who still hoped for succour from the Egyptians, and
+kept up the king's illusions on this point. He threatened him with the
+divine anger; he depicted him as seized by Jahveh, rolled and kneaded
+into a lump, "and tossed like a ball into a large country: there shalt
+thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of
+thy lord's house. And I will thrust thee from thy office, and from thy
+station he shall pull thee down!"** Meanwhile, day after day elapsed,
+and Pharaoh did not hasten to the rescue. Hezekiah's eyes were opened;
+he dismissed Shebna, and degraded him to the position of scribe, and set
+Eliakim in his place in the Council of State.***
+
+     * Isa. xxii. 1-14.
+
+     ** Isa. xxii. 15-19.
+
+     ***In the duplicate narrative of these negotiations with the
+     Assyrian generals, Shebna is in fact considered as a mere
+     scribe, while Eliakim is the prefect of the king's house (2
+     Kings xviii. 18, 37; xix. 2: Isa. xxxvi. 3, 22; xxxvii. 2).
+
+Isaiah's influence revived, and he persuaded the king to sue for peace
+while yet there was time.
+
+Sennacherib was encamped at Lachish; but the Tartan and his two
+lieutenants received the overtures of peace, and proposed a parley near
+the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field.
+Hezekiah did not venture to go in person to the meeting-place; he sent
+Eliakirn, the new prefect of the palace, Shebna, and the chancellor
+Joah, the chief cupbearer, and tradition relates that the Assyrian
+addressed them in severe terms in his master's name: "Now on whom dost
+thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? Behold, thou trustest upon
+the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean,
+it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh, King of Egypt,
+to all that trust on him." Then, as he continued to declaim in a loud
+voice, so that the crowds gathered on the wall could hear him, the
+delegates besought him to speak in Aramaic, which they understood, but
+"speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that
+are on the wall!" Instead, however, of granting their request, the
+Assyrian general advanced towards the spectators and addressed them in
+Hebrew: "Hear ye the words of the great king, the King of Assyria.
+Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he shall not be able to deliver you:
+neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will
+surely deliver us: this city shall not be given into the hand of the
+King of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the King of
+Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat ye every
+one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one
+the waters of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a
+land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and
+vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will
+deliver us!" The specified conditions were less hard than might have
+been feared.*
+
+     * The Hebrew version of these events is recorded in 2 Kings
+     xviii. 13-37; xix., and in Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii., with only
+     one important divergence, namely, the absence from Isaiah of
+     verses 14-16 of 2 Kings xviii. This particular passage, in
+     which the name of the king has a peculiar form, is a
+     detached fragment of an older document, perhaps the official
+     annals of the kingdom, whose contents agreed with the facts
+     recorded in the Assyrian text. The rest is borrowed from the
+     cycle of prophetic narratives, and contains two different
+     versions of the same events. The first comprises 2 Kings
+     xviii. 13, 17-37; xix. l-9a, 36&-37, where Sennacherib is
+     represented as despatching a verbal message to Hezekiah by
+     the Tartan and his captains. The second consists merely of 2
+     Kings xix. 96-36a, and in this has been inserted a long
+     prophecy of Isaiah's (xix. 21-31) which has but a vague
+     connection with the rest of the narrative. In this
+     Sennacherib defied Hezekiah in a letter, which the Jewish
+     king spread before the Lord, and shortly afterwards received
+     a reply through the prophet. The two versions were combined
+     towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth
+     century, by the compiler of the _Book of Kings_, and passed
+     thence into the collection of the prophecies attributed to
+     Isaiah.
+
+The Jewish king was to give up his wives and daughters as hostages,
+to pledge himself to pay a regular tribute, and disburse immediately a
+ransom of thirty talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver:
+he could only make up this large sum by emptying the royal and sacred
+treasuries, and taking down the plates of gold with which merely a short
+while before he had adorned the doors and lintels of the temple. Padi
+was released from his long captivity, reseated on his throne, and
+received several Jewish towns as an indemnity: other portions of
+territory were bestowed upon Mitinti of Ashdod and Zillibel of Graza as
+a reward for their loyalty.*
+
+     * The sequence of events is not very well observed in the
+     Assyrian text, and the liberation of Padi is inserted in 11.
+     8-11, before the account of the war with Hezekiah. It seems
+     very unlikely that the King of Judah would have released his
+     prisoner before his treaty with Sennacherib; the Assyrian
+     scribe, wishing to bring together all the facts relating to
+     Ekron, anticipated this event. Hebrew tradition fixed the
+     ransom at the lowest figure, 300 talents of silver instead
+     of the 800 given in the Assyrian document (2 Kings xviii.
+     14), and authorities have tried to reconcile this divergence
+     by speculating on the different values represented by a
+     talent in different countries and epochs.
+
+Hezekiah issued from the struggle with his territory curtailed and his
+kingdom devastated; the last obstacle which stood in the way of the
+Assyrians' victorious advance fell with him, and Sennacherib could
+now push forward with perfect safety towards the Nile. He had, indeed,
+already planned an attack on Egypt, and had reached the isthmus, when a
+mysterious accident arrested his further progress. The conflict on
+the plains of Altaku had been severe; and the army, already seriously
+diminished by its victory, had been still further weakened during the
+campaign in Judaea, and possibly the excesses indulged in by the soldiery
+had developed in them the germs of one of those terrible epidemics which
+had devastated Western Asia several times in the course of the century:
+whatever may have been the cause, half the army was destroyed by
+pestilence before it reached the frontier of the Delta, and Sennacherib
+led back the shattered remnants of his force to Nineveh.*
+
+     * The Assyrian texts are silent about this catastrophe, and
+     the sacred books of the Hebrews seem to refer it to the camp
+     at Libnah in Palestine (2 Kings xix. 8-35); the Egyptian
+     legend related by Herodotus seems to prove that it took
+     place near the Egyptian frontier. Josephus takes the king as
+     far as Pelusium, and describes the destruction of the
+     Assyrian army as taking place in the camp before this town.
+     He may have been misled by the meaning "mud," which attaches
+     to the name of Libnah as well as to that of Pelusium. Oppert
+     upheld his opinion, and identified the Libnah of the
+     biblical narrative with the Pelusium of Herodotus. It is
+     probable that each of the two nations referred the scene of
+     the miracle to a different locality.
+
+The Hebrews did not hesitate to ascribe the event to the vengeance of
+Jahveh, and to make it a subject of thankfulness. They related that
+before their brutal conqueror quitted the country he had sent a parting
+message to Hezekiah: "Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive
+thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the King of
+Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to
+all lands, by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? Have
+the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed,
+Gozan and Haran and Rezepk, and the children of Eden which were in
+Telassar? Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the
+King of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" Hezekiah, having
+received this letter of defiance, laid it in the temple before Jahveh,
+and prostrated himself in prayer: the response came to him through the
+mouth of Isaiah. "Thus saith the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, He
+shall not come unto this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall
+he come before it with a shield, nor cast a mount against it. By the way
+that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come unto
+this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for
+Mine own sake and for My servant David's sake. And it came to pass that
+night, that the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp
+of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and five thousand: and when men
+arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."*
+
+     * 2 Kings xix. 8-35; Isa. xxxvii. 8-36; this is the second
+     tradition of which mention has been made, but already
+     amalgamated with the first to form the narrative as it now
+     stands.
+
+The Egyptians considered the event no less miraculous than did the
+Hebrews, and one of their popular tales ascribed the prodigy to Phtah,
+the god of Memphis. Sethon, the high priest of Phtah, lived in a time of
+national distress, and the warrior class, whom he had deprived of some
+of its privileges, refused to take up arms in his behalf. He repaired,
+therefore, to the temple to implore divine assistance, and, falling
+asleep, was visited by a dream. The god appeared to him, and promised
+to send him some auxiliaries who should ensure him success. He enlisted
+such of the Egyptians as were willing to follow him, shopkeepers,
+fullers, and sutlers, and led them to Pelusium to resist the threatened
+invasion. In the night a legion of field-mice came forth, whence no one
+knew, and, noiselessly spreading throughout the camp of the Assyrians,
+gnawed the quivers, the bowstrings, and the straps of the bucklers in
+such a way that, on the morrow, the enemy, finding themselves disarmed,
+fled after a mere pretence at resistance, and suffered severe losses. A
+statue was long shown in the temple at Memphis portraying this Sethon:
+he was represented holding a mouse in his hand, and the inscription bade
+men reverence the god who had wrought this miracle.*
+
+     * The statue with which this legend has been connected, must
+     have represented a king offering the image of a mouse
+     crouching on a basket, like the cynocephalus on the
+     hieroglyphic sign which denotes centuries, or the frog of
+     the goddess Hiqit. Historians have desired to recognise in
+     Sethon a King Zet of the XXIIIth dynasty, or even Shabitoku
+     of the XXVth dynasty; Krall identified him with Satni in the
+     demotic story of Satni-Umois.
+
+The disaster was a terrible one: Sennacherib's triumphant advance was
+suddenly checked, and he was forced to return to Asia when the goal of
+his ambition was almost reached. The loss of a single army, however much
+to be deplored, was not irreparable, since Assyria could furnish her
+sovereign with a second force as numerous as that which lay buried in
+the desert on the road to Egypt, but it was uncertain what effect the
+news of the calamity and the sight of the survivors might have on the
+minds of his subjects and rivals. The latter took no immediate action,
+and the secret joy which they must have experienced did not blind them
+to the real facts of the case; for though the power of Assyria was
+shaken, she was still stronger than any one of them severally, or even
+than all of them together, and to attack her or rebel against her now,
+was to court defeat with as much certainty as in past days. The Pharaoh
+kept himself behind his rivers; the military science and skill which had
+baffled his generals on the field of Altaku did not inspire him with any
+desire to reappear on the plains of Palestine. Hezekiah, King of Judah,
+had emptied his treasury to furnish his ransom, his strongholds had
+capitulated one by one, and his territory, diminished by the loss of
+some of the towns of the Shephelah, was little botter than a waste of
+smoking ruins. He thought himself fortunate to have preserved his power
+under the suzerainty of Assyria, and his sole aim for many years was
+to refill his treasury, reconstitute his army, and re-establish his
+kingdom. The Philistine and Nabatasan princes, and the chiefs of Moab,
+Ammon, and Idumsea, had nothing to gain by war, being too feeble to have
+any chance of success without the help of Judah, Tyre, and Egypt. The
+Syrians maintained a peaceful attitude, which was certainly their wisest
+policy; and during the following quarter of a century they loyally
+obeyed their governors, and gave Sennacherib no cause to revisit them.
+It was fortunate for him that they did so, for the peoples of the North
+and East, the Kalda, and, above all, the Elamites, were the cause of
+much trouble, and exclusively occupied his attention during several
+years. The inhabitants of Bit-Yakin, urged on either by their natural
+restlessness or by the news of the misfortune which had befallen their
+enemy, determined once more to try the fortunes of war. Incited by
+Marduk-ushezlb,* one of their princes, and by Merodach-baladan, these
+people of the marshes intrigued with the courts of Babylon and Susa,
+and were emboldened to turn against the Assyrian garrisons stationed
+in their midst to preserve order. Sennacherib's vengeance fell first on
+Marduk-ushezib, who fled from his stronghold of Bittutu after sustaining
+a short siege. Merodach-baladan, deserted by his accomplice, put the
+statues of his gods and his royal treasures on board his fleet, and
+embarking with his followers, crossed the lagoon, and effected a landing
+in the district of Nagitu, in Susian territory, beyond the mouth of
+the Ulai.** Sennacherib entered Bit-Yakin without striking a blow, and
+completed the destruction of the half-deserted town; he next proceeded
+to demolish the other cities one after the other, carrying off into
+captivity all the men and cattle who fell in his way.
+
+     * Three kings of Babylon at this period bore very similar
+     names--Marduk-ushezib, Nergal-ushezib, and Mushezib-marduk.
+     Nergal-ushezib is the elder of the two whom the texts call
+     Shuzub, and whom Assyriologists at first confused one with
+     another.
+
+     ** Nagitu was bounded by the Nar-Marratum and the Ulai,
+     which allows us to identify it with the territory south of
+     Edrisieh.
+
+The Elamites, disconcerted by the rapidity of his action, allowed him to
+crush their allies unopposed; and as they had not openly intervened, the
+conqueror refrained from calling them to account for their intrigues.
+Babylon paid the penalty for all: its sovereign, Belibni, who had failed
+to make the sacred authority of the suzerain respected in the city, and
+who, perhaps, had taken some part in the conspiracy, was with his
+family deported to Nineveh, and his vacant throne was given to
+Assur-nadin-shumu, a younger son of Sargon (699 B.C.).*
+
+     * Berosus, misled by the deposition of Belibni, thought that
+     the expedition was directed against Babylon itself; he has
+     likewise confounded Assur-nadin-shumu with Esar-haddon, and
+     he has given this latter, whom he calls Asordancs, as the
+     immediate successor of Belibni. The date 699 B.C. for these
+     events is indicated in _Pinches' Babylonian Chronicle_,
+     which places them in the third year of Belibni.
+
+Order was once more restored in Karduniash, but Sennacherib felt that
+its submission would be neither sincere nor permanent, so long as
+Merodach-baladan was hovering on its frontier possessed of an army, a
+fleet, and a supply of treasure, and prepared to enter the lists as soon
+as circumstances seemed favourable to his cause. Sennacherib resolved,
+therefore, to cross the head of the Persian Gulf and deal him such a
+blow as would once for all end the contest; but troubles which broke out
+on the Urartian frontier as soon as he returned forced, him to put off
+his project. The tribes of Tumurru, who had placed their strongholds
+like eyries among the peaks of Nipur, had been making frequent descents
+on the plains of the Tigris, which they had ravaged unchecked by any
+fear of Assyrian power. Sennacherib formed an entrenched camp at the
+foot of their mountain retreat, and there left the greater part of his
+army, while he set out on an adventurous expedition with a picked
+body of infantry and cavalry. Over ravines and torrents, up rough and
+difficult slopes, they made their way, the king himself being conveyed
+in a litter, as there were no roads practicable for his royal chariot;
+he even deigned to walk when the hillsides were too steep for his
+bearers to carry him; he climbed like a goat, slept on the bare rocks,
+drank putrid water from a leathern bottle, and after many hardships at
+length came up with the enemy. He burnt their villages, and carried
+off herds of cattle and troops of captives; but this exploit was more
+a satisfaction of his vanity than a distinct advantage gained, for the
+pillaging of the plains of the Tigris probably recommenced as soon as
+the king had quitted the country. The same year he pushed as far as
+Dayaini, here similar tactics were employed. Constructing a camp in the
+neighbourhood of Mount Anara and Mount Uppa, he forced his way to the
+capital, Ukki, traversing a complicated network of gorges and forests
+which had hitherto been considered impenetrable. The king, Maniya,
+fled; Ukki was taken by assault and pillaged, the spoil obtained from it
+slightly exceeding that from Tumurru (699 B.C.). Shortly afterwards the
+province of Tulgarimme revolted in concert with the Tabal: Sennacherib
+overcame the allied forces, and led his victorious regiments through the
+defiles of the Taurus.*
+
+     * The dates of and connection between these two wars are not
+     determined with any certainty. Some authorities assign them
+     both to the same year, somewhere between 699 and 696 B.C.,
+     while others assign them to two different years, the first
+     to 699 or 696 B.C., the second to 698 or 695 B.C.
+
+[Illustration: 042.jpg A RAID AMONG THE WOODS AND MOUNTAINS.]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layahd, Monuments of Nineveh,
+     vol. i. pi. 70.
+
+Greek pirates or colonists having ventured from time to time to ravage
+the seaboard, he destroyed one of their fleets near the mouth of the
+Saros, and took advantage of his sojourn in this region to fortify
+the two cities of Tarsus and Ankhiale, to defend his Cilician frontier
+against the peoples of Asia Minor.*
+
+     * The encounter of the Assyrians with the Greeks is only
+     known to us from a fragment of Berosus. The foundation of
+     Tarsus is definitely attributed to Sennacherib in the same
+     passage; that of Ankhialc is referred to the fabulous
+     Sardanapalus, but most historians with much probability
+     attribute the foundation to Sennacherib.
+
+This was a necessary precaution, for the whole of Asia Minor was just
+then stirred by the inrush of new nations which were devastating the
+country, and the effect of these convulsions was beginning to be felt
+in the country to the south of the central plain, at the foot of the
+Taurus, and on the frontiers of the Assyrian empire. Barbarian hordes,
+attracted by the fame of the ancient Hittite sanctuaries in the upper
+basin of the Euphrates and the Araxes, had descended now and again to
+measure their strength against the advanced posts of Assyria or Urartu,
+but had subsequently withdrawn and disappeared beyond the Halys. Their
+movements may at this time have been so aggressive as to arouse
+serious anxiety in the minds of the Ninevite rulers; it is certain
+that Sennacherib, though apparently hindered by no revolt, delayed the
+execution of the projects he had formed against Merodach-baladan for
+three years; and it is possible his inaction may be attributed to the
+fear of some complication arising on his north-western frontier. He did
+not carry out his scheme till 695 B.C., when all danger in that quarter
+had passed away. The enterprise was a difficult one, for Nagitu and
+the neighbouring districts were dependencies of Susa, and could not be
+reached by land without a violation of Blamite neutrality, which would
+almost inevitably lead to a conflict. Shutruk-nakhunta was no longer
+alive. In the very year in which his rival had set up Assur-nadin-shumu
+as King of Karduniash, a revolution had broken out in Elam, which was in
+all probability connected with the events then taking place in Babylon.
+His subjects were angry with him for having failed to send timely
+succour to his allies the Kalda, and for having allowed Bit-Yakin to be
+destroyed: his own brother Khalludush sided with the malcontents, threw
+Shutruk-nakhunta into prison, and proclaimed himself king. This time the
+Ninevites, thinking that Elam was certain to intervene, sought how they
+might finally overpower Merodach-baladan before this interference
+could prove effectual. The feudal constitution of the Blamite monarchy
+rendered, as we know, the mobilisation of the army at the opening of
+a war a long and difficult task: weeks might easily elapse before the
+first and second grades of feudatory nobility could join the royal
+troops and form a combined army capable of striking an important
+blow. This was a cause of dangerous inferiority in a conflict with the
+Assyrians, the chief part of whose forces, bivouacking close to the
+capital during the winter months, could leave their quarters and set
+out on a campaign at little more than a day's notice; the kings of Elam
+minimised the danger by keeping sufficient troops under arms on their
+northern and western frontiers to meet any emergency, but an attack by
+sea seemed to them so unlikely that they had not, for a long time past,
+thought of protecting their coast-line. The ancient Chaldaean cities,
+Uru, Bagash, Uruk, and Bridu had possessed fleets on the Persian Gulf;
+but the times were long past when they used to send to procure stone and
+wood from the countries of Magan and Melukhkha, and the seas which they
+had ruled were now traversed only by merchant vessels or fishing-boats.
+Besides this, the condition of the estuary seemed to prohibit all attack
+from that side. The space between Bit-Yakin and the long line of dunes
+or mud-banks which blocked the entrance to it was not so much a gulf as
+a lagoon of uncertain and shifting extent; the water flowed only in
+the middle, being stagnant near the shores; the whole expanse was
+irregularly dotted over with mud-banks, and its service was constantly
+altered by the alluvial soil brought down by the Tigris, the Euphrates,
+the Ulai, and the Uknu. The navigation of this lagoon was dangerous,
+for the relative positions of the channels and shallows were constantly
+shifting, and vessels of deep draught often ran aground in passing from
+one end of it to the other.*
+
+     * The condition I describe here is very similar to what
+     Alexander's admirals found 350 years later. Arrian has
+     preserved for us the account of Nearchus' navigation in
+     these waters, and his description shows such a well-defined
+     condition of the estuary that its main outline must have
+     remained unchanged for a considerable time; the only
+     subsequent alterations which had taken place must have been
+     in the internal configuration, where the deposit of alluvium
+     must have necessarily reduced the area of the lake since the
+     time of Sennacherib. The little map on the next page has no
+     pretension to scientific exactitude; its only object is to
+     show roughly what the estuary of the Euphrates was like, and
+     to illustrate approximately the course of the Assyrian
+     expedition.
+
+[Illustration: 048.jpg MAP THE NAR-MARRATUM IN THE TIME OF SENNACHERIB]
+
+Sennacherib decided to march his force to the mouth of the Euphrates,
+and, embarking it there, to bring it to bear suddenly on the portion
+of Elamite territory nearest to Nagitu: if all went well, he would thus
+have time to crush the rising power of Merodach-baladan and regain his
+own port of departure before Khalludush could muster a sufficient army
+to render efficient succour to his vassal.
+
+More than a year was consumed in preparations. The united cities of
+Chaldaea being unable to furnish the transports required to convey such
+a large host across the Nar-Marratum, it was necessary to construct
+a fleet, and to do so in such a way that the enemy should have no
+suspicion of danger. Sennacherib accordingly set up his dockyards at
+Tul-barsip on the Euphrates and at Nineveh on the Tigris, and Syrian
+shipwrights built him a fleet of vessels after two distinct types.
+Some were galleys identical in build and equipment with those which the
+Mediterranean natives used for their traffic with distant lands. The
+others followed the old Babylonian model, with stem and stern both
+raised, the bows being sometimes distinguished by the carving of a
+horse's head, which justified the name of _sea-horse_ given to a vessel
+of this kind. They had no masts, but propelling power was provided
+by two banks of oars one above the other, as in the galleys. The two
+divisions of the fleet were ready at the beginning of 694 B.C., and
+it was arranged that they should meet at Bit-Dakkuri, to the south of
+Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: 049.jpg THE FLEET OF SENNACHERIB ON THE NAR-MARRATUM]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+The fleet from Tul-barsip had merely to descend the Euphrates to reach
+the meeting-place,* but that from Nineveh had to make a more complicated
+journey.
+
+     * The story of the preparations, as it has been transmitted
+     to us in Sennacherib's inscriptions, is curiously similar to
+     the accounts given by the Greek historians of the vessels
+     Alexander had built at Babylon and Thap-sacus by Phoenician
+     workmen, which descended the Euphrates to join the fleet in
+     the Persian Gulf. This fleet consisted of quinquiremos,
+     according to Aristobulus, who was present at their
+     construction: Quintus-Curtius makes them all vessels with
+     seven banks of oars, but he evidently confuses the galleys
+     built at Thapsacus with those which came in sections from
+     Phoenicia and which Alexander had put together at Babylon.
+
+By following the course of the Tigris to its mouth it would have had
+to skirt the coast of Elam for a considerable distance, and would
+inevitably have aroused the suspicions of Khalludush; the passage of
+such a strong squadron must have revealed to him the importance of the
+enterprise, and put him on his guard. The vessels therefore stayed their
+course at Upi, where they were drawn ashore and transported on rollers
+across the narrow isthmus which separates the Tigris from the Arakhtu
+canal, on which they were then relaunched. Either the canal had not been
+well kept, or else it never had the necessary depth at certain places;
+but the crews managed to overcome all obstacles and rejoined their
+comrades in due time. Sennacherib was ready waiting for them with all
+his troops--foot-soldiers, charioteers, and horsemen--and with supplies
+of food for the men, and of barley and oats for the horses; as soon as
+the last contingent had arrived, he gave the signal for departure, and
+all advanced together, the army marching along the southern bank, the
+fleet descending the current, to the little port of Bab-Salimeti, some
+twelve miles below the mouth of the river.*
+
+     * The mouth of the Euphrates being at that time not far from
+     the site of Kornah, Bab-Salimeti, which was about twelve
+     miles distant, must have been somewhere near the present
+     village of Abu-Hatira, on the south bank of the river.
+
+There they halted in order to proceed to the final embarcation, but at
+the last moment their inexperience of the sea nearly compromised the
+success of the expedition. Even if they were not absolutely ignorant of
+the ebb and flow of the tide, they certainly did not know how dangerous
+the spring tide could prove at the equinox under the influence of a
+south wind. The rising tide then comes into conflict with the volume
+of water brought down by the stream, and in the encounter the banks are
+broken down, and sometimes large districts are inundated: this is what
+happened that year, to the terror of the Assyrians. Their camp was
+invaded and completely flooded by the waves; the king and his soldiers
+took refuge in haste on the galleys, where they were kept prisoners
+for five days "as in a huge cage." As soon as the waters abated, they
+completed their preparations and started on their voyage. At the point
+where the Euphrates enters the lagoon, Sennacherib pushed forward to the
+front of the line, and, standing in the bows of his flag-ship, offered a
+sacrifice to Ea, the god of the Ocean. Having made a solemn libation, he
+threw into the water a gold model of a ship, a golden fish, and an
+image of the god himself, likewise in gold; this ceremony performed, he
+returned to the port of Bab-Salimeti with his guard, while the bulk
+of his forces continued their voyage eastward. The passage took place
+without mishap, but they could not disembark on the shore of the
+gulf itself, which was unapproachable by reason of the deposits of
+semi-liquid mud which girdled it; they therefore put into the mouth
+of the Ulai, and ascended the river till they reached a spot where the
+slimy reed-beds gave place to firm ground, which permitted them to draw
+their ships to land.*
+
+     * Billerbeck recognises in the narrative of Sennacherib the
+     indication of two attempts at debarcation, of which the
+     second only can have been successful; I can distinguish only
+     one crossing.
+
+The inhabitants assembled hastily at sight of the enemy, and the news,
+spreading through the neighbouring tribes, brought together for their
+defence a confused crowd of archers, chariots, and horsemen. The
+Assyrians, leaping into the stream and climbing up the bank, easily
+overpowered these undisciplined troops.
+
+[Illustration: 052.jpg A SKIRMISH IN THE MARSHES]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+They captured at the first onset Nagitu, Nagitu-Dibina, Khilmu, Pillatu,
+and Khupapanu; and raiding the Kalda, forced them on board the
+fleet with their gods, their families, their flocks, and household
+possessions, and beat a hurried retreat with their booty.
+Merodach-baladan himself and his children once more escaped their
+clutches, but the State he had tried to create was annihilated, and
+his power utterly crushed. Sennacherib received his generals with great
+demonstrations of joy at Bab-Salimeti, and carried the spoil in triumph
+to Nineveh. Khalludush, exasperated by the affront put upon him,
+instantly retaliated by invading Karduniash, where he pushed forward
+as far as Sippara, pillaging and destroying the inhabitants without
+opposition. The Babylonians who had accompanied Merodach-baladan into
+exile, returned in the train of the Elamites, and, secretly stealing
+back to their homes, stirred up a general revolt: Assur-nadin-shumu,
+taken prisoner by his own subjects, was put in chains and despatched to
+Susa, his throne being bestowed on a Babylonian named Nergal-ushezib,*
+who at once took the field (694 B.C.).
+
+     * This is the prince whom the Assyrian documents name
+     Shuzub, and whom we might call Shuzub the Babylonian, in
+     contradistinction to Mushezib-marduk, who is Shuzub the
+     Kaldu.
+
+His preliminary efforts were successful: he ravaged the frontier along
+the Turnat with the help of the Elamites, and took by assault the city
+of Nipur, which refused to desert the cause of Sennacherib (693 B.C.).
+Meanwhile the Assyrian generals had captured Uruk (Erech) on the 1st of
+Tisri, after the retreat of Khalludush; and having sacked the city, were
+retreating northwards with their spoil when they were defeated on the
+7th near Nipur by Nergal-ushezib. He had already rescued the statues of
+the gods and the treasure, when his horse fell in the midst of the fray,
+and he could not disengage himself. His vanquished foes led him captive
+to Nineveh, where Sennacherib exposed him in chains at the principal
+gateway of his palace: the Babylonians, who owed to him their latest
+success, summoned a Kaldu prince, Mushezib-marduk, son of Gahut, to
+take command. He hastened to comply, and with the assistance of Blamite
+troops offered such a determined resistance to all attack, that he was
+finally left in undisturbed possession of his kingdom (692 B.C.): the
+actual result to Assyria, therefore, of the ephemeral victory gained by
+the fleet had been the loss of Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: 054.jpg THE HORSE OF NERGAL-USHEZIB FALLING IN THE
+BATTLE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+A revolution in Elam speedily afforded Assyria an opportunity for
+revenge. When Nergal-ushezib was taken prisoner, the people of Susa,
+dissatisfied with the want of activity displayed by Khalludush,
+conspired to depose him: on hearing, therefore, the news of the
+revolutions in Chaldaea, they rose in revolt on the 26th of Tisri, and,
+besieging him in his palace, put him to death, and elected a certain
+Kutur-nakhunta as his successor. Sennacherib, without a moment's
+hesitation, crossed the frontier at Durilu, before order was
+re-established at Susa, and recovered, after very slight resistance,
+Baza and Bit-khairi which Shutruk-nakhunta had taken from Sargon. This
+preliminary success laid the lower plain of Susiana at his mercy, and he
+ravaged it pitilessly from Baza to Bit-bunaki. "Thirty-four strongholds
+and the townships depending on them, whose number is unequalled, I
+besieged and took by assault, their inhabitants I led into captivity, I
+demolished them and reduced them to ashes: I caused the smoke of their
+burning to rise into the wide heaven, like the smoke of one great
+sacrifice." Kutur-nakhunta, still insecurely seated on the throne of
+Susa, retreated with his army towards Khaidalu, in the almost unexplored
+regions which bordered the Banian plateau,* and entrenched himself
+strongly in the heart of the mountains.
+
+     * Khaidalu is very probably the present Dis Malkan.
+
+The season was already well advanced when the Assyrians set out on this
+expedition, and November set in while they were ravaging the plain:
+but the weather was still so fine that Sennacherib determined to take
+advantage of it to march upon Madaktu. Hardly had he scaled the heights
+when winter fell upon him with its accompaniment of cold and squally
+weather. "Violent storms broke out, it rained and snowed incessantly,
+the torrents and streams overflowed their banks," so that hostilities
+had to be suspended and the troops ordered back to Nineveh. The effect
+produced, however, by these bold measures was in no way diminished:
+though Kutur-nakhunta had not had the necessary time to prepare for the
+contest, he was nevertheless discredited among his subjects for failing
+to bring them out of it with glory, and three months after the retreat
+of the Assyrians he was assassinated in a riot on the 20th of Ab, 692
+B.C.*
+
+     * The Assyrian documents merely mention the death of Kutur-
+     nakhunta less than three months after the return of
+     Sennacherib to Nineveh. Pinches' _Babylonian Chronicle_ only
+     mentions the revolution in which he perished, and informs us
+     that he had reigned ten months. It contracts Umman-minanu,
+     the name of the Elamite king, to Minanu.
+
+His younger brother, Umman-minanu, assumed the crown, and though his
+enemies disdainfully refused to credit him with either prudence or
+judgment, he soon restored his kingdom to such a formidable degree of
+power that Mushezib-marduk thought the opportunity a favourable one for
+striking a blow at Assyria, from which she could never recover. Elam had
+plenty of troops, but was deficient in the resources necessary to pay
+the men and their chiefs, and to induce the tribes of the table-land
+to furnish their contingents. Mushezib-marduk, therefore, emptied the
+sacred treasury of E-sagilla, and sent the gold and silver of Bel and
+Zarpanit to Umman-minanu with a message which ran thus: "Assemble thine
+army, and prepare thy camp, come to Babylon and strengthen our hands,
+for thou art our help." The Elamite asked nothing better than to avenge
+the provinces so cruelly harassed, and the cities consumed in the course
+of the last campaign: he summoned all his nobles, from the least to the
+greatest, and enlisted the help of the troops of Parsuas, Ellipi, and
+Anzan, the Aramaean Puqudu and Gambulu of the Tigris, as well as
+the Aramaeans of the Euphrates, and the peoples of Bit-Adini and
+Bit-Amukkani, who had rallied round Sam una, son of Merodach-baladan,
+and joined forces with the soldiers of Mushezib-marduk in Babylon.
+"Like an invasion of countless locusts swooping down upon the land, they
+assembled, resolved to give me battle, and the dust of their feet rose
+before me, like a thick cloud which darkens the copper-coloured dome of
+the sky." The conflict took place near the township of Khalule, on the
+banks of the Tigris, not far from the confluence of this river with the
+Turnat.*
+
+     * Haupt attributes to the name the signification _holes,
+     bogs_, and this interpretation agrees well enough with the
+     state of the country round the mouths of the Diyala, in the
+     low-lying district which separates that river from the
+     Tigris; he compares it with the name Haulayeh, quoted by
+     Arab geographers in this neighbourhood, and with that of the
+     canton of Haleh, mentioned in Syrian texts as belonging to
+     the district of Radhan, between the Adhem and the Diyala.
+
+At this point the Turnat, flowing through the plain, divides into
+several branches, which ramify again and again, and form a kind of delta
+extending from the ruins of Nayan to those of Reshadeh. During the whole
+of the day the engagement between the two hosts raged on this unstable
+soil, and their leaders themselves sold their lives dearly in the
+struggle. Sennacherib invoked the help of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nebo,
+Bel, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, and the gods heard
+his prayers. "Like a lion I raged, I donned my harness, I covered my
+head with my casque, the badge of war; my powerful battle-chariot, which
+mows down the rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart;
+the strong bow which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the
+javelin, destroyer of life, I grasped it: the whole host of obdurate
+rebels I charged, shining like silver or like the day, and I roared as
+Kamman roareth." Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one
+of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him,
+"of those who wore golden daggers at their belts, and bracelets of
+gold on their wrists." They fell one after the other, "like fat bulls
+chained" for the sacrifice, or like sheep, and their blood flowed on the
+broad plain as the water after a violent storm: the horses plunged in it
+up to their knees, and the body of the royal chariot was reddened with
+it. A son of Merodach-baladan, Nabu-shumishkun, was taken prisoner, but
+Umman-minanu and Mushezib-marduk escaped unhurt from the fatal field. It
+seems as if fortune had at last decided in favour of the Assyrians, and
+they proclaimed the fact loudly, but their success was not so evident as
+to preclude their adversaries also claiming the victory with some show
+of truth. In any case, the losses on both sides were so considerable as
+to force the two belligerents to suspend operations; they returned each
+to his capital, and matters remained much as they had been before the
+battle took place.*
+
+     * _Pinches' Babylonian Chronicle_ attributes the victory to
+     the Elamites, and says that the year in which the battle was
+     fought was unknown. The testimony of this chronicle is so
+     often marred by partiality, that to prefer it always to that
+     of the Ninevite inscriptions shows deficiency of critical
+     ability: the course of events seems to me to prove that the
+     advantage remained with the Assyrians, though the victory
+     was not decisive. The date, which necessarily falls between
+     692 and 689 B.C., has been decided by general considerations
+     as 691 B.C., the very year in which the _Taylor Cylinder_
+     was written.
+
+Years might have elapsed before Sennacherib could have ventured to
+recommence hostilities: he was not deluded by the exaggerated estimate
+of his victory in the accounts given by his court historians, and he
+recognised the fact that the issue of the struggle must be uncertain
+as long as the alliance subsisted between Elam and Chaldaea. But fortune
+came to his aid sooner than he had expected. Umman-minanu was not
+absolute in his dominions any more than his predecessors had been,
+and the losses he had sustained at Khalule, without obtaining any
+compensating advantages in the form of prisoners or spoil, had lowered
+him in the estimation of his vassals; Mushezib-marduk, on the other
+hand, had emptied his treasuries, and though Karduniash was wealthy,
+it was hardly able, after such a short interval, to provide further
+subsidies to purchase the assistance of the mountain tribes.
+Sennacherib's emissaries kept him well informed of all that occurred
+in the enemy's court, and he accordingly took the field again at the
+beginning of 689 B.C., and on this occasion circumstances seemed likely
+to combine to give him an easy victory.*
+
+     * The Assyrian documents insert the account of the capture
+     of Babylon directly after the battle of Khalule, and modern
+     historians therefore concluded that the two events took
+     place within a few months of each other. The information
+     afforded by _Pinches' Babylonian Chronicle_ has enabled us
+     to correct this mistake, and to bring down the date of the
+     taking of Babylon to 689 B.C.
+
+Mushezib-marduk shut himself up in Babylon, not doubting that the
+Elamites would hasten to his succour as soon as they should hear of his
+distress; but his expectation was not fulfilled. Umman-minanu was struck
+down by apoplexy, on the 15th of Nisan, and though his illness did not
+at once terminate fatally, he was left paralysed with distorted mouth,
+and loss of speech, incapable of action, and almost unfit to govern.
+His seizure put a stop to his warlike preparations: and his ministers,
+preoccupied with the urgent question of the succession to the throne,
+had no desire to provoke a conflict with Assyria, the issue of which
+could not be foretold: they therefore left their ally to defend his own
+interests as best he might. Babylon, reduced to rely entirely on its
+own resources, does not seem to have held out long, and perhaps the
+remembrance of the treatment it had received on former occasions may
+account for the very slight resistance it now offered. The Assyrian
+kings who had from time to time conquered Babylon, had always treated
+it with great consideration. They had looked upon it as a sacred city,
+whose caprices and outbreaks must always be pardoned; it was only with
+infinite precautions that they had imposed their commands upon it, and
+even when they had felt that severity was desirable, they had restrained
+themselves in using it, and humoured the idiosyncrasies of the
+inhabitants. Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V., and Sargon had all
+preferred to be legally crowned as sovereigns of Babylon instead
+of remaining merely its masters by right of conquest, and though
+Sennacherib had refused compliance with the traditions by which his
+predecessors had submitted to be bound, he had behaved with unwonted
+lenity after quelling the two previous revolts. He now recognised that
+his clemency had been shown in vain, and his small stock of patience was
+completely exhausted just when fate threw the rebellious city into his
+power. If the inhabitants had expected to be once more let off easily,
+their illusions were speedily dissipated: they were slain by the sword
+as if they had been ordinary foes, such as Jews, Tibarenians, or Kalda
+of Bit-Yakin, and they were spared none of the horrors which custom then
+permitted the stronger to inflict upon the weaker. For several days the
+pitiless massacre lasted. Young and old, all who fell into the hands of
+the soldiery, perished by the sword; piles of corpses filled the streets
+and the approaches to the temples, especially the avenue of winged bulls
+which led to E-sagilla, and, even after the first fury of carnage had
+been appeased, it was only to be succeeded by more organised pillage.
+Mushezib-marduk was sent into exile with his family, and immense convoys
+of prisoners and spoil followed him. The treasures carried off from
+the royal palace, the temples, and the houses of the rich nobles were
+divided among the conquerors: they comprised gold, silver, precious
+stones, costly stuffs, and provisions of all sorts. The sacred edifices
+were sacked, the images hacked to pieces or carried off to Nineveh:
+Bel-Marduk, introduced into the sanctuary of Assur, became subordinate
+to the rival deity amid a crowd of strange gods. In the inmost recess
+of a chapel were discovered some ancient statues of Kamman and Shala
+of E-kallati, which Marduk-nadin-akhe had carried off in the time of
+Tiglath-pileser I., and these were brought back in triumph to their own
+land, after an absence of four hundred and eighteen years. The buildings
+themselves suffered a like fate to that of their owners and their gods.
+"The city and its houses, from foundation to roof, I destroyed them,
+I demolished them, I burnt them with fire; walls, gateways, sacred
+chapels, and the towers of earth and tiles, I laid them all low and cast
+them into the Arakhtu." The incessant revolts of the people justified
+this wholesale destruction. Babylon, as we have said before, was too
+powerful to be reduced for long to the second rank in a Mesopotamian
+empire: as soon as fate established the seat of empire in the districts
+bordering on the Euphrates and the middle course of the Tigris,
+its well-chosen situation, its size, its riches, the extent of its
+population, the number of its temples, and the beauty of its palaces,
+all conspired to make it the capital of the country. In vain Assur,
+Calah, or Nineveh thrust themselves into the foremost rank, and by a
+strenuous effort made their princes rulers of Babylon; in a short time
+Babylon replenished her treasury, found allies, soldiers, and leaders,
+and in spite of reverses of fortune soon regained the upper hand. The
+only treatment which could effectually destroy her ascendency was that
+of leaving in her not one brick upon another, thus preventing her from
+being re-peopled for several generations, since a new city could not
+at once spring up from the ashes of the old; until she had been utterly
+destroyed her conquerors had still reason to fear her. This fact
+Sennacherib, or his councillors, knew well. If he merits any reproach,
+it is not for having seized the opportunity of destroying the city which
+Babylon offered him, but rather for not having persevered in his design
+to the end, and reduced her to a mere name.
+
+In the midst of these costly and absorbing wars, we may well wonder how
+Sennacherib found time and means to build villas or temples; yet he is
+nevertheless, among the kings of Assyria, the monarch who has left us
+the largest number of monuments. He restored a shrine of Nergal in the
+small town of Tarbizi; he fortified the village of Alshi; and in 704
+B.C. he founded a royal residence in the fortress of Kakzi, which
+defended the approach to Calah from the south-east. He did not reside
+much at Dur-Sharrukin, neither did he complete the decoration of his
+father's palace there: his pride as a victorious warrior suffered
+when his surroundings reminded him of a more successful conqueror than
+himself, and Calah itself was too full of memories of Tiglath-pileser
+III. and the sovereigns of the eighth century for him to desire to
+establish his court there. He preferred to reside at Nineveh, which
+had been much neglected by his predecessors, and where the crumbling
+edifices merely recalled the memory of long-vanished splendours.
+
+[Illustration: 063.jpg THE MOUNDS OF NINEVEH SEEN FROM THE TERRACE OF A
+HOUSE IN MOSUL]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a lithograph in Layard.
+
+He selected this city as his residence at the very beginning of his
+reign, perhaps while he was still only crown prince, and began by
+repairing its ancient fortifications; later on, when the success of
+his earlier campaigns had furnished him with a sufficient supply of
+prisoners, he undertook the restoration of the whole city, with its
+avenues, streets, canals, quays, gardens, and aqueducts: the labour of
+all the captives brought together from different quarters of his empire
+was pressed into the execution of his plans--the Kalda, the Aramaeans,
+the Mannai, the people of Kui, the Cilicians, the Philistines, and
+the iyrians; the provinces vied with each other in furnishing him with
+materials without stint,--precious woods were procured from Syria,
+marbles from Kapri-dargila, alabaster from Balad, while Bit-Yakin
+provided the rushes to be laid between the courses of brickwork. The
+river Tebilti, after causing the downfall of the royal mausolea and
+"displaying to the light of day the coffins which they concealed," had
+sapped the foundations of the palace of Assur-nazir-pal, and caused it
+to fall in: a muddy pool now occupied the north-western quarter,
+between the court of Ishtar and the lofty ziggurat of Assur. This pool
+Sennacherib filled up, and regulated the course of the stream, providing
+against the recurrence of such-accidents in future by building a
+substructure of masonry, 454 cubits long by 289 wide, formed of large
+blocks of stone cemented together by bitumen. On this he erected a
+magnificent palace, a Bit-Khilani in the Syrian style, with woodwork of
+fragrant cedar and cypress overlaid with gold and silver, panellings
+of sculptured marble and alabaster, and friezes and cornices in glazed
+tiles of brilliant colouring: inspired by the goddess Nin-kurra, he
+caused winged bulls of white alabaster and limestone statues of the gods
+to be hewn in the quarries of Balad near Nineveh. He presided in person
+at all these operations--at the raising of the soil, the making of the
+substructures of the terrace, the transport of the colossal statues or
+blocks and their subsequent erection; indeed, he was to be seen at every
+turn, standing in Ids ebony and ivory chariot, drawn by a team of men.
+When the building was finished, he was so delighted with its beauty that
+he named it "the incomparable palace," and his admiration was shared
+by his contemporaries; they were never wearied of extolling in glowing
+terms the twelve bronze lions, the twelve winged bulls, and the
+twenty-four statues of goddesses which kept watch over the entrance,
+and for the construction of which a new method of rapid casting had been
+invented.
+
+[Illustration: 065.jpg KING SENNACHERIB WATCHING THE TRANSPORT OF A
+COLOSSAL STATUE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+Formerly the erection of such edifices cost much in suffering to
+the artificers employed on them, but Sennacherib brought his great
+enterprise to a prompt completion without extravagant outlay or
+unnecessary hardship inflicted on his workmen. He proceeded to annex
+the neighbouring quarters of the city, relegating the inhabitants to the
+suburbs while he laid out a great park on the land thus cleared; this
+park was well planted with trees, like the heights of Amanus, and in
+it flourished side by side all the forest growths indigenousnto the
+Cilician mountains and the plains of Chaldaea. A lake, fed by a canal
+leading from the Khuzur, supplied it with water, which was conducted in
+streams and rills through the thickets, keeping them always fresh and
+green. Vines trained on trellises afforded a grateful shade during the
+sultry hours of the day; birds sang in the branches, herds of wild boar
+and deer roamed through the coverts, in order that the prince might
+enjoy the pleasures of the chase without quitting his own private
+grounds.
+
+[Illustration: 066.jpg ASSYRIAN BAS-RELIEFS AT BAVIAN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+The main part of these constructions was finished about 700 B.C., but
+many details were left incomplete, and the work was still proceeding
+after the court had long been in residence on the spot. Meanwhile a
+smaller palace, as well as barracks and a depot for arms and provisions,
+sprang up elsewhere. Eighteen aqueducts, carried across the country,
+brought the water from the Muzri to the Khuzur, and secured an adequate
+supply to the city; the Ninevites, who had hitherto relied upon
+rain-water for the replenishing of their cisterns, awoke one day to
+find themselves released from all anxiety on this score. An ancient and
+semi-subterranean canal, which Assur-nazir-pal had constructed nearly
+two centuries before, but which, owing to the neglect of his successors,
+had become choked up, was cleaned out, enlarged and repaired, and made
+capable of bringing water to their doors from the springs of Mount Tas,
+in the same year as that in which the battle of Khalule took place.* At
+a later date, magnificent bas-reliefs, carved on the rock by order of
+Esar-haddon, representing winged bulls, figures of the gods and of the
+king, with explanatory inscriptions, marked the site of the springs,
+and formed a kind of monumental facade to the ravine in which they took
+their rise.**
+
+     * Mount Tas is the group of hills enclosing the ravine of
+     Bavian. These works were described in the Bavian
+     inscription, of which they occupy the whole of the first
+     part.
+
+     ** The Bavian text speaks of six inscriptions and statues
+     which the king had engraved on the Mount of Tas, at the
+     source of the stream.
+
+It would be hard to account for the rapidity with which these great
+works were completed, did one not remember that Sargon had previously
+carried out extensive architectural schemes, in which he must have
+employed all the available artists in his empire. The revolutions which
+had shattered the realm under the last descendants of Assur-nazir-pal,
+and the consequent impoverishment of the kingdom, had not been without a
+disastrous effect on the schools of Assyrian sculpture.
+
+[ Illustration: 068.jpg UNKNOWN SUBJECTS FROM THE FIFTH TOMB]
+
+[Illustration: 069.jpg GREAT ASSYRIAN STELE AT BAVIAIT.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudior, from Layard.
+
+Since the royal treasury alone was able to bear the expense of those
+vast compositions in which the artistic skill of the period could have
+free play, the closing of the royal workshops, owing to the misfortunes
+of the time, had the immediate effect of emptying the sculptors'
+studios. Even though the period of depression lasted for the space of
+two or three generations only, it became difficult to obtain artistic
+workmen; and those who were not discouraged from the pursuit of art by
+the uncertainty of employment, no longer possessed the high degree of
+skill attained by their predecessors, owing to lack of opportunity to
+cultivate it. Sculpture was at a very low ebb when Tiglath-pileser
+III. desired to emulate the royal builders of days gone by, and the
+awkwardness of composition noticeable in some of his bas-reliefs, and
+the almost barbaric style of the stelae erected by persons of even so
+high a rank as Belharran-beluzur, prove the lamentable deficiency of
+good artists at that epoch, and show that the king had no choice but to
+employ all the surviving members of the ancient guilds, whether good,
+bad, or indifferent workmen. The increased demand, however, soon
+produced an adequate supply of workers, and when Sargon ascended the
+throne, the royal guild of sculptors had been thoroughly reconstituted;
+the inefficient workmen on whom Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser had been
+obliged to rely had been eliminated in course of time, and many of the
+sculptures which adorned the palace at Khorsabad display a purity of
+design and boldness of execution comparable to that of the best Egyptian
+art. The composition still shows traces of Chaldaean stiffness, and
+the exaggerated drawing of the muscles produces an occasionally
+unpleasing-heaviness of outline, but none the less the work as a whole
+constitutes one of the richest and most ingenious schemes of decoration
+ever devised, which, while its colouring was still perfect, must have
+equalled in splendour the great triumphal battle-scenes at Ibsambul or
+Medinet-Habu. Sennacherib found ready to his hand a body of well-trained
+artists, whose number had considerably increased during the reign of
+Sargon, and he profited by the experience which they had acquired and
+the talent that many of them had developed. What immediately strikes the
+spectator in the series of pictures produced under his auspices, is the
+great skill with which his artists covered the whole surface at their
+disposal without overcrowding it. They no longer treated their subject,
+whether it were a warlike expedition, a hunting excursion, a sacrificial
+scene, or an episode of domestic life, as a simple juxtaposition of
+groups of almost equal importance ranged at the same elevation along
+the walls, the subject of each bas-relief being complete in itself and
+without any necessary connection with its neighbour. They now selected
+two or three principal incidents from the subjects proposed to them for
+representation, and round these they grouped such of the less important
+episodes as lent themselves best to picturesque treatment, and scattered
+sparingly over the rest of the field the minor accessories which seemed
+suitable to indicate more precisely the scene of the action. Under the
+auspices of this later school, Assyrian foot-soldiers are no longer
+depicted attacking the barbarians of Media or Elam on backgrounds of
+smooth stone, where no line marks the various levels, and where the
+remoter figures appear to be walking in the air without anything to
+support them. If the battle represented took place on a wooded slope
+crowned by a stronghold on the summit of the hill, the artist, in order
+to give an impression of the surroundings, covered his background with
+guilloche patterns by which to represent the rugged surface of the
+mountains; he placed here and there groups of various kinds of trees,
+especially the straight cypresses and firs which grew upon the slopes of
+the Iranian table-land: or he represented a body of lancers galloping in
+single file along the narrow woodland paths, and hastening to surprise
+a distant enemy, or again foot-soldiers chasing their foes through the
+forest or engaging them in single combat; while in the corners of the
+picture the wounded are being stabbed or otherwise despatched, fugitives
+are trying to escape through the undergrowth, and shepherds are pleading
+with the victors for their lives. It is the actual scene the sculptor
+sets himself to depict, and one is sometimes inclined to ask, while
+noting the precision with which the details of the battle are rendered,
+whether the picture was not drawn on the spot, and whether the conqueror
+did not carry artists in his train to make sketches for the decorators
+of the main features of the country traversed and of the victories won.
+The masses of infantry seem actually in motion, a troop of horsemen rush
+blindly over uneven ground, and the episodes of their raid are unfolded
+in all their confusion with unfailing animation.
+
+[Illustration: 073.jpg AN ASSYRIAN CAVALRY RAID THROUGH THE WOODS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+For the first time a spectator can realise Assyrian warfare with its
+striking contrasts of bravery and unbridled cruelty; he is no longer
+reduced to spell out laboriously a monotonous narrative of a battle, for
+the battle takes place actually before his eyes. And after the return
+from the scene of action, when it is desired to show how the victor
+employed his prisoners for the greater honour of his gods and his own
+glory, the picture is no less detailed and realistic.
+
+[Illustration: 074.jpg (and 75) TRANSPORT OF A WINGED BULL ON A SLEDGE.]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+There we see them, the noble and the great of all the conquered nations,
+Chaldaeans and Elamites, inhabitants of Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Judaea,
+harnessed to ropes and goaded by the whips of the overseers, dragging
+the colossal bull which is destined to mount guard at the gates of the
+palace: with bodies bent, pendant arms, and faces contorted with pain,
+they, who had been the chief men in their cities, now take the place of
+beasts of burden, while Sennacherib, erect on his state chariot, with
+steady glance and lips compressed, watches them as they pass slowly
+before him in their ignominy and misery.
+
+After the destruction of Babylon there is a pause in the history of
+the conqueror, and with him in that of Assyria itself. It seems as
+if Nineveh had been exhausted by the greatness of her effort, and
+was stopping to take breath before setting out on a fresh career of
+conquest: the other nations also, as if overwhelmed by the magnitude
+of the catastrophe, appear to have henceforth despaired of their own
+security, and sought only how to avoid whatever might rouse against them
+the enmity of the master of the hour. His empire formed a compact and
+solid block in their midst, on which no human force seemed capable of
+making any impression. They had attacked it each in turn, or all at
+once, Elam in the east, Urartu in the north, Egypt in the south-west,
+and their efforts had not only miserably failed, but had for the most
+part drawn down upon them disastrous reprisals. The people of Urartu
+remained in gloomy inaction amidst their mountains, the Elamites had
+lost their supremacy over half the Aramaean tribes, and if Egypt was as
+yet inaccessible beyond the intervening deserts, she owed it less to the
+strength of her armies than to the mysterious fatality at Libnah. In one
+half-century the Assyrians had effectually and permanently disabled
+the first of these kingdoms, and inflicted on the others such serious
+injuries that they were slow in recovering from them. The fate of these
+proud nations had intimidated the inferior states--Arabs, Medes, tribes
+of Asia Minor, barbarous Cimmerians or Scythians,--all alike were
+careful to repress their natural inclinations to rapine and plunder. If
+occasionally their love of booty overpowered their prudence, and they
+hazarded a raid on some defenceless village in the neighbouring border
+territory, troops were hastily despatched from the nearest Assyrian
+garrison, who speedily drove them back across the frontier, and pursuing
+them into their own country, inflicted on them so severe a punishment
+that they remained for some considerable time paralysed by awe and
+terror. Assyria was the foremost kingdom of the East, and indeed of the
+whole world, and the hegemony which she exercised over all the countries
+within her reach cannot be accounted for solely by her military
+superiority. Not only did she excel in the art of conquest, as many
+before her had done--Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Egyptians--but
+she did what none of them had been able to accomplish; she exacted
+lasting obedience from the conquered nations, ruling them with a firm
+hand, and accustoming them to live on good terms with one another in
+spite of diversity of race, and this with a light rein, with unfailing
+tact, and apparently with but little effort. The system of deportation
+so resolutely carried out by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon began to
+produce effect, and up to this time the most happy results only were
+discernible. The colonies which had been planted throughout the empire
+from Palestine to Media, some of them two generations previously, others
+within recent years, were becoming more and more acclimatised to their
+new surroundings, on which they were producing the effect desired by
+their conquerors; they were meant to hold in check the populations in
+whose midst they had been set down, to act as a curb upon them, and also
+to break up their national unity and thus gradually prepare them for
+absorption into a wider fatherland, in which they would cease to be
+exclusively Damascenes, Samaritans, Hittites, or Aramaeans, since they
+would become Assyrians and fellow-citizens of a mighty empire. The
+provinces, brought at length under a regular system of government,
+protected against external dangers and internal discord, by a
+well-disciplined soldiery, and enjoying a peace and security they
+had rarely known in the days of their independence, gradually became
+accustomed to live in concord under the rule of a common sovereign, and
+to feel themselves portions of a single empire. The speech of Assyria
+was their official language, the gods of Assyria were associated with
+their national gods in the prayers they offered up for the welfare of
+the sovereign, and foreign nations with whom they were brought into
+communication no longer distinguished between them and their conquerors,
+calling their country Assyria, and regarding its inhabitants as
+Assyrians. As is invariably the case, domestic peace and good
+administration had caused a sudden development of wealth and commercial
+activity. Although Nineveh and Calah never became such centres of trade
+and industry as Babylon had been, yet the presence of the court and the
+sovereign attracted thither merchants from all parts of the world.
+
+[Illustration: 079.jpg SENNACHERIB]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.
+
+The Medes, reaching the capital by way of the passes of Kowandiz and
+Suleimaniyeh, brought in the lapis-lazuli, precious stones, metals,
+and woollen stuffs of Central Asia and the farthest East, while
+the Phoenicians and even Greeks, who were already following in their
+foot steps, came thither to sell in the a bazaars of Assyria the most
+precious of the wares brought back by their merchant vessels from the
+shores of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the farthest West. The
+great cities of the triangle of Assyria were gradually supplanting all
+the capitals of the ancient world, not excepting Memphis, and becoming
+the centres of universal trade; unexcelled for centuries in the arts of
+war, Assyria was in a fair way to become mistress also in the arts of
+peace. A Jewish prophet thus described the empire at a later date: "The
+Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing
+shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick clouds.
+The waters nourished him, the deep made him grow: therefore his stature
+was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were
+multiplied, and his branches became long by reason of many waters, when
+he shot them forth. All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his
+boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring
+forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus
+was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his
+root was by many waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide
+him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane trees were
+not as his branches; nor was any tree like unto him in beauty: so that
+all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him."
+(Ezek. xxxi. 3-9).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS ZENITH; ESARHADDON AND
+ASSUR-BANI-PAL
+
+
+_THE MEDES AND CIMMERIANS: LYDIA--THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT, OP ARABIA, AND
+OF ELAM._
+
+_Last years of Sennacherib--New races appear upon the scene--The Medes:
+Deiokes and the foundation of Ecbatana, the Bit-Dayaukku and their
+origin--The races of Asia Minor--The Phrygians, their earliest rulers,
+their conquests, and their religion--Last of the Heraclidae in Lydia,
+trade and constitution of their kingdom--The Tylonidae, and Mermnadae--The
+Cimmerians driven back into Asia by the Scythians--The Treves._
+
+_Murder of Sennacherib and accession of Esarhaddon: defeat of Sharezer
+(681 B.C.)--Campaigns against the Kaldd, the Cimmerians, the tribes
+of Cilicia, and against Sidon (680-679 B.C.); Cimmerian and Scythian
+invasions, revolt of vie Mannai, and expeditions against the Medes;
+submission of the northern Arabs (678-676 B.C.)--Egyptian
+affairs; Taharqa (Tirhakah), his building operations, his Syrian
+policy--Disturbances on the frontiers of Elam and Urartu._
+
+_First invasion of Egypt and subjection of the country to Nineveh (670
+B.C.)--Intrigues of rival claimants to the throne, and division of
+the Assyrian empire between Assur-bani-pal and Shamash shumukin (668
+B.C.)--Revolt of Egypt and death of Esarhaddon (668 B.C.); accession
+of Assur-bani-pal; his campaign against Kirbit; defeat of Taharqa and
+reconstitution of the Egyptian province (667 B.C.)--Affairs of Asia
+Minor: Gyges (693 B.C.), his tears against the Greeks and Cimmerians; he
+sends ambassadors to Nineveh (664 B.C.)._
+
+_Tanuatamanu reasserts the authority of Ethiopia in Egypt (664 B.C.),
+and Tammaritu of Elam invades Karduniash; reconquest of the Said
+and sack of Thebes--Psammetichus I. and the rise of the XXVIth
+dynasty--Disturbances among the Medes and Mannai--War against Teumman
+and the victory of Tulliz (660 B.C.): Elam yields to the Assyrians for
+the first time--Shamash-shumukin at Babylon; is at first on good terms
+with his brother, then becomes dissatisfied, and forms a coalition
+against the Ninevite supremacy._
+
+_The Uruk incident and outbreak of the war between Karduniash, Elam,
+and Assyria; Elam disabled by domestic discords--Siege and capture of
+Babylon; Assur-bani-pal ascends the throne under the name of Kandalanu
+(648-646 B.C.)--Revolt of Egypt: defeat and death of Gyges (642 B.C.
+): Ardys drives out the Cimmerians and Dugdamis is killed in
+Cilicia--Submission of Arabia._
+
+_Revolution in Elam--Attack on Indabigash--Tammaritu restored to
+power--Pillage and destruction of Susa--Campaign against the Arabs of
+Kedar and the Nabataeans: suppression of the Tyrian rebellion
+--Dying struggles of Elam--Capture of Madaktu and surrender of
+Khumban-khaldash--The power of Assyria reaches its zenith._
+
+[Illustration: 083.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--THE POWER OF ASSYRIA AT ITS ZENITH; ESARHADDON AND
+ASSUR-BANI-PAL
+
+_The Medes and Cimmerians: Lydia--The conquest of Egypt, of Arabia, and
+of Elam._
+
+
+As we have already seen, Sennacherib reigned for eight years after his
+triumph; eight years of tranquillity at home, and of peace with all
+his neighbours abroad. If we examine the contemporary monuments or the
+documents of a later period, and attempt to glean from them some details
+concerning the close of his career, we find that there is a complete
+absence of any record of national movement on the part of either Elam,
+Urartu, or Egypt.
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Layard. The vignette, also by
+     Faucher-Gudin, represents Taharqa in a kneeling attitude,
+     and is taken from a bronze statuette in the Macgregor
+     collection.
+
+The only event of which any definite mention is made is a raid across
+the north of Arabia, in the course of which Hazael, King of Adumu, and
+chief among the princes of Kedar, was despoiled of the images of his
+gods. The older states of the Oriental world had, as we have pointed
+out, grown weary of warfare which brought them nothing but loss of men
+and treasure; but behind these states, on the distant horizon to the
+east and north-west, were rising up new nations whose growth and
+erratic movements assumed an importance that became daily more and more
+alarming. On the east, the Medes, till lately undistinguishable from the
+other tribes occupying the western corner of the Iranian table-land, had
+recently broken away from the main body, and, rallying round a single
+leader, already gave promise of establishing an empire formidable alike
+by the energy of its people and the extent of its domain. A tradition
+afterwards accepted by them attributed their earlier successes to a
+certain Deiokes, son of Phraortes, a man wiser than his fellows, who
+first set himself to deal out justice in his own household. The men of
+his village, observing his merits, chose him to be the arbiter of all
+their disputes, and, being secretly ambitious of sovereign power, he did
+his best to settle their differences on lines of the strictest
+equity and justice. By these means he gained such credit with his
+fellow-citizens as to attract the attention of those who lived in the
+neighbouring villages, who had suffered from unjust judgments, so that
+when they heard of the singular uprightness of Deiokes and of the equity
+of his decisions they joyfully had recourse to him until at last they
+came to put confidence in no one else. The number of complaints brought
+before him continually increasing as people learnt more and more the
+justice of his judgments, Deiokes, finding himself now all-important,
+announced that he did not intend any longer to hear causes, and
+appeared no more in the seat in which he had been accustomed to sit and
+administer justice. "'It was not to his advantage,' he said, 'to spend
+the whole day in regulating other men's affairs to the neglect of his
+own.' Hereupon robbery and lawlessness broke out afresh and prevailed
+throughout the country even more than heretofore; wherefore the Medes
+assembled from all quarters and held a consultation on the state of
+affairs. The speakers, as I think, were chiefly friends of Deiokes. 'We
+cannot possibly,' they said, 'go on living in this country if things
+continue as they now are; let us, therefore, set a king over us, so that
+the land may be well governed, and we ourselves may be able to attend
+to our own affairs, and not be forced to quit our country on account
+of anarchy.' After speaking thus, they persuaded themselves that they
+desired a king, and forthwith debated whom they should choose. Deiokes
+was proposed and warmly praised by all, so they agreed to elect him."
+Whereupon Deiokes had a great palace built, and enrolled a bodyguard
+to attend upon him. He next called upon his subjects to leave their
+villages, and "the Medes, obedient to his orders, built the city now
+called Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength,
+rising in circles one within the other. The walls are concentric, and
+so arranged that they rise one above the other by the height of their
+battlements. The nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favoured
+this arrangement. The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace
+and the treasuries standing within the last. The circuit of the outer
+wall is very nearly the same as that of Athens. Of this wall the
+battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the
+fourth blue, of the fifth orange. The two last have their battlements
+coated respectively with silver and gold. All these fortifications
+Deiokes caused to be raised for himself and his own palace; the people
+he required to dwell outside the citadel. When the town was finished,
+he established a rule that no one should have direct access to the king,
+but that all communications should pass through the hands of messengers.
+It was declared to be unseemly for any one to see the king face to face,
+or to laugh or spit in his presence. This ceremonial Deiokes established
+for his own security, fearing lest his compeers who had been brought up
+with him, and were of as good family and parts as he, should be vexed at
+the sight of him and conspire against him: he thought that by rendering
+himself invisible to his vassals they would in time come to regard him
+as quite a different sort of being from themselves."
+
+Two or three facts stand out from this legendary background. It is
+probable that Deiokes was an actual person; that the empire of the Medes
+first took shape under his auspices; that he formed an important kingdom
+at the foot of Mount Elvend, and founded Ecbatana the Great, or, at at
+any rate, helped to raise it to the rank of a capital.*
+
+     * The existence of Deiokes has been called in question by
+     Grote and by the Rawlinsons. Most recent historians,
+     however, accept the story of this personage as true in its
+     main facts; some believe him to have been merely the
+     ancestor of the royal house which later on founded the
+     united kingdom of the Medes.
+
+Its site was happily chosen, in a rich and fertile valley, close to
+where the roads emerge which cross the Zagros chain of mountains and
+connect Iran with the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, almost on the
+border of the salt desert which forms and renders sterile the central
+regions of the plateau. Mount Elvend shelters it, and feeds with its
+snows the streams that irrigate it, whose waters transform the whole
+country round into one vast orchard. The modern town has, as it were,
+swallowed up all traces of its predecessor; a stone lion, overthrown and
+mutilated, marks the site of the royal palace.
+
+[Illustration: 087.jpg STONE LION AT HAMADAN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Plandin and Coste.
+
+The chronological reckoning of the native annalists, as handed down
+to us by Herodotus, credits Deiokes with a reign of fifty-three years,
+which occupied almost the whole of the first half of the seventh
+century, i.e. from 709 to 656, or from 700 to 647 B.C.*
+
+     * Herodotus expressly attributes a reign of fifty-three
+     years to his Deiokes, and the total of a hundred and fifty
+     years which we obtain by adding together the number of years
+     assigned by him to the four Median kings (53 + 22 + 40 +
+     35) brings us back to 709-708, if we admit, as he does, that
+     the year of the proclamation by Cyrus as King of Persia
+     (559-558) was that in which Astyages was overthrown; we get
+     700-699 as the date of Deiokes' accession, if we separate
+     the two facts, as the monuments compel us to do, and reckon
+     the hundred and fifty years of the Median empire from the
+     fall of Astyages in 550-549.
+
+The records of Nineveh mention a certain Dayaukku who was governor of
+the Mannai, and an ally of the Assyrians in the days of Sargon, and was
+afterwards deported with his family to Hamath in 715; two years later
+reference is made to an expedition across the territory of Bit-Dayaukku,
+which is described as lying between Ellipi and Karalla, thus
+corresponding to the modern province of Hamadan. It is quite within
+the bounds of possibility that the Dayaukku who gave his name to this
+district was identical with the Deiokes of later writers.*
+
+     * The form Deiokes, in place of Daiokes, is due to the Ionic
+     dialect employed by Herodotus. Justi regards the name as an
+     abbreviated form of the ancient Persian _Dahyaupati_--"the
+     master of a province," with the suffix _-ha_.
+
+[Illustration: 088.jpg VIEW OF HAMADAN AND MOUNT ELVEND IN WINTER]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan.
+
+He was the official ancestor of a royal house, a fact proved by the way
+in which his conqueror uses the name to distinguish the country over
+which he had ruled; moreover, the epoch assigned to him by contemporary
+chroniclers coincides closely enough with that indicated by tradition
+in the case of Deiokes. He was never the august sovereign that posterity
+afterwards made him out to be, and his territory included barely half of
+what constituted the province of Media in classical times; he contrived,
+however--and it was this that gained him universal renown in later
+days--to create a central rallying-point for the Median tribes around
+which they henceforth grouped themselves. The work of concentration
+was merely in its initial stage during the lifetime of Sennacherib, and
+little or nothing was felt of its effects outside its immediate area of
+influence, but the pacific character ascribed to the worthy Deiokes by
+popular legends, is to a certain extent confirmed by the testimony of
+the monuments: they record only one expedition, in 702, against Ellipi
+and the neighbouring tribes, in the course of which some portions of the
+newly acquired territory were annexed to the province of Kharkhar, and
+after mentioning this the annals have nothing further to relate during
+the rest of the reign. Sennacherib was too much taken up with his
+retaliatory measures against Babylon, or his disputes with Blam, to
+think of venturing on expeditions such as those which had brought
+Tiglath-pileser III. or Sargon within sight of Mount Bikni; while the
+Medes, on their part, had suffered so many reverses under these two
+monarchs that they probably thought twice before attacking any of the
+outposts scattered along the Assyrian frontier: nothing occurred
+to disturb their tranquillity during the early years of the seventh
+century, and this peaceful interval probably enabled Deiokes to
+consolidate, if not to extend, his growing authority. But if matters
+were quiet, at all events on the surface, in this direction, the nations
+on the north and north-west had for some time past begun to adopt a more
+threatening attitude. That migration of races between Europe and Asia,
+which had been in such active progress about the middle of the second
+millennium before our era, had increased twofold in intensity after the
+rise of the XXth Egyptian dynasty, and from thenceforward a wave of new
+races had gradually spread over the whole of Asia Minor, and had either
+driven the older peoples into the less fertile or more inaccessible
+districts, or else had overrun and absorbed them.
+
+[Illustration: 090.jpg ASIA MINOR IN THE 7TH CENTURY]
+
+Many of the nations that had fought against Ramses II. and Ramses III.,
+such as the Uashasha, the Shagalasha, the Zakkali, the Danauna, and
+the Tursha, had disappeared, but the Thracians, whose appearance on the
+scene caused such consternation in days gone by, had taken root in the
+very heart of the peninsula, and had, in the course of three or four
+generations, succeeded in establishing a thriving state. The legend
+which traced the descent of the royal line back to the fabulous hero
+Ascanius proves that at the outset the haughty tribe of the Ascanians
+must have taken precedence over their fellows;* it soon degenerated,
+however, and before long the Phrygian tribe gained the upper hand and
+gave its name to the whole nation.
+
+     * The name of this tribe was retained by a district
+     afterwards included in the province of Bithynia, viz.
+     Ascania, on the shores of the Ascanian lake: the
+     distribution of place and personal names over the face of
+     the country makes it seem extremely probable that Ascania
+     and the early Ascanians occupied the whole of the region
+     bounded on the north by the Propontis; in other words, the
+     very country in which, according to Xanthus of Lydia, the
+     Phry gians first established themselves after their arrival
+     in Asia.
+
+Phrygia proper, the country first colonised by them, lay between Mount
+Dindymus and the river Halys, in the valley of the Upper Sangarios and
+its affluents: it was there that the towns and strongholds of their most
+venerated leaders, such as Midaion, Dorylaion, Gordiaion, Tataion, and
+many others stood close together, perpetuating the memory of Midas,
+Dorylas, Gordios, and Tatas. Its climate was severe and liable to
+great extremes of temperature, being bitterly cold in winter and almost
+tropical during the summer months; forests of oak and pine, however, and
+fields of corn flourished, while the mountain slopes favoured the growth
+of the vine; it was, in short, an excellent and fertile country, well
+fitted for the development of a nation of vinedressers and tillers of
+the soil. The slaying of an ox or the destruction of an agricultural
+implement was punishable by death, and legend relates that Gordios,
+the first Phrygian king, was a peasant by birth. His sole patrimony
+consisted of a single pair of oxen, and the waggon used by him in
+bringing home his sheaves after the harvest was afterwards placed as an
+offering in the temple of Cybele at Ancyra by his son Midas; there was
+a local tradition according to which the welfare of all Asia depended on
+the knot which bound the yoke to the pole being preserved intact.
+Midas did not imitate his father's simple habits, and the poets, after
+crediting him with fabulous wealth, tried also to make out that he was a
+conqueror. The kingdom expanded in all directions, and soon included the
+upper valley of the Masander, with its primeval sanctuaries, Kydrara,
+Colossae, and Kylsenae, founded wherever exhalations of steam and boiling
+springs betrayed the presence of some supernatural power. The southern
+shores of the Hellespont, which formed part of the Troad, and was
+the former territory of the Ascania, belonged to it, as did also the
+majority of the peoples scattered along the coast of the Euxine between
+the mouth of the Sangarios and that of the Halys; those portions of the
+central steppe which border on Lake Tatta were also for a time subject
+to it, Lydia was under its influence, and it is no exaggeration to say
+that in the tenth and eleventh centuries before our era there was a
+regular Phrygian empire which held sway, almost without a rival, over
+the western half of Asia Minor.
+
+[Illustration: 095.jpg MONUMENT COMMEMORATIVE OF MIDAS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a plate in Perrot and Chipiez.
+
+It has left behind it so few relics of its existence, that we can only
+guess at what it must have been in the days of its prosperity. Three or
+four ruined fortresses, a few votive stelae, and a dozen bas-reliefs cut
+on the faces of cliffs in a style which at first recalls the Hittite and
+Asianic carvings of the preceding age, and afterwards, as we come down
+to later times, betrays the influence of early Greek art. In the midst
+of one of their cemeteries we come upon a monument resembling the facade
+of a house or temple cut out of the virgin rock; it consists of a low
+triangular pediment, surmounted by a double scroll, then a rectangle
+of greater length than height, framed between two pilasters and a
+horizontal string-course, the centre being decorated with a geometrical
+design of crosses in a way which suggests the pattern of a carpet; a
+recess is hollowed out on a level with the ground, and filled by a blind
+door with rebated doorposts. Is it a tomb? The inscription carefully
+engraved above one side of the pediment contains the name of Midas, and
+seems to show that we have before us a commemorative monument, piously
+dedicated by a certain Ates in honour of the Phrygian hero.
+
+[Illustration: 096.jpg A PHRYGIAN GOD]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Ramsay.
+
+Elsewhere we come upon the outlines of a draped female form, sometimes
+alone, sometimes accompanied by two lions, or of a man clothed in a
+short tunic, holding a sort of straight sceptre in his hand, and we
+fancy that we have the image of a god before our eyes, though we cannot
+say which of the deities handed down by tradition it may represent.
+The religion of the Phrygians is shrouded in the same mystery as their
+civilisation and their art, and presents a curious mixture of European
+and Asianic elements. The old aboriginal races had worshipped from time
+immemorial a certain mother-goddess, Ma, or Amma, the black earth,
+which brings forth without ceasing, and nourishes all living things. Her
+central place of worship seems, originally, to have been in the region
+of the Anti-taurus, and it was there that her sacred cities--Tyana,
+Venasa, and the Cappadocian Comana--were to be found as late as Roman
+times; in these towns her priests were regarded as kings, and thousands
+of her priestesses spent lives of prostitution in her service; but her
+sanctuaries, with their special rites and regulations, were scattered
+over the whole peninsula. She was sometimes worshipped under the form
+of a meteoric stone, or betyle similar to those found in Canaan;* more
+frequently she was represented in female shape, with attendant lions, or
+placed erect on a lion in the attitude of walking.
+
+     * E.g. at Mount Dindymus and at Pessinus, which latter place
+     was supposed to possess the oldest sanctuary of Cybele. The
+     Pessinus stone, which was carried off to Rome in 204 B.C.,
+     was small, irregular in shape, and of a dark colour. Another
+     stone represented Ida.
+
+[Illustration: 097.jpg THE MOTHER-GODDESS BETWEEN LIONS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Ramsay.
+
+A moon-god, Men, shared divine honours with her, and with a goddess
+Nana whose son Atys had been the only love of Ma and the victim of her
+passion. We are told that she compelled him to emasculate himself in
+a fit of mad delirium, and then transformed him into a pine tree:
+thenceforward her priests made the sacrifice of their virility with
+their own hands at the moment of dedicating themselves to the service of
+the goddess.*
+
+     * Nana was made out to be the daughter of the river
+     Sangarios. She is said to have conceived Atys by placing in
+     her bosom the fruit of an almond tree which sprang from the
+     hermaphrodite Agdistis. This was the form--extremely ancient
+     in its main features--in which the legend was preserved at
+     Pessinus.
+
+[Illustration: 098.jpg THE MOTHER-GODDESS AND ATYS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre. One of
+     the bas-reliefs at Iasilikiaia, to which we shall have
+     occasion to refer later on in Chapter III. of the present
+     volume.
+
+The gods introduced from Thrace by the Phrygians showed a close affinity
+with those of the purely Asianic peoples. Precedence was universally
+given to a celestial divinity named Bagaios, Lord of the Oak, perhaps
+because he was worshipped under a gigantic sacred oak; he was king of
+gods and men, then-father,* lord of the thunder and the lightning, the
+warrior who charges in his chariot.
+
+     * In this capacity he bore the surname Papas.
+
+He, doubtless, allowed a queen-regent of the earth to share his throne,*
+but Sauazios, another, and, at first, less venerable deity had thrown
+this august pair into the shade.
+
+     * The existence of such a goddess may be deduced from the
+     passage in which Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that
+     Manes, first king of the Phrygians, was the son of Zeus and
+     Demeter.
+
+[Illustration: 099.jpg THE GOD MEN ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUN AND OTHER
+DEITIES]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Perdrizet. The
+     last figure on the left is the god Men; the Sun overlooks
+     all the rest, and a god bearing an axe occupies the extreme
+     right of the picture. The shapes of these ancient aboriginal
+     deities have been modified by the influence of Graeco-Roman
+     syncretism, and I merely give these figures, as I do many
+     others, for lack of better representations.
+
+The Greeks, finding this Sauazios at the head of the Phrygian Pantheon,
+identified him with their Zeus, or, less frequently, with the Sun; he
+was really a variant of their Dionysos. He became torpid in the autumn,
+and slept a death-like sleep all through the winter; but no sooner did
+he feel the warmth of the first breath of spring, than he again awoke,
+glowing with youth, and revelled during his summer in the heart of the
+forest or on the mountain-side, leading a life of riot and intoxication,
+guarded by a band of Sauades, spirits of the springs and streams, the
+Sileni of Greek mythology. The resemblances detected by the new-comers
+between the orgies of Thrace and those of Asia quickly led to confusion
+between the different dogmas and divinities. The Phrygians adopted Ma,
+and made her their queen, the Cybele who dwells in the hills, and takes
+her title from the mountain-tops which she inhabits--Dindymene on Mount
+Dindymus, Sipylene on Mount Sipylus. She is always the earth, but the
+earth untilled, and is seated in the midst of lions, or borne through
+her domain in a car drawn by lions, accompanied by a troop of Corybantes
+with dishevelled locks. Sauazios, identified with the Asianic Atys,
+became her lover and her priest, and Men, transformed by popular
+etymology into Manes, the good and beautiful, was looked upon as the
+giver of good luck, who protects men after death as well as in life.
+This religion, evolved from so many diverse elements, possessed a
+character of sombre poetry and sensual fanaticism which appealed
+strongly to the Greek imagination: they quickly adopted even its most
+barbarous mysteries, those celebrated in honour of the goddess and Atys,
+or of Sauazios. They tell us but little of the inner significance of
+the symbols and doctrines taught by its votaries, but have frequently
+described its outward manifestations. These consisted of aimless
+wanderings through the forests, in which the priest, incarnate
+representative of his god, led after him the ministers of the temple,
+who were identified with the Sauades and nymphs of the heavenly host.
+Men heard them passing in the night, heralded by the piercing notes
+of the flute provoking to frenzy, and by the clash of brazen cymbals,
+accompanied by the din of uproarious ecstasy: these sounds were broken
+at intervals by the bellowing of bulls and the roll of drums, like the
+rambling of subterranean thunder.
+
+[Illustration: 101.jpg MIDAS OF PHRYGIA]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the _Cabinet des
+     Medailles_. It is a bronze coin from Prymnessos in Phrygia,
+     belonging to the imperial epoch.
+
+A Midas followed a Gordios, and a Gordios a Midas, in alternate
+succession, and under their rule the Phrygian empire enjoyed a period
+of prosperous obscurity. Lydia led an uneventful existence beside them,
+under dynasties which have received merely passing notice at the hands
+of the Greek chroniclers. They credit it at the outset with the almost
+fabulous royal line of the Atyadae, in one of whose reigns the Tyrseni
+are said to have migrated into Italy. Towards the twelfth century the
+Atyadae were supplanted by a family of Heraclido, who traced their
+descent to a certain Agron, whose personality is only a degree less
+mythical than his ancestry; he was descended from Heracles through
+Alcseus, Belus, and Ninus. Whether these last two names point to
+intercourse with one or other of the courts on the banks of the
+Euphrates, it is difficult to say. Twenty-one Heraclido, each one the
+son of his predecessor, are said to have followed Agron on the throne,
+their combined reigns giving a total of five hundred years.* Most of
+these princes, whether Atyadae or Heraclidae, have for us not even a
+shadowy existence, and what we know of the remainder is of a purely
+fabulous nature. For instance, Kambles is reported to have possessed
+such a monstrous appetite, that he devoured his own wife one night,
+while asleep.**
+
+     * The number is a purely conventional one, and Gutschmid has
+     shown how it originated. The computation at first comprised
+     the complete series of 22 Heraclidae and 5 Mermnadae,
+     estimated reasonably at 4 kings to a century, i.e. 27 X 25 =
+     675 years, from the taking of Sardes to the supposed
+     accession of Agron. As it was known from other sources that
+     the 5 Mermnadae had reigned 170 years, these were subtracted
+     from the 675, to obtain the duration of the Heraclidae alone,
+     and by this means were obtained the 505 years mentioned by
+     Herodotus.
+
+     ** Another version, related by Nicolas of Damascus, refers
+     the story to the time of Lardanos, a contemporary of
+     Hercules; it shows that the Lydian chronographers considered
+     Kambles or Kamblitas as being one of the last of the Atyad
+     kings.
+
+The concubine of Meles, again, is said to have brought forth a lion,
+and the oracle of Telmessos predicted that the town of Sardes would be
+rendered impregnable if the animal were led round the city walls; this
+was done, except on the side of the citadel facing Mount Tmolus, which
+was considered unapproachable, but it was by that very path that
+the Persians subsequently entered the town. Alkimos, we are told,
+accumulated immense treasures, and under his rule his subjects enjoyed
+unequalled prosperity for fourteen years. It is possible that the story
+of the expedition despatched into Palestine by a certain Akiamos, which
+ended in the foundation of Ascalon, is merely a feeble echo of the raids
+in Syrian and Egyptian waters made by the Tyrseni and Sardinians in the
+thirteenth century B.C. The spread of the Phrygians, and the subsequent
+progress of Greek colonisation, must have curtailed the possessions
+of the Heraclidas from the eleventh to the ninth centuries, but the
+material condition of the people does not appear to have suffered
+by this diminution of territory. When they had once firmly planted
+themselves in the ports along the Asianic littoral--at Kyme, at Phocae,
+at Smyrna, at Clazomenae, at Colophon, at Ephesus, at Magnesia, at
+Miletus--the AEolians and the Ionians lost no time in reaping the
+advantages which this position, at the western extremities of the great
+high-road through Asia Minor, secured to them. They overran all the
+Lydian settlements in Phrygia--Sardes, Leontocephalos, Pessinus,
+Gordioon, and Ancyra. The steep banks and the tortuous course of
+the Halys failed to arrest them; and they pushed forward beyond the
+mysterious regions peopled by the White Syrians, where the ancient
+civilisation of Asia Minor still held its sway. The search for precious
+metals mainly drew them on--the gold and silver, the copper, bronze, and
+above all iron, which the Chalybae found in their mountains, and which
+were conveyed by caravans from the regions of the Caucasus to the sacred
+towns of Teiria and Pteria.*
+
+     * The site of Pteria has been fixed at Boghaz-keui by
+     Texier, an identification which has been generally adopted;
+     Euyuk is very probably Teiria, a town of the Lcucosyrians,
+     mentioned by Hecatsous of Miletus in his work.
+
+The friendly relations into which they entered with the natives on these
+journeys resulted before long in barter and intermarriage, though their
+influence made itself felt in different ways, according to the character
+of the people on whom it was brought to bear.
+
+[Illustration: 104.jpg THE STEEP BANKS OF THE HALYS FAILED TO ARREST
+THEM]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by A. Boissier.
+     The road leading from Angora to Yuzgat crosses the river not
+     far from the site shown here, near the spot where the
+     ancient road crossed.
+
+They gave as a legacy to Phrygia one of their alphabets, that of Kyme,
+which soon banished the old Hittite syllabary from the monuments,
+and they borrowed in exchange Phrygian customs, musical instruments,
+traditions, and religious orgies. A Midas sought in marriage Hermodike,
+the daughter of Agamemnon the Kymsoan, while another Midas, who
+had consulted the oracle of Delphi, presented to the god the
+chryselephantine throne on which he was wont to sit when he dispensed
+justice.
+
+[Illustration: 105.jpg VIEW OVEK THE PLAIN OF SARDES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+
+This interchange of amenities and these alliances, however, had a merely
+superficial effect, and in no way modified the temperament and life
+of the people in inner Asia Minor. They remained a robust, hardworking
+race, attached to their fields and woods, loutish and slow of
+understanding, unskilled in war, and not apt in defending themselves in
+spite of their natural bravery. The Lydians, on the contrary, submitted
+readily to foreign influence, and the Greek leaven introduced among them
+became the germ of a new civilisation, which occupied an intermediate
+place between that of the Greek and that of the Oriental world. About
+the first half of the eighth century B.C. the Lydians had become
+organised into a confederation of several tribes, governed by hereditary
+chiefs, who were again in their turn subject to the Heraclidae occupying
+Sardes.* This town rose in terraces on the lower slopes of a detached
+spur of the Tmolus running in the direction of the Hermos, and was
+crowned by the citadel, within which were included the royal palace,
+the treasury, and the arsenals. It was surrounded by an immense plain,
+bounded on the south by a curve of the Tmolus, and on the west by the
+distant mountains of Phrygia Katake-kaumene. The Maeonians still claimed
+primacy over the entire race, and the family was chosen from among their
+nobles. The king, who was supposed to be descended from the gods, bore,
+as the insignia of his rank, a double-headed axe, the emblem of his
+divine ancestors. The Greeks of later times said that the axe was that
+of their Heracles, which was wrested by him from the Amazon Hippolyta,
+and given to Omphale.**
+
+     * Gelzer was the first, to my knowledge, to state that Lydia
+     was a feudal state, and he defined its constitution. Radet
+     refuses to recognise it as feudal in the true sense of the
+     term, and he prefers to see in it a confederation of states
+     under the authority of a single prince.
+
+     ** Gelzer sees in the legend about the axe related by
+     Plutarch, a reminiscence of a primitive gynocracy. The axe
+     is the emblem of the god of war, and, as such, belongs to
+     the king: the coins of Mylasa exhibit it held by Zeus
+     Labraundos.
+
+[Illustration: 106.jpg THE AXE BORNE BY ZEUS LABRAUNDOS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des
+     Medailles.
+
+The king was the supreme head of the priesthood, as also of the vassal
+chiefs and of the army, but he had as a subordinate a "companion" who
+could replace him when occasion demanded, and he was assisted in the
+exercise of his functions by the counsel of "Friends," and further still
+in extraordinary circumstances by the citizens of the capital assembled
+in the public square. This intervention of the voice of the populace
+was a thing unknown in the East, and had probably been introduced in
+imitation of customs observed among the Greeks of AEolia or Ionia; it was
+an important political factor, and might possibly lead to an outbreak or
+a revolution. Outside the pale of Sardes and the province of Maeonia, the
+bulk of Lydian territory was distributed among a very numerous body of
+landowners, who were particularly proud of their noble descent. Many of
+these country magnates held extensive fiefs, and had in their pay small
+armies, which rendered them almost independent, and the only way for
+the sovereign to succeed in ruling them was to conciliate them at all
+hazards, and to keep them in perpetual enmity with their fellows. Two of
+these rival families vied with each other in their efforts to secure
+the royal favour; that of the Tylonidae and that of the Mermnadae, the
+principal domain of which latter lay at Teira, in the valley of the
+Cayster, though they had also other possessions at Dascylion, in
+Hellespontine Phrygia. The head sometimes of one and sometimes of the
+other family would fill that post of "companion" which placed all the
+resources of the kingdom at the disposal of the occupant.
+
+The first of the Mermnadae of whom we get a glimpse is Daskylos, son of
+Gyges, who about the year 740 was "companion" during the declining years
+of Ardys, over whom he exercised such influence that Adyattes, the
+heir to the throne, took umbrage at it, and caused him to be secretly
+assassinated, whereupon his widow, fearing for her own safety, hastily
+fled into Phrygia, of which district she was a native. On hearing of the
+crime, Ardys, trembling with anger, convoked the Assembly, and as his
+advanced age rendered walking difficult, he caused himself to be carried
+to the public square in a litter. Having reached the place, he laid the
+assassins under a curse, and gave permission to any who could find them
+to kill them; he then returned to his palace, where he died a few years
+later, about 730 B.C. Adyattes took the name of Meles on ascending the
+throne, and at first reigned happily, but his father's curse weighed
+upon him, and before long began to take effect. Lydia having been laid
+waste by a famine, the oracle declared that, before appeasing the gods,
+the king must expiate the murder of the Mermnad noble, by making every
+atonement in his power, if need be by an exile of three years' duration.
+Meles submitted to the divine decree. He sought out the widow of his
+victim, and learning that during her flight she had given birth to a
+son, called, like his father, Daskylos, he sent to entreat the young
+man to repair immediately to Sardes, that he might make amends for the
+murder; the youth, however, alleged that he was as yet unborn at the
+hour of his father's death, and therefore not entitled to be a party
+to an arrangement which did not personally affect him, and refused
+to return to his own country. Having failed in this attempt, Meles
+entrusted the regency of his kingdom to Sadyattes, son of Kadys, one of
+the Tylonidas, who probably had already filled the post of companion
+to the king for some time past, and set out for Babylon. When the three
+years had elapsed, Sadyattes faithfully handed over to him the reins of
+government and resumed the second place. Myrsos succeeded Meles about
+716,* and his accession immediately became the cause of uneasiness
+to the younger Daskylos, who felt that he was no longer safe from the
+intrigues of the Heraclidai; he therefore quitted Phrygia and settled
+beyond the Italys among the White Syrians, one of whom he took in
+marriage, and had by her a son, whom he called Gyges, after his
+ancestor. The Lydian chronicles which have come down to us make no
+mention of him, after the birth of this child, for nearly a quarter of a
+century. We know, however, from other sources, that the country in which
+he took refuge had for some time past been ravaged by enemies coming
+from the Caucasus, known to us as the Cimmerians.**
+
+     * The lists of Eusebius give 36 years to Ardys, 14 years to
+     Meles or Adyattes, 12 years to Myrsos, and 17 years to
+     Candaules; that is to say, if we place the accession of
+     Gyges in 687, the dates of the reign of Candaules are 704-
+     687, of that of Mysros 716-704, of that of Meles 730-716, of
+     that of Ardys I. 766-730. Oelzer thinks that the double
+     names each represent a different Icing; Radet adheres to the
+     four generations of Eusebius.
+
+     ** I would gladly have treated at length the subject of the
+     Cimmerians with its accompanying developments, but lack of
+     space prevents me from doing more than summing up here the
+     position I have taken. Most modern critics have rejected
+     that part of the tradition preserved by Herodotus which
+     refers to the itinerary of the Cimmerians, and have confused
+     the Cimmerian invasion with that of the Thracian tribes. I
+     think that there is reason to give weight to Herodotus'
+     statement, and to distinguish carefully between two series
+     of events: (1) a movement of peoples coming from Europe into
+     Asia, by the routes that Herodotus indicates, about the
+     latter half of the eighth century B.C., who would be more
+     especially the Cimmerians; (2) a movement of peoples coming
+     from Europe into Asia by the Thracian Bosphorus, and among
+     whom there was perhaps, side by side with the Treres, a
+     remnant of Cimmerian tribes who had been ousted by the
+     Scythians. The two streams would have had their confluence
+     in the heart of Asia Minor, in the first half of the seventh
+     century.
+
+[Illustration: 110.jpg A CONFLICT WITH TWO GRIFFINS.]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the reliefs on the crown
+     of the Great Blinitza.
+
+Previous to this period these had been an almost mythical race in the
+eyes of the civilised races of the Oriental world. They imagined them as
+living in a perpetual mist on the confines of the universe: "Never
+does bright Helios look upon them with his rays, neither when he rises
+towards the starry heaven, nor when he turns back from heaven towards
+the earth, but a baleful night spreads itself over these miserable
+mortals."*
+
+     * Odyssey, xi. 14-19. It is this passage which Ephorus
+     applies to the Cimmerians of his own time who were
+     established in the Crimea, and which accounts for his saying
+     that they were a race of miners, living perpetually
+     underground.
+
+Fabulous animals, such as griffins with lions' bodies, having the neck
+and ears of a fox, and the wings and beak of an eagle, wandered over
+their plains, and sometimes attacked them; the inhabitants were forced
+to defend themselves with axes, and did not always emerge victorious
+from these terrible conflicts.
+
+[Illustration: 111.jpg SCYTHIANS ARMED FOR WAR]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the reliefs on the silver vase
+     of Kul-Oba.
+
+The few merchants who had ventured to penetrate into their country had
+returned from their travels with less fanciful notions concerning the
+nature of the regions frequented by them, but little continued to be
+known of them, until an unforeseen occurrence obliged them to quit their
+remote steppes. The Scythians, driven from the plains of the Iaxartes by
+an influx of the Massagetae, were urged forwards in a westerly direction
+beyond the Volga and the Don, and so great was the terror inspired by
+the mere report of their approach, that the Cimmerians decided to quit
+their own territory. A tradition current in Asia three centuries later,
+told how their kings had counselled them to make a stand against the
+invaders; the people, however, having refused to listen to their advice,
+their rulers and those who were loyal to them fell by each other's
+hands, and their burial-place was still shown near the banks of the
+Tyras. Some of their tribes took refuge in the Chersonesus Taurica, but
+the greater number pushed forward beyond the Maeotio marshes; a body of
+Scythians followed in their track, and the united horde pressed onwards
+till they entered Asia Minor, keeping to the shores of the Black Sea.*
+This heterogeneous mass of people came into conflict first with
+Urartu; then turning obliquely in a south-easterly direction, their
+advance-guard fell upon the Mannai. But they were repulsed by Sargon's
+generals; the check thus administered forced them to fall back speedily
+upon other countries less vigorously defended. The Scythians, therefore,
+settled themselves in the eastern basin of the Araxes, on the frontiers
+of Urartu and the Mannai, where they formed themselves into a kind of
+marauding community, perpetually quarrelling with their neighbours.**
+The Cimmerians took their way westwards, and established themselves
+upon the upper waters of the Araxes, the Euphrates, the Halys, and the
+Thermodon,*** greatly to the vexation of the rulers of Urartu.
+
+     * The version of Aristaeas of Proconnesus, as given by
+     Herodotus and by Damastes of Sigsea, attributes a more
+     complex origin to this migration, i.e. that the Arimaspes
+     had driven the Issedonians before them, and that the latter
+     had in turn driven the Scythians back on the Cimmerians.
+
+     ** The Scythians of the tradition preserved by Herodotus
+     must have been the Ashguzai or Ishkuzai of the cuneiform
+     documents. The original name must have been Skuza, Shkuza,
+     with a sound in the second syllable that the Greeks have
+     rendered by _th_, and the Assyrians by _z_: the initial
+     vowel has been added, according to a well-known rule, to
+     facilitate the pronunciation of the combination sk, sine. An
+     oracle of the time of Esarhaddon shows that they occupied
+     one of the districts really belonging to the Mannai: and it
+     is probably they who are mentioned in a passage of Jer. li.
+     27, where the traditional reading _Aschenaz_ should be
+     replaced by that of Ashkuz.
+
+     *** It is doubtless to these events that the tradition
+     preserved by Pompeius Trogus, which is known to us through
+     his abbreviator Justin, or through the compilers of a later
+     period, refers, concerning the two Scythian princes Ylinus
+     and Scolopitus: they seem to have settled along the coast,
+     on the banks of the Thermodon and in the district of
+     Themiscyra.
+
+They subsequently felt their way along the valleys of the Anti-Taurus,
+but finding them held by Assyrian troops, they turned their steps
+towards the country of the White Syrians, seized Sinope, where the
+Greeks had recently founded a colony, and bore down upon Phrygia. It
+would appear that they were joined in these regions by other hordes from
+Thrace which had crossed the Bosphorus a few years earlier, and among
+whom the ancient historians particularly make mention of the Treres;*
+the results of the Scythian invasion had probably been felt by all the
+tribes on the banks of the Dnieper, and had been the means of forcing
+them in the direction of the Danube and the Balkans, whence they drove
+before them, as they went, the inhabitants of the Thracian peninsula
+across into Asia Minor. It was about the year 750 B.C. that the
+Cimmerians had been forced to quit their first home, and towards 720
+that they came into contact with the empires of the East; the Treres had
+crossed the Bosphorus about 710, and the meeting of the two streams of
+immigration may be placed in the opening years of the seventh century.**
+
+     * Strabo says decisively that the Treres were both
+     Cimmerians and Thracians; elsewhere he makes the Treres
+     synonymous with the Cimmerians. The Treres were probably the
+     predominating tribe among the people which had come into
+     Asia on that side.
+
+     ** Gelzer thinks that the invasion by the Bosphorus took
+     place about 705, and Radet about 708; and their reckoning
+     seems to me to be so likely to be correct, that I do not
+     hesitate to place the arrival of the Treres in Asia about
+     the time they have both indicated--roughly speaking, about
+     710 B.C.
+
+The combined hordes did not at once attack Phrygia itself, but spread
+themselves along the coast, from the mouths of the Ehyndakos to those of
+Halys, constituting a sort of maritime confederation of which Heraclea
+and Sinope were the chief towns. This confederation must not be regarded
+as a regularly constituted state, but rather as a vast encampment in
+which the warriors could leave their families and their spoil in safety;
+they issued from it nearly every year to spread themselves over the
+neighbouring provinces, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
+another. The ancient sanctuaries of Pteria and the treasures they
+contained excited their cupidity, but they were not well enough equipped
+to undertake the siege of a strongly fortified place, and for want
+of anything better were content to hold it to ransom. The bulk of the
+indigenous population lived even then in those subterranean dwellings so
+difficult of access, which are still used as habitations by the tribes
+on the banks of the Halys, and it is possible that they helped to
+swell the marauding troops of the new-comers. In the declining years of
+Sennacherib, it would appear that the Ninevite provinces possessed
+an irresistible attraction for these various peoples. The fame of the
+wealth accumulated in the regions beyond the Taurus and the Euphrates,
+in Syria and Mesopotamia, provoked their cupidity beyond all bounds, and
+the time was at hand when the fear alone of the Assyrian armies would no
+longer avail to hold them in check.
+
+The last years of Sennacherib had been embittered by the intrigues which
+usually gathered around a monarch enfeebled by age and incapable of
+bearing the cares of government with his former vigour. A fierce rivalry
+existed between those of his sons who aspired to the throne, each of
+whom possessed his following of partisans, both at court and among the
+people, who were ready to support him, if need be even with the sword.
+
+[Illustration: 115.jpg INHABITED CAVES ON THE BANKS OF THE HALYS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph sent by Alfred Boissier.
+
+One of these princes, probably the eldest of the king's remaining
+sons,* named Assur-akhe-iddin, called by us Esarhaddon, bad already been
+nominated his successor, and had received the official investiture of
+the Babylonian kingdom under the name of Assur-etilmukin-pal.**
+
+     * The eldest was perhaps that Assur-nadin-shumu who reigned
+     in Babylon, and who was taken prisoner to Elam by King
+     Khalludush.
+
+     ** The idea of an enthronisation at Babylon in the lifetime
+     of Sennacherib, put forward by the earlier Assyriologists,
+     based on an inscription on a lion's head discovered at
+     Babylon, has been adopted and confirmed by Winckler. It was
+     doubtless on this occasion that Esarhaddon received as a
+     present from his father the objects mentioned in the
+     document which Sayce and Budge have called, without
+     sufficient reason, _The Will of Sennacherib_.
+
+The catastrophe of 689 had not resulted in bringing about the ruin of
+Babylon, as Sennacherib and his ministers had hoped. The temples, it
+is true, had been desecrated and demolished, the palaces and public
+buildings razed to the ground, and the ramparts thrown down, but, in
+spite of the fact that the city had been set on fire by the conquerors,
+the quarters inhabited by the lower classes still remained standing,
+and those of the inhabitants who had escaped being carried away captive,
+together with such as had taken refuge in the surrounding country or
+had hidden themselves in neighbouring cities, had gradually returned
+to their desolated homes. They cleared the streets, repaired the damage
+inflicted during the siege, and before long the city, which was believed
+to be hopelessly destroyed, rose once more with the vigour, if not with
+the wealth, which it had enjoyed before its downfall. The mother of
+Esarhaddon was a Babylonian, by name Nakia; and as soon as her son came
+into possession of his inheritance, an impulse of filial piety moved him
+to restore to his mother's city its former rank of capital. Animated
+by the strong religious feeling which formed the groundwork of his
+character, Esarhaddon had begun his reign by restoring the sanctuaries
+which had been the cradle of the Assyrian religion, and his intentions,
+thus revealed at the very outset, had won for him the sympathy of the
+Babylonians;* this, indeed, was excited sooner than he expected, and
+perhaps helped to secure to him his throne. During his absence from
+Nineveh, a widespread plot had been formed in that city, and on the 20th
+day of Tebeth, 681, at the hour when Sennacherib was praying before the
+image of his god, two of his sons, Sharezer and Adarmalik (Adrammelech),
+assassinated their father at the foot of the altar.**
+
+     * A fragment seems to show clearly that the restoration of
+     the temples was begun even in the lifetime of Sennacherib.
+
+     ** We possess three different accounts of the murder of
+     Sennacherib: 1. In the _Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_. 2.
+     In the Bible (2 Kings xix. 36, 37; cf. Isa. xxxvii. 37, 38;
+     2 Chron. xxxii. 21). 3. In Berosus. The biblical account
+     alone mentions both murderers; the _Chronicle_ and Berosus
+     speak of only one, and their testimony seems to prevail with
+     several historians. I believe that the silence of the
+     _Chronicle_ and of Berosus is explained by the fact that
+     Sharezer was chief in the conspiracy, and the one among the
+     sons who aspired to the kingdom: the second murderer merely
+     acted for his brother, and consequently had no more right to
+     be mentioned by name than those accomplices not of the
+     blood-royal who shared in the murder. The name Sharezer is
+     usually considered as an abbreviation of the Assyrian name
+     Nergal-sharuzur, or Assur-sharuzur. Winckler thinks that he
+     sees in it a corruption of Sharitir, abbreviated from
+     Sharitir-assur, which he finds as a royal name on a fragment
+     in the British Museum; he proposes to recognise in this
+     Sharitir-assur, Sharezer enthroned after his father's death.
+
+One half of the army proclaimed Sharezer king; the northern provinces
+espoused his cause; and Esarhaddon must for the moment have lost all
+hope of the succession. His father's tragic fate overwhelmed him with
+fear and grief; he rent his clothes, groaned and lamented like a lion
+roaring, and could be comforted only by the oracles pronounced by
+the priests of Babylon. An assurance that the gods favoured his cause
+reached him even from Assyria, and Nineveh, after a few weeks of
+vacillation, acknowledged him as its sovereign, the rebellion being
+mercilessly crushed on the 2nd of Adar.*
+
+     * The Bible alone tells us that Sharezer retired to Urartu
+     (2 Kings xix. 37). To explain the plan of this campaign, it
+     is usually supposed that at the time of his father's death
+     Esarhaddon was either beyond Mount Taurus or else on the
+     Armenian frontier; the sequence of the dates in the
+     _Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_, compels me to revert to
+     the opinion that Esarhaddon marched from Babylon against the
+     rebels, and pursued them as far as Mount Taurus, and beyond
+     it to Khanigalbat.
+
+Although this was a considerable advantage to Esarhaddon's cause,
+it could not be considered as decisive, since the provinces of the
+Euphrates still declared for Sharezer; the gods, therefore, once more
+intervened. Ishtar of Arbela had long been considered as the recognised
+patroness and oracle of the dynasty. Whether it were a question of a
+foreign expedition or a rebellion at home, of a threatened plague or
+invasion, of a marriage or an alliance with some powerful neighbour, the
+ruling sovereign would invariably have recourse to her, always with the
+same formula, to demand counsel of her for the conduct of affairs in
+hand, and the replies which she vouchsafed in various ways were
+taken into consideration; her will, as expressed by the mouth of her
+ministers, would hasten, suspend, or modify the decisions of the king.
+Esarhaddon did not neglect to consult the goddess, as well as Assur and
+Sin, Shamash, Bel, Nebo, and Nergal; and their words, transcribed upon
+a tablet of clay, induced him to act without further delay: "Go, do not
+hesitate, for we march with thee and we will cast down thine enemies!"
+Thus encouraged, he made straight for the scene of danger without
+passing through Nineveh, so as to prevent Sharezer and his party having
+time to recover. His biographers depict Esarhaddon hurrying forward,
+often a day or more in advance of his battalions, without once turning
+to see who followed him, and without waiting to allow the horses of his
+baggage-waggons to be unharnessed or permitting his servant^ to pitch
+his tent; he rested merely for a few moments on the bare ground,
+indifferent to the cold and nocturnal frosts of the month of Sebat. It
+would appear as if Sharezer had placed his hopes on the Cimmerians, and
+had expected their chiefs to come to the rescue. This hypothesis seems
+borne out by the fact that the decisive battle took place beyond the
+Euphrates and the Taurus, in the country of Khanigalbat. Esarhaddon
+attributed his success to Ishtar, the goddess of bravery and of combat;
+she alone had broken the weapons of the rebels, she alone had brought
+confusion into their lines, and had inclined the hearts of the survivors
+to submit. They cried aloud, "This is our king!" and Sharezer thereupon
+fled into Armenia. The war had been brought to a close with such
+rapidity that even the most unsettled of the Assyrian subjects and
+vassals had not had time to take advantage of it for their own purposes;
+the Kalda on the Persian Gulf, and the Sidonians on the Mediterranean,
+were the only two peoples who had openly revolted, and were preparing
+to enter on a struggle to preserve their independence thus once more
+regained. Yet the events of the preceding months had shaken the power
+of Nineveh more seriously than we should at first suppose. For the first
+time since the accession of Tiglath-pileser III. the almost inevitable
+troubles which accompany the change of a sovereign had led to an open
+war. The vast army of Sargon and Sennacherib had been split up, and the
+two factions into which it was divided, commanded as they were by
+able generals and composed of troops accustomed to conquer, must have
+suffered more keenly in an engagement with each other than in the course
+of an ordinary campaign against a common enemy. One part at least of the
+military staff had become disorganised; regiments had been decimated,
+and considerable contingents were required to fill the vacancies in the
+ranks. The male population of Assyria, suddenly called on to furnish the
+necessary effective force, could not supply the demand without drawing
+too great a proportion of men from the country; and one of those crises
+of exhaustion was imminent which come upon a nation after an undue
+strain, often causing its downfall in the midst of its success, and
+yielding it an easy prey to the wiles of its adversaries.*
+
+     * The information we possess concerning Esarhaddon is
+     gathered from: 1. _The Insertion of Cylinders A, B, C_, the
+     second of the three better known as the _Broken Cylinder_.
+     These texts contain a summary of the king's wars, in which
+     the subject-matter is arranged geographically, not
+     chronologically: they cease with the _eponymy_ of Akhazilu,
+     i.e. the year 673. 2. Some mutilated fragments, of the
+     _Annals_. 3. _The Blade Stone of Aberdeen_, on which the
+     account of the rebuilding of Babylon is given. 4. _The Stele
+     of Zindjirli_. 5. The consultations of the god Shamash by
+     Esarhaddon in different circumstances of his reign. 6. A
+     considerable number of small inscriptions and some tablets.
+     The classification of the events of this reign presents
+     serious difficulties, which have been partly overcome by
+     passages in the _Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_.
+
+Esarhaddon was personally inclined for peace, and as soon as he was
+established on the throne he gave orders that the building works, which
+had been suspended during the late troubles, should be resumed and
+actively pushed forward; but the unfortunate disturbances of the
+times did not permit of his pursuing his favourite occupation without
+interruption, and, like those of his warlike predecessors, his life was
+passed almost entirely on the field of battle. Babylon, grateful for
+what he had done for her, tendered him an unbroken fidelity throughout
+the stormy episodes of his reign, and showed her devotion to him by an
+unwavering obedience. The Kalda received no support from that quarter,
+and were obliged to bear the whole burden of the war which they had
+provoked. Their chief, Nabu-ziru-kinish-lishir, who had been placed
+over them by Sennacherib, now harassed the cities of Karduniash, and
+Ningal-shumiddin, the prefect of Uru, demanded immediate help from
+Assyria. Esarhaddon at once despatched such a considerable force that
+the Kaldu chief did not venture to meet it in the open field, and after
+a few unimportant skirmishes he gave up the struggle, and took refuge in
+Elam. Khumban-khaldash, had died there in 680, a few months before
+the murder of Sennacherib, and his son, a second Khumban-khaldash, had
+succeeded him; this prince appears either to have shared the peaceful
+tastes of his brother-king of Assyria, or more probably did not feel
+himself sufficiently secure of his throne to risk the chance of coming
+into collision with his neighbour. He caused Nabu-ziru-kinish-lishir to
+be slain, and Naid-marduk, the other son of Merodach-baladan, who had
+shared his brother's flight, was so terrified at his murder that he at
+once sought refuge in Nineveh; he was reinstated in his paternal
+domain on condition of paying a tribute, and, faithful to his oath of
+allegiance, he thenceforward came yearly in person to bring his dues and
+pay homage to his sovereign (679). The Kalda rising had, in short, been
+little more than a skirmish, and the chastisement of the Sidonians would
+have involved neither time nor trouble, had not the desultory movements
+of the barbarians obliged the Assyrians to concentrate their troops on
+several points which were threatened on their northern frontier.
+The Cimmerians and the Scythians had not suffered themselves to be
+disconcerted by the rapidity with which the fate of Sharezer had been
+decided, and after a moment's hesitation they had again set out in
+various directions on their work of conquest, believing, no doubt, that
+they would meet with a less vigorous resistance after so serious an
+upheaval at Nineveh. The Cimmerians appear to have been the first to
+have provoked hostilities; their king Tiushpa, who ruled over their
+territory on the Black Sea, ejected the Assyrian garrisons placed on the
+Cappadocian frontier, and his presence in that quarter aroused all
+the insubordinate elements still remaining in the Cilician valleys.
+Esarhaddon brought him to a stand on the confines of the plain of Saros,
+defeated him in Khubushna,* and drove the remains of the horde back
+across the Halys.
+
+     * Several Assyriologists have thought that Khubushna might
+     be an error for Khubushkhia, and have sought the seat of war
+     on the eastern frontier of Assyria: in reality the context
+     shows that the place under discussion is a district in Asia
+     Minor, identified with Kamisene by Gelzcr, but left
+     unidentified by most authorities. Jensen has shown that the
+     name is mot with as early as the inscriptions of Tiglath-
+     pileser III., where we should read Khubishna, and he places
+     the country in Northern Syria, or perhaps further north in
+     the western part of Taurus. The determinative proves that
+     there was a town of this name as well as a district, and
+     this consideration encourages mo to recognise in Khubushna
+     or Khubishna the town of Kabissos-Kabessos, the Sis of the
+     kingdom of Lesser Armenia.
+
+Having thus averted the Cimmerian danger, he was able, without
+much difficulty, to bring the rebels of the western provinces into
+subjection.* His troops thrust back the Cilicians and Duha into the
+rugged fastnesses of the Taurus, and razed to the ground one and twenty
+of their strongholds, besides burning numberless villages and carrying
+the inhabitants away captive.**
+
+     * These expeditions are not dated in any of the documents
+     that deal with them: the fact that they are mentioned along
+     with the war against Tiushpa and Sidon makes me inclined to
+     consider them as being a result of the Cimmerian invasion.
+     They were, strictly speaking, the quelling of revolts caused
+     by the presence of the Cimmerians in that part of the
+     empire.
+
+     ** The Duua or Duha of this campaign, who are designated as
+     neighbours of the Tabal, lived in the Anti-taurus: the name
+     of the town, Tyana, _Tuana_, is possibly composed of their
+     name and of the suffix _-na_, which is met with in Asianio
+     languages.
+
+The people of Parnaki, in the bend of the Euphrates between Tel-Assur
+and the sources of the Balikh, had taken up arms on hearing of the brief
+successes of Tiushpa, but were pitilessly crushed by Esarhaddon. The
+sheikh of Arzani, in the extreme south of Syria, close to the brook of
+Egypt, had made depredations on the Assyrian frontier, but he was seized
+by the nearest governor and sent in chains to Nineveh. A cage was built
+for him at the gate of the city, and he was exposed in it to the jeers
+of the populace, in company with the bears, dogs, and boars which the
+Ninevites were in the habit of keeping confined there. It would appear
+that Esarhaddon set himself to come to a final reckoning with Sidon and
+Phoenicia, the revolt of which had irritated him all the more, in that
+it showed an inexcusable ingratitude towards his family. For it was
+Sennacherib who, in order to break the power of Blulai, had not only
+rescued Sidon from the dominion of Tyre, but had enriched it with the
+spoils taken from its former rulers, and had raised it to the first
+rank among the Phoenician cities. Ethbaal in his lifetime had never been
+wanting in gratitude, but his successor, Abdimilkot, forgetful of recent
+services, had chafed at the burden of a foreign yoke, and had recklessly
+thrown it off as soon as an occasion presented itself. He had thought
+to strengthen himself by securing the help of a certain Sanduarri,
+who possessed the two fortresses of Kundu and Sizu, in the Cilician
+mountains;* but neither this alliance nor the insular position of his
+capital was able to safeguard him, when once the necessity for stemming
+the tide of the Cimmerian influx was over, and the whole of the Assyrian
+force was free to be brought against him.
+
+     * Some Assyriologists have proposed to locate these two
+     towns in Cilicia; others place them in the Lebanon, Kundi
+     being identified with the modern village of Ain-Kundiya. The
+     name of Kundu so nearly recalls that of Kuinda, the ancient
+     fort mentioned by Strabo, to the north of Anchiale, between
+     Tarsus and Anazarbus, that I do not hesitate to identify
+     them, and to place Kundu in Cilicia.
+
+Abdimilkot attempted to escape by sea before the last attack, but he was
+certainly taken prisoner, though the circumstances are unrecorded,
+and Sanduarri fell into the enemy's hands a short time after. The
+suppression of the rebellion was as vindictive as the ingratitude which
+prompted it was heinous. Sidon was given up to the soldiery and then
+burnt, while opposite to the ruins of the island city the Assyrians
+built a fortress on the mainland, which they called Kar-Esarhaddon. The
+other princes of Phoenicia and Syria were hastily convoked, and were
+witnesses of the vengeance wreaked on the city, as well as of the
+installation of the governor to whom the new province was entrusted.
+They could thus see what fate awaited them in the event of their showing
+any disposition to rebel, and the majority of them were not slow to
+profit by the lesson. The spoil was carried back in triumph to Nineveh,
+and comprised, besides the two kings and their families, the remains of
+their court and people, and the countless riches which the commerce of
+the world had brought into the great ports of the Mediterranean--ebony,
+ivory, gold and silver, purple, precious woods, household furniture,
+and objects of value from all parts in such quantities that it was long
+before the treasury at Nineveh needed any replenishing.* The reverses of
+the Cimmerians did not serve as a warning to the Scythians. Settled
+on the borders of Manna, partly, no doubt, on the territory formerly
+dependent on that state,** they secretly incited the inhabitants to
+revolt, and to join in the raids which they made on the valley of the
+Upper Zab, and they would even have urged their horses up to the very
+walls of Nineveh had the occasion presented itself.
+
+     * The importance of the event and the amount of the spoil
+     captured are apparent, if we notice that Esarhaddon does not
+     usually record the booty taken after each campaign; he does
+     so only when the number of objects and of prisoners taken
+     from the enemy is extraordinary. The _Babylonian Chronicle
+     of Pinches_ places the capture of Sidon in the second, and
+     the death of Abdimilkot in the fifth year of his reign.
+     Hence Winckler has concluded that Abdimilkot held out for
+     fully two years after the loss of Sidon. The general tenor
+     of the account, as given by the inscriptions, seems to me to
+     be that the capture of the king followed closely on the fall
+     of the town: Abdimilkot and Sanduarri probably spent the
+     years between 679 and 676 in prison.
+
+     ** One of the oracles of Shamash speaks of the captives as
+     dwelling in a canton of the Mannai.
+
+Esarhaddon, warned of their intrigues by the spies which he sent among
+them, could not bring himself either to anticipate their attack or to
+assume the offensive, but anxiously consulted the gods with regard to
+them: "O Shamash," he wrote to the Sun-god, "great lord, thou whom I
+question, answer me in sincerity! From this day forth, the 22nd day of
+this month of Simanu, until the 21st day of the month of Duzu of this
+year, during these thirty days and thirty nights, a time has been
+foreordained favourable to the work of prophecy. In this time thus
+foreordained, the hordes of the Scythians who inhabit a district of the
+Mannai, and who have crossed the Mannian frontier,--will they succeed in
+their undertaking? Will they emerge from the passes of Khubushkia at
+the towns of Kharrania and Anisuskia; will they ravage the borders
+of Assyria and steal great booty, immense spoil? that doth thy high
+divinity know. Is it a decree, and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O
+Shamash, great lord, ordained and promulgated? He who sees, shall he see
+it; he who hears, shall he hear it?"*
+
+     * The town of Anisuskia is not mentioned elsewhere, but
+     Kharrania is met with in the account of the thirty-first
+     campaign of Shalmaneser III. with Kharrana as its variant.
+
+The god comforted his faithful servant, but there was a brief delay
+before his answer threw light on the future, and the king's questions
+were constantly renewed as fresh couriers brought in further
+information. In 678 B.C. the Scythians determined to try their fortune,
+and their king, Ishpakai,* took the field, followed by the Mannai. He
+was defeated and driven back to the north of Lake Urumiah, the Mannai
+were reduced to subjection, and Assyria once more breathed freely.
+The victory, however, was not a final one, and affairs soon assumed as
+threatening an aspect as before. The Scythian tribes came on the scene,
+one after another, and allied themselves to the various peoples subject
+either directly or indirectly to Nineveh.** On one occasion it was
+Kashtariti, the regent of Karkashshi,*** who wrote to Mamitiarshu, one
+of the Median princes, to induce him to make common cause with himself
+in attacking the fortress of Kishshashshu on the eastern border of the
+empire. At another time we find the same chief plotting with the Mannai
+and the Saparda to raid the town of Kilman, and Esarhaddon implores the
+god to show him how the place may be saved from their machinations.****
+
+     * This king's name seems to be of Iranian origin. Justi has
+     connected it with the name Aspakos, which is read in a Greek
+     inscription of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; both forms have been
+     connected with the Sanskrit Acvalca.
+
+     ** This subdivision of the horde into several bodies seems
+     to be indicated by the number of different royal names among
+     the Scythians which are mentioned in the Assyrian documents.
+
+     *** The site of Karkashshi is unknown, but the list of
+     Median princes subdued by Sargon shows that it was situated
+     in Media. Kishshashshu is very probably the same as Kishisim
+     or Kishisu, the town which Sargon subdued, and which he
+     called Kar-nergal or Kar-ninib, and which is mentioned in
+     the neighbourhood of Parsuash, Karalla, Kharkhar, Media, and
+     Ellipi. I think that it would be in the basin of the Gave--
+     Rud; Billerbeck places it at the ruins of Siama, in the
+     upper valley of the Lesser Zab.
+
+     **** The people of Saparda, called by the Persians Sparda,
+     have been with good reason identified with the Sepharad of
+     the prophet Obadiah (ver. 20): the Assyrian texts show that
+     this country should be placed in the neighbourhood of the
+     Mannai of the Medes.
+
+He opens negotiations in order to gain time, but the barbarity of his
+adversary is such that he fears for his envoy's safety, and speculates
+whether he may not have been put to death. The situation would indeed
+have become critical if Kashtariti had succeeded in bringing against
+Assyria a combined force of Medes, Scythians, Mannai, and Cimmerians,
+together with Urartu and its king, Eusas III.; but, fortunately, petty
+hatreds made the combination of these various elements an impossibility,
+and they were unable to arrive at even a temporary understanding.
+The Scythians themselves were not united as to the best course to be
+pursued, and while some endeavoured to show their hostility by every
+imaginable outrage and annoyance, others, on the contrary, desired to
+enter into friendly relations with Assyria. Esarhaddon received on
+one occasion an embassy from Bartatua,* one of their kings, who humbly
+begged the hand of a lady of the blood-royal, swearing to make a lasting
+friendship with him if Esarhaddon would consent to the marriage. It was
+hard for a child brought up in the harem, amid the luxury and comfort
+of a civilised court, to be handed over to a semi-barbarous spouse; but
+state policy even in those days was exacting, and more than one princess
+of the line of Sargon had thus sacrificed herself by an alliance which
+was to the interest of her own people.**
+
+     * Bartatua is, according to Winckler's ingenious
+     observation, the Proto-thyes of Herodotus, the father of
+     Madyes. [The name should more probably be read Masta-tua--
+     Ed.]
+
+     ** Sargon had in like manner given one of his daughters in
+     marriage to Ambaris, King of Tabal, in order to attach him
+     to the Assyrian cause, but without permanent success.
+
+What troubled Esarhaddon was not the thought of sacrificing a sister
+or a daughter, but a misgiving that the sacrifice would not produce
+the desired result, and in his difficulty he once more had recourse to
+Shamash. "If Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, grants a daughter of the blood
+(royal) to Bartatua, the King of the Iskuza, who has sent an embassy
+to him to ask a wife, will Bartatua, King of the Iskuza, act loyally
+towards Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he honestly and faithfully
+enter into friendly engagements with Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will
+he observe the conditions (made by) Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he
+fulfil them punctually? that thy high divinity knoweth. His promises, in
+a decree and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash, great lord,
+are they decreed, promulgated?" It is not recorded what came of these
+negotiations, nor whether the god granted the hand of the princess to
+her barbarian suitor. All we know is, that the incursions and intrigues
+of the Scythians continued to be a perpetual source of trouble to the
+Medes, and roused them either to rebel against Assyria or to claim the
+protection of its sovereign. Esarhaddon, in the course of his reign,
+was more than once compelled to interfere in order to ensure peace and
+quietness to the provinces on the table-land of Iran, which Sargon had
+conquered and which Sennacherib had retained.*
+
+     * Several recent historians allege that Sennacherib did not
+     keep the territories that Sargon had conquered, and that the
+     Assyrian frontier became contracted on that side; whereas
+     the general testimony of the known texts seems to me to
+     prove the contrary, namely, that he preserved nearly all the
+     territory annexed by his father, and that Esarhaddon was far
+     from diminishing this inheritance. If these two kings
+     mention only insignificant deeds of arms in the western
+     region, it is because the population, exhausted by the wars
+     of the two preceding reigns, easily recognised the Ninevite
+     supremacy, and paid tribute to the Assyrian governors with
+     sufficient regularity to prevent any important military
+     expedition against them.
+
+He had first to carry his arms to the extreme edge of the desert, into
+the rugged country of Patusharra, lying at the foot of Demavend, rich
+in lapis-lazuli, and as yet untrodden by any king of Assyria.* Having
+reached his destination, he captured two petty kings, Eparna and
+Shitirparna, and exiled them to Assyria, together with their people,
+their thoroughbred horses, and their two-humped camels,--in fine, all
+the possessions of their subjects. Shortly after this, three other
+Median chiefs, hitherto intractable--Uppis of Par-takka, Zanasana of
+Partukka,** Ramatea of Urakazabarna--came to Nineveh to present the king
+with horses and lapis-lazuli, the best of everything they possessed, and
+piteously entreated him to forgive their misdeeds.
+
+     * The country of Patusharra has been identified with that of
+     the Patischorians mentioned by Strabo in Persia proper, who
+     would have lived further north, not far from Demavend;
+     Sachau calls attention to the existence of a mountain chain
+     Patashwar-gar or Padishwar-gir, in front of Choarcne, and he
+     places the country of Patusharra between Demavend and the
+     desert.
+
+     ** Partakka and Partukka seem to be two different
+     adaptations of the name Paraituka, the Parsetakeno of the
+     Greek geographers; Tiele thinks of Parthyeno. I think that
+     these two names designate the northern districts of
+     Partetakeno, the present Ashnakhor or the country near to
+     it.
+
+They represented that the whole of Media was torn asunder by countless
+strifes, prince against prince, city against city, and an iron will was
+needed to bring the more turbulent elements to order. Esarhaddon lent
+a favourable ear to their prayers; he undertook to protect them on
+condition of their paying an annual tribute, and he put them under
+the protection of the Assyrian governors who were nearest to their
+territory. Kharkhar, securely entrenched behind its triple ramparts,
+assumed the position of capital to these Iranian marches.
+
+It is difficult to determine the precise dates of these various events;
+we learn merely that they took place before 673, and we surmise that
+they must have occurred between the second and sixteenth year of the
+king's reign.*
+
+     * The facts relating to the submission of Patusharra and of
+     Partukka are contained in Cylinder A, dated from the
+     eponymous year of Akhazilu, in 673. Moreover, the version
+     which this document contains seems to have been made up of
+     two pieces placed one at the end of the other: the first an
+     account of events which occurred during an earlier period of
+     the reign, and in which the exploits are classified in
+     geographical order, from Sidon in the west the Arabs
+     bordering on Chaldaea in the east; and the second consisting
+     of additional campaigns carried out after the completion of
+     the former--which is proved by the place which these
+     exploits occupy, out of their normal position in the
+     geographical series--and making mention of Partusharra and
+     Partuhka, as well as of Belikisha. The editor of the _Broken
+     Cylinder_ has tried to combine these latter elements with
+     the former in the order adopted by the original narrator. As
+     far as can be seen in what is left of the columns, he has
+     placed, after the Chaldsean events, the facts concerning
+     Partukka, then those concerning Patusharra, and finally the
+     campaign against Bazu, the extreme limit of Esarhaddon's
+     activity in the south. Knowing that the campaign in the
+     desert and the death of Abdimilkot took place in 676, and
+     that we find them already alluded to in the first part of
+     the narrative, as well as the events of 675 relating to the
+     revolt of Dakkuri, we may conclude that the submission of
+     Patusharra and that of Partukka occurred in 674, or at
+     latest in the beginning of 673.
+
+[Illustration: 131.jpg THE TOWN OF KHARKHAR WITH ITS TRIPLE RAMPART]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Flandin, in Botta.
+
+The outcome of them was a distinct gain to Assyria, in the acquisition
+of several new vassals. The recently founded kingdom of Ecbatana lacked
+as yet the prestige which would have enabled it to hold its own against
+Nineveh; besides which, Deiokes, the contemporary ruler assigned to
+it by tradition, was of too complaisant a nature to seek occasions of
+quarrel. The Scythians, after having declared their warlike intentions,
+seem to have come to a more peaceable frame of mind, and to have curried
+favour with Nineveh; but the rulers of the capital kept a strict watch
+upon them, since their numbers, their intrepid character, and instinct
+for rapine made them formidable enemies--the most dangerous, indeed,
+that the empire had encountered on its north-eastern frontier for nearly
+a century.
+
+This policy of armed _surveillance_, which proved so successful in
+these regions, was also carefully maintained by Esarhaddon on his
+south-eastern border against Assyria's traditional enemy, the King
+of Susa. Babylon, far from exhibiting any restlessness at her present
+position, showed her gratitude for the favours which her suzerain had
+showered upon her by resigning herself to become the ally of Assyria.
+She regarded her late disaster as the punishment inflicted by Marduk for
+her revolts against Sargon and Sennacherib. The god had let loose the
+powers of evil against her, and the Arakhtu, overflowing among the
+ruins, had swept them utterly away; indeed, for the space of ten years,
+destruction and desolation seemed to have taken the place of her former
+wealth of temples and palaces. In the eleventh year, the divine wrath
+was suddenly appeased. No sooner had Esarhaddon mounted the throne, than
+he entreated Shamash, Ramman, and even Marduk himself, to reveal to him
+their will with regard to the city; whereupon the omens, interpreted
+by the seers, commanded him to rebuild Babylon and to raise again
+the temple of E-sagilla. For this purpose he brought together all the
+captives taken in war that he had at his disposal, and employed them in
+digging out clay and in brick-making; he then prepared the foundations,
+upon which he poured libations of oil, honey, palm-wine, and other wines
+of various kinds; he himself took the mason's hod, and with tools of
+ebony, cypress wood, and oak, moulded a brick for the new sanctuary.
+The work was, indeed, a gigantic undertaking, and demanded years of
+uninterrupted labour, but Esarhaddon pushed it forward, sparing neither
+gold, silver, costly stone, rare woods, or plates of enamel in its
+embellishment. He began to rebuild at the same time all the other
+temples and the two city walls--Imgurbel and Nimittibel; to clear and
+make good the canals which supplied the place with water, and to replant
+the sacred groves and the gardens of the palace. The inhabitants were
+encouraged to come back to their homes, and those who had been dispersed
+among distant provinces were supplied with clothes and food for their
+return journey, besides having their patrimony restored to them. This
+rebuilding of the ancient city certainly displeased and no doubt alarmed
+her two former rivals, the Kalda and Elam, who had hoped one day to
+wrest her heritage from Assyria. Elam concealed its ill-feeling, but
+the Kalda of Bit-Dakkuri had invaded the almost deserted territory,
+and appropriated the lands which had belonged to the noble families of
+Babylon, Borsippa, and Sippara. When the latter, therefore, returned
+from exile, and, having been reinstituted in their rights, attempted to
+resume possession of their property, the usurpers peremptorily refused
+to relinquish it. Esarhaddon was obliged to interfere to ensure its
+restoration, and as their king, Shamash-ibni, was not inclined to comply
+with the order, Esarhaddon removed him from the throne, and substituted
+in his place a certain Nabushallim, son of Belesys, who showed more
+deference to the suzerain's wishes. It is possible that about this
+time the Kalda may have received some support from the Aramaeans of the
+desert and the Arab tribes encamped between the banks of the Euphrates
+and Syria, or, on the other hand, the latter may have roused the wrath
+of Assyria by inroads of a more than usually audacious character.
+However this may be, in 676 Esarhaddon resolved to invade their
+desert territory, and to inflict such reprisals as would force them
+thenceforward to respect the neighbouring border provinces.
+
+His first relations with them had been of a courteous and friendly
+nature. Hazael of Adumu, one of the sheikhs of Kedar, defeated by
+Sennacherib towards the end of his reign, had taken the opportunity of
+the annual tribute to come to Nineveh with considerable presents, and
+to implore the restoration of the statues of his gods. Esarhaddon had
+caused these battered idols to be cleaned and repaired, had engraved
+upon them an inscription in praise of Assur, and had further married
+the suppliant sheikh to a woman of the royal harem, named Tabua. In
+consideration of this, he had imposed upon the Arab a supplementary
+tribute of sixty-five camels, and had restored to him his idols. All
+this took place, no doubt, soon after the king's accession. A few years
+later, on the death of Hazael, his son Yauta solicited investiture, but
+a competitor for the chieftaincy, a man of unknown origin, named Uahab,
+treacherously incited the Arabs to rebel, and threatened to overthrow
+him. Esarhaddon caused Uahab to be seized, and exposed him in chains at
+the gate of Nineveh; but, in consideration of this service to the Arabs,
+he augmented the tribute which already weighed upon the people by a
+further demand for ten gold _minas_, one thousand precious stones, fifty
+camels, and a thousand measures of spicery. The repression of these
+Arabs of Kedar thus confirmed Esarhaddon's supremacy over the extreme
+northern region of Arabia, between Damascus and Sippara or Babylon; but
+in a more southerly direction, in the wadys which unite Lower Chaldaea
+to the districts of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, there still remained
+several rich and warlike states--among others, Bazu,* whose rulers had
+never done homage to the sovereigns of either Assyria or Karduniash.
+
+     * The Bazu of this text is certainly the Buz which the
+     Hebrew books name among the children of Nahor (Gen. xxii.
+     21; Jer. xxv. 23). The early Assyriologists identified Khazu
+     with Uz, the son of Nahor; Delitzsch compares the name with
+     that of Hazo (Huz), the fifth son of Nahor (Gen. xxii. 22),
+     and his opinion is admitted by most scholars. For the site
+     of these countries I have followed the ideas of Delattro,
+     who identifies them with the oases of Jauf and Meskakeh, in
+     the centre of Northern Arabia. The Assyrians must have set
+     out by the Wady Hauran or by one of the wadys near to
+     Babylon, and have returned by a more southern wady.
+
+To carry hostilities into the heart of their country was a bold and even
+hazardous undertaking; it could be reached only by traversing miles
+of arid and rocky plains, exposed to the rays of a burning sun, vast
+extents of swamps and boggy pasture land, desolate wastes infested with
+serpents and scorpions, and a mountain range of blackish lava known as
+Khazu. It would have been folly to risk a march with the heavy Assyrian
+infantry in the face of such obstacles. Esarhaddon probably selected for
+the purpose a force composed of cavalry, chariots, and lightly equipped
+foot-soldiers, and despatched them with orders to reach the Jauf by
+forced marches through the Wady Hauran. The Arabs, who were totally
+unprepared for such a movement, had not time to collect their forces;
+eight of their chiefs were taken by surprise and killed one after
+another--among them Kisu of Khaldili, Agbaru of Ilpiati, Mansaku of
+Magalani,--and also some reigning queens. La, the King of Yadi, at first
+took refuge in the mountains, but afterwards gave himself up to
+the enemy, and journeyed as far as Nineveh to prostrate himself at
+Esarhaddon's feet, who restored to him his gods and his crown, on the
+usual condition of paying tribute. A vassal occupying a country so
+remote and so difficult of access could not be supposed to preserve an
+unbroken fidelity towards his suzerain, but he no longer ventured to
+plunder the caravans which passed through his territory, and that in
+reality was all that was expected of him.
+
+Esarhaddon thus pursued a prudent and unadventurous policy in the
+northern and eastern portions of his empire, maintaining a watchful
+attitude towards the Cimmerians and Scythians in the north, carrying on
+short defensive campaigns among the Medes in the east, preserving peace
+with Elam, and making occasional flying raids in the south, rather from
+the necessity for repressing troublesome border tribes than with any
+idea of permanent conquest.
+
+[Illustration: 137.jpg SHABITOKU, KING OF EGYPT]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
+
+This policy must have been due to a presentiment of danger from the
+side of Egypt, or to the inception of a great scheme for attacking the
+reigning Pharaoh. After the defeat of his generals at Altaku, Shabitoku
+had made no further attempt to take the offensive; his authority over
+the feudal nobility of Egypt was so widely acknowledged that it causes
+us no surprise to meet with his cartouches on more than one ruin between
+Thebes and Memphis,* but his closing years were marred by misfortune.
+There was then living at Napata a certain Taharqa, one of those scions
+of the solar race who enjoyed the title of "Royal brothers," and
+from among whom Anion of the Holy Mountain was wont to choose his
+representative to reign over the land of Ethiopia whenever the throne
+became vacant. It does not appear that the father of Taharqa ever held
+the highest rank; it was from his mother, Akaluka, that he inherited his
+pretensions to the crown, and through her probably that he traced his
+descent from the family of the high priests. Tradition asserts that he
+did not gain the regal power without a struggle; having been proclaimed
+king in Ethiopia at the age of twenty, as the result of some revolution,
+he is said to have marched against Shabitoku, and, coming up with him
+in the Delta, to have defeated him, taken him prisoner, and put him to
+death.** These events took place about 693 B.C.,*** and Taharqa employed
+the opening years of his reign in consolidating his authority over the
+double kingdom.
+
+     * His name or monuments of his erection have been discovered
+     at Karnak.
+
+     ** Eusebius, who cites the fact, had his information from a
+     trustworthy Greek source, perhaps from Manetho himself. The
+     inscription of Tanis seems to say that Taharqa was twenty
+     years old at the time of his revolt.
+
+     *** Most of the lists of kings taken from Manetho assign
+     twelve years to the reign of Sebikhos; one alone, that of
+     Africanus, assigns him fourteen years.
+
+He married the widow of Sabaco, Queen Dikahitamanu, and thus assumed
+the guardianship of Tanuatamanu, her son by her first husband, and this
+marriage secured him supreme authority in Ethiopia.* That he regarded
+Egypt as a conquered country can no longer be doubted, seeing that he
+inserted its name on his monuments among those of the nations which he
+had vanquished.
+
+     * The text of several documents only mentioned that Tanuata-
+     manu was the "son of his wife," which Opport interpreted to
+     mean son of Taharqa himself, while others see in him a son
+     of Kashto, a brother of Amenertas, or a son of Shabitoku.
+
+[Illustration: 139.jpg TAHARQA AND HIS QUEEN DIKAHITAMANU]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured plate in Lepsius.
+
+He nevertheless felt obliged to treat it with consideration; he
+respected the rights of the feudal princes, and behaved himself in every
+way like a Pharaoh of the old royal line. He summoned his mother from
+Napata, where he had left her, and after proclaiming her regent of the
+South and the North, he associated her with himself in the rejoicings
+at his coronation. This ceremony, celebrated at Tanis with the usages
+customary in the Delta, was repeated at Karnak in accordance with the
+Theban ritual, and a chapel erected shortly afterwards on the northern
+quay of the great sacred lake has preserved to us the memory of it.
+Akaluka, installed with the rank and prerogatives of the "Divine Spouse"
+of Amon, presented her son to the deity, who bestowed upon him through
+his priests dominion over the whole world. She bent the bow, and let
+fly the arrows towards the four cardinal points, which she thereby
+symbolically delivered to him as wounded prisoners; the king, on
+his part, hurled against them bullets of stone, and by this attack
+figuratively accomplished their defeat. His wars in Africa were crowned
+with a certain meed of success,* and his achievements in this quarter
+won for him in after time so much popularity among the Egyptians,
+that they extolled him to the Greeks as one of their most illustrious
+conquering Pharaohs; they related that he had penetrated as far as
+the Pillars of Hercules in the west, and that he had invaded Europe in
+imitation of Sesostris.
+
+     * The list inscribed on the base of the statue discovered by
+     Mariette contains a large number of names belonging to
+     Africa. They are the same as those met with in the time of
+     the XVIIIth dynasty, and were probably copied from some
+     monument of Ramses II., who had himself perhaps borrowed
+     them from a document of the time of Thutmosis III. A bas-
+     relief at Medinet-Habu shows him to us in the act of smiting
+     a group of tribes, among which figure the Tepa, Doshrit, and
+     "the humbled Kush;" this bas-relief was appropriated later
+     on by Nectanebo.
+
+What we know to be a fact is, that he secured to the valley of the Nile
+nearly twenty years of prosperity, and recalled the glories of the
+great reigns of former days, if not by his victories, at least by
+the excellence of his administration and his activity. He planned the
+erection at Karnak of a hypostyle hall in front of the pylons of Ramses
+II., which should equal, if not surpass, that of Seti I.*
+
+     * These columns have been looked upon as triumphal pillars,
+     designed to support statues or divine emblems. Mariette
+     thinks that they supported "an edifice in the architectural
+     style of the kiosk at Philae and the small hypothral temple
+     on the roof of Denderah." I am of opinion that the architect
+     intended to make a hypostyle hall, but that when the columns
+     were erected, he perceived that the great width of the aisle
+     they formed would render the strength of the roof very
+     doubtful, and so renounced the execution of his first
+     design.
+
+[Illustration: 142.jpg THE COLUMN OF TAHARQA, AT KARNAK]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
+
+The columns of the central aisle were disposed in two lines of six
+pillars each, but only one of these now remains standing in its original
+place; its height, which is the same as that of Seti's columns, is
+nearly sixty-nine feet. The columns of the side aisles, like those which
+should have flanked the immense colonnade at Luxor, were never even
+begun, and the hall of Taharqa, like that of Seti I., remains unfinished
+to this day. He bestowed his favour on Nubia and Ethiopia, as well as
+on Egypt proper; even Napata owed to his munificence the most beautiful
+portions of its temples. The temple of Amon, and subsequently that of
+Mut, were enlarged by him; and he decorated their ancient halls with
+bas-reliefs, representing himself, accompanied by his mother and his
+wife, in attitudes of adoration before the deity. The style of the
+carving is very good, and the hieroglyphics would not disgrace the walls
+of the Theban temples. The Ethiopian sculptors and painters scrupulously
+followed the traditions of the mother-country, and only a few
+insignificant details of ethnic type or costume enable us to detect a
+slight difference between their works and those of pure Egyptian art. At
+the other extremity of Napata, on the western side of the Holy Mountain,
+Taharqa excavated in the cliff a rock-hewn shrine, which he dedicated to
+Hathor and Bisu (Bes), the patron of jollity and happiness, and the god
+of music and of war.
+
+[Illustration: 143.jpg THE HEMISPEOS OP HATHOR AND BISU, AT
+GEBEL-BARKAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Caillaud.
+
+Bisu, who was at first relegated to the lowest rank among the crowd of
+genii adored by the people, had gradually risen to the highest place
+in the hierarchy of the gods, and his images predominated in chapels
+destined to represent the cradle of the infant gods, and the sacred
+spots where goddesses gave birth to their divine offspring.
+
+[Illustration: 144.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE HEMISPEOS OF BISU (BES), AT
+GEBEL-BARKAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Caillaud.
+
+The portico erected in front of the pylon had a central avenue of
+pillars, against which stood monstrous and grinning statues of Bisu,
+his hands on his hips, and his head crowned with a large bunch of
+lotus-flowers and plumes. Two rows of columns with Hathor-headed
+capitals flanked the central aisle, which led to a hall supported by
+massive columns, also with Hathor capitals, and beyond it again lay
+the actual shrine similarly excavated in the rocky hill; two statues of
+Bisu, standing erect against their supporting columns, kept guard over
+the entrance, and their fantastic forms, dimly discernible in the gloom,
+must have appeared in ancient times to have prohibited the vulgar throng
+from approaching the innermost sanctuary. Half of the roof has fallen
+in since the building was deserted, and a broad beam of light falling
+through the aperture thus made reveals the hideous grotesqueness of the
+statues to all comers. The portraits of Taharqa represent him with
+a strong, square-shaped head, with full cheeks, vigorous mouth, and
+determined chin, such as belong to a man well suited to deal with that
+troubled epoch, and the knowledge we as yet possess of his conflict with
+Assyria fully confirms the character exhibited by his portrait statues.
+
+[Illustration: 145.jpg TAHARQA]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a cast of the fragment
+     preserved at Gizeh
+
+We may surmise that, when once absolute master of Egypt, he must have
+cast his eyes beyond the isthmus, and considered how he might turn to
+his own advantage the secret grudge borne by the Syrians against
+their suzerain at Nineveh, but up to the present time we possess no
+indications as to the policy he pursued in Palestine. We may safely
+assume, however, that it gave umbrage to the Assyrians, and that
+Esarhaddon resolved to put an end once for all to the uneasiness it
+caused him. More than half a century had elapsed since the day when the
+kings of Syria, alarmed at the earliest victories of Tiglath-pileser
+III., had conceived the idea of pitting their former conquerors against
+those of the day, and had solicited help from the Pharaohs against
+Assyria.
+
+None of the sovereigns to whom they turned had refused to listen to
+their appeals, or failed to promise subsidies and reinforcements; but
+these engagements, however definite, had for the most part been left
+unfulfilled, and when an occasion for their execution had occurred, the
+Egyptian armies had merely appeared on the fields of battle to beat
+a hasty retreat: they had not prevented the subjugation of Damascus,
+Israel, Tyre, the Philistines, nor, indeed, of any of the princes or
+people who trusted to their renown; yet, notwithstanding these numerous
+disappointments, the prestige of the Egyptians was still so great that
+insubordinate or rebel states invariably looked to them for support and
+entreated their help. The Assyrian generals had learnt by experience to
+meet them unmoved, being well aware that the Egyptian army was inferior
+to their own in organisation, and used antiquated weapons and methods
+of warfare; they were also well aware that the Egyptian and even the
+Ethiopian soldiery had never been able successfully to withstand a
+determined attack by the Assyrian battalions, and that when once the
+desert which protected Egypt had been crossed, she would, like Babylon,
+fall an easy prey to their arms. It would merely be necessary to guard
+against the possible danger of opposition being offered to the passage
+of the invading host by the Idumoan and Arab tribes sparsely scattered
+over the country between the Nile and the Gulf of Akabah, as their
+hostility would be a cause of serious uneasiness. An expedition, sent
+against Milukhkha* in 675 B.C., had taught the inhabitants to respect
+the power of Assyria; but the campaign had not been brought to a
+satisfactory conclusion, for the King of Elam, Khumban-khaldash II.,
+seeing his rival occupied at the opposite extremity of his empire, fell
+unexpectedly upon Babylon, and pushing forward as far as Sippara, laid
+waste the surrounding country; and his hateful presence even prevented
+the god Shamash from making his annual progress outside the walls of the
+city. The people of Bit-Dakkuri seem to have plucked up courage at
+his approach, and invaded the neighbouring territory, probably that
+of Borsippa. Esarhaddon was absent on a distant expedition, and the
+garrisons scattered over the province were not sufficiently strong in
+numbers to risk a pitched battle: Khumban-khaldash, therefore, marched
+back with his booty to Susa entirely unmolested. He died suddenly in his
+palace a few days after his return, and was succeeded by his brother,
+Urtaku, who was too intent upon seating himself securely on the throne
+to send his troops on a second raid in the following year.
+
+     * The name of Milukhkha, first applied to the countries in
+     the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, had been transferred
+     to the western coasts of Arabia, as well as that of Magan.
+
+Esarhaddon deferred his revenge to a more convenient season, and
+utilised the respite fate had accorded him on the Elamite border to
+hasten his attack on Egypt (673 B.C.). The expedition was a failure, and
+Taharqa was greatly elated at having issued with honour from this trial
+of strength. As most of the countries over which his enemy exercised
+his supremacy were those which had been ruled by his Theban ancestors
+in days gone by, Taharqa engraved on the base of his statue a list of
+nations and towns copied from one of the monuments of Ramses II. The
+Khati, Carchemish, Mitanni, Arvad--in short, a dozen peoples already
+extinct or in their decline, and whose names were merely perpetuated
+in the stereotyped official lists,--were enumerated in the list of
+his vanquished foes side by side with Assyria. It was a mere piece of
+bravado, for never, even when victorious, did he set foot on Syrian
+soil; but all the same the victory had caused the invading host to
+retire, and the fame of this exploit, spreading throughout Asia, was not
+without its effect on the minds of the inhabitants. The island of Tyre
+had never officially recognised the Assyrian suzerainty. The Tyrians had
+lived in peace since the defeat of Elulai, and had maintained constant
+commercial relations with the continent without interfering in active
+politics: they had, perhaps, even been permitted to establish some
+settlements on the coast of the mainland. Their king, Baal, now deemed
+the moment a propitious one for coming forward and recovering his lost
+territory, and since the Greek princes of Cyprus had ranged themselves
+under the hegemony of Assyria, he thought he could best counterbalance
+their influence by seeking support from Egypt, whose ancient greatness
+was apparently reviving. He therefore concluded an alliance with
+Taharqa,* and it would be no cause for astonishment if we should one day
+discover that Judah had followed his example.
+
+     * The alliance of Baal with Taharqa is mentioned in the
+     fragment of the _Annals_, under the date of year X., and the
+     name Baal is still decipherable amid the defaced linos which
+     contained the account of events which took place before that
+     year. I think we may reasonably assign the first
+     understanding between the two sovereigns, either to the
+     actual year of the first campaign or to the following year.
+
+Hezekiah had devoted his declining years to religious reformation, and
+the organisation of his kingdom under the guidance of Isaiah or the
+group of prophets of which Isaiah was the leader. Judah had increased
+in population, and had quickly recovered its prosperity; when Hezekiah
+died, about 686 B.C., it had entirely regained its former vigour, but
+the memory of the disasters of 701 was still sufficiently fresh in the
+minds of the people to prevent the change of sovereign being followed
+by a change of policy. Manasseh, who succeeded his father, though he
+did not walk, as Hezekiah had done, in the ways of the Lord, at least
+remained loyal to his Assyrian masters. It is, however, asserted that
+he afterwards rebelled, though his reason for doing so is not explained,
+and that he was carried captive to Babylon as a punishment for this
+crime: he succeeded, nevertheless, in regaining favour, and was
+reinstated at Jerusalem on condition of not repeating his offence. If
+this statement is true, as I believe it to be, it was probably after the
+Egyptian campaign of 673 B.C.* that his conspiracy with Baal took place.
+
+     * The fact of Manasseh's captivity is only known to us from
+     the testimony of 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10-13, and most modern
+     critics consider it apocryphal. The moral development which
+     accompanies the narrative, and the conversion which follows
+     it, are certainly later additions, but the story may have
+     some foundation in fact; we shall see later on that Necho
+     I., King of Sais, was taken prisoner, led into captivity,
+     and received again into favour in the same way as Manasseh
+     is said to have been. The exile to Babylon, which at one
+     time appeared to demonstrate the unauthenticity of the
+     passage, would be rather in favour of its authenticity.
+     Esarhaddon was King of Babylon during the whole of his
+     reign, and the great works which he executed in that city
+     obliged him, we know, to transport thither a large
+     proportion of the prisoners whom he brought back from his
+     wars.
+
+The Assyrian governors of the neighbouring provinces easily crushed
+these attempts at independence, but, the islands of Tyre being secure
+from attack, they were obliged to be content with establishing a series
+of redoubts along the coast, and with prohibiting the Tyrians from
+having access to the mainland.
+
+The promptitude of their action quenched the hopes of the Egyptian party
+and prevented the spread of the revolt. Esarhaddon was, nevertheless,
+obliged to put off the fulfilment of his schemes longer than he desired:
+complications arose on his northern frontiers, near the sources of the
+Tigris, which distracted his attention from the intrigues taking place
+on the banks of the Nile. Urartu, hard pressed by the Cimmerians and
+Scythians, had lived for a quarter of a century in a condition of sullen
+peace with Assyria, and its kings avoided anything which could bring
+them into conflict with their hereditary rival. Argistis II. had been
+succeeded by one of his sons, Eusas IL, and both of them had been more
+intent upon strengthening their kingdom than on extending its area; they
+had rebuilt their capital, Dhuspas, on a magnificent scale, and from the
+security of their rocky home they watched the course of events without
+taking any part in it, unless forced to do so by circumstances. Andaria,
+chief of Lubdi, one of the remote mountain districts, so difficult of
+access that it always retained its independence in spite of frequent
+attacks, had seized Shupria, a province which had been from very early
+times subject to the sovereigns of Nineveh, and was the first to be
+colonised by them. The inhabitants, forgetful of their origin, had
+yielded voluntarily to Andaria; but this prince, after receiving their
+homage, was seized with alarm at his own audacity. He endeavoured to
+strengthen his position by an alliance with the Cimmerians,* and the
+spirit of insubordination which he aroused spread beyond the Euphrates;
+Mugallu of Milid, a king of the Tabal, resorted to such violent measures
+that Esarhaddon was alarmed lest the wild mountaineers of the Taurus
+should pour down upon the plain of Kui and lay it waste. The
+danger would indeed have been serious had all these tribes risen
+simultaneously; but the Cimmerians were detained in Asia Minor by their
+own concerns,** and Mugallu, when he saw the Assyrian troops being
+concentrated to bring him to reason, remained quiet.
+
+     * This seems, indeed, to be proved by a tablet in which
+     Esarhaddon, addressing the god Shamash, asks him if the
+     Cimmerians or Urartians will unite with a certain prince who
+     can be no other than the King of Shupria.
+
+     ** It was about this time they were dealing the death-blow
+     to the kingdom of Phrygia.
+
+The extension of Lubdi was not likely to meet with favour in the eyes
+of Eusas; he did not respond to the advances made to him, and Esarhaddon
+opened his campaign against the rebels without having to dread the
+intervention of Urartu. Andaria, besieged in his capital of Ubbumi, laid
+aside his royal robes, and, assuming the ragged garments of a slave,
+appeared upon the ramparts and pleaded for mercy in a voice choked with
+tears: "Shupria, the country which has sinned against thee, will yield
+to thee of her own accord; place thy officers over her, she will vow
+obedience to thee; impose on her a ransom and an annual tribute for
+ever. I am a robber, and for the crime I have committed I will make
+amends fifty-fold." Esarhaddon would listen to no terms before a breach
+had been effected in the city walls. This done, he pardoned the prince
+who had taken refuge in the citadel, but resumed possession of Shupria:
+its inhabitants were mercilessly punished, being condemned to slavery,
+and their lands and goods divided among new colonists. Many Urartians
+were numbered among the captives: these Esarhaddon separated from
+the rest, and sent back to Rusas as a reward for his having remained
+neutral. All this had barely occupied the space of one month, the month
+of Tebet. The first-fruits of the spoil reserved for Uruk had already
+reached that town by the month Kislev, and the year was not so far
+advanced as to render further undertakings impossible, when the death of
+the queen, on the 5th Adar, suspended all warlike enterprises. The last
+months of the year were given up to mourning, and the whole of 671 B.C.
+passed without further action. The Ethiopian king was emboldened by this
+inactivity on the part of his foe to renew his intrigues with Syria with
+redoubled energy; at one moment, indeed, the Philistines of Ashkelon,
+secretly instigated, seemed on the point of revolt.*
+
+     * Ashkelon is mentioned in two of the prayers in which
+     Esarhaddon consults Shamash on the subject of his intended
+     campaign in Egypt; he seems to fear lest that city and the
+     Bedawin of the Idumoan desert should espouse the cause of
+     the King of Ethiopia.
+
+They held themselves, however, in check, and Esarhaddon, reassured as to
+their attitude, entered into negotiations with the sheikhs of the Arab
+tribes, and purchased their assistance to cross the desert of Sinai.
+He bade them assemble at Raphia, at the western extremity of Palestine,
+each chief bringing all the camels he could command, and as many skins
+of water as their beasts could carry: this precaution, a wise one at any
+time, might secure the safety of the army in case Taharqa should have
+filled up the wells which marked the stages in the caravan route.*
+When all was ready, Esarhaddon consulted the oracle of Shamash, and, on
+receiving a favourable reply from the god, left Nineveh in the beginning
+of the month Nisan, 670 B.C., to join the invading army in Syria.**
+
+     * This information is furnished by the fragment of the
+     _Annals_. The Assyrian text introduces this into the
+     narrative in such a manner that it would appear as if these
+     negotiations were carried on at the very commencement of the
+     campaign; it is, however, more probable that they were
+     concluded beforehand, as occurred later on, in the time of
+     Cambyses, when the Persians invaded Egypt.
+
+     ** The published texts refer to the second Egyptian campaign
+     of Esarhaddon. The reply of the god is not easy to
+     interpret, but it was certainly favourable, since the
+     expedition took place.
+
+He made a detour in order to inspect the lines of forts which his
+generals had established along the coast opposite Tyre, and strengthened
+their garrisons to prevent Baal from creating a diversion in the rear
+of his base of operations; he then proceeded southwards to the
+neighbourhood of Aphek, in the territory of the tribe of Simeon. The
+news which there met him must doubtless have informed him that the
+Bedawin had been won over in the interval by the emissaries of Taharqa,
+and that he would run great risk by proceeding with his campaign before
+bringing them back to a sense of their duty. On leaving Aphek* he
+consequently turned southwards, and plunged into the heart of the
+desert, as if he had renounced all designs upon Egypt for that season,
+and was bent only on restoring order in Milukhkha and Magan before
+advancing further. For six weeks he marched in short stages, without
+other water than the supply borne, in accordance with his commands, by
+the Arab camels, passing through tracts of desert infested by strange
+birds and double-headed serpents; when he had at length dispersed the
+bands which had endeavoured to oppose his advance, he suddenly turned in
+a north-westerly direction, and, following the dry bed of the torrent of
+Muzur, at length reached Raphia. From thence he did not select the usual
+route, which follows the coast-line and leads to Pelusium, a place which
+he may have feared was too well defended, but he again pressed forward
+across the sands of the desert, and in the first days of Tammuz reached
+the cultivated land of the Delta by way of the Wady Tumilat. The
+frontier garrisons, defeated on the 3rd of Tammuz near Ishkhupri,**
+retreated in good order.
+
+     * The defaced name of the country in which this Aphek was
+     situated was read as Samirina and translated "Samaria" by
+     the first editor. This interpretation has been adopted by
+     most historians, who have seen in Aphek the town of this
+     name belonging to the western portion of Manasseh. Budge
+     read it Samina, and this reading, verified by Craig, gave
+     Winckler the idea of identifying Samina or Simina with the
+     tribe of Simeon, and Aphek with the Aphckah (Josh. xv. 53)
+     in the mountains of Judah.
+
+     ** The text on the stele at Zinjirli gives a total of
+     fifteen days' march from Ishkhupri to Memphis, while
+     Pinches' Babyl. Chron. indicates three battles as having
+     been fought on the 3rd, 16th, and 18th of Tammuz, and the
+     taking of Memphis as occurring on the 22nd of the same
+     month. If fifteen days is precisely accurate for the length
+     of march, Esarhaddon would have reached Ishkhupri about the
+     27th of Sivan.
+
+Taharqa, hastening to their succour, disputed the ground inch by inch,
+and engaged the invaders in several conflicts, two at least of which,
+fought on the 16th and 18th of Tammuz, were regular pitched battles,
+but in every case the Assyrian tactics triumphed in spite of the dashing
+onslaught of the Egyptians; Memphis succumbed on the 22nd, after an
+assault lasting merely a few hours, and was mercilessly sacked. The
+Ethiopian king, with his army decimated and exhausted, gave up the
+struggle, and beat a hasty retreat southwards. The attack had been made
+with such rapidity that he had had no time to remove his court from the
+"palace of the White Wall" to the Said; the queen, therefore, together
+with other women of less exalted rank, fell into the hands of the
+conqueror, besides the crown-prince, Ushana-horu, several younger sons
+and daughters, and such of the children of Sabaco and Shabitoku as
+resided at court. But the victory had cost the Assyrians dearly, and
+the enemy still appeared to them so formidable that Esarhaddon prudently
+abstained from pursuing him up the Nile Valley. He favourably received
+those feudal lords and petty kings who presented themselves to pay him
+homage, and confirmed them in possession of their fiefs, but he placed
+over them Assyrian governors and imposed new official names on their
+cities; thus Athribis was officially called Limir-pateshi-assur,
+and other cities received the names Assur-makan-tishkul,
+Bifc-marduk-sha-assur-taru, Shaimuk-assur. He further imposed on them
+a heavy annual tribute of more than six talents of gold and six hundred
+talents of silver, besides robes and woven stuffs, wine, skins, horses,
+sheep, and asses; and having accomplished this, he retraced his steps
+towards the north-east with immense booty and innumerable convoys of
+prisoners. The complete defeat of the Ethiopian power filled not only
+Esarhaddon himself but all Asia with astonishment. His return to Nineveh
+was a triumphal progress; travelling through Syria by short stages, he
+paraded his captives and trophies before the peoples and princes who had
+so long relied on the invincible power of the Pharaoh.
+
+[Illustration: 156.jpg SOUTHERN PROMONTORY AT THE MOUTH OF THE
+NAHR-EL-KELB]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph recently brought back by
+     Lortet.
+
+Esarhaddon's predecessors had more than once inscribed the record of
+their campaigns on the rocks of the Nahr-el-Kelb, beside the bas-relief
+engraved there by Ramses II., and it had been no small gratification to
+their pride thus to place themselves on a footing of equality with one
+of the most illustrious heroes of the ancient Egyptian empire.
+
+[Illustration: 157.jpg STELE OF ESARHADDON AT THE NAHR-EL-KELB]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lortet.
+
+The footpath which skirts the southern bank of the river, and turning
+to the south is continued along the seashore, was bordered by the great
+stelae in which, one after another, they had thought to immortalise
+their glory; following their example, Esarhaddon was in like manner
+pleased to celebrate his prowess, and exhibit the ancient lords of the
+world subjugated to his will. He erected numerous triumphal monuments
+along his route, and the stele which was discovered at one of the gates
+of Zinjirli is, doubtless, but an example of those which he erected in
+other important cities.
+
+[Illustration: 158.jpg STELE OF Zinjirli]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
+     the Berlin Museum.
+
+He is represented on the Zinjirli stele standing erect, while at his
+feet are two kneeling prisoners, whom he is holding by a bridle of
+cord fastened to metal rings passed through their lips; these figures
+represent Baal of Tyre and Taharqa of Napata, the latter with the uraaus
+on his forehead. As a matter of fact, these kings were safe beyond his
+reach, one surrounded by the sea, the other above the cataracts, and
+the people were well aware that they did not form part of the band of
+prisoners which denied before their eyes; but they were accustomed to
+the vain and extravagant boastings of their conquerors, and these very
+exaggerations enabled them to understand more fully the extent of the
+victory. Esarhaddon thenceforward styled himself King of Egypt, King of
+the Kings of Egypt, of the Said and of Kush, so great was his pride at
+having trampled underfoot the land of the Delta. And, in fact, Egypt
+had, for a century, been the only one of the ancient Eastern states
+which had always eluded the grasp of Assyria. The Elamites had endured
+disastrous defeats, which had cost them some of their provinces; the
+Urartians had been driven back into their mountains, and no longer
+attempted to emerge from them; Babylon had nearly been annihilated
+in her struggles for independence; while the Khati, the Phoenicians,
+Damascus, and Israel had been absorbed one after another in the gradual
+extension of Ninevehe supremacy. Egypt, although she had had a hand in
+all then-wars and revolutions, had never herself paid the penalty of
+her intrigues, and even when she had sometimes risked her troops on the
+battle-fields of Palestine, her disasters had not cost her more than the
+loss of a certain number of men: having once retired to the banks of the
+Nile, no one had dared to follow, and the idea had gained credence among
+her enemies as well as among her friends that Egypt was effectually
+protected by the desert from every attack. The victory of Esarhaddon
+proved that she was no more invulnerable than the other kingdoms of the
+world, and that before a bold advance the obstacles, placed by nature
+in the path of an invader, disappeared; the protecting desert had been
+crossed, the archers and chariots of Egypt had fled before the Assyrian
+cavalry and pikemen, her cities had endured the ignominy and misery of
+being taken by storm, and the wives and daughters of her Pharaohs had
+been carried off into servitude in common with the numerous princesses
+of Elam and Syria of that day. Esarhaddon filled his palaces with
+furniture and woven stuffs, with vases of precious metal and sculptured
+ivories, with glass ornaments and statuettes looted from Memphis: his
+workers in marble took inspiration from the sphinxes of Egypt to modify
+the winged, human-headed lions upon which the columns of their palaces
+rested, and the plans of his architects became more comprehensive at the
+mere announcement of such a vast amount of spoil. The palace they had
+begun to build at Nineveh, on the ruins of an ancient edifice, already
+surpassed all previous architectural efforts. The alabaster quarries of
+the Assyrian mountains and the forests of Phoenicia had alike been put
+under contribution to face the walls of its state apartments;
+twenty-two chiefs of the country of the Khati, of Phoenicia, and of the
+Mediterranean littoral--among them the Greek kings of Cyprus--had vied
+with one another in supplying Esarhaddon with great beams of pine,
+cedar, and cypress for its construction. The ceilings were of cedar
+supported by pillars of cypress-wood encircled by silver and iron; stone
+lions and bulls stood on either side of the gates, and the doors were
+made of cedar and cypress, incrusted or overlaid with iron, silver and
+ivory. The treasures of Egypt enabled Esarhaddon to complete this palace
+and begin a new one at Calah, where the buildings erected somewhat
+hurriedly by Tiglath-pileser III. had already fallen into ruin. Some
+of the slabs on which the latter conqueror had engraved his Annals,
+and recounted the principal episodes of his campaigns, were removed and
+transferred to the site selected by Esarhaddon, and one of the surfaces
+of each was pared down in order to receive new pictures and fresh
+inscriptions. They had, however, hardly been placed in the stonemason's
+hands when the work was interrupted.*
+
+     * The date of the building of the palace at Calah is
+     furnished by the inscriptions, in which Esarhaddon assumes
+     the title of King of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 161.jpg ASSYRIAN SPHINX IN EGYPTIAN STYLE SUPPORTING THE
+BASE OF A COLUMN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the alabaster sculpture reproduced by
+     Layard.
+
+It may have been that Esarhaddon had to suspend all his operations while
+putting down some conspiracy. At any rate, we know that in 669 B.C. many
+high personages of his court were seized and executed. The question of
+the succession to the throne was still undecided; Sinidina-bal, the son
+whom Esarhaddon had previously designated as his heir presumptive, was
+dead, and the people feared lest he should choose from among his other
+sons some prince who had not their interests at heart. The king's
+affection for Babylon had certainly aroused jealousy and anxiety among
+his Assyrian subjects, and perhaps some further tokens of preference
+made them uneasy lest' he should select Shamash-shumukin, one of his
+children who manifested the same tendencies, and who was, moreover, the
+son of a Babylonian wife. Most of the nobles who had been led to join
+the conspiracy paid for their indiscretion with their heads, but their
+opposition gave the sovereign cause for reflection, and decided him to
+modify his schemes. Convinced that it was impossible to unite Babylon
+and Nineveh permanently under the same ruler, he reluctantly decided
+to divide his kingdom into two parts--Assyria, the strongest portion,
+falling naturally to his eldest son, Assur-bani-pal, while Babylonia was
+assigned to Shamash-shumukin, on condition of his paying homage to his
+brother as suzerain.* The best method to ensure his wishes being carried
+into effect was to prepare their way for the fulfilment while he was
+still alive; and rebellions which broke out about this time beyond the
+isthmus afforded a good opportunity for so doing. Egypt was at this
+period divided into twenty states of various dimensions, very nearly the
+same as had existed a century before, when Pionkhi had, for the first
+time, brought the whole country under Ethiopian rule.** In the south,
+the extensive Theban province occupied both sides of the river from
+Assuan to Thinis and Khemmis.
+
+     * Winokler considers that Assur-bani-pal was the leader of
+     tha conspiracy, and that he obliged his father to recognise
+     him as heir to the crown of Assyria, and to associate him on
+     the throne.
+
+     ** The list of the principalities in the time of Esarhaddon
+     and Assur-bani-pal is found on the cylinders of Assur-bani-
+     pal.
+
+It was nominally governed by Amenertas or her daughter, Shapenuapit, but
+the administration was, as usual, entrusted to a member of the priestly
+college, at that time to Montumihait, Count of Thebes, and fourth
+prophet of Anion.*
+
+     * The Assyrian name of this personage, spelt first
+     Mantimiankhi, has been more accurately transcribed
+     Mantimikhi. The identification with the Montumihait of the
+     Theban documents, is now generally adopted.
+
+The four principalities of Thinis, Siut, Hermopolis, and Heracleopolis
+separated it from the small kingdom of Memphis and Sais, and each of the
+regions of the Delta was divided into one or two fiefs, according to the
+number and importance of the towns it contained. In the south, Thebes
+was too directly under the influence of Ethiopia to be able to exercise
+an independent policy with regard to the rest of the country. In the
+north, two families contested the supremacy more or less openly. One of
+them, whose hereditary domains included the Arabian, and parts of the
+surrounding nomes, was then represented by a certain Pakruru. He had
+united under his banner the numerous petty chiefs of the eastern side of
+the Delta, the heirs of the ancient dynasties of Tanis and Bubastis, and
+his energy or ability must have made a good impression on the minds of
+his contemporaries, for they handed down his memory to their successors,
+who soon metamorphosed him into a popular legendary hero, famed both for
+his valour and wisdom. The nobles of the western nomes acknowledged as
+their overlords the regents of Sais, the descendants of that Bocchoris
+who had for a short while brought the whole valley of the Nile under
+his sway. Sabaco, having put his rival to death, had installed in his
+hereditary domains an Ethiopian named Ammeris, but this Ammeris had
+disappeared from the scene about the same time as his patron, in 704
+B.C., and after him three princes at least had succeeded to the throne,
+namely, Stephinates, Nekhepsos, and Necho.* Stephinates had died about
+680 B.C., without accomplishing anything which was worth recording.
+Nekhepsos had had no greater opportunities of distinguishing himself
+than had fallen to the lot of his father, and yet legends grew up round
+his name as round that of Pakruru: he was reputed to have been a great
+soothsayer, astrologist, and magician, and medical treatises were
+ascribed to him, and almanacs much esteemed by the superstitious in the
+Roman period.**
+
+     * The lists of Eusebius give the series Ammeres,
+     Stephinates, Nekhepsos, Necho I., but Lepsius displaced
+     Ammeres and identified him with the queen Amenertas; others
+     have thought to recognise in him Miamun Pionkhi, or
+     Tanuatamanu, the successor of Taharqa. He must, however, be
+     left in this place in the list, and we may perhaps consider
+     him as the founder of the XXVIth dynasty. If the number of
+     seven years for the reign of Stephinates is adopted, we must
+     suppose either that Manetho passed over the name of a prince
+     at the beginning of the XXVIth dynasty, or that Ammeris was
+     only enthroned at Memphis after the death of Sabaco; but the
+     lists of the Syncellus and of Sothis assign 27 years to the
+     reign of Stephinates.
+
+     ** The astrological works of Nekhepsos are cited, among
+     others, by Pliny, and it is probably he whom a Greek papyrus
+     of the Salt Collection mentions under the name of Nekheus.
+
+Necho had already occupied the throne for three or four years when the
+invasion of 670 B.C. delivered him from the Ethiopian supremacy. He is
+represented as being brave, energetic, and enterprising, ready to hazard
+everything in order to attain the object towards which the ambition of
+his ancestors had been tending for a century past, namely, to restore
+unity to the ancient kingdom under the rule of the house of Sais. The
+extent of his realm, and, above all, the possession of Memphis, gave him
+a real superiority, and Esarhaddon did not hesitate to esteem him above
+his competitors; the Ninevite scribes placed him in the first rank, and
+he heads the list of the Egyptian vassals. He soon had an opportunity
+of proving his devotion to his foreign suzerain. Taharqa did not
+quietly accept his defeat, and Egypt looked to him to be revenged on the
+Assyrian as soon as he should have reorganised his army. He once more,
+accordingly, took the field in the middle of 669 B.C.; the barons of the
+Said rallied to his standard without hesitation, and he soon re-entered
+the "White Wall," but there his advance was arrested. Necho and the
+neighbouring chiefs of the Delta, held in check by the presence of
+Semitic garrisons, did not venture to proclaim themselves on his
+side, and awaited under arms the arrival of Assyrian reinforcements.*
+Esarhaddon, in spite of failing health, assumed command of the troops,
+and before leaving home carried out the project to which the conspiracy
+of the preceding year had given rise; he assigned the government of
+Babylon to Shamash-shumukin, and solemnly designated Assur-bani-pal
+as the heir to Assyria proper, and to the suzerainty over the whole
+empire.**
+
+     * The first Egyptian campaign of Assur-bani-pal is also the
+     last campaign of Esarhaddon, and Assur-bani-pal appropriated
+     all the earlier incidents of it, some of which belong to the
+     sole reign of his father, and some to the few weeks in which
+     he shared the throne with him.
+
+     ** The association of Assur-bani-pal with his father on the
+     throne was pointed out by G. Smith, who thought he could fix
+     the date about 673 B.C., three or four years before the
+     death of Esarhaddon. Tielo showed that Assur-bani-pal was
+     then only made viceroy, and assigned his association in the
+     sovereignty to the year 671 or 670 B.C., about the time of
+     the second Egyptian campaign, while Hommel brought it down
+     to 669. Winckler has, with much reason, placed the date in
+     668 B.C. The Assyrian documents do not mention the
+     coronation of Shamash-shuniukin, for Assur-bani-pal
+     afterwards affected to consider his brother a mere viceroy,
+     appointed by himself after the death of his father
+     Esarhaddon; but an examination of all the circumstances has
+     shown that the enthronement of Shamash-shumukin at Babylon
+     was on a par with that of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh, and
+     that both owed their elevation to their father.
+
+On the 12th of Lyyar, 668 B.C., on the day of the feast of Gula, he
+presented their new lord to all the inhabitants of Assyria, both small
+and great, who had assembled to be present at the ceremony, which ended
+in the installation of the prince in the palace of Bitriduti, reserved
+for the heirs-apparent. A few weeks later Esarhaddon set out for Egypt,
+but his malady became more serious on the journey, and he died on the
+10th of Arakhsamna, in the twelfth year of his reign.*
+
+     * Arakhsamna corresponds to the Jewish Marcheswan, and to
+     our month of May.
+
+When we endeavour to conjure up his image before us, we fancy we
+are right in surmising that he was not cast in the ordinary mould of
+Assyrian monarchs. The history of his campaigns shows that he was as
+active and resolute as Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., but he did
+not add to these good qualities their inflexible harshness towards their
+subjects, nor their brutal treatment of conquered foes. Circumstances
+in which they would have shown themselves merciless, he seized upon as
+occasions for clemency, and if massacres and executions are recorded
+among the events of his reign, at least he does not class them among
+the most important: the records of his wars do not continually speak of
+rebels flayed alive, kings impaled before the gates of their cities,
+and whole populations decimated by fire and sword. Of all the Assyrian
+conquerors, he is almost the only one for whom the historian can feel
+any regard, or from the study of whose reign he passes on with regret to
+pursue that of others in due course.
+
+As soon as Esarhaddon had passed away, the separation of the two parts
+of the empire which he had planned was effected almost automatically:
+Assur-bani-pal proclaimed himself King of Assyria, and Shamash-shumukin,
+in like manner, King of Babylon. One fact, which seems insignificant
+enough to us when we read it in the Annals, but was decisive in the
+eyes of their contemporaries, sanctioned the transformation thus
+accomplished: Bel and the gods of Accad quitted Assur in the month of
+Iyyar and returned to their resting-place in Babylon. The restoration
+of the images to their own country became necessary as soon as it was
+decided to have a king in Karduniash, even though he were an Assyrian.
+To enable him to exercise legitimate authority, he must have celebrated
+the rites and "taken the hands of Bel," but it was a question whether
+this obligation could be fulfilled if Bel remained a prisoner in the
+neighbouring capital. Assur-bani-pal believed for a moment that this
+difficulty could be obviated, and consulted Shamash on this delicate
+question: "Shamash-shumukin, the son of Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria,
+can he in this year take the hands of Bel, the mighty lord Marduk, in
+this very city, and then go to Babylon with the favour of Bel! If that
+would be pleasing to thy great divinity and to the mighty lord Marduk,
+thy great divinity must know it." The reply was not favourable, and
+Shamash gave it as his opinion that Bel could not act as a sovereign
+lord while still languishing in prison in a city which was not his own.
+Assur-bani-pal had to resign himself to the release of his captive,
+and he did it with a good grace. He proceeded in pomp to the temple of
+Assur, where Marduk was shut up, and humbly entreated the exiled deity
+to vouchsafe to return to his own country.
+
+[Illustration: 168.jpg ASSUR-BANIPAL AS A BEARER OF OFFERINGS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in Lehmann.
+
+"Think on Babylon, which thou didst bring to nought in the rage of thy
+heart, and turn thy face towards the temple of E-sagilla, the lofty seat
+of thy divinity! Revisit thy city which thou hast forsaken to inhabit a
+place which is not worthy of thee, and do thou thyself, O Marduk, lord
+of the gods, give the command to return to Babylon." The statue set out
+on its journey, and was escorted by a solemn procession headed by the
+two kings. The gods, by one accord, came forth from their cities
+and saluted the traveller as he passed by--Beltis of Agade, Nebo of
+Borsippa, Shamash of Sippara, and Nirgal. At length he reached his
+beloved city, and entered E-sagilla in the midst of an immense throng
+of people. The kings headed the _cortege_, and the delighted multitude
+joined their two names with that of the god in their acclamations: it
+was a day never to be forgotten. Assur-bani-pal, in his capacity of
+suzerain, opened the sacred edifice, and then presented his brother, who
+thereupon "took the hands of Bel."
+
+[Illustration: 169.jpg SIHAMASH-SHUMUKIN AS A BEARER OF OFFERINGS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in Lehmann.
+
+A quarter of a century had not passed since the victorious Sennacherib
+had, as he thought, inflicted a mortal blow on the one power which stood
+in the way of Assyria's supremacy in Western Asia; already, in spite of
+his efforts, the city had sprung up from its ruins as vigorous as ever,
+and his sons and grandsons had felt themselves irresistibly drawn
+to resuscitate that which their ancestors had desired to annihilate
+irrevocably. Babylon had rebuilt her palaces, her walls, and her
+temples; she had received back her gods without a war, and almost
+without any agitation, by the mere force of the prestige she exercised
+over all around her, and even over her conquerors. As a matter of fact,
+she had not regained her former position, and was still depressed and
+enfeebled by the blow which had laid her low; in addition to this, her
+king was an Assyrian, and a vassal of Assyria, but nevertheless he
+was her own king, and hers alone. Her independence was already half
+regained. Shamash-shumukin established his court at Babylon, and applied
+himself from the outset to restore, as far as he was able, the material
+and moral forces of his kingdom. Assur-bani-pal, on his side, met with
+no opposition from his subjects, but prudence cautioned him not to
+estrange them; the troubles of the preceding year were perhaps not
+so completely suppressed as to prevent the chiefs who had escaped
+punishment from being encouraged by the change of sovereign to renew
+their intrigues. The king, therefore, remained in Nineveh to inaugurate
+his rule, and confided to his generals the charge of conducting the
+expeditions which had been undertaken during his father's lifetime.* One
+of these undertakings was unimportant. Tandai of Kirbit, a petty chief,
+was continually engaged in harassing the inhabitants of Yamutbal; he
+bore down upon them every year, and, after dealing a blow, retreated to
+his hiding-place in the mountains. He was attacked in his stronghold,
+and carried away captive with all his people into Egypt, at the furthest
+extremity of the empire, to serve in Assyrian garrisons in the midst of
+the fellahin.**
+
+     * In the numerous documents relating to the reign of Assur-
+     bani-pal the facts are arranged in geographical order, not
+     by the dates of the successive expeditions, and the
+     chronological order of the campaigns is all the more
+     difficult to determine accurately, as _Pinches' Babylonian
+     Chronicle_ fails us after the beginning of this reign,
+     immediately after the mention of the above-mentioned war
+     with Kirbit. Even the _Eponym Canon_ is only accurate down
+     to 666 B.C.; in that year there is a break, and although we
+     possess for the succeeding period more than forty names of
+     eponyms, their classification is not at present absolutely
+     certain.
+
+     ** The expedition against Kirbit is omitted in certain
+     documents; it is inserted in the others in the fourth place,
+     between the wars in Asia Minor and the campaign against the
+     Mannai. The place assigned to it in the Bab. Chron. quite in
+     the beginning of the reign, is confirmed by a fragment of a
+     tablet quoted by Winckler. Perhaps it was carried out by a
+     Babylonian army: although Assur-bani-pal claimed the glory
+     of it, by reason of his suzerainty over Karduniash.
+
+Meanwhile, the army which Esarhaddon had been leading against Taharqa
+pursued its course under command of the Tartan.* Syria received it
+submissively, and the twenty-two kings who still possessed a shadow of
+autonomy in the country sent assurances of their devotion to the new
+monarch: even Yakinlu, King of Arvad, who had aroused suspicion by
+frequent acts of insubordination,** thought twice before rebelling
+against his terrible suzerain, and joined the rest in paying both
+homage and tribute. Cyprus and also Phoenicia remained faithful to their
+allegiance, and, what was of still more consequence, the states which
+lay nearest to Egypt--Philistia, Judah, Moab, and Ammon; the Assyrians
+were thus able to push forward to the Delta without losing time in
+repressing rebellions along their route. The Ethiopians had entrenched
+themselves at Karbaniti;*** they were, however, once more defeated, and
+left; so many of their soldiers dead upon the field, that Taharqa had
+not sufficient troops left to defend Memphis.
+
+     * The text of Tablet K 2675-K 228 of the Brit. Mus., states
+     distinctly that the Tartan commanded the first army.
+
+     ** Assur-bani-pal, acting in the name of his father,
+     Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, had consulted Shamash on the
+     desirability of sending troops against Arvad: the prince of
+     this city is called Ikkalu, which is a variant of Yakinlu.
+     Winckler concluded that the campaign against Arvad took
+     place before 668 B.C., in the reign of Esarhaddon. It seems
+     to me more natural to place it on the return from Egypt,
+     when the people of Arvad were demoralised by the defeat of
+     the Pharaoh whose alliance they had hoped for.
+
+     *** I had compared Karbaniti with the Qarbina mentioned in
+     the _Great Harris Papyrus_, and this identification was
+     accepted by most Egyptologists, even after Brugsch
+     recognised in Qarbina the name of Canopus or a town near
+     Canopus. It has been contested by Steindorf, and, in fact,
+     Karbaniti could not be identified with Canopus, any more
+     than the Qarbina of the Harris Papyrus; its site must be
+     looked for in the eastern or central part of the Delta.
+
+He retreated upon Thebes, where he strongly fortified himself; but the
+Tartan had not suffered less than his adversary, and he would have been
+unable to pursue him, had not reinforcements promptly reached him. The
+Bab-shakeh, who had been despatched from Nineveh with some Assyrian
+troops, had summoned to his aid the principal Syrian feudal chiefs, who,
+stimulated by the news of the victories achieved on the banks of the
+Nile, placed themselves unreservedly at his disposal. He ordered
+their vessels to proceed along the coast as far as the Delta, where
+he purposed to collect a fleet to ascend the river, while their
+troops augmented the force already under his command. The two Assyrian
+generals, the Tartan and the Rabshakeh, quitted Memphis, probably in the
+early part of 667 B.C., and, cautiously advancing southwards, covered
+the distance separating the two Egyptian capitals in a steady march
+of forty days. When the Assyrians had advanced well up the valley, the
+princes of the Delta thought the opportunity had arrived to cut them
+off by a single bold stroke. They therefore opened cautious negotiations
+with the Ethiopian king, and proposed an arrangement which should secure
+their independence: "We will divide the country between us, and neither
+of us shall exercise authority over the other." However secretly these
+negotiations were conducted, they were certain to come to the knowledge
+of the Assyrian generals: the couriers were intercepted; and discovering
+from the despatches the extent of the danger, the Assyrians seized
+as many of the leaders of the league as they could. As a warning they
+sacked Sais, Mendes, and Tanis, demolishing the fortifications, and
+flaying or impaling the principal citizens before their city gates;
+they then sent two of the intriguing chiefs, Necho and Sharludari of
+Pelusium, bound hand and foot with chains, to Nineveh. Pakruru, of the
+Arabian nome, managed, however, to escape them. Taharqa, thus bereft of
+his allies, was no longer in a condition to repel the invader: he fled
+to Ethiopia, abandoning Thebes to its fate. The city was ransomed
+by despoiling the temple of Amon of half its treasures: Montumihait
+transferred his allegiance unhesitatingly to Assur-bani-pal, and the
+whole of Egypt from the Mediterranean to the first cataract once
+more became Assyrian territory. The victory was so complete that
+Assur-bani-pal thought he might without risk show clemency to his
+prisoners. He summoned them to his presence, and there, instead of
+putting out their eyes or subjecting them to some horrible form of
+torture, he received them back into favour, and confirmed Necho in the
+possession of all the honours which Esarhaddon had conceded to him. He
+clothed him in a mantle of honour, and bestowed on him a straight-bladed
+sword with an iron scabbard ornamented with gold, engraved with his
+names and titles, besides rings, gold bracelets, chariots, horses, and
+mules; in short, all the appurtenances of royalty. Not content with
+restoring to him the cities of Sais and Memphis, he granted him the fief
+of Athribis for his eldest son, Psammetichus.
+
+[Illustration: 174.jpg MONTUMIHAIT, PRINCE OF THEBES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Miss Benson. It is
+     not quite certain that this statue represents Montumihait,
+     as the inscription is wanting: the circumstances of the
+     discovery, however, render it very probable.
+
+Moreover, he neglected no measure likely to show his supremacy. Athribis
+received the new name of Limir-patesi-assur, _may the high priest of
+Assur be glorious_, and Sais that of Kar-bel-matati, _the fortress of
+the lord of the countries_. Psammetichus was called Nebo-shezib-anni,
+_Nebo, deliver me_, and residents were installed at his court and that
+of his father, who were entrusted with the _surveillance_ of their
+conduct, and the task of keeping them to the path of duty: Necho, thus
+well guarded, thenceforward never faltered in his allegiance.
+
+The subjection of Egypt reacted on Syria and Asia Minor. Of the only two
+states still existing along the Phoenician seaboard, one, namely Tyre,
+had been in revolt for many years, and the other, Arvad, showed symptoms
+of disaffection.
+
+[Illustration: 175.jpg PSAMMETICHUS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the British
+     Museum.
+
+Esarhaddon, from lack of a sufficient fleet, had never been able to
+subdue the former, but he had interrupted the communications of the
+island with the mainland, and the blockade, which was constantly
+increasing in strictness, had already lasted for four years. On receipt
+of the news from Egypt, Baal realised that further resistance was
+hopeless; he therefore delivered up to the victor his heir-apparent,
+Yahi-melek, and one of his daughters, together with other hostages,
+besides silver, gold, and wood, and intreated for pardon. Assur-bani-pal
+left him in possession of his kingdom on condition of paying the regular
+tribute, but Yakinlu, the King of Arvad, met with harsher treatment. In
+vain did he give up his sons, his daughters, and all his treasures; his
+intractability had worn out the patience of his suzerain: he was carried
+away captive to Nineveh, and replaced by Azibaal, his eldest son.
+Two chiefs of the Taurus--Mugallu of Tabal, who had given trouble
+to Esarhaddon in the last years of his life, and Sanda-sarme of
+Cilicia--purchased immunity from the punishment due for various acts
+of brigandage, by gifts of horses, and by handing over each of them a
+daughter, richly dowered, to the harem of the king at Nineveh. But these
+were incidents of slight moment, and their very insignificance proves
+how completely resigned to foreign domination the nations of the
+Mediterranean coast had now become. Vassal kings, princes, cities,
+peasants of the plain or shepherds of the mountains, all who were
+subject directly or indirectly to Assyria, had almost ceased to imagine
+that a change of sovereign afforded them any chance of regaining their
+independence. They no longer considered themselves the subjects of a
+conqueror whose death might free them from allegiance; they realised
+that they were the subjects of an empire whose power did not depend on
+the genius or incapacity of one man, but was maintained from age to
+age in virtue of the prestige it had attained, whatever might be the
+qualities of the reigning sovereign. The other independent states had at
+length come to the same conclusion, and the news of the accession of a
+fresh Assyrian king no longer awakened among them hopes of conquest or,
+at all events, of booty; such an occasion was regarded as a suitable
+opportunity for strengthening the bonds of neighbourly feeling or
+conciliatory friendship which united them to Assyria, by sending an
+embassy to congratulate the new sovereign. One of these embassies, which
+arrived about 667 B.C., caused much excitement at the court of Nineveh,
+and greatly flattered the vanity of the king. Reports brought back
+by sailors or the chiefs of caravans had revealed the existence of a
+kingdom of Lydia in the extreme west of Asia Minor, at the place of
+embarcation for crossing the sea.*
+
+     * It is called _nagu sha nibirti tamtim_, "the country of
+     the crossing of the sea," or more concisely, "the country
+     this side the sea."
+
+It was known to be celebrated for its gold and its horses, but no direct
+relations between the two courts had ever been established, and the
+Lydian kings had hitherto affected to ignore the existence of Assyria.
+A revolution had broken out in this province a quarter of a century
+previously, which had placed on the throne of the Heraclidse that family
+of the Mermnado whose previous history had been so tragic. Dascylus,
+who had made his home for a long time among the White Syrians, had no
+intention of abandoning his adopted country, when one day, about the
+year 698 B.C., a messenger arrived bidding him repair to Sardes without
+delay. His uncle Ardys, prince of Tyrrha, having no children, had
+applied to Sadyattes, beseeching him to revoke the sentence of
+banishment passed on his nephew. "My house is desolate," said he, "and
+all my kinsfolk are dead; and furthermore, Dascylus and his house have
+already been pardoned by thine ancestors." Sadyattes consented, but
+Dascylus, preferring not to return, sent his son Gyges, then about
+eighteen years of age, in his stead. Gyges was a tall and very beautiful
+youth, and showed unusual skill as a charioteer and in the use of
+weapons, so that his renown soon spread throughout the country.
+Sadyattes desired to see him, and being captivated by his bold
+demeanour, enrolled him in his bodyguard, loaded him with presents, and
+took him into his entire confidence. Gyges was clever enough to utilise
+the king's favour in order to enlarge his domains and increase his
+riches, and thus win partisans among the people and the body of
+"Friends." Carian mercenaries at that time formed one of the most
+vigorous and best disciplined contingents in the armies of the period.*
+The Carians were, above all, a military race, and are said to have
+brought the shield and helmet to their highest perfection; at Sardes
+they formed the garrison of the citadel, and their captains were in high
+favour with the king. Gyges formed a fast friendship with Arselis of
+Mylasa, one of the chief of these officers, and thus made sure of the
+support of the garrison, and of the possibility of recruiting a corps
+among the Carian clans who remained in their own country.** He thus
+incurred the bitter jealousy of the Tylonidag, whose chief, Lixos, was
+ready to adopt any measures which might damage his rival, even going so
+far as to simulate madness and run through the streets of Sardes crying
+out that Gyges, the son of Dascylus, was about to assassinate the king;
+but this stratagem did not succeed any better than his other treacherous
+devices. Meanwhile Sadyattes had sought the hand of Toudo,*** daughter
+of Arnossos of Mysia, and sent his favourite to receive his affianced
+bride at the hand of her father.
+
+     * Archilochus of Paros, a contemporary of Gyges, mentions
+     the Carian mercenaries, and later on Ephorus said of them,
+     that they had been the first to sell their services to
+     strangers.
+
+     ** The connection between Arselis and Gyges is mentioned by
+     Plutarch.
+
+     *** It is not certain whether the name is Toudo or Trydo.
+
+Gyges fell in love with her on the journey, and tried in vain to win
+her favour. She repulsed his advances with indignation, and on the very
+night of her marriage complained to her husband of the insult which
+had been offered her. Sadyattes swore that he would avenge her on the
+morrow; but Gyges, warned by a servant, slew the king before daybreak.
+Immediately after thus assassinating his sovereign, Gyges called
+together the "Friends," and ridding himself of those who were hostile
+to him, induced the others by bribes to further his designs; then
+descending to the place of public assembly, he summoned the people to a
+conclave. After a long and stormy debate, it was decided to consult
+the oracle at Delphi, which, corrupted by the gold from the Pactolus,
+enjoined on the Lydians to recognise Gyges as their king. He married
+Toudo, and by thus espousing the widow of the Heraclid sovereign,
+obtained some show of right to the crown; but the decision of the oracle
+was not universally acceptable, and war broke out, in which Gyges was
+victorious, thanks to the bravery of his Carian mercenaries. His
+career soon served as the fabric on which the popular imagination was
+continually working fresh embroideries. He was reported at the outset to
+have been of base extraction, a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised
+himself by degrees to the highest posts and had finally supplanted his
+patron. Herodotus, following the poet Archilochus of Paros, relates
+how the last of the Heraclidas, whom he calls by his private name of
+Kandaules, and not his official name of Sadyattes,* forcibly insisted
+on exposing to the admiration of Gyges the naked beauty of his wife; the
+queen, thus outraged, called upon the favourite to avenge the insult to
+her modesty by the blood of her husband, and then bestowed on him her
+hand, together with the crown.
+
+     * Schubert considers that the names Sadyattes and Kandaules
+     belong to two distinct persons. Kandaules, according to him,
+     was probably a second son of Myrsos, who, after the murder
+     of Sadyattes, disputed the possession of the crown with
+     Gyges; in this case he was killed in battle by the Carian
+     commander, Arselis, as related by Plutarch, and Gyges was
+     not really king till after the death of Kandaules.
+
+Plato made this story the groundwork of a most fantastic tale. Gyges,
+according to him, was originally a shepherd, who, after a terrible
+storm, noticed a fissure in the ground, into which he crept; there he
+discovered an enormous bronze horse, half broken, and in its side the
+corpse of a giant with a gold ring on his finger. Chance revealed to him
+that this ring rendered its wearer invisible: he set out for the court
+in quest of adventures, seduced the queen, murdered the king and seized
+his crown, accomplishing all this by virtue of his talisman.*
+
+     * This version is curious, because it has preserved for us
+     one of the earliest examples of a ring which renders its
+     wearer invisible; it is well known how frequently such a
+     talisman appears in Oriental tales of a later period.
+
+According to a third legend, his crime and exaltation had been presaged
+by a wondrous prodigy. Two eagles of supernatural size had alighted on
+the roof of Toudo's room while she was still dwelling in her father's
+house, and the soothsayers who were consulted prognosticated that the
+princess would be the wife of two kings in a single night; and, in
+fact, Gyges, having stabbed Sadyattes when his marriage was but just
+consummated, forced Toudo to become his wife on the spot without waiting
+for the morrow. Other stories were current, in which the events were
+related with less of the miraculous element, and which attributed the
+success of Gyges to the unbounded fidelity shown him by the Carian
+Arselis. In whatever manner it was brought about, his accession marked
+the opening of a new era for Lydia. The country had always been noted
+for its valiant and warlike inhabitants, but the Heraclidse had not
+expended its abundant resources on foreign conquest, and none of the
+surrounding peoples suspected that it could again become the seat of a
+brilliant empire as in fabulous times.
+
+[Illustration: 181.jpg LYDIAN HORSEMEN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Lydian bas-relief now in the
+     British Museum.
+
+Gyges endeavoured to awaken the military instincts of his subjects. If
+he were not actually the first to organise that admirable cavalry corps
+which for nearly a century proved itself invincible on the field of
+battle, at least he enlarged and disciplined it, giving it cohesion
+and daring; and it was well he did so, for a formidable danger already
+menaced his newly acquired kingdom. The Cimmerians and Treres, so
+long as they did not act in concert, had been unable to overcome the
+resistance offered by the Phrygians; their raids, annually renewed, had
+never resulted in more than the destruction of a city or the pillaging
+of an ill-defended district. But from 690 to 680 B.C. the Cimmerians,
+held in check by the bold front displayed by Sennacherib and Esarhaddon,
+had at last broken away from the seductions of the east, and poured down
+in force on the centre of the peninsula. King Midas, after an heroic
+defence, at length gave way before their overwhelming numbers, and,
+rather than fall alive into the hands of the barbarians, poisoned
+himself by drinking the blood of a bull (676 B.C.).* The flower of his
+nobility perished with him, and the people of lower rank who survived
+were so terrified by the invasion, that they seemed in one day to lose
+entirely the brave and energetic character which had hitherto been their
+safeguard. The Cimmerians seized town after town;** they descended from
+the basin of the Sangarios into that of the Bhyndakos; they laid waste
+the Troad, and, about 670 B.C., they established themselves securely in
+the stronghold of Antandros, opposite the magnificent AEolian island of
+Lesbos, and ere long their advanced posts were face to face on all sides
+with the outposts of Lydia.
+
+     * The date of 676 B.C. has been borrowed from Julius
+     Africanus by the Christian chronologists of the Byzantine
+     period; these latter made the fall of the Phrygian kingdom
+     coincide with the reign of Amon in Judaea, and this date is
+     accepted by most modern historians.
+
+     ** One fact alone, probably taken from the Lydiaca of
+     Xanthus, is known to us concerning their operations in
+     Phrygia, namely, the taking of Syassos and the capture of
+     enormous stores of corn which were laid up in the silos in
+     that city.
+
+Gyges resolutely held his own, and successfully repulsed them; but
+the struggle was too unequal between their vast hordes, recruited
+incessantly from their reserves in Thrace or the Caucasus, and his
+scanty battalions of Lydians, Carians, and Creeks. Unaided, he had
+no chance of reopening the great royal highway, which the fall of the
+Phrygian monarchy had laid at the mercy of the barbarians along the
+whole of its middle course, and yet he was aware that a cessation of the
+traffic which passed between the Euphrates and the Hermos was likely
+to lead in a short time to the decay of his kingdom. If the numerous
+merchants who were wont to follow this ancient traditional route were
+once allowed to desert it and turn aside to one of the coast-roads
+which might replace it--either that of the Pontus in the north or of the
+Mediterranean in the south--they might not be willing to return to it
+even when again opened to traffic, and Lydia would lose for ever one of
+her richest sources of revenue.*
+
+     * Radet deserves credit for being the first to point out the
+     economic reasons which necessarily led Gyges to make his
+     attempt at forming an alliance with Assur-bani-pal. He has
+     thus definitely dismissed the objections which some recent
+     critics had raised against the authenticity of this episode
+     in order to defend classic tradition and diminish the
+     authority of the Assyrian texts.
+
+We may well conceive that Gyges, whose fortune and very existence was
+thus in jeopardy, would seek assistance against these barbarians from
+the sovereign whose interests appeared identical with his own. The
+renown of the Assyrian empire had penetrated far into the west; the
+Achaens of Cyprus who were its subjects, the Greek colonists of Cilicia,
+and the soldiers whom the exigencies of the coast-trade brought to
+Syrian ports, must all have testified to its splendour; and the fame
+of its conquests over the Tabal and the peoples on the Halys had spread
+abroad more than once during the previous century, and had reached as
+far as the western extremity of the peninsula of Asia Minor, by means of
+the merchants of Sardes or Ionia. The Cimmerians had harassed Assyria,
+and still continued to be a source of anxiety to her rulers; Gyges
+judged that participation in a common hatred or danger would predispose
+the king in his favour, and a dream furnished him with a pretext for
+notifying to the court of Nineveh his desire to enter into friendly
+relations with it. He dreamed that a god, undoubtedly Assur, had
+appeared to him in the night, and commanded him to prostrate himself
+at the feet of Assur-bani-pal: "In his name thou shalt overcome thine
+enemies." The next morning he despatched horsemen to the great king,
+but when the leader of the embassy reached the frontier and met the
+Assyrians for the first time, they asked him, "Who, then, art thou,
+brother, thou from whose land no courier has as yet visited our
+country?" The language he spoke was unknown to them; they only gathered
+that he desired to be conducted into the presence of the king, and
+consequently sent him on to Nineveh under good escort. There the same
+obstacle presented itself, for none of the official interpreters at
+the court knew the Lydian tongue; however, an interpreter was at length
+discovered, who translated the story of the dream as best he could.
+Assur-bani-pal joyfully accepted the homage offered to him from such
+a far-off land, and from thenceforward some sort of alliance existed
+between Assyria and Lydia--an alliance of a very Platonic order, from
+which Gyges at least derived no sensible advantage. Some troops
+sent into the country of the White Syrians may have disquieted the
+Cimmerians, and, by causing a diversion in their rear, procured a
+respite for Lydia; but the caravan route across Asia Minor was only
+of secondary importance to the prosperity of Nineveh and the Syrian
+provinces, since the Phoenician navy provided sufficient outlets for
+their trade in the west. Assur-bani-pal lavished friendly speeches on
+the Lydians, but left them to bear the brunt of the attack alone, and
+devoutly thanked Assur for the security which their determined courage
+procured for the western frontier of his empire.
+
+The Cimmerian peril being, for the present at least, averted, there
+no longer remained any foe to trouble the peace of the empire on the
+northern or eastern frontier, Urartu, the Mannai, and the Medes having
+now ceased to be formidable. Urartu, incessantly exposed to the ravages
+of the barbarians, had drawn closer and closer to Assyria; and though
+not actually descending to the point of owning its rival's superiority
+in order to obtain succour against these terrible foes, it yet carefully
+avoided all pretexts for war, and persistently maintained friendly
+relations with its powerful neighbour. Its kings, Eusas II. and his
+successor Erimenas, no longer meditated feats of arms and successful
+raids, but devoted themselves to building their city walls, erecting
+palaces and temples, and planning pleasant retreats in the mountain
+fastnesses, where they lived surrounded by gardens planted at great
+cost, watered by streams brought thither from distant springs. The
+Mannai submitted without a murmur to their Assyrian governors, and the
+Medes, kept in check by the garrisons of Parsua and Kharkhar, seemed
+to have laid aside much of their fierce and turbulent disposition.
+Esarhaddon had endeavoured to conciliate the good will of Elam by a
+signal service. He had supplied its inhabitants with corn, wine, and
+provisions of all sorts during a famine which had afflicted the country
+about 670 B.C.; nor had his good will ended there. He refused to bring
+into servitude those Elamite subjects who had taken refuge with their
+families on Assyrian territory to escape the scourge, although the
+rights of nations authorised him so to do, but having nourished them
+as long as the dearth lasted, he then sent them back to their
+fellow-citizens. Urtaku of Elam had thenceforward maintained a kind of
+sullen neutrality, entering only into secret conspiracies against the
+Babylonian prefects on the Tigris. The Aramaeans in the valleys of the
+Ulai, indeed, were restless, and several of their chiefs, Bel-ikisha
+of the G-ambula, and Nabo-shumirish, plotted in secret with
+Marduk-shumibni, the Elamite general in command on the frontier. But no
+hint of this had yet transpired, and peace apparently reigned there as
+elsewhere. Never had the empire been so respected; never had it united
+so many diverse nations under one sceptre--Egyptians, Syrians, tribes of
+the Taurus, and the mountain districts round the Tigris and Euphrates,
+Mannai, Medes, Babylonians, and Arabs; never, moreover, had it possessed
+greater resources wherewith to compel obedience from the provinces or
+defend them against foreign attack.
+
+[Illustration: 187.jpg ASSUR-BANI-PAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs from
+     Kouyunjik in the British Museum.
+
+Doubtless the population of Assyria proper, and the ancient districts
+whose contingents formed the nucleus of the army, were still suffering
+from the results of the civil war which had broken out more than fifteen
+years before, after the assassination of Sennacherib; but under the easy
+rule of Esarhaddon the natural increase of population, unchecked by any
+extraordinary call for recruits, must have almost repaired their losses.
+The Egyptian campaigns, partially carried out by Syrian auxiliaries,
+had not sensibly retarded this progress, and, provided that peace were
+maintained for some years longer, the time seemed at hand when the king,
+having repaired his losses, could call upon the nation to make fresh
+efforts in offensive or defensive warfare, without the risk of seeing
+his people melt and disappear before his eyes. It seems, indeed, as if
+Assur-bani-pal, either by policy or natural disposition, was inclined
+for peace. But this did not preclude, when occasion demanded, his
+directing his forces and fighting in person like any other Assyrian
+monarch; he, however, preferred repose, and when circumstances forced
+war upon him, he willingly delegated the conduct of the army to his
+generals. He would probably have renounced possession of Egypt if he
+could have done so with safety and such a course would not have been
+without wisdom, the retention of this newly acquired province being
+difficult and costly. Not to speak of differences in language, religion,
+and manners, which would prevent it from ever becoming assimilated to
+Assyria as Damascus, Hamath, and Samaria, and most of the Asiatic states
+had been, it was merely connected with the rest of the empire by the
+thin chain of rocks, desert, and marshes stretching between the Red Sea
+and the Mediterranean. A revolt of the cities of the Philistines, or
+of one of the Idumsean sheikhs, would have sufficed to isolate it, and,
+communications once interrupted, the safety of the numerous Assyrian
+officers and garrisons would be seriously jeopardised, all of whom must
+be maintained there if the country was to be permanently retained. The
+inclination to meddle in the affairs of Syria always displayed by the
+Pharaohs, and their obsolete claims to rule the whole country as far as
+the Euphrates, did not allow of their autonomy being restored to them at
+the risk of the immediate renewal of their intrigues with Tyre or Judah,
+and the fomenting of serious rebellions among the vassal princes of
+Palestine. On the other hand, Egypt was by its natural position so
+detached from the rest of the empire that it was certain to escape
+from the influence of Nineveh as soon as the pressure of circumstances
+obliged the suzerain to relax his efforts to keep it in subjection.
+Besides this, Ethiopia lay behind Egypt, almost inaccessible in the
+fabled realms of the south, always ready to provoke conspiracies or
+renew hostilities when the occasion offered. Montumihait had already
+returned to Thebes on the retreat of the Assyrian battalions, and though
+Taharqa, rendered inactive, as it was said, by a dream which bade him
+remain at Napata,* had not reappeared north of the cataract, he had sent
+Tanuatamanu, the son of his wife by Sabaco, to administer the province
+in his name.** Taharqa died shortly after (666 B.C.), and his stepson
+was preparing to leave Thebes in order to be solemnly crowned at Gebel
+Barkal, when he saw one night in a dream two serpents, one on his right
+hand, the other on his left. The soothsayers whom he consulted on the
+matter prognosticated for him a successful career: "Thou holdest the
+south countries; seize thou those of the north, and let the crowns of
+the two regions gleam upon thy brow!" He proceeded at once to present
+himself before his divine father Amon of Napata, and, encountering no
+opposition from the Ethiopian priests or nobles, he was able to fulfil
+the prediction almost immediately after his coronation.***
+
+     * The legend quoted by Herodotus relates that Sabaco, having
+     slain Necho I., the father of Psammetichus, evacuated Egypt
+     which he had conquered, and retired to Ethiopia in obedience
+     to a dream. The name of Sabaco was very probably substituted
+     for that of Taharqa in the tradition preserved in Sais and
+     Memphis, echoes of which reached the Greek historian in the
+     middle of the fifth century B.C.
+
+     ** It appears, from the _Stele of the Dream_, that
+     Tanuatamanu was in the Thebaid at the time of his accession
+     to the throne.
+
+     *** Steindorff thinks that Tanuatamanu had been officially
+     associated with himself on the throne by Taharqa, and
+     Schsefer supposes that the dream dates from the first year
+     of their joint reign. The presence of Tanuatamanu beside
+     Taharqa, in the small Theban temple, the bas-reliefs of
+     which were published by Mariette, does not necessarily prove
+     that the two kings reigned conjointly: it may equally well
+     indicate that the one accomplished the work commenced by the
+     other.
+
+The Said hailed his return with joy, and the inhabitants, massed upon
+either bank of the river, acclaimed him as he glided past them on his
+boat: "Go in peace! mayest thou have peace! Restore life to Egypt!
+Rebuild the ruined temples, set up once more the statues and emblems
+of the deities! Reestablish the endowments raised to the gods and
+goddesses, even the offerings to the dead! Restore the priest to his
+place, that he may minister at all the rites!"
+
+The Assyrian officials and the princes of the north, with Necho at
+their head, were drawn up beneath the walls of Memphis to defy him. He
+overcame them, however, captured the city, and pushed on into the Delta
+in pursuit of the retreating foe. Necho either fell in a skirmish, or
+was taken prisoner and put to death: his son Psammetichus escaped to
+Syria, but the remaining princes shut themselves up, each in his own
+stronghold, to await reinforcements from Asia, and a series of tedious
+and interminable sieges began. Impatient at this dilatory method of
+warfare, Tanuatamanu at length fell back on Memphis, and there opened
+negotiations in the hope of securing at least a nominal submission,
+which might enable him to withdraw from the affair with honour.
+
+[Illustration: 190.jpg MURAL DECORATIONS FROM THE GROTTOES]
+
+The princes of the east received his overtures favourably, and consented
+to prostrate themselves before him at the White Wall under the auspices
+of Pakruru. "Grant us the breath of life, for he who acknowledges thee
+not cannot live, and we will be thy vassals, as thou didst declare at
+the beginning, on the day in which thou becamest king!"
+
+[Illustration: 191.jpg KING TANUATAMANU IN ADORATION BEFORE THE GODS OF
+THEBES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Legrain, taken in the
+     small temple at Thebes.
+
+The heart of his Majesty was filled with joy when he heard this
+discourse: he bestowed upon them in abundance bread, beer, and all
+manner of good things. After sojourning some days at the court of
+Pharaoh their lord, they said to him, "Why stay we here, O prince
+our master?" His Majesty replied, "Wherefore?" They answered then,
+"Graciously permit us to return to our own cities, that we may give
+commands to our subjects, and may bring thee our tribute offerings!"
+They returned ere long, bringing the promised gifts, and the king
+withdrew to Napata loaded with spoil.* The Delta proper at once ceased
+to obey him, but Memphis, as well as Thebes, still acknowledged his sway
+for some two or three years longer.**
+
+     * Tanuatamanu was at first identified by Haigh with the
+     person whose name Assyriologists read as Urdamani, but the
+     impossibility of recognising the name _Tanuatamanu_ in
+     _Urdamani_ decided E. de Rouge, and subsequently others, to
+     admit an Urdamani different from Tanuatamanu. The discovery
+     of the right reading of the name _Tandamanu_ by Steindorff
+     has banished all doubts, and it is now universally admitted
+     that the person mentioned in the Assyrian documents is
+     identical with the king who erected the _Stele of the Dream_
+     at Gebel Barkal.
+
+     ** A monument still exists which was dedicated at Thebes in
+     the third year of Tanuatamanu.
+
+It was neither indolence nor fear which had kept Assur-bani-pal from
+marching to the succour of his subjects as soon as the movement under
+Tanuatamanu became manifest, but serious complications had arisen in
+the south-east which had for the moment obliged him to leave Egypt to
+itself. Elam had at last laid aside the mask, and Urtaku, yielding
+to the entreaties of the Aramaean sheikhs, who were urged on by
+Marduk-shumibni, had crossed the Tigris. Shamash-shumukin, thus taken
+unawares, could only shut himself up in Babylon, and in all haste send
+information of his plight to his brother and suzerain. Assur-bani-pal,
+preoccupied with the events taking place on the Nile, was for a moment
+in doubt whether this incursion was merely a passing raid or the opening
+of a serious war, but the reports of his scouts soon left no doubt as to
+the gravity of the danger: "The Elamite, like a swarm of grasshoppers,
+covers the fields, he covers Accad; against Babylon he has pitched his
+camp and drawn out his lines." The city was too strong to be taken by
+storm. The Assyrians hastened to relieve it, and threatened to cut off
+the retreat of the aggressors: the latter, therefore, gave up the siege,
+and returned to their own country, but their demeanour was still so
+undaunted that Assur-bani-pal did not cross the frontier in pursuit of
+them (665 B.C.). He doubtless fully expected that they would soon return
+in larger numbers, and perhaps his fear would not have proved unfounded
+had not fate suddenly deprived them of all their leaders. Bel-ikisha
+was killed in hunting by a wild boar, Nabu-shumirish was struck down
+by dropsy, and Marduk-shumibni perished in a mysterious manner. Finally
+Urtaku succumbed to an attack of apoplexy, and the year which had been
+so fatal to his allies proved not less so to himself (664 B.C.). It
+now seemed as if Assur-bani-pal might breathe freely, and inflict his
+long-deferred vengeance on Tanuatamanu, but the death of Urtaku did not
+remove all causes of uneasiness. Peace was not yet concluded, and it
+depended on the new King of Elam whether hostilities would be renewed.
+Fortunately for the Assyrians, the transmission of power had rarely
+taken place at Susa for a century past without a disturbance, and Urtaku
+himself had gained the throne by usurpation, possibly accompanied by
+murder. As he had treated his elder brother Khumban-khaldash and the
+children of the latter, so did his younger brother Tammaritu now treat
+his sons. Tammaritu was "a devil" incarnate, whose whole thoughts were
+of murder and rapine; at least, this was the idea formed of him by his
+Assyrian contemporaries, who declared that he desired to put to death
+the sons of his two predecessors out of sheer cruelty. But we do not
+need a very vivid imagination to believe that these princes were anxious
+to dethrone him, and that in endeavouring to rid himself of them he
+was merely forestalling their secret plots. They escaped his murderous
+designs, however, and fled to Assyria,--Khumban-igash, Khumban-appa,
+and Tammaritu, sons of Uxtaku, and Kuduru and Parru, sons of
+Khumban-khaldash, followed by sixty other princes of royal blood,
+together with archers and servants--forming, in fact, a small army of
+Elamites. Assur-bani-pal received them with honour, for their defection
+furnished him with a powerful weapon against the usurper: by succouring
+them he could rouse half Elam and involve it in civil war, in which the
+pretenders would soon exhaust their resources. It was now a favourable
+moment to renew hostilities in Egypt, while Tammaritu, still insecure on
+his throne, would not venture to provoke a conflict.*
+
+     * The time of the war against Urtaku and the expedition
+     against Tanuatamanu is indicated by a passage in a cylinder
+     as yet unedited. There we read that the invasion of Urtaku
+     took place at the moment when Tanuatamanu ascended the
+     throne. These preliminary difficulties with Elam would thus
+     have coincided with the two years which elapsed between the
+     accession of Tanuatamanu and his conquest of Memphis, up to
+     the third year mentioned in the Berlin inscription; the
+     testimony of the Egyptian monuments would thus be in almost
+     complete accord with the Assyrian documents on this point.
+
+As a matter of fact, Tanuatamanu did not risk the defence of Memphis,
+but concentrated his forces at Thebes. Once more the Assyrian generals
+ascended the Nile, and, after a voyage lasting six weeks, at length
+reached the suburbs of the great city. Tanuatamanu had fled towards
+Kipkip, leaving Thebes at the mercy of the invaders. It was given up to
+pillage, its population was carried off into slavery, and its temples
+and palaces were despoiled of their treasures--gold, silver, metals,
+and precious stones, broidered and richly dyed stuffs, and horses of the
+royal stud.
+
+[Illustration: 195.jpg ASSYRIAN HELMET FOUND AT THEBES]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph by Petrie.
+
+Two of the obelisks which adorned the temple of Amon were taken down
+from their pedestals and placed on rafts to be transported to Nineveh,
+and we shall perhaps unearth them some day from its ruins. This work of
+reprisal accomplished, the conquerors made their way northwards, and the
+bulk of the army recrossed the isthmus: Ethiopian rule had ceased north
+of the cataract, and Egypt settled down once more under the Assyrian
+yoke (663-662 B.C.).*
+
+     * The dates which I have adopted follow from the date of 666
+     B.C. given for the death of Taharqa and the accession of
+     Psammetichus I. The expedition against Thebes must have
+     taken place at the end of the third or beginning of the
+     fourth year of the reign of Tanuatamanu, shortly after the
+     inscription of the third year, and was engraved either in
+     663 or 662 B.C. at the latest.
+
+Impoverished and decayed as Thebes had now long since become, the
+nations whom she had afflicted so sorely in the days of her glory had
+retained for her feelings of respect and almost of awe: the rumour
+of her fall, spread through the Eastern world, filled them with
+astonishment and pity. The Hebrews saw in it the chastisement inflicted
+by their God on the tyrant who had oppressed their ancestors, and their
+prophets used it to impress upon the minds of their contemporaries the
+vanity of human prosperity. Half a century later, when Nineveh, menaced
+in her turn, was desperately arming herself to repel the barbarians,
+Nahum the Elkoshite demanded of her, amid his fierce denunciations,
+whether she vaunted herself to be better than "No-amon (city of Amon),
+that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about her;
+whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and
+Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite. Put and Lubim (Libya and
+the Nubians) came to her succour. Yet was she carried away, she went
+into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top
+of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all
+her great men were bound in chains." Assur-bani-pal, lord of Egypt and
+conqueror of Ethiopia, might reasonably consider himself invincible;
+it would have been well for the princes who trembled at the name of
+Assur-bani-pal, if they had taken this lesson to heart, and had learned
+from the downfall of Tanuata-manu what fate awaited them in the event
+of their daring to arouse the wrath of Assyria by any kind of intrigue.
+Unfortunately, many of them either failed to see the warning or refused
+to profit by it. The Mannai had quickly recovered from the defeat
+inflicted on them by Esarhaddon, and their king, Akhsheri, in spite of
+his advancing years, believed that his own energy and resources were
+sufficient to warrant him in anticipating a speedy revenge. Perhaps
+a further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have
+induced him to venture on hostilities. For the king's contemporaries had
+begun to realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation,
+he was by nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and
+luxury. When not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures
+of the harem, he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian
+plains, or in the extensive parks which had been laid out by himself or
+his predecessors in the vicinity of their summer palaces. Urus-stalking
+had become merely a memory of the past: these animals had been so
+persistently hunted for centuries that the species had almost become
+extinct; solitary specimens only were occasionally met with in remote
+parts of the forest or in out-of-the-way marshes. The wild ass was still
+to be found in large numbers, as well as the goat, the ostrich, and
+small game, but the lion was now rarely met with, and the beaters were
+no longer sure of finding him in his ancient haunts. Specimens had to be
+sought by the royal gamekeepers in the provinces, and when successfully
+trapped were forthwith despatched to one or other of the king's country
+seats. The beast was often kept for several days in a cage while
+preparations were made for a fete, at which he was destined to form one
+of the chief attractions, and when the time came he was taken to the
+appointed place and let loose; the sovereign pursued him either in a
+chariot or on horseback, and did not desist from the chase till he had
+pierced his quarry with arrows or lance.
+
+[Illustration: 198.jpg A LION ISSUING FROM ITS CAGE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken from the
+     original in the British Museum.
+
+Frequently the beast would be turned loose in the park, and left there
+till accustomed to his surroundings, so that later on he might be
+run down under conditions somewhat resembling his native freedom.
+Assur-bani-pal did not shun a personal encounter with an infuriated
+lion; he displayed in this hazardous sport a bravery and skill which
+rivalled that of his ancestors, and he never relegated to another
+the task of leading the attack or dealing the final death-blow. This,
+however, was not the case when it was a question of starting on some
+warlike expedition; he would then leave to his Tartans, or to the
+Eabshakeh, or to some other chosen officer, the entire conduct of all
+operations.*
+
+     * We have seen, for example, that after the death of
+     Esarhaddon, the Egyptian campaign was conducted by one of
+     the Tartans and the Eabshakeh.
+
+This did not preclude the king from taking an interest in what was
+passing beyond the frontier, nor did he fail in his performance of the
+various religious duties which custom imposed on an Assyrian sovereign:
+he consulted the oracles of Shamash or Ishtar, he offered sacrifices, he
+fasted and humbled himself in the temples to obtain the success of his
+troops, and when they returned laden with spoil from the campaign, he
+attributed their victories no less to his prayers than to their courage
+or to the skill of their leaders. His generals, thoroughly equipped for
+their task, and well supported by their troops, had no need of the royal
+presence to ensure their triumph over any foe they might encounter;
+indeed, in the absence of the king they experienced a liberty of action
+and boldness in pressing their victories to the uttermost which they
+would not have enjoyed had he been in command. Foreigners, accustomed to
+see the sovereigns of Nineveh conduct their armies in person, as long
+as they were not incapacitated by age, thought that the indolence of
+Assur-bani-pal was the unconscious expression of weariness or of his
+feeble control of the empire, and Akhsheri determined to be one of the
+first to take advantage of it. Events proved that he was mistaken in his
+calculations. No sooner had his intentions become known, than a division
+of Assyrian troops appeared on his frontier, and prepared to attack him.
+Resolving to take the initiative, he fell one night unexpectedly upon
+the Assyrian camp, but fortune declared against him: he was driven back,
+and his broken ranks were closely pursued for a distance of twenty-three
+miles. Eight of his strongholds fell one after the other, and he was at
+length forced to abandon his capital of Izirtu, and flee precipitately
+to his fortress of Adrana in the heart of the mountains. Even there
+he did not find the security he desired, for the conqueror pursued him
+thither, methodically devastating by the way the districts through
+which he passed: he carried off everything--men, slaves, and herds of
+cattle--and he never retired from a city or village without previously
+setting it on fire. Paddir, Arsiyanish, and Eristiana were thus
+laid waste, after which the Assyrians returned to their camp, having
+re-established the authority of their master over several districts
+which had been lost to them for some generations previously. Akhsheri
+had shown no sign of yielding, but his people, weary of a hopeless
+resistance, put him to death, and hurling his corpse over the wall of
+Adrana, proclaimed his son Ualli as king. The new sovereign hastened to
+conclude a treaty with the Assyrians on reasonable terms: he gave up his
+eldest son, Erisinni, and one of his daughters as hostages, and promised
+to pay the former tribute augmented by an annual present of thirty
+horses; peace was not again disturbed on this side except by some
+unimportant skirmishes. In one of these, a Median chieftain, named
+Biriz-khadri, made an alliance with two princes of the people of the
+Sakhi, Sarati, and Parikhia, sons of Gagu,* to ravage the marches of
+the Greater Zab; but their territory was raided in return, and they
+themselves taken prisoners.
+
+     * The name of Biriz-khadri has an Iranian appearance. The
+     first element _Biriz_ recalls the Zend _bereza, berez_,
+     "tall, large;" the second, which appears in the names Bisi-
+     khadir and Khali-khadri, is of uncertain derivation, and has
+     been connected with _atar_, "fire," or with _Ichwathra_,
+     "brilliance." Gagu, which is found as the name of a people
+     (Gagati) in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, has been identified
+     from the first with the name of Gog, prince of Rosh,
+     Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix.) The name
+     of the country of Sakhi, which has not been met with
+     elsewhere, has been compared with that of the Sacaj, which
+     seems to have existed not only in the name of the province
+     of Sakascno mentioned by the classical geographers, but in
+     that of Shake known to the old Armenian geographers; the
+     country itself, however, as it seems to me, cannot be sought
+     in the direction of Sakaseno, and consequently the proposed
+     identification cannot hold good.
+
+A little later, Andaria, prince of Lubdi, forgetful of his oath of
+allegiance to the aged Esarhad-don, made a night attack on the towns of
+Kullimir and Ubbumi: the inhabitants armed in haste, and he was not
+only defeated, but was taken captive, and his head cut off to be sent
+to Nineveh. The garrisons and military colonies along the north-east
+frontier were constantly required to be on the alert; but they usually
+had sufficient available resources to meet any emergency, and the
+enemies who molested them were rarely dangerous enough to necessitate
+the mobilisation of a regular army.
+
+This was not the case, however, in the south-west, where Tiumman,
+counting on the military strength of Elam, made continual hostile
+demonstrations. He was scarcely settled on his throne before he hastened
+to form alliances with those Aramaean states which had so often invoked
+the aid of his predecessors against the ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. The
+Kalda rejected his proposals, as did most of the tribes of the littoral;
+but the Gambula yielded to his solicitations, and their king, Dunanu,
+son of Bel-ikisha, entered into an offensive and defensive alliance
+with Elam. Their defection left the eastern frontier of Karduniash
+unprotected, and, by opening to the Elamite the fords of the Tigris,
+permitted him to advance on Babylon unhindered by any serious obstacle.
+As soon as the compact was sealed, Tiumman massed his battalions on the
+middle course of the Uknu, and, before crossing the frontier, sent two
+of his generals, the Susian Khumba-dara and the Chaldean Nabu-damiq, as
+the bearers of an insolent ultimatum to the court of Nineveh: he offered
+the king the choice between immediate hostilities, or the extradition of
+the sons of Urtaku and Khumban-khaldash, as well as of their partisans
+who had taken refuge in Assyria. To surrender the exiles would have been
+an open confession of inferiority, and such a humiliating acknowledgment
+of weakness promptly reported throughout the Eastern world might
+shortly have excited a general revolt: hence Assur-bani-pal disdainfully
+rejected the proposal of the Elamite sovereign, which had been made
+rather as a matter of form than with any hope of its acceptance, but the
+issue of a serious war with Susa was so uncertain that his refusal was
+accompanied with serious misgivings. It needed many favourable omens
+from the gods to encourage him to believe in his future success. The
+moon-god Sin was the first to utter his prediction: he suffered eclipse
+in the month of Tammuz, and for three successive days, at nightfall,
+showed himself in the sky surrounded by strange appearances which
+heralded the death of a king in Elam, and foretold calamity to that
+country. Then Assur and Ishtar struck Tiumman with violent convulsions;
+they caused his lips and eyes to be horribly distorted, but he despised
+their warning, and as soon as his seizure had passed, set out to assume
+command of his army. The news of his action reached Nineveh in the month
+of Ab, on the morning of the solemn festival of Ishtar. Assur-bani-pal
+was at Arbela, celebrating the rites in honour of the goddess, when the
+messenger appeared before him and repeated, together with the terms of
+the declaration of war, the scornful words which Tiumman had uttered
+against him and his patroness: "This prince whose wits have been crazed
+by Ishtar--I will let him escape no more, when once I have gone forth
+and measured my strength against him!" This blasphemy filled the
+Assyrian king with horror. That very evening he betook himself to the
+sanctuary, and there, prostrate before the image of the goddess,
+he poured forth prayers mingled with tears: "Lady of Arbela, I am
+Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, the creature of thy hands, the
+offspring of a father whom thou didst create! Behold now, this Tiumman,
+the King of Elam, who despises the gods of Assyria, hath sent forth his
+host and prepared himself for the conflict; he hath called for his arms
+to rush to attack Assyria. Do thou, O archer of the gods, like a bolt
+falling in the midst of the battle, overthrow him, and let loose upon
+him a tempest, and an evil wind!" Ishtar heard his prayer, and her voice
+sounded through the gloom: "Fear not," said she, comforting him: "since
+thou hast raised thy hands to me in supplication, and thine eyes are
+bedewed with tears grant thee a boon!" Towards the end of that night,
+a seer slept in the temple and was visited by a dream. Ishtar of Arbela
+appeared to him, with a quiver on either side, a bow in one hand and a
+drawn sword in the other. She advanced towards the king, and spoke to
+him as if she had been his mother: "Make war boldly! whichever way thou
+turnest thy countenance, there will I go!" And the king replied to
+her, "Where thou goest, will I go with thee, sovereign lady!" But she
+answered, "Stay thou here. Dwell in this home of Nebo, eat thy food and
+drink thy wine, listen to joyful songs and honour my divinity, until I
+have gone and accomplished this work. Let not thy countenance grow pale,
+nor thy feet fail under thee, and expose not thyself to the danger of
+battle." "And then, O king," added the seer, "she hid thee in her bosom
+as a mother, and protected thy image. A flame shall spring forth before
+her, and shall spread abroad to destroy thine enemies: against Tiumman,
+King of Elam, who has angered her, has she set her face!" Like Minephtah
+of old, in the days of the Libyan invasions of Egypt, Assur-bani-pal
+allowed himself to be readily convinced by the decision of the gods;
+he did not quit Arbela, but gave orders to his troops to proceed to the
+front. His generals opened the campaign in the month of Em, and directed
+the main body of their forces against the fortress of Durilu, at the
+point on the frontier nearest to Susa. Tiumman was not expecting such
+a prompt and direct attack: he had reckoned doubtless on uniting his
+forces with those of Dunanu with a view to invading Karduniash, and
+suddenly realised that his adversary had forestalled him and was
+advancing on the heart of his empire. He slowly withdrew his advanced
+guard, and concentrated his forces round the town of Tulliz, a few
+leagues on this side of Susa, and there awaited the enemy's attack.*
+
+     * The site of Tulliz is unknown. Billerbock considers, and
+     with reason, I think, that the battle took place to the
+     south of Susa, on the river Shavur, which would correspond
+     to the Ulai, on the lowest spurs of the ridge of hills
+     bordering the alluvial plain of Susiana.
+
+His position was a strong one, flanked on the right by a wood and on the
+left by the Ulai, while the flower of the Elamite nobility was ranged
+around him. The equipment of his soldiers was simpler than that of the
+enemy: consisting of a low helmet, devoid of any crest, but furnished
+with a large pendant tress of horsehair to shade the neck; a shield of
+moderate dimensions; a small bow, which, however, was quite as deadly a
+weapon as that of the Assyrians, when wielded by skilful hands; a lance,
+a mace, and a dagger. He had only a small body of cavalry, but the
+chariotry formed an important force, and presented several original
+features. The chariot did not follow the classic model, rounded in front
+and open at the back; it was a kind of light car, consisting of a square
+footboard placed flat on the axle of the wheels, and furnished with
+triangular side-pieces on two sides only, the vehicle being drawn by a
+pair of horses. Such chariots were easier to manage, better adapted for
+rapid motion, and must have been more convenient for a reconnaissance
+or for skirmishes with infantry; but when thrown in a mass against
+the heavy chariotry of the peoples of the Euphrates, they were far too
+slightly built to overthrow the latter, and at close quarters were of
+necessity crushed by the superior weight of the adversary.
+
+[Illustration: 206.jpg ITUNI BREAKS HIS BOW WITH A BLOW OF HIS SWORD,
+AND GIVES HIMSELF UP TO THE EXECUTIONER]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the original
+     in the British Museum.
+
+[Illustration: 206b.jpg THE BATTLE OF TULLIZ]
+
+Tiumman had not succeeded in collecting all his forces before the first
+columns of the Assyrian army advanced to engage his front line, but
+as he was expecting reinforcements, he endeavoured to gain time by
+despatching Ituni, one of his generals, with orders to negotiate a
+truce.
+
+The Assyrian commander, suspecting a ruse, would not listen to any
+proposals, but ordered the envoy to be decapitated on the spot: Ituni
+broke his bow with a blow of his sword, and stoically yielded his
+neck to the executioner. The issue of the battle was for a long time
+undecided, but the victory finally remained with the heavy regiments of
+Assyria. The left wing of the Susians, driven into the Ulai, perished by
+drowning, and the river was choked with the corpses of men and horses,
+and the debris of arms and broken chariots. The right wing took to
+flight under cover of a wood, and the survivors tried to reach the
+mountains.
+
+[Illustration: 209.jpg URTAKU COUSIN OF TIUMMAN, SURRENDERING TO AN
+ASSYRIAN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum.
+
+Urtaku, the cousin of Tiumman, was wounded by an arrow; perceiving
+an Assyrian soldier coming up to him, he told him who he was, and
+recommended him to carry his head to the general: "He will pay you
+handsomely for it," he added. Tiumman had led in person several charges
+of his body-guard; and on being wounded, his son Tammaritu had succeeded
+in rescuing him from the thick of the fight: both seated together in a
+chariot, were in full flight, when one of the wheels caught against a
+tree and was shattered, the shock flinging the occupants to the ground.
+A large body of Assyrians were in close pursuit, led by one of the
+exiled Susian princes, a second Tam-maritu, son of Urtaku.
+
+[Illustration: 210.jpg THE LAST ARROW OF TIUMMAN AND HIS SON]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+
+At the first discharge an arrow wounded Tiumman in the right side, and
+brought him to his knee. He felt that all was over, and desiring at
+all events to be revenged, he pointed out the deserter prince to his
+companion, crying indignantly, "Let fly at him." The arrow missed its
+mark, and a flight of hostile darts stretched the young man on the
+ground: the traitor Tammaritu dealt the son his death-blow with his
+mace, while an Assyrian decapitated the father. The corpses were left on
+the field, but the head of the king, after being taken to the general
+in command, was carried through the camp on one of the chariots captured
+during the action, and was eventually sent to the palace of Arbela by
+the hand of a well-mounted courier.
+
+[Illustration: 211.jpg DEATH OF TIUMMAN AND HIS SON]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+
+The day concluded with the making of an inventory of the spoil, and by
+an enumeration of the heads of the slain: prisoners from the rank
+and file were beaten to death according to custom, and several of the
+principal officers had their tongues torn out or were flayed alive.
+The news of the disaster was brought to Susa towards evening by the
+fugitives, and produced a revolution in the city. The partisans of the
+exiled princes, seizing the adherents of Tiumman, put them in chains,
+and delivered them up to the conqueror. The shattered remnants of the
+army rallied round them, and a throng of men and women in festal garb
+issued forth along the banks of the Ulai to meet the Assyrians. The
+priests and sacred singers marched to the sound of music, marking the
+rhythm with their feet, and filling the air with the noise of their
+harps and double flutes, while behind them came a choir of children,
+chanting a hymn under the direction of the consecrated eunuchs.
+The Tartan met them, and, acting in accordance with the orders of
+Assur-bani-pal, presented to the multitude Khumban-igash, the eldest son
+of Urtaku, as their king. The people joyfully hailed the new sovereign,
+and the Assyrians, after exacting tribute from him and conferring the
+fief of Khaidalu on his brother Tammaritu, withdrew, leaving to the new
+princes the task of establishing their authority outside the walls of
+Susa and Madaktu. As they returned, they attacked the Gambula, speedily
+reducing them to submission. Dunanu, besieged in his stronghold of
+Shapibel, surrendered at discretion, and was carried away captive with
+all his family.
+
+[Illustration: 212.jpg Khumban-igash Proclaimed King]
+
+Thus Assur-bani-pal had scrupulously obeyed the orders of Ishtar. While
+his generals were winning his victories he had been eating and drinking,
+hunting, dallying with his wives, and living in the open air. He was
+taking his pleasure with the queen in the palace garden when the head of
+Tiumman was brought to him: he caused it to be suspended from the
+branch of a pine tree in full view of the whole court, and continued his
+banquet to the sound of harps and singing. Rusas III., King of Urartu,
+died about this time, and his successor, Sharduris III., thought it
+incumbent on him to announce his accession at Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal
+received the embassy at Arbela, with the graciousness befitting a
+suzerain whom a faithful vassal honours by his dutiful homage, and in
+order to impress the Urartians still further with an idea of his power,
+he showed them the two Elamite delegates, Khumba-dara and Nabu-damiq, in
+chains at his feet.*
+
+     * Belck and Lehmann have very ingeniously connected the
+     embassy, mentioned in the Assyrian documents, with the fact
+     of the accession of the king who sent it.
+
+[Illustration: 215.jpg THE HEAD OF THUMMAN SENT TO NINEVEH]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum. The chariot speeding along at a gallop in the
+     topmost series of pictures carries a soldier bearing the
+     head of Tiumraan in his hand; behind him, under a tent,
+     scribes are registering the heads which are brought in. In
+     the two lower bas-reliefs are displayed the closing scenes
+     of the battle.
+
+These wretched men had a more cruel ordeal yet in store for them: when
+the Assyrian army re-entered Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal placed them on the
+route along which the cortege had to pass, and made them realise to the
+full the humiliation of their country. Dunanu walked at the head of the
+band of captive chiefs, with the head of Tiumman, taken from its tree,
+suspended round his neck. When the delegates perceived it, they gave way
+to despair:
+
+Khumba-dara tore out his beard by handfuls, and Nabu-damiq, unsheathing
+the dagger which hung from his belt, plunged it into his own breast.
+
+[Illustration: 216.jpg ASSUR-BANI-PAL BANQUETING WITH HIS QUEEN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum The head of Tiumman hangs on the second tree
+     on the left-hand side.
+
+The triumphal entry was followed by the usual tortures. The head of
+Tiumman was fixed over the gate of Nineveh, to rot before the eyes of
+the multitude. Dunanu was slowly flayed alive, and then bled like a
+lamb; his brother Shamgunu had his throat cut, and his body was divided
+into pieces, which were distributed over the country as a warning. Even
+the dead were not spared: the bones of Nabu-shumirish were disinterred
+and transported to Assyria, where his sons were forced to bray them in a
+mortar.* We may estimate the extent of the alarm which had been felt at
+Nineveh by the outburst of brutal joy with which the victory was hailed.
+
+     * The fullest text of all those which narrate the campaign
+     against Tiumman and Dunanu is that on _Cylinder B of the
+     British Museum_. It pretends, as usual, that the king led
+     the army in person, but the words which the seer places in
+     the mouth of Ishtar prove that the king remained at Arbela
+     by divine command, and the inscription on one of the bas-
+     reliefs, as well as _Tablet K 2674_, mentions, without
+     giving his name, the general who was sent against Susa.
+
+[Illustration: 217.jpg TWO ELAMITE CHIEFS FLAYED ALIVE AFTER THE BATTLE
+OF TULLIZ]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British
+     Museum.
+
+The experience of the past showed what a terrible enemy Assyria had
+in Elam, and how slight was the chance of a successful issue in a war
+against her. Her kings had often invaded Chaldaea, and had more than once
+brought it directly under their sway; they had ravaged its cities and
+pillaged its temples, and the sanctuary of Susa were filled with statues
+of the gods or with bas-reliefs which they had dedicated after their
+campaigns on the Euphrates. Although they had not been successful
+against Assyria to the same extent, they had at least always
+victoriously repelled her attacks: they had held their own against
+Sargon, given much trouble to Sennacherib, and defied the power of
+Esarhaddon with impunity. Never till now had an Assyrian army gained
+such an important victory over Elam, and though it was by no means
+decisive, we can easily believe that Assur-bani-pal was filled with
+pride and delight, since it was the first time that a king of Nineveh
+had imposed on Elam a sovereign of his own choice.
+
+Since homage was voluntarily rendered him by the rulers of foreign
+nations, Assur-bani-pal doubtless believed that he might exact it
+without hesitation from the vassal princes dependent on the empire; and
+not from the weaker only like those who were still to be found in Syria,
+but also from the more powerful, not excepting the lord of Karduniash.
+Shamash-shumukin had fully risen to his position as King of Babylon, and
+the unbroken peace which he had enjoyed since the death of Urtaku had
+enabled him almost to complete the restoration of the kingdom begun
+under Esarhaddon. He had finished the rebuilding of the walls of
+Babylon, and had fortified the approaches to the city, thus rendering
+it capable of withstanding a long siege; he had repaired the temple of
+Sippara, which had never recovered from the Elamite invasion; and while
+unstintingly lavishing his treasures in honour of the gods and for the
+safety of his capital, he watched with jealous care over the interests
+of his subjects. He obtained for them the privilege of being treated
+on the same footing as the Assyrians throughout his father's ancestral
+domains; they consequently enjoyed the right of trading without
+restriction throughout the empire, and met with the same degree of
+protection from the officials of Nineveh as from the magistrates of
+their own country. Assur-bani-pal had at the outset furthered the wishes
+of his brother to the utmost of his power: he had granted the privileges
+demanded, and whenever a Chaldaean of noble birth arrived at his court,
+he received him with special marks of favour. The two states enjoyed
+a nearly absolute equality during the opening years of his reign, and
+though the will of Esarhaddon had made Babylon dependent on Assyria, the
+yoke of vassalage was far from heavy. The suzerain reserved to himself
+the honour of dedicating the mighty works begun by his father, the
+restoration of the temple of Bel-Marduk and of the double wall of
+fortification; he claimed, in his inscriptions, the whole merit of the
+work, but he none the less respected his brother's rights, and in no
+way interfered in the affairs of the city except in state ceremonies
+in which the assertion of his superior rank was indispensable. But with
+success his moderation gradually gave place to arrogance. In proportion
+as his military renown increased, he accentuated his supremacy, and
+accustomed himself to treat Babylon more and more as a vassal state.
+After the conquest of Elam his infatuated pride knew no bounds, and the
+little consideration he still retained for Shamash-shumukin vanished
+completely. He thenceforward refused to regard him as being more than
+a prefect bearing a somewhat higher title than his fellows, a viceroy
+owing his crown, not to the will of their common father, but to the
+friendship of his brother, and liable to be deprived of it at any moment
+through the caprice of the sovereign. He affected to consider all that
+took place at Babylon as his own doing, and his brother as being merely
+his docile instrument, not deserving mention any more than the ordinary
+agents who carried out his designs; and if, indeed, he condescended to
+mention him, it was with an assumption of disdainful superiority. It is
+a question whether Shamash-Shumukin at this juncture believed that his
+brother was meditating a design to snatch the reins of government from
+his hand, or whether he merely yielded to the impulse of wounded vanity
+in resolving to shake off a yoke which had become intolerable. Knowing
+that his power was not equal to that of Assur-bani-pal, he sought to
+enter into relations with foreign allies who shared the same fears, or
+nursed a similar feeling of bitterness. The nobles and priests of the
+ancient Sumerian and Accadian cities were already on his side, but the
+Aramaeans had shown themselves hostile at his accession, and had brought
+down on him the forces of Elam. He found means, however, to conciliate
+them, together with the tribes which dwelt on the Tigris and the Uknu,
+as well as those of the lower Euphrates and the Arabian desert. He won
+over to his projects Nabu-belzikri, the chief of the Kalda--grandson of
+that Merodach-baladan who had cherished invincible hatred against Sargon
+and Sennacherib--besides the lords of the Bit-Dakkuri and Bit-Amukkani,
+and the sheikh of the Pukudu. Khumban-igash ought to have remained
+loyal to the friend to whom he owed his kingdom, but he chafed at the
+patronage of Assyria, and Assur-bani-pal had just formulated a demand to
+which he, not unreasonably, hesitated to accede. The archaic statue of
+Nana, stolen from Uruk by Kutur-nakhunta sixteen centuries before,
+and placed by that prince in one of the temples of Susa, had become so
+naturalised in its new abode that the kings of Elam, not content with
+rendering it an official cult, were wont to send presents to Babylonia,
+to the image which had replaced it in its original sanctuary.
+Assur-bani-pal now required Khumban-igash to give back the original
+statue, but the Elamite could not obey this mandate without imperilling
+both his throne and his person: he would thereby have risked incurring
+the displeasure both of the nobles, whose pride would have suffered at
+the loss of so precious a trophy, and of the common people, who would
+have thus been deprived of one of their most venerable objects of
+devotion. The messengers of Shamash-shumukin, arriving at the moment
+when this question was agitating the court of Susa, found the way
+already prepared for a mutual understanding. Besides, they held in their
+hands an irresistible argument, the treasures of Bel-Marduk of Babylon,
+of Nebo of Borsippa, and of Nergal of Kuta, which had been confided to
+them by the priests with a view to purchasing, if necessary, the support
+of Elam. Khumban-igash thereupon promised to send a detachment of troops
+to Karduniash, and to invade the provinces of Assyria the moment war
+should be declared. The tribes of Guti were easily won over, and were
+followed by the kings of Phoenicia and the Bedawin of Melukhkha, and
+perhaps Egypt itself was implicated in the plot. The Prince of Kedar,
+Amuladdin, undertook to effect a diversion on the frontiers of Syria,
+and Uate, son of Layali, one of the Arab kings who had paid homage to
+Esarhaddon, was not behindhand in furnishing his contingent of horsemen
+and wild native infantry. The coalition already extended from the
+shores of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf before
+Assur-bani-pal became aware of its existence. An unforeseen occurrence
+suddenly broke in upon his peace and revealed the extent of the peril
+which threatened him.*
+
+     * The chronology of this war has been determined by G. Smith
+     from the dates attached to the documents in the British
+     Museum, which give the names of three _limmi_, Assur-
+     durnzur, Zagabbu, and Bel-kharran-shadua: these he assigned
+     respectively to the years 650, 649, and 648 B.C. Tiele has
+     shown that these three _limmi_ must be assigned to the years
+     652-650 B.C. Though these dates seem in the highest degree
+     probable, we must wait before we can consider them as
+     absolutely certain till chance restores to us the missing
+     parts of the Canon.
+
+Kudur, the Assyrian prefect of Uruk, learnt from Sin-tabni-uzur,
+the governor of Uru, that certain emissaries of Shamash-shumukin had
+surreptitiously entered that city and were secretly fomenting rebellion
+among the people. Sin-tabni-uzur himself had been solicited to join the
+movement, but had absolutely refused to do so, and considering himself
+powerless to repress the disaffection with the few soldiers at his
+disposal, he had demanded reinforcements. Kudur first furnished him
+with five hundred men of his own troops, and subsequently sent some
+battalions which were under the command of the governors of Arrapkha
+and Amidi, but which were, for some unknown reason, encamped in the
+neighbourhood. It would appear that Shamash-shumukin, finding his
+projects interfered with by this premature exposure, tried to counteract
+its effects by protestations of friendship: a special embassy was
+despatched to his brother to renew the assurances of his devotion, and
+he thus gained the time necessary to complete his armaments. As soon as
+he felt himself fully prepared, he gave up further dissimulation, and,
+throwing away the mask, proclaimed himself independent of Assyria, while
+at the same moment Khumban-igash despatched his army to the frontier and
+declared war on his former protector. Assur-bani-pal was touched to the
+quick by what he truly considered the ingratitude of the Babylonians.
+"As for the children of Babylon, I had set them upon seats of honour,
+I had clothed them in robes of many colours, I had placed rings of gold
+upon their fingers; the children of Babylon had been established in
+Assyria, and were admitted into my presence. But Shamash-shumukin, the
+false brother, he has not observed my ordinances, but has raised against
+me the peoples of Akkad, the Kalda, the Aramaeans, the peoples of the
+country of the sea, from Akabah to Bab-salimeti!" Nineveh was at first
+in a state of trepidation at this unexpected blow; the sacred oracles
+gave obscure replies, and presaged evil four times out of five. At last,
+one day, a seer slept and dreamed a dream, in which he saw this
+sentence written on the ground in the temple of Sin: "All those who are
+meditating evil against Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, and who
+are preparing themselves to fight with him, I will inflict on them
+a terrible death: by the swift sword, by flinging them into fire, by
+famine and by pestilence, will I destroy their lives!" The courage
+of the people being revived by this prophecy, Assur-bani-pal issued a
+proclamation to the Babylonians, in which he denounced his brother's
+treason, and commanded them to remain quiet as they valued their lives,
+and, having done this, he boldly assumed the offensive (652 B.C.).*
+
+     * The proclamation is dated in the eponymous year of Assur-
+     duruzur, corresponding to 652 B.C.; the events which
+     immediately preceded the proclamation ought, very probably,
+     to be assigned to the same year.
+
+The only real danger came from the side of Elam; this state alone was
+in a condition to oppose him with as numerous and determined an army as
+that which he himself could put into the field; if Blam were disabled,
+it would be impossible for Babylon to be victorious, and its fall would
+be a mere question of time. The opening of the campaign was a difficult
+matter. Khumban-igash, having sold his support dearly, had at all events
+spared no pains to satisfy his employer, and had furnished him with the
+flower of his nobility, comprising Undashi, one of the sons of Tiumman;
+Zazaz, prefect of Billate; Parru, chief of Khilmu; Attamitu, commanding
+the archers; and Nesu, commander-in-chief of his forces. In order to
+induce Undashi to serve under him, he had not hesitated to recall to his
+memory the sad fate of Tiumman: "Go, and avenge upon Assyria the murder
+of the father who begat thee!" The two opposing forces continued to
+watch one another's movements without any serious engagement taking
+place during the greater part of the year 651 B.C.; though the Assyrians
+won some slight advantages, killing Attamitu in a skirmish and sending
+his head to Nineveh, some serious reverses soon counterbalanced these
+preliminary successes. Nabo-bel-shumi had arrived on the scene with his
+Aramaean forces, and had compelled the troops engaged in the defence
+of Uruk and Uru to lay down their arms: their leaders, including
+Sin-tabni-uzur himself, had been forced to renounce the supremacy of
+Assyria, and had been enrolled in the rebel ranks.*
+
+     * The official accounts say nothing of the intervention of
+     Nabo-bel-shumi at this juncture, but the information
+     furnished by _Tablet K 159_ in the British Museum makes up
+     for their silence. The objection raised by Tielo to the
+     interpretation given by G. Smith that this passage cannot
+     refer to Assyrian deserters, falls to the ground if one
+     admits that the Assyrian troops led into Elam at a
+     subsequent period by Nabo-bel-shumi, were none other than
+     the garrisons of the Lower Euphrates which were obliged to
+     side with the insurgents in 651 B.C. The two despatches, _K
+     4696_ and _K 28_ in the British Museum, which refer to the
+     defection of Sin-tabni-uzur, are dated the 8th and 11th Abu
+     in the eponymous year of Zagabbu, corresponding to the year
+     651 B.C., as indicated by Tiele with very good reason.
+
+Operations seemed likely to be indefinitely prolonged, and
+Assur-bani-pal, anxious as to the issue, importunately besought the
+gods to intervene on his behalf, when discords breaking out in the royal
+family of Elam caused the scales of fortune once more to turn in his
+favour. The energy with which Khumban-igash had entered on the present
+struggle had not succeeded in effacing the disagreeable impression left
+on the minds of the majority of his subjects, by the fact that he had
+returned to his country in the chariots of the stranger and had been
+enthroned by the decree of an Assyrian general. Tammaritu, of Khaidalu,
+who had then fought at his side in the ranks of the invaders, was
+now one of those who reproached him most bitterly for his conduct. He
+frankly confessed that his hand had cut off the head of Tiumman, but
+denied that he did so in obedience to the hereditary enemies of
+his country; he had but avenged his personal injuries, whereas
+Khumban-igash, following the promptings of ambition, had kissed the
+ground at the feet of a slave of Assur-bani-pal and had received the
+crown as a recompense for his baseness. Putting his rival to death,
+Tammaritu seized the throne, and in order to prove that he was neither
+consciously nor unconsciously an instrument of Ninevite policy, he at
+once sent reinforcements to the help of Babylon without exacting
+in return any fresh subsidy. The Assyrians, taking advantage of the
+isolated position of Shamash-shumukin, had pressed forward one of their
+divisions as far as the districts on the sea coast, which they had
+recovered from the power of Nabo-bel-shumi, and had placed under the
+administration of Belibni, a person of high rank. The arrival of the
+Elamite force was on the point of further compromising the situation,
+and rekindling the flames of war more fiercely than ever, when a
+second revolution broke out, which shattered for ever the hopes of
+Shamash-shumukin. Assur-bani-pal naturally looked upon this event as the
+result of his supplications and sacrifices; Assur and Ishtar, in answer
+to his entreaties, raised up Indabigash, one of the most powerful feudal
+lords of the kingdom of Susa, and incited him to revolt. Tarnmaritu fled
+to the marshes which bordered the Nar-marratum, and seizing a vessel,
+put out to sea with his brothers, his cousins, seventeen princes of
+royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers: the ship, driven by
+the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the dethroned monarch,
+demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the confusion had
+not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried him safely to
+land across the mud. Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh with all his
+suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble himself before
+him, raised him from the ground, embraced him, and assigned to him
+apartments in the palace and a train of attendants befitting the dignity
+which he had enjoyed for a short time at Susa. Indabigash was too fully
+occupied with his own affairs to interfere again in the quarrel between
+the two brothers: his country, disorganised by the successive shocks
+it had sustained, had need of repose, for some years at least, before
+re-entering the lists, except at a disadvantage. He concluded no direct
+treaty with the Assyrian king, but he at once withdrew the troops which
+had entered Karduniash, and abstained from all hostile demonstrations
+against the garrisons of the border provinces: for the moment, indeed,
+this was all that was required of him (650 B.C.).
+
+Deprived of the support of Elam, Babylon was doomed to fall. The
+Aramaeans deserted her cause, and Nabu-bel-shumi, grandson of
+Merodach-baladan, despairing of ever recovering the heritage of his
+family, withdrew to his haunts among the reed beds of the Uknu, taking
+back with him as hostages the Assyrians whom he had forced to join his
+army at the beginning of the campaign. Shamash-shumukin, however, was
+not disconcerted: he probably hoped that his distant allies might
+yet effect a diversion in his favour, and thus oblige his brother to
+withdraw half of the forces employed against him. Indeed, after the
+blockade had already begun, a band of Arabs under the two sheikhs
+Abiyate and Aamu forced a way through the besieging lines and entered
+the city. This was the last succour which reached Babylon from without:
+for many long months all communication between her citizens and the
+outer world was completely cut off. The Assyrians laid waste the
+surrounding country with ruthless and systematic cruelty, burning the
+villages, razing to the ground isolated houses, destroying the trees,
+breaking down the dykes, and filling up the canals. The year 649 B.C.
+was spent in useless skirmishes; the city offered an energetic and
+obstinate resistance, and as the walls were thick and the garrison
+determined, it would not have succumbed had not the supply of provisions
+finally failed. Famine raged in the city, and the inhabitants devoured
+even their own children, while pestilence spreading among them mowed
+them down by thousands.
+
+[Illustration: 228.jpg THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE REIGN OF ASSUR-BANI-PAL]
+
+The Arab auxiliaries at this juncture deserted the cause of the
+defenders, and their sheikhs surrendered to Assur-bani-pal, who received
+and pardoned them; but the Babylonians themselves, knowing that they
+could expect no mercy, held out some time longer: at length, their
+courage and their strength exhausted, they rose against their chiefs,
+whose ambition or patriotic pride had brought them to such a pass, and
+determined to capitulate on any terms. Shamash-shumukm, not wishing to
+fall alive into the hands of his brother, shut himself up in his
+palace, and there immolated himself on a funeral pyre with his wives
+his children, his slaves, and his treasures at the moment when his
+conquerors were breaking down the gates and penetrating into the palace
+precincts.*
+
+     * G. Smith thought that the Babylonians, rendered furious by
+     their sufferings, had seized Shamash-shumukin and burnt him
+     to death. It is, however, certain that Shamash-shumukin
+     killed himself, according to the Eastern custom, to escape
+     the tortures which awaited him if he fell alive into the
+     hands of his enemies. The memory of this event, transferred
+     by the popular imagination to Assur-bani-pal, appears lu the
+     concluding portion of the legendary history of Sardanapalus.
+
+The city presented a terrible spectacle, and shocked even the Assyrians,
+accustomed as they were to horrors of this sort. Most of the numerous
+victims to pestilence or famine lay about the streets or in the public
+squares, a prey to the dogs and swine; such of the inhabitants and of
+the soldiery as were comparatively strong had endeavoured to escape into
+the country, and only those remained who had not sufficient strength
+left to drag themselves beyond the walls. Assur-bani-pal pursued the
+fugitives, and, having captured nearly all of them, vented on them the
+full fury of his vengeance. He caused, the tongues of the soldiers to
+be torn out, and then had them clubbed to death. He massacred the common
+folk in front of the great winged bulls which had already witnessed
+a similar butchery half a century before, under his grandfather
+Sennacherib; the corpses of his victims remained long unburied, a prey
+to all unclean beasts and birds. When the executioners and the king
+himself were weary of the slaughter, the survivors were pardoned; the
+remains of the victims were collected and piled up in specified
+places, the streets were cleansed, and the temples, purified by solemn
+lustrations, were reopened for worship.* Assur-hani-pal proclaimed
+himself king in his brother's room: he took the hands of Bel, and,
+according to custom, his Babylonian subjects gave him a new name, that
+of Kandalanu, by which he was henceforth known among them.**
+
+     * The date of 648-647 B.C. for the taking of Babylon and the
+     death of Shamash-shumukin is corroborated by the Canon of
+     Ptolemy and the fragments of Berosus, both of which
+     attribute twenty or twenty-one years to the reign of
+     Saosdukhm (Sammughes). Lehmann points out a document dated
+     in the XXth year of Shamash-shumukin, which confirms the
+     exactitude of the information furnished by the Greek
+     chronologists.
+
+     ** The Canon of Ptolemy gives as the successor of Saosdukhm
+     a certain Kineladan, who corresponds to Kandalanu, whose
+     date has been fixed by contemporary documents. The identity
+     of Kineladan with Assur-bani-pal was known from the Greek
+     chronologists, for whereas Ptolemy puts Kineladan after
+     Saosdukhm, the fragments of Berosus state that the successor
+     of Sammughes was his _brother_; that is to say, Sardanapalus
+     or Assur-bani-pal. This identification had been proposed by
+     G. Smith, who tried to find the origin of the form Kineladan
+     in the name of Sinidinabal, which seems to be borne by
+     Assur-bani-pal in _Tablet K 195 of the British Museum_, and
+     which is really the name of his elder brother; it found
+     numerous supporters as soon as Pinches had discovered the
+     tablets dated in the reign of Kandalanu, and the majority of
+     Assyriologists and historians hold that Kandalanu and Assur-
+     bani-pal are one and the same person.
+
+Had he been wise, he would have completed the work begun by famine,
+pestilence, and the sword, and, far from creating, a new Babylon, he
+would have completed the destruction of the ancient city. The same
+religious veneration which had disarmed so many of his predecessors
+probably withheld him from giving free rein to his resentment, and
+not daring to follow the example of Sennacherib, he fell back on the
+expedient adopted by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon, adhering to their
+idea of two capitals for two distinct states, but endeavouring to unite
+in his own person the two irreconcilable sovereignties of Marduk
+and Assur. He delegated the administration of Babylonian affairs to
+Shamash-danani, one of his high officers of State,* and re-entered
+Nineveh with an amount of spoil almost equalling that taken from Egypt
+after the sack of Thebes.
+
+     * Tin's Shamash-danani, who was _limmu_ in 644 B.C., was
+     called at that date prefect of Akkad, that is to say, of
+     Babylon. He probably entered on this office immediately
+     after the taking of the city.
+
+Kuta, Sippara, and Borsippa, the vassal states of Babylon, which had
+shared the misfortune of their mistress, were, like her, cleared of
+their ruins, rebuilt and repeopled, and were placed under the authority
+of Shamash-danani: such was their inherent vitality that in the short
+space of ten or a dozen years they had repaired their losses and
+reattained their wonted prosperity. Soon no effect of their disaster
+remained except an additional incentive for hating Nineveh, and a
+determination more relentless than ever not to spare her when the day of
+her overthrow should come and they should have her in their power.
+
+It was impossible for so violent and so prolonged a crisis to take place
+without in some degree injuring the prestige of the empire. Subjects
+and allies of long standing remained loyal, but those only recently
+subjugated by conquest, as well as the neighbouring independent
+kingdoms, without hesitation threw off the yoke of suzerainty or of
+obligatory friendship under which they had chafed. Egypt freed herself
+from foreign domination as soon as the possibilities of war with Elam
+had shown themselves, and it was Psammetichus of Sais, son of Necho, one
+of the princes most favoured by the court of Nineveh, who set on foot
+this campaign against his former patron. He expelled the Assyrian
+garrisons, reduced the petty native princes to submission, and once
+more set up the kingdom of the Pharaohs from Elephantine to the Syrian
+desert, without Assur-bani-pal having been able to spare a single
+soldier to prevent him, or to bring him back to a sense of his duty. The
+details of his proceedings are unknown to us: we learn only that he owed
+his success to mercenaries imported from Asia Minor, and the Assyrian
+chroniclers, unaccustomed to discriminate between the different peoples
+dwelling on the shores of the AEgean, believed that these auxiliaries
+were supplied to the Pharaoh by the only sovereign with whom they had
+had any dealings, namely, Gyges, King of Lydia. That Gyges had had
+negotiations with Psammetichus and procured assistance for him has not
+yet been proved, but to assert that he was incapable of conceiving and
+executing such a design is quite a different matter. On the contrary,
+all the information we possess concerning his reign shows that he was
+daring in his political undertakings, and anxious to court
+alliances with the most distant countries. The man who tried to draw
+Assur-bani-pal into a joint enterprise against the Cimmerians would not
+have hesitated to ally himself with Psammetichus if he hoped to gain
+the least profit from so doing. Constant intercourse by sea took place
+between Ionia or Caria and Egypt, and no event of any importance
+could occur in the Delta without being promptly reported in Ephesus or
+Miletus. Before this time the Heraclid rulers of Sardes had lived on
+excellent terms with most of the AEolian or Ionian colonies: during the
+anxious years which followed his accession Gyges went still further, and
+entered into direct relations with the nations of Greece itself. It was
+no longer to the gods of Asia, to Zeus of Telmissos, that he addressed
+himself in order to legitimatise his new sovereignty, but, like Midas
+of Phrygia, he applied to the prophetic god of Hellas, to the Delphian
+Apollo and his priests.
+
+[Illustration: 235.jpg PSAMMETICHUS I.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+
+He recompensed them lavishly for pronouncing judgment in his favour:
+beside the silver offerings with which he endowed the temple at Delphi,
+he presented to it a number of golden vases, and, among others, six
+craters weighing thirty talents each, which, placed by the side of the
+throne of Midas, were still objects of admiration in the treasury of the
+Corinthians in the time of Herodotus. To these he added at various times
+such valuable gifts that the Pythian priestess, who had hitherto been
+poor, was in later times accounted to have owed to him her wealth.
+Having made sure of the good will of the immortals, Gyges endeavoured to
+extend his influence among the Greek colonies along the coast, and if he
+did not in every case gain a footing amongst them, his failure seems to
+have been due, not to his incapacity, but to the force of circumstances
+or to the ambiguous position which he happened to occupy with regard to
+these colonies. Ambition naturally incited him to annex them and make
+them into Lydian cities, but the bold disposition of their inhabitants
+and their impatience of constraint never allowed any foreign rule to
+be established over them: conquest, to be permanent, would have to be
+preceded by a long period of alliance on equal terms, and of discreet
+patronage which might insensibly accustom them to recognise in their
+former friend, first a protector, and then a suzerain imbued with
+respect for their laws and constitution. Gyges endeavoured to conciliate
+them severally, and to attach them to himself by treaties favourable
+to their interests or flattering to their vanity, and by timely and
+generous assistance in their internecine quarrels; and thus, secretly
+fostering their mutual jealousies, he was able to reduce some by force
+of arms without causing too much offence to the rest. He took Colophon,
+and also, after several fruitless campaigns, the Magnesia which lay
+near Sardes, Magnesia of Sipylos, tradition subsequently adorning
+this fortunate episode in his history with various amusing anecdotes.
+According to one account he had a favourite in a youth of marvellous
+beauty called Magnes, whom the Magnesians, as an act of defiance to
+Gryges, had mutilated till he was past recognition; and it was related
+that the king appealed to the fortune of war to avenge the affront. By
+a bold stroke he seized the lower quarters of Smyrna, but was unable to
+take the citadel,* and while engaged in the struggle with this city, he
+entered into a friendly understanding with Ephesus and Miletus.
+
+     * Herodotus mentions this war without entering into any
+     details. We know from Pausanias that the people of Smyrna
+     defended themselves bravely, and that the poet Mimnermus
+     composed an elegy on this episode in their history.
+
+Ephesus, situated at the mouth of the river Oayster, was the natural
+port of Sardes, the market in which the gold of Lydia, and the
+commodities imported from the East by the caravans which traversed the
+royal route, might be exchanged for the products of Hellas and of the
+countries of the West visited by the Greek mariners. The city was at
+this time under the control of a family of rich shipowners, of whom the
+head was called Melas: Gryges gave him his daughter in marriage, and
+by this union gained free access to the seaboard for himself and his
+successors. The reason for his not pushing his advantages further in
+this direction is not hard to discover; since the fall of the kingdom
+of Phrygia had left his eastern frontier unprotected, the attacks of the
+Cimmerians had obliged him to concentrate his forces in the interior,
+and though he had always successfully repulsed them, the obstinacy with
+which these inroads were renewed year after year prevented him from
+further occupying himself with the Greek cities. He had carefully
+fortified his vast domains in the basin of the Ehyndakos, he had
+reconquered the Troad, and though he had been unable to expel the
+barbarians from Adramyttium, he prevented them from having any inland
+communications. Miletus rendered vigorous assistance in this work of
+consolidating his power, for she was interested in maintaining a buffer
+state between herself and the marauders who had already robbed her
+of Sinope; and it was for this reason that Gyges, after mercilessly
+harassing her at the beginning of his reign, now preferred to enter into
+an alliance with her. He had given the Milesians permission to establish
+colonies along the Hellespont and the Propontid at the principal
+points where communication took place between Europe and Asia; Abydos,
+Lampsacus, Parium, and Cyzicus, founded successively by Milesian
+admirals, prevented the tribes which remained in Thrace from crossing
+over to reinforce their kinsfolk who were devastating Phrygia.
+
+Gryges had hoped that his act of deference would have obtained for him
+the active support of Assur-bani-pal, and during the following years he
+perseveringly continued at intervals to send envoys to Nineveh: on one
+occasion he despatched with the embassy two Cimmerian chiefs taken in
+battle, and whom he offered in token of homage to the gods of Assyria.
+Experience, however, soon convinced him that his expectations were vain;
+the Assyrians, far from creating a diversion in his favour, were
+careful to avoid every undertaking which might draw the attention of
+the barbarians on themselves. As soon as Gyges fully understood their
+policy, he broke off all connection with them, and thenceforth relied on
+himself alone for the protection of his interests. The disappointment he
+thus experienced probably stirred up his anger against Assyria, and
+if he actually came to the aid of Psammetichus, the desire of giving
+expression to a secret feeling of rancour no doubt contributed to his
+decision. Assur-bani-pal deeply resented this conduct, but Lydia was too
+far off for him to wreak his vengeance on it in a direct manner, and he
+could only beseech the gods to revenge what he was pleased to consider
+as base ingratitude: he therefore prayed Assur and Ishtar that "his
+corpse might lie outstretched before his enemies, and his bones be
+scattered far and wide." A certain Tugdami was at that time reigning
+over the Cimmerians, and seems to have given to their hitherto
+undisciplined hordes some degree of cohesion and guidance.*; He gathered
+under his standard not only the Treres, the Thracian kinsfolk of the
+Cimmerians, but some of the Asianic tribes, such as the Lycians,** who
+were beginning to feel uneasy at the growing prosperity of Gyges, and
+let them loose upon their Lydian quarry.
+
+     * The name Tugdami, mentioned in the hymn published by
+     Strong, has been identified by Sayce with the Cimmerian
+     chief mentioned by Strabo under the name of Lygdamis. The
+     opinion of Sayce has been adopted by other Assyriologists.
+     The inscription makes Tugdami a king of the Manda, and thus
+     overthrows the hypothesis that Lygdamis or Dygdamis was a
+     Lycian chief who managed to discipline the barbarian hordes.
+
+     ** The alliance of the Lycians with the Cimmerians and
+     Treres is known from the evidence of Callisthenes preserved
+     for us by Strabo. It is probable that many of the marauding
+     tribes of the Taurus--Isaurians, Lycaonians, and
+     Painphylians--similarly joined the Cimmerians.
+
+Their heavy cavalry, with metal helmets and long steel swords, overran
+the peninsula from end to end, treading down everything under their
+horses' hoofs. Gyges did his best to stand up against the storm, but
+his lancers quailed beneath the shock and fled in confusion: he himself
+perished in the flight, and his corpse remained in the enemy's hands
+(652 B.C.). The whole of Lydia was mercilessly ravaged, and the lower
+town of Sardes was taken by storm.*
+
+     * Strabo states definitely that it was Lygdamis who took the
+     city. The account given by the same author of a double
+     destruction of Sardes in 652 and 682 B.C. is due to an
+     unfortunate borrowing from the work of Caliisthenes.
+
+[Illustration: 240.jpg BATTLE OF THE CIMMERIANS AGAINST THE GREEKS
+ACCOMPANIED BY THEIR DOGS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sarcophagus of Clazomenae.
+
+Ardys, who had succeeded his father on the throne, was able, however,
+to save the citadel: he rallied around him the remnants of his army and
+once more took the field. The cities of Ionia made common cause with
+him; their hoplites issued victorious from more than one engagement, and
+their dogs, trained to harry fearlessly the horses of the enemy, often
+took an active part in the battle. City after city was attacked by the
+barbarians, and the suburbs plundered. Ephesus, on account of the wealth
+it contained, formed their chief attraction, but their forces dashed
+themselves fruitlessly against its walls; they avenged themselves for
+their failure by setting on fire the temple of Artemis which stood
+in the outskirts. This act of sacrilege profoundly stirred the whole
+Hellenic world, and when the first fury of pillage was exhausted, the
+barbarians themselves seemed to have been struck with superstitious
+horror at their crime: deadly fevers contracted in the marshes near the
+city thinned their ranks, and in the scourge which struck down their
+forces they recognised the chastisement of the goddess.*
+
+     * The invasion of Ionia by the Cimmerians is indicated in
+     general terms by Herodotus; the details of the attack on
+     Ephesus and the destruction of the temple of Artemis are
+     preserved in a passage of Callimachus, and in the fragments
+     quoted by Hesychius.
+
+The survivors abandoned the siege and withdrew in disorder towards the
+mountains of the interior. On their way they surprised Magnesia on the
+Maeander and entirely destroyed it, but this constituted their sole
+military success: elsewhere, they contented themselves with devastating
+the fields without venturing to attack the fortified towns. Scarcely had
+Ardys freed himself from their unwelcome presence, than, like his father
+before him, he tried to win the support of Assyria. He sent an envoy to
+Nineveh with a letter couched in very humble terms: "The king whom
+the gods acknowledge, art thou; for as soon as thou hadst pronounced
+imprecations against my father, misfortune overtook him. I am thy
+trembling servant; receive my homage graciously, and I will bear thy
+yoke!" Assur-bani-pal did not harden his heart to this suppliant who
+confessed his fault so piteously, and circumstances shortly constrained
+him to give a more efficacious proof of his favour to Ardys than he had
+done in the days of Gyges. On quitting Lydia, Tugdami, with his hordes,
+had turned eastwards, bent upon renewing in the provinces of the Taurus
+and the Euphrates the same destructive raids which he had made among
+the peoples of the AEgean seaboard; but in the gorges of Cilicia he came
+into contact with forces much superior to his own, and fell fighting
+against them about the year 645 B.C. His son Sanda-khshatru led the
+survivors of this disaster back towards the centre of the peninsula, but
+the conflict had been so sanguinary that the Cimmerian power never fully
+recovered from it. Assur-bani-pal celebrated the victory won by
+his generals with a solemn thanksgiving to Marduk, accompanied by
+substantial offerings of gold and objects of great value.*
+
+     * Strabo was aware, perhaps from Xanthus of Lyclia, that
+     Lygdamis had fallen in battle in Cilicia. The hymn to
+     Marduk, published by Strong, informs us that the Cimmerian
+     chief fell upon the Assyrians, and that his son Sanda-
+     khshatru carried on hostilities some time longer. Sanda-
+     khshatru is an Iranian name of the same type as that of the
+     Median king Uva-khshatra or Cyaxares.
+
+The tranquillity of the north-west frontier was thus for a time secured,
+and this success most opportunely afforded the king leisure to turn
+his attention to those of his vassals who, having thrown off their
+allegiance during the war against Shamash-shumukin, had not yet returned
+to their obedience. Among these were the Arabs and the petty princes of
+Egypt. The contingents furnished by Yauta, son of Hazael, had behaved
+valiantly during the siege of Babylon, and when they thought the end
+was approaching, their leaders, Abiyate and Aamu, had tried to cut a
+way through the Assyrian lines: being repulsed, they had laid down their
+arms on condition of their lives being spared. There now remained the
+bulk of the Arab tribes to be reduced to submission, and the recent
+experiences of Esarhaddon had shown the difficulties attending this
+task. Assur-bani-pal entrusted its accomplishment to his subjects in
+Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Hauran, and Damascus, since, dwelling on the
+very borders of the desert, they were familiar with the routes and the
+methods of warfare best suited to the country. They proved victorious
+all along the line. Yauta, betrayed by his own subjects, took refuge
+with the Nabataeans; but their king, Nadanu, although he did not
+actually deliver him up to the Assyrians, refused to grant him an
+asylum, and the unhappy man was finally obliged to surrender to his
+pursuers. His cousin Uate, son of Birdadda, was made chief in his place
+by the Assyrians, and Yauta was sent to Nineveh, where he was exposed
+at one of the city gates, chained in a niche beside the watch-dogs.
+Amuladdin, the leading prince of Kedar, met with no better fate: he was
+overcome, in spite of the assistance rendered him by Adiya, the queen
+of a neighbouring tribe, and was also carried away into captivity. His
+defeat completed the discouragement of the tribes who still remained
+unsubdued. They implored mercy, which Assur-bani-pal granted to them,
+although he deposed most of their sheikhs, and appointed as their
+ruler that Abiyate who had dwelt at his court since the capitulation of
+Babylon. Abiyate took the oath of fidelity, and was sent back to Kedar,
+where he was proclaimed king of all the Arab tribes under the suzerainty
+of Assyria.*
+
+     * The _Cylinder B of the Brit. Mus._ attributes to the reign
+     of Assur-bani-pala whole series of events, comprising the
+     first submission of Yauta and the restitution of the statues
+     of Atarsamain, which had taken place under Esarhaddon. The
+     Assyrian annalists do not seem to have always clearly
+     distinguished between Yauta, son of Hazael, and Uate, son of
+     Birdadda.
+
+
+Of all the countries which had thrown off their allegiance during the
+late troubles, Egypt alone remained unpunished, and it now seemed as
+if its turn had come to suffer chastisement for its rebellion. It was,
+indeed, not to be tolerated that so rich and so recently acquired
+a province should slip from the grasp of the very sovereign who had
+completed its conquest, without his making an effort on the first
+opportunity to reduce it once more to submission. Such inaction on his
+part would be a confession of impotence, of which the other vassals of
+the empire would quickly take advantage: Tyre, Judah, Moab, the petty
+kings of the Taurus, and the chiefs of Media, would follow the example
+of Pharaoh, and the whole work of the last three centuries would have to
+be done over again. There can be no doubt that Assur-bani-pal cherished
+the secret hope of recovering Egypt in a short campaign, and that he
+hoped to attach it to the empire by more permanent bonds than before,
+but as a preliminary to executing this purpose it was necessary to
+close and settle if possible the account still open against Elam. Recent
+events had left the two rival powers in such a position that neither
+peace nor even a truce of long duration could possibly exist between
+them. Elam, injured, humiliated, and banished from the plains of the
+Lower Euphrates, over which she had claimed at all times an almost
+exclusive right of pillage, was yet not sufficiently enfeebled by her
+disasters to be convinced of her decided inferiority to Assyria. Only
+one portion of her forces, and that perhaps the smallest, had taken the
+field and sustained serious reverses: she had still at her disposal,
+besides the peoples of the plain and the marshes who had suffered
+the most, those almost inexhaustible reserves of warlike and hardy
+mountaineers, whose tribes were ranged on the heights which bounded the
+horizon, occupying the elevated valleys of the Uknu, the Ulai, and their
+nameless affluents, on the western or southern slopes or in the enclosed
+basins of the Iranian table-land. Here Elam had at her command at least
+as many men as her adversaries could muster against her, and though
+these barbarian contingents lacked discipline and systematic training,
+their bravery compensated for the imperfection of their military
+education. Elam not only refused to admit herself conquered, but she
+believed herself sure of final victory, and, as a matter of fact, it
+is not at all certain that Assur-bani-pal's generals would ever have
+completely triumphed over her, if internal discords and treason had
+not too often paralysed her powers. The partisans of Khumban-igash were
+largely responsible for bringing about the catastrophe in which Tiumman
+had perished, and those who sided with Tammaritu had not feared to
+provoke a revolt at the moment when Khumban-igash was occupied in
+Chaldaea; Indabigash in his turn had risen in rebellion in the rear of
+Tammaritu, and his intervention had enabled the Assyrians to deal their
+final blow at Shamash-shumukin. The one idea of the non-reigning members
+of the royal house was to depose the reigning sovereign, and they
+considered all means to this end as justifiable, whether assassination,
+revolt, desertion to the enemy, or defection on the very field of
+battle. As soon as one of them had dethroned another, hatred of the
+foreigner again reigned supreme in his breast, and he donned his armour
+with a firm determination to bring the struggle to an end, but the
+course he had pursued towards his predecessor was now adopted by one of
+his relatives towards himself; the enemy meanwhile was still under arms,
+and each of these revolutions brought him a step nearer to the goal of
+his endeavours, the complete overthrow of the Elamite kingdom and its
+annexation to the empire of Nineveh. Even before the struggle with
+Babylon was concluded, Assur-bani-pal had demanded of Indabigash the
+release of the Assyrians whom Nabo-bel-shumu had carried off in his
+train, besides the extradition of that personage himself. Indabigash
+had no desire for war at this juncture, but hesitated to surrender
+the Kalda, who had always served him faithfully: he entered into
+negotiations which were interminably prolonged, neither of the two
+parties being anxious to bring them to a close. After the fall of
+Babylon, Assur-bani-pal, who was tenacious in his hatred, summoned the
+Elamite ambassadors, and sent them back to their master with a message
+conceived in the following menacing terms: "If thou dost not surrender
+those men, I will go and destroy thy cities, and lead into captivity the
+inhabitants of Susa, Madaktu, and Khaidalu. I will hurl thee from
+thy throne, and will set up another thereon: as aforetime I destroyed
+Tiumman, so will I destroy thee." A detachment of troops was sent to
+enforce the message of defiance, but when the messengers had reached the
+frontier town of Deri, Indabigash was no longer there: his nobles
+had assassinated him, and had elected Khumban-khaldash, the son of
+Atta-metush, king in his stead. The opportunity was a favourable one to
+sow the seeds of division in the Elamite camp, before the usurper should
+have time to consolidate his power: Assur-bani-pal therefore threw
+himself into the cause of Tammaritu, supporting him with an army to
+which many malcontents speedily rallied. The Aramaeans and the cities
+of the marsh-lands on the littoral, Khilmu, Billate, Dummuku, Sulaa,
+Lakhiru, and Dibirina, submitted without a struggle, and the invaders
+met with no resistance till they reached Bit-Imbi. This town had
+formerly been conquered by Sennacherib, but it had afterwards returned
+to the rule of its ancient masters, who had strongly fortified it. It
+now offered a determined resistance, but without success: its population
+was decimated, and the survivors mutilated and sent as captives into
+Assyria--among them the commander of the garrison, Imbappi, son-in-law
+of Khumban-khaldash, together with the harem of Tiumman, with his sons
+and daughters, and all the members of his family whom his successors had
+left under guard in the citadel. The siege had been pushed forward so
+rapidly that the king had not been able to make any attempt to relieve
+the defenders: besides this, a pretender had risen up against him, one
+Umbakhabua, who had been accepted as king by the important district of
+Bubilu. The fall of Bit-Imbi filled the two competitors with fear: they
+abandoned their homes and fled, the one to the mountains, the other to
+the lowlands on the shores of the Nar-Marratum. Tammaritu entered Susa
+in triumph and was enthroned afresh; but the insolence and rapacity of
+his auxiliaries was so ruthlessly manifested, that at the end of some
+days he resolved to rid himself of them by the sword. A traitor having
+revealed the design, Tammaritu was seized, stripped of his royal
+apparel, and cast into prison. The generals of Assur-bani-pal had no one
+whom they could proclaim king in his stead, and furthermore, the season
+being well advanced, the Elamites, who had recovered from their first
+alarm, were returning in a body, and threatened to cut off the Assyrian
+retreat: they therefore evacuated Susa, and regained Assyria with
+their booty. They burnt all the towns along the route whose walls were
+insufficient to protect them against a sudden escalade or an attack of
+a few hours' duration, and the country between the capital and the
+frontier soon contained nothing but heaps of smoking ruins (647 e.g.).*
+
+     * The difficulty we experience in locating on the map most
+     of the names of Elamite towns is the reason why we cannot
+     determine with any certainty the whole itinerary followed by
+     the Assyrian army.
+
+The campaign, which had been so successful at the outset, had not
+produced all the results expected from it. The Assyrians had hoped
+henceforth to maintain control of Elam through Tammaritu, but in a short
+time they had been obliged to throw aside the instrument with which
+they counted on effecting the complete humiliation of the nation:
+Khumban-khaldash had reoccupied Susa, following on the heels of the
+last Assyrian detachment, and he reigned as king once more without
+surrendering Nabo-bel-shumi, or restoring the statue of Nana, or
+fulfilling any of the conditions which had been the price of a title
+to the throne. Assur-bani-pal was not inclined to bear patiently this
+partial reverse; as soon as spring returned he again demanded the
+surrender of the Chaldaean and the goddess, under pain of immediate
+invasion. Khumban-khaldash offered to expel Nabo-bel-shumi from Lakhiru
+where he had entrenched himself, and to thrust him towards the Assyrian
+frontier, where the king's troops would be able to capture him. His
+offer was not accepted, and a second embassy, headed by Tammaritu, who
+was once more in favour, arrived to propose more trenchant terms.
+The Elamite might have gone so far as to grant the extradition of
+Nabo-bel-shumi, but if he had yielded the point concerning Nana, a
+rebellion would have broken out in the streets of Susa: he preferred
+war, and prepared in desperation to carry it on to the bitter end. The
+conflict was long and sanguinary, and the result disastrous for
+Elam. Bit-Imbi opened its gates, the district of Kashi surrendered at
+discretion, followed by the city of Khamanu and its environs, and the
+Assyrians approached Madaktu: Khumban-khaldash evacuated the place
+before they reached it, and withdrew beneath the walls of Dur-Undasi,
+on the western bank of the Ididi. His enemies pursued him thither, but
+the stream was swift and swollen by rain, so that for two days they
+encamped on its bank without daring to cross, and were perhaps growing
+discouraged, when Ishtar of Arbela once more came to the rescue.
+Appearing in a dream to one of her seers, she said, "I myself go
+before Assur-bani-pal, the king whom my hands have created;" the army,
+emboldened by this revelation, overcame the obstacle by a vigorous
+effort, and dashed impetuously over regions as yet unvisited by any
+conqueror. The Assyrians burnt down fourteen royal cities, numberless
+small towns, and destroyed the cornfields, the vines, and the orchards;
+Khumban-khaldash, utterly exhausted, fled to the mountains "like a young
+dog." Banunu and the districts of Tasarra, twenty cities in the country
+of Khumir, Khaidalu, and Bashimu, succumbed one after another, and when
+the invaders at length decided to retrace their steps to the frontier,
+Susa, deserted by her soldiers and deprived of her leaders, lay before
+them an easy prey. It was not the first time in the last quarter of a
+century that the Assyrians had had the city at their mercy. They had
+made some stay in it after the battle of Tulliz, and also after the
+taking of Bit-Imbi in the preceding year; but on those occasions they
+had visited it as allies, to enthrone a king owing allegiance to their
+own sovereign, and political exigencies had obliged them to repress
+their pillaging instincts and their long-standing hatred. Now that
+they had come as enemies, they were restrained by no considerations of
+diplomacy: the city was systematically pillaged, and the booty found
+in it was so immense that the sack lasted an entire month. The royal
+treasury was emptied of its gold and silver, its metals and the valuable
+objects which had been brought to it from Sumir, Accad, and Karduniash
+at successive periods from the most remote ages down to that day, in
+the course of the successful invasions conducted by the princes of Susa
+beyond the Tigris; among them, the riches of the Babylonian temples,
+which Shamash-shumukin had lavished on Tiumman to purchase his support,
+being easily distinguishable. The furniture of the palace was sent to
+Nineveh in a long procession; it comprised beds and chairs of ivory, and
+chariots encrusted with enamel and precious stones, the horses of
+which were caparisoned with gold. The soldiers made their way into the
+ziggurat, tore down the plates of ruddy copper, violated the sanctuary,
+and desecrated the prophetic statues of the gods who dwelt within it,
+shrouded in the sacred gloom, and whose names were only uttered by their
+devotees with trembling lips. Shumudu, Lagamar, Partikira, Ammankasibar,
+Uduran, Sapak, Aipaksina, Bilala, Panintimri, and Kindakarpu, were now
+brought forth to the light, and made ready to be carried into exile
+together with their belongings and their priests.
+
+[Illustration: 251.jpg STATUES OF THE GODS CARRIED OFF BY ASSYRIAN
+SOLDIERY]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard, _The Monuments of
+     Nineveh_.
+
+Thirty-two statues of the kings, both ancient and modern, in silver,
+gold, bronze, and marble, escorted the gods on their exodus, among their
+number being those of Khumbanigash, son of Umbadara, Shutruk-nakhunta,
+and Tammaritu II., the sovereigns who had treated Assyria with
+the greatest indignity. The effigy of Khalludush was subjected to
+humiliating outrage: "his mouth, with its menacing smile, was mutilated;
+his lips, which breathed forth defiance, were slit; his hands, which
+had brandished the bow against Assur, were cut off," to avenge, though
+tardily, the ill success of Sennacherib. The sacred groves shared the
+fate of the temples, and all the riches collected in them by generations
+of victors were carried off in cartloads. They contained, amongst
+other edifices, the tombs of the ancient heroes of Elam, who had feared
+neither Assur nor Ishtar, and who had often brought trouble on the
+ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. Their sepulchres were violated, their
+coffins broken open, their bones collected and despatched to Nineveh, to
+crumble finally into dust in the land of exile: their souls, chained to
+their mortal bodies, shared their captivity, and if they were
+provided with the necessary sustenance and libations to keep them from
+annihilation, it was not from any motives of compassion or pity, but
+from a refinement of vengeance, in order that they might the longer
+taste the humiliation of captivity.
+
+[Illustration: 252.jpg THE TUMULUS OF SUZA]
+
+The image of Nana was found among those of the native gods: it was now
+separated from them, and after having been cleansed from pollution by
+the prescribed ceremonies, it was conducted to Uruk, which it entered in
+triumph on the 1st of the month Kislev. It was reinstated in the temple
+it had inhabited of old: sixteen hundred and thirty-five years had
+passed since it had been carried off, in the reign of Kutur-nakhunta, to
+dwell as a prisoner in Susa.
+
+Assur-bani-pal had no intention of preserving the city of Susa from
+destruction, or of making it the capital of a province which should
+comprise the plain of Elam. Possibly it appeared to him too difficult to
+defend as long as the mountain tribes remained unsubdued, or perhaps the
+Elamites themselves were not so completely demoralised as he was pleased
+to describe them in his inscriptions, and the attacks of their irregular
+troops would have rendered the prolonged sojourn of the Assyrian
+garrison difficult, if not impossible. Whatever the reason, as soon as
+the work of pillage was fully accomplished, the army continued its
+march towards the frontier, carrying with it the customary spoil of the
+captured towns, and their whole population, or all, at least, who had
+not fled at the approach of the enemy. The king reserved for himself
+the archers and pikemen, whom he incorporated into his own bodyguard,
+as well as the artisans, smelters, sculptors, and stonemasons, whose
+talents he turned to account in the construction and decoration of his
+palaces; the remainder of the inhabitants he apportioned, like so many
+sheep, to the cities and the temples, governors of provinces, officers
+of state, military chiefs, and private soldiers. Khumban-khaldash
+reoccupied Susa after the Assyrians had quitted it, but the misery there
+was so great that he could not endure it: he therefore transferred his
+court to Madaktu, one of the royal cities which had suffered least from
+the invasion, and he there tried to establish a regular government.
+Rival claimants to the throne had sprung up, but he overcame them
+without much difficulty: one of them, named Pae, took refuge in Assyria,
+joining Tammaritn and that little band of dethroned kings or pretenders
+to the throne of Susa, of whom Assur-bani-pal had so adroitly made
+use to divide the forces of his adversary. Khumban-khaldash might well
+believe that the transportation of the statue of Nana and the sack of
+Susa had satisfied the vengeance of the Assyrians, at least for a time,
+and that they would afford him a respite, however short; but he had
+reckoned without taking into consideration the hatred which had pursued
+Nabo-bel-shumi during so many years: an envoy followed him as far as
+Madaktu, and offered Khumban-khaldash once more the choice between the
+extradition of the Chaldean or the immediate reopening of hostilities.
+He seems to have had a moment's hesitation, but when Nabo-bel-shumi was
+informed of the terms offered by the envoy, "life had no more value in
+his eyes: he desired death." He ordered his shield-bearer to slay him,
+and when the man refused to do so, declaring that he could not live
+without his master, they stabbed each other simultaneously, and
+perished, as they had lived, together. Khumban-khaldash, delivered by
+this suicide from his embarrassments, had the corpse of the master and
+the head of the faithful shield-bearer duly embalmed, and sent them to
+Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal mutilated the wretched body in order to render
+the conditions of life in the other world harder for the soul: he cut
+off its head, and forbade the burial of the remains, or the rendering to
+the dead of the most simple offerings.
+
+[Illustration: 256.jpg Prayer in the Desert After Painting by Gerome]
+
+About this time the inhabitants of Bit-Imbi, of Til-Khumba, and a
+dozen other small towns, who had fled for refuge to the woods of Mount
+Saladri, came forth from their hiding-places and cast themselves on
+the mercy of the conqueror: he deigned to receive them graciously, and
+enrolled them in his guard, together with the prisoners taken in the
+last campaign. He was contented to leave Elam to itself for the moment,
+as he was disquieted at the turn affairs were taking in Arabia. Abiyate,
+scarcely seated on the throne, had refused to pay tribute, and had
+persuaded Uate and Nadanu to join him in his contumacy; several cities
+along the Phoenician seaboard, led away by his example, shut their gates
+and declared themselves independent. Assur-bani-pal had borne all
+this patiently, while the mass of his troops were engaged against
+Khumban-khaldash; but after the destruction of Susa, he determined to
+revenge himself. His forces left Nineveh in the spring of 642 B.C.,
+crossed the Euphrates, and the line of wooded hills which bordered the
+course of the river towards the west, provisioned themselves with water
+at the halting-place of Laribda, and plunged into the desert in search
+of the rebels. The Assyrians overran the country of Mash, from the town
+of Iarki to Azalla, where "there dwell no beasts of the field, where
+no bird of the sky builds its nest," and then, after filling their
+water-skins at the cisterns of Azalla, they advanced boldly into the
+thirsty lands which extend towards Qurazite; they next crossed the
+territory of Kedar, cutting down the trees, filling up the wells,
+burning the tents, and reached Damascus from the north-east side,
+bringing in their train innumerable flocks of asses, sheep, camels,
+and slaves. The Bedawin of the north had remained passive, but the
+Nabathaeans, encouraged by the remoteness of their country and the
+difficulty of access to it, persisted in their rebellion. The Assyrian
+generals did not waste much time in celebrating their victory in the
+Syrian capital: on the 3rd of Ab, forty days after leaving the Chaldsean
+frontier, they started from Damascus towards the south, and seized
+the stronghold of Khalkhuliti, at the foot of the basaltic plateau
+overlooked by the mountains of the Hauran; they then destroyed all the
+fortresses of the country one after another, driving the inhabitants
+to take shelter in the rugged range of volcanic rocks, where they were
+blockaded, and finally reduced by famine: Abiyate capitulated, Nadanu
+ransomed himself by a promise of tribute, and the whole desert between
+Syria and the Euphrates fell once more into the condition of an Assyrian
+province. Before returning to Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal's generals
+inflicted chastisement on Akko and Ushu, the two chief Tyrian cities
+which had revolted, and this vigorous action confirmed the fidelity of
+the Assyrian vassals in Palestine. Uate's life was spared, but his lip
+and cheek were pierced by the hand of the king himself, and he was led
+by a cord passed through the wounds, as if he had been a wild beast
+intended for domestication; a dog's collar was riveted round his neck,
+and he was exposed in a cage at one of the gates of Nineveh. Aamu, the
+brother of Abiyate, was less fortunate, for he was flayed alive before
+the eyes of the mob. Assyria was glutted with the spoil: the king, as
+was customary, reserved for his own service the able-bodied men for the
+purpose of recruiting his battalions, distributing the remainder among
+his officers and soldiers. The camels captured were so numerous that
+their market-value was for a long time much reduced; they were offered
+in the open market, like sheep, for a half-shekel of silver apiece, and
+the vendor thought himself fortunate to find a purchaser even at this
+price.
+
+The final ruin of Elam followed swiftly on the subjugation of Arabia.
+While one division of the army was scouring the desert, the remainder
+were searching the upland valleys of the Ulai and the Uknu, and
+relentlessly pursuing Khumban-khaldash. The wretched monarch was now in
+command of merely a few bands of tattered followers, and could no longer
+take the field; the approach of the enemy obliged him to flee from
+Madaktu, and entrench himself on the heights. Famine, misery, and
+probably also the treachery of his last adherents, soon drove him from
+his position, and, despairing of his cause, he surrendered himself to
+the officers who were in pursuit of him. He was the third king of Elam
+whom fate had cast alive into the hands of the conqueror: his arrival at
+Nineveh afforded the haughty Assur-bani-pal an occasion for celebrating
+one of those triumphal processions in which his proud soul delighted,
+and of going in solemn state to thank the gods for the overthrow of
+his most formidable enemy. On the day when he went to prostrate
+himself before Assur and Ishtar, he sent for Tammaritu, Pae, and
+Khumban-khaldash, and adding to them Uate, who was taken out of his cage
+for the occasion, he harnessed all four to his chariot of state, and
+caused himself to be drawn through Nineveh by this team of fallen
+sovereigns to the gate of the temple of Emashmash. And, indeed, at
+that moment, he might reasonably consider himself as having reached the
+zenith of his power. Egypt, it is true, still remained unpunished, and
+its renewed vitality under the influence of the Saite Pharaohs allowed
+no hope of its being speedily brought back into subjection, but its
+intrigues no longer exerted any influence over Syria, and Tyre itself
+appeared to be resigned to the loss of its possessions on the mainland.
+Lydia under the rule of Ardys continued to maintain intermittent
+intercourse with its distant protector. The provinces of the Taurus,
+delivered from the terror inspired by the Cimmerians, desired peace
+above all things, and the Mannai had remained quiet since the defeat of
+Akhsheri. Babylon was rapidly recovering from the ills she had endured.
+She consoled herself for her actual servitude by her habitual simulation
+of independence; she called Assur-bani-pal Kandalanu, and this new name
+allowed her to fancy she had a separate king, distinct from the King
+of Assyria. Elam no longer existed. Its plains and marsh lands were
+doubtless occupied by Assyrian garrisons, and formed an ill-defined
+annexation to Nineveh; the mountain tribes retained their autonomy, and
+although still a source of annoyance to their neighbours by their raids
+or sudden incursions, they no longer constituted a real danger to the
+state: if there still remained some independent Elamite states, Elam
+itself, the most ancient, except Babylon, of all the Asiatic kingdoms,
+was erased from the map of the world. The memories of her actual history
+were soon effaced, or were relegated to the region of legend, where the
+fabulous Memnon supplanted in the memory of men those lines of hardy
+conquerors who had levied tribute from Syria in the day when Nineveh was
+still an obscure provincial town. Assyria alone remained, enthroned on
+the ruins of the past, and her dominion seemed established for all time;
+yet, on closer investigation, indications were not wanting of the cruel
+sufferings that she also had endured. Once again, as after the wars of
+Tiglath-pileser I. and those of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III.,
+her chiefs had overtaxed her powers by a long series of unremitting wars
+against vigorous foes. Doubtless the countries comprised within her
+wide empire furnished her with a more ample revenue and less restricted
+resources than had been at the command of the little province of ancient
+days, which had been bounded by the Khabur and the Zab, and lay on the
+two banks of the middle course of the Tigris; but, on the other hand,
+the adversaries against whom she had measured her forces, and whom she
+had overthrown, were more important and of far greater strength than
+her former rivals. She had paid dearly for humiliating Egypt and laying
+Babylon in the dust. As soon as Babylon was overthrown, she had, without
+pausing to take breath, joined issue with Elam, and had only succeeded
+in triumphing over it by drawing upon her resources to the utmost during
+many years: when the struggle was over, she realised to what an extent
+she had been weakened by so lavish an outpouring of the blood of her
+citizens. The Babylonian and Elamite recruits whom she incorporated
+into her army after each of her military expeditions, more or less
+compensated for the void which victory itself had caused in her
+population and her troops; but the fidelity of these vanquished foes of
+yesterday, still smarting from their defeat, could not be relied on, and
+the entire assimilation of their children to their conquerors was the
+work of at least one or two generations. Assyria, therefore, was on the
+eve of one of those periods of exhaustion which had so often enfeebled
+her national vitality and imperilled her very existence. On each
+previous occasion she had, it is true, recovered after a more or less
+protracted crisis, and the brilliancy of her prospects, though obscured
+for a moment, appeared to be increased by their temporary eclipse. There
+was, therefore, good reason to hope that she would recover from her
+latest phase of depression; and the only danger to be apprehended was
+that some foreign power, profiting by her momentary weakness, might rise
+up and force her, while still suffering from the effects of her heroic
+labours, to take the field once more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDAEAN EMPIRE
+
+
+_THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDAEAN AND MEDIAN
+EMPIRES--THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND
+NEBUCHADREZZAR._
+
+_The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of
+the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the
+Avesta--Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning
+of the Median empire--Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of
+Persia by the Medes--The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library
+of Kouyunjik--Phraortes defeated and slain by the Assyrians._
+
+_Cyaxares and his first attach on Nineveh--The Assyrian triangle and the
+defence of Nineveh: Assur-bani-pal summons the Scythians to his aid--The
+Scythian invasion--Judah under Manasseh and Amon: development in the
+conceptions of the prophets--The Scythians in Syria and on the borders
+of Egypt: they are defeated and driven back by Cyaxares--The last
+kings of Nineveh and Naliopolassar--Taking and, destruction of Nineveh:
+division of the Assyrian empire between the Chaldaeans and the Medes (608
+B.C.)._
+
+_The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty--Psammetichus I. and the Ionian and Carian
+mercenaries; final retreat of the Ethiopians and the annexation of the
+Theban principality; the end of Egypt as a great power--First
+Greek settlements in the Delta; flight of the Mashauasha and the
+reorganisation of the army--Resumption of important works and the
+renaissance of art in Egypt--The occupation of Ashdod, and the Syrian
+policy of Psammetichus I._
+
+_Josiah, King of Judah: the discovery and public reading of the Book
+of the Covenant; the religious reform--Necho II. invades Syria: Josiah
+slain at Megiddo, the battle of Carchemish--Nebuchadrezzar II.: his
+policy with regard to Media--The conquests of Cyaxares and the struggles
+of the Mermnadae against the Greek colonies--The war between Alyattes
+and Cyaxares: the battle of the Halys and the peace of 585 B.C.--Necho
+reorganises his army and his fleet: the circumnavigation of
+Africa--Jeremiah and the Egyptian party in Jerusalem: the revolt of
+Jehoiakim and the captivity of Jehoiachin._
+
+_Psammetichus I. and Zedekiah--Apries and the revolt of Tyre and of
+Judah: the siege and destruction of Jerusalem--The last convulsions
+of Judah and the submission of Tyre; the successes of Aprics in
+Phoenicia--The Greeks in Libya and the founding of Cyrene: the defeat of
+Irasa and the fall of Apries--Amasis and the campaign of Nebuchadrezzar
+against Egypt--Relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages--The
+fortifications of Babylon and the rebuilding of the Great Ziggurat--The
+successors of Nebuchadrezzar: Nabonidus._
+
+[Illustration: 263.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDAEAN EMPIRE
+
+
+_The fall of Nineveh and the rise of the Chaldaean and Median
+empires--The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty: Cyaxares, Alyattes, and
+Nebuchadrezzar._
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase of
+     Tchertomlitsk, now in the museum of the Hermitage. The
+     vignette is also drawn by Faucher-Gudin, and represents an
+     Egyptian torso in the Turin museum; the cartouche which is
+     seen upon the arm is that of Psammetichus I.
+
+The East was ever a land of kaleidoscopic changes and startling dramatic
+incidents. An Oriental empire, even when built up by strong hands and
+watched over with constant vigilance, scarcely ever falls to pieces in
+the slow and gradual process of decay arising from the ties that bind
+it together becoming relaxed or its constituent elements growing
+antiquated. It perishes, as a rule, in a cataclysm; its ruin comes like
+a bolt from the blue, and is consummated before the commencement of it
+is realised. One day it stands proud and stately in the splendour of its
+glory; there is no report abroad but that which tells of its riches,
+its industry, its valour, the good government of its princes and the
+irresistible might of its gods, and the world, filled with envy or with
+fear, deeming its good fortune immutable, never once applies to it, even
+in thought, the usual commonplaces on the instability of human things.
+Suddenly an ill wind, blowing up from the distant horizon, bursts upon
+it in destructive squalls, and it is overthrown in the twinkling of
+an eye, amid the glare of lightning, the resounding crash of thunder,
+whirlwinds of dust and rain: when the storm has passed away as quickly
+as it came, its mutterings heralding the desolation which it bears to
+other climes, the brightening sky no longer reveals the old contours
+and familiar outlines, but the sun of history rises on a new empire,
+emerging, as if by the touch of a magic wand, from the ruins which the
+tempest has wrought. There is nothing apparently lacking of all that, in
+the eyes of the many, invested its predecessor with glory; it seems in
+no wise inferior in national vigour, in the number of its soldiers,
+in the military renown of its chiefs, in the proud prosperity of its
+people, or in the majesty of its gods; the present fabric is as spacious
+and magnificent, it would seem, as that which has but just vanished into
+the limbo of the past. No kingdom ever shone with brighter splendour, or
+gave a greater impression of prosperity, than the kingdom of Assyria in
+the days succeeding its triumphs over Blam and Arabia: precisely at this
+point the monuments and other witnesses of its activity fail us, just
+as if one of the acts of the piece in which it had played a chief part
+having come to an end, the drop-curtain must be lowered, amid a flourish
+of trumpets and the illuminations of an apotheosis, to allow the actors
+a little breathing-space. Half a century rolls by, during which we have
+a dim perception of the subdued crash of falling empires, and of the
+trampling of armies in fierce fight; then the curtain rises on an
+utterly different drama, of which the plot has been woven behind the
+scenes, and the exciting _motif_ has just come into play. We no longer
+hear of Assyria and its kings; their palaces are in ruins; their last
+faithful warriors sleep in unhonoured graves beneath the ashes of
+their cities, their prowess is credited to the account of half a dozen
+fabulous heroes such as Ninus, Sardanapalus, and Semiramis--heroes whose
+names call up in the memory of succeeding generations only vague but
+terrible images, such as the phantasies of a dream, which, although but
+dimly remembered in the morning, makes the hair to stand on end with
+terror. The nations which erewhile disputed the supremacy with Assyria
+have either suffered a like eclipse--such as the Khati, Urartu, the
+Cossaeans, and Elam--or have fallen like Egypt and Southern Syria into
+the rank of second-rate powers. It is Chaldaea which is now in the van
+of the nations, in company with Lydia and with Media, whose advent to
+imperial power no one would have ventured to predict forty or fifty
+years before.
+
+The principality founded by Deiokes about the beginning of the seventh
+century B.C., seemed at first destined to play but a modest part; it
+shared the fortune of the semi-barbarous states with which the Ninevite
+conquerors came in contact on the western boundary of the Iranian
+plateau, and from which the governors of Arrapkha or of Kharkhar had
+extorted tribute to the utmost as often as occasion offered. According
+to one tradition, it had only three kings in an entire century: Deiokes
+up till 655 B.C., Phraortes from 655 to 633, and after the latter year
+Cyaxares, the hero of his race.* Another tradition claimed an earlier
+foundation for the monarchy, and doubled both the number of the kings
+and the age of the kingdom.**
+
+     * This is the tradition gleaned by Herodotus, probably at
+     Sardes, from the mouths of Persians residing in that city.
+
+     ** This is the tradition derived from the court of
+     Artaxerxes by Ctesias of Cnidus. Volney discovered the
+     principle upon which the chronology of his Median dynasty
+     was based by Ctesias. If we place his list side by side with
+     that of Herodotus--
+
+[Illustration: 268.jpg and 269.jpg TABLE OF MEDIAN DYNASTY]
+
+     We see that, while rejecting the names given by Herodotus,
+     Ctesias repeats twice over the number of years assigned by
+     the latter to the reigns of his kings, at least for the four
+     last generations--
+
+     At the beginning Herodotus gives before Deiokes an
+     interregnum of uncertain duration. Ctesias substituted the
+     round number of fifty years for the fifty-three assigned to
+     Deiokes, and replaced the interregnum by a reign which he
+     estimated at the mean duration of a human generation, thirty
+     years; he then applied to this new pair of numbers the
+     process of doubling he had employed for the couple mentioned
+     above--
+
+     The number twenty-eight has been attributed to the reign of
+     Arbakes, instead of the number thirty, to give an air of
+     truthfulness to the whole catalogue.
+
+This tradition ignored the monarchs who had rendered the second
+Assyrian empire illustrious, and substituted for them a line of inactive
+sovereigns, reputed to be the descendants of Ninus and Semiramis. The
+last of them, Sardanapalus, had, according to this account, lived a life
+of self-indulgence in his harem, surrounded by women, dressing himself
+in their garb, and adopting feminine occupations and amusements. The
+satrap of Media, Arbakes, saw him at his toilet, and his heart turned
+against yielding obedience to such a painted doll: he rebelled in
+concert with Belesys the Babylonian. The imminence of the danger thus
+occasioned roused Sardanapalus from his torpor, and revived in him the
+warlike qualities of his ancestors; he placed himself at the head of his
+troops, overcame the rebels, and was about to exterminate them, when his
+hand was stayed by the defection of some Bactrian auxiliaries. He shut
+himself up in Nineveh, and for two whole years heroically repulsed
+all assaults; in the third year, the Tigris, swollen by the rains,
+overflowed its banks and broke down the city walls for a distance of
+twenty stadia. The king thereupon called to mind an oracle which had
+promised him victory until the day when the river should betray him.
+Judging that the prediction was about to be accomplished, he resolved
+not to yield himself alive to the besieger, and setting fire to his
+palace, perished therein, together with his children and his treasures,
+about 788 B.C. Arbakes, thus rendered an independent sovereign, handed
+down the monarchy to his son Mandaukas, and he in his turn was followed
+successively by Sosarmos, Artykas, Arbianes, Artaios, Artynes, and
+Astibaras.* These names are not the work of pure invention; they are
+met with in more than one Assyrian text: among the petty kings who
+paid tribute to Sargon are enumerated some which bear such names as
+Mashdaku,** Ashpanda,*** Arbaku, and Khartukka,*** and many others, of
+whom traces ought to be found some day among the archives of princely
+families of later times.
+
+     * Oppert thought that the names given by Herodotus
+     represented "Aryanised forms of Turanian names, of which
+     Otesias has given the Persian translation."
+
+     ** Mashdaku is identified by Post with the Mandaukas or
+     Maydaukas of Ctesias, which would then be a copyist's error
+     for Masdaukas. The identification with Vashd[t]aku, Vashtak,
+     the name of a fabulous king of Armenia, is rejected by Rost;
+     Mashdaku would be the Iranian Mazdaka, preserved in the
+     Mazakes of Arrian.
+
+     *** Ashpanda is the Aspandas or Aspadas which Ctesias gives
+     instead of the Astyages of Herodotus.
+
+     **** The name of Artykas is also found in the secondary form
+     Kardikoas, which is nearer the Khartukka of the Assyrian
+     texts.
+
+There were in these archives, at the disposal of scribes and strangers
+inclined to reconstruct the history of Asia, a supply of materials of
+varying value--authentic documents inscribed on brick tablets, legends
+of fabulous exploits, epic poems and records of real victories and
+conquests, exaggerated in accordance with the vanity or the interest of
+the composer: from these elements it was easy to compile lists of Median
+kings which had no real connection with each other as far as their
+names, order of succession, or duration of reign were concerned. The
+Assyrian chronicles have handed down to us, in place of these dynasties
+which were alleged to have exercised authority over the whole territory,
+a considerable number of noble houses scattered over the country, each
+of them autonomous, and a rival of its neighbour, and only brought into
+agreement with one another at rare intervals by their common hatred of
+the invader. Some of them were representatives of ancient races akin
+to the Susians, and perhaps to the first inhabitants of Chaldaea; others
+belonged to tribes of a fresh stock, that of the Aryans, and more
+particularly to the Iranian branch of the Aryan family. We catch
+glimpses of them in the reign of Shalmaneser III., who calls them the
+Amadai; then, after this first brush with Assyria, intercourse and
+conflict between the two nations became more and more frequent every
+year, until the "distant Medes" soon began to figure among the regular
+adversaries of the Ninevite armies, and even the haughtiest monarchs
+refer with pride to victories gained over them. Ramman-nirari waged
+ceaseless war against them, Tiglath-pileser III. twice drove them
+before him from the south-west to the north-east as far as the foot
+of Demavend, while Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, during their
+respective reigns, kept anxious watch upon them, and endeavoured to
+maintain some sort of authority over the tribes which lay nearest to
+them. Both in the personal names and names of objects which have
+come down to us in the records of these campaigns, we detect
+Iranian characteristics, in spite of the Semitic garb with which the
+inscriptions have invested them: among the names of countries we find
+Partukka, Diristanu, Patusharra, Nishaia, Urivzan, Abiruz, and Ariarma,
+while the men bear such names as Ishpabarra, Eparna, Shitirparna,
+Uarzan, and Dayaukku. As we read through the lists, faint resemblances
+in sound awaken dormant classical memories, and the ear detects familiar
+echoes in the names of those Persians whose destinies were for a time
+linked with those of Athens and Sparta in the days of Darius and of
+Xerxes: it is like the first breath of Greek influence, faint and almost
+imperceptible as yet, wafted to us across the denser atmosphere of the
+East.
+
+The Iranians had a vague remembrance of a bygone epoch, during which
+they had wandered, in company with other nations of the same origin as
+themselves, in that cradle of the Aryan peoples, Aryanem-Vaejo. Modern
+historians at first placed their mythical birthplace in the wilder
+regions of Central Asia, near the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and not far
+from the so-called table-land of Pamir, which they regarded as the
+original point of departure of the Indo-European races. They believed
+that a large body of these primitive Aryans must have descended
+southwards into the basin of the Indus and its affluents, and that
+other detachments had installed themselves in the oases of Margiana
+and Khorasmia, while the Iranians would have made their way up to the
+plateau which separates the Caspian Sea from the Persian Gulf, where
+they sought to win for themselves a territory sufficient for their
+wants. The compilers of the sacred books of the Iranians claimed to be
+able to trace each stage of their peregrinations, and to describe the
+various accidents which befell them during this heroic period of their
+history. According to these records, it was no mere chance or love of
+adventure which had led them to wander for years from clime to clime,
+but rather a divine decree. While Ahuromazdao, the beneficent deity
+whom they worshipped, had provided them with agreeable resting-places,
+a perverse spirit, named Angromainyus, had on every occasion rendered
+their sojourn there impossible, by the plagues which he inflicted
+on them. Bitter cold, for instance, had compelled them to forsake
+Aryanem-Vaejo and seek shelter in Sughdha and Muru.* Locusts had driven
+them from Sughdha; the incursions of the nomad tribes, coupled with
+their immorality, had forced them to retire from Muru to Bakhdhi, "the
+country of lofty banners,"** and subsequently to Nisaya, which lies to
+the south-east, between Muru and Bakhdhi. From thence they made their
+way into the narrow valleys of the Haroyu, and overran Vaekereta, the
+land of noxious shadows.***
+
+     * Sughdha is Sogdiana; Muru, in ancient Persian Margush, is
+     the modern Merv, the Margiana of classical geographers.
+
+     ** Bakhdhi is identical with Bactriana, but, as Spiegel
+     points out, this Avestic form is comparatively recent, and
+     readily suggests the modern Balkh, in which the consonants
+     have become weakened.
+
+     *** The Avesta places Nisaya between Muru and Bakhdhi to
+     distinguish it from other districts of the same name to be
+     found in this part of Asia: Eugene Burnouf is probably
+     correct in identifying it with the Nessea of Strabo and of
+     Ptolemy, which lay to the south of Margiana, at the junction
+     of the roads leading to Hyrcania in one direction and
+     Bactriana in the other.
+
+From this point forwards, the countries mentioned by their chroniclers
+are divided into two groups, lying in opposite directions: Arahvaiti,
+Haetumant, and Haptahindu* on the east; and on the west, Urva,** Haroyu
+or Haraeva is the Greek Aria, the modern province of Herat.
+
+     * Arahvaiti, the Harauvatish of the Achsemenian
+     inscriptions, is the Greek Arachosia, and Haetumant the
+     basin of their Etymander, the modern Helmend; in other
+     words, the present province of Seistan. Hapta-Hindu is the
+     western part of the Indian continent, i.e. the Punjaub.
+
+     ** The Pehlevi commentators identify Urva with Mesone,
+     mentioned by classical writers, at the confluence of the
+     Tigris and Euphrates, or perhaps the plain around Ispahan
+     which bore the name of Masan in the Sassanid period. Fr.
+     Lenormant had connected it with the name Urivzan, which is
+     applied in the Assyrian inscriptions to a district of Media
+     in the time of Tiglath-pileser III.
+
+[Illustration: 274.jpg MAP OF THE LANDS CREATED BY AHURA-MAZDA]
+
+The Pehlevi commentators identify Vaekereta with Kabulistan, and also
+volunteer the following interpretation of the title which accompanies
+the name: "The shadow of the trees there is injurious to the body, or
+as some say, the shadow of the mountains," and it produces fever
+there. Arguing from passages of similar construction, Lassen was led to
+recognise in the epithet _duzhako-shayanem_ a place-name, "inhabitant of
+Duzhako," which he identified with a ruined city in this neighbourhood
+called Dushak; Haug believed he had found a confirmation of this
+hypothesis in the fact that the Pairika Khnathaiti created there by
+Angro-mainyus recalls in sound, at any rate, the name of the people
+Parikani mentioned by classical writers, as inhabiting these regions.
+Khnenta-Vehrkana,* Bhaga,** and Chakhra,*** as far as the districts of
+Varena**** and the basin of the Upper Tigris.^ This legend was composed
+long after the event, in order to explain in the first place the
+relationship between the two great families into which the Oriental
+Aryans were divided, viz. the Indian and Iranian, and in the second
+to account for the peopling by the Iranians of a certain number of
+provinces between the Indus and the Euphrates. As a matter of fact, it
+is more likely that the Iranians came originally from Europe, and that
+they migrated from the steppes of Southern Russia into the plains of the
+Kur and the Araxes by way of Mount Caucasus.^^
+
+     * The name Khnenta seems to have been Hellenised into that
+     of Kharindas, borne by a river which formed the frontier
+     between Hyrcania and Media; according to the Pehlevi version
+     it was really a river of Hyrcania, the Djordjan. The epithet
+     Vehrkana, which qualifies the name Khnenta, has been
+     identified by Burnouf with the Hyrcania of classical
+     geographers.
+
+     ** Ragha is identified with Azerbaijan in the Pehlevi
+     version of the Vendidad, but is, more probably, the Rhago of
+     classical geographers, the capital of Eastern Media.
+
+     *** Chakhra seems to be identical with the country of Karkh,
+     at the northwestern extremity of Khorassan.
+
+     **** Varena is identified by the Pehlevi commentators with
+     Patishkhvargar, i.e. probably the Patusharra of the Assyrian
+     inscriptions.
+
+     ^ Haug proposed to identify this last station with the
+     regions situated on the shores of the Caspian, near the
+     south-western corner of that sea. But, as Garrez points out,
+     the Pehlevi commentators prove that it must be the countries
+     on the Upper Tigris.
+
+     ^^ Spiegel has argued that Aryanem-Vaojo is probably Arran,
+     the modern Kazabadagh, the mountainous district between the
+     Kur and the Aras, and his opinion is now gaining acceptance.
+     The settlement of the Iranians in Russia, and their entrance
+     into Asia by way of the Caucasus, have been admitted by
+     Rost. Classical writers reversed this order of things, and
+     derived the Sauromato and other Scythian tribes from Media.
+
+It is possible that some of their hordes may have endeavoured to wedge
+themselves in between the Halys and the Euphrates as far as the centre
+of Asia Minor. Their presence in this quarter would explain why we
+encounter Iranian personal names in the Sargonide epoch on the two spurs
+of Mount Taurus, such as that of the Kushtashpi, King of Kummukh, in
+the time of Tiglath-pileser III., and of the Kundashpi mentioned in the
+_Annals_ of Shalmaneser III. in the ninth century B.C.*
+
+     * The name Kushtashpi has been compared with that of
+     Vistaspa or Gushtasp by Fr. Lenormant, the name Kundashpi
+     with that of Vindaspa by Gutschmid, and, later on, Ball has
+     added to these a long list of names in Egyptian and Assyrian
+     inscriptions which he looks upon as Iranian. Kundashpi
+     recalls at first sight Gundobunas, a name of the Sassanid
+     epoch, if this latter form be authentic. Tiele adopts the
+     identification of Kushtashpi with Vistaspa, and Justi has
+     nothing to say against it, nor against the identification of
+     Kundashpi with Vindaspa.
+
+The main body, finding its expansion southwards checked by Urartu,
+diverged in a south-easterly direction, and sweeping before it all the
+non-Aryan or Turanian tribes who were too weak to stem its progress,
+gradually occupied the western edge of the great plateau, where it soon
+became mainly represented by the two compact groups, the Persians to
+the south on the farthest confines of Elam, and the Medes between
+the Greater Zab, the Turnat, and the Caspian. It is probable that the
+kingdom founded by Deiokes originally included what was afterwards
+termed _Media Magna_ by the Graeco-Roman geographers. This sovereignty
+was formed by the amalgamation under a single monarch of six important
+tribes--the Buzo, Paraatakeni, Struchatas, Arizanti, Budii, and Magi.
+It extended north-westwards as far as the Kiziluzon, which formed the
+frontier between the Persians and the Mannai on this side. Northwards,
+it reached as far as Demavend; the salt desert that rendered Central
+Iran a barren region, furnished a natural boundary on the east; on both
+the south and west, the Assyrian border-lands of Ellipi, Kharkhar, and
+Arrapkha prevented it from extending to the chief ranges of the Zagros
+and Cordioan mountains. The soil, though less fertile than that of
+Chaldaea or of Egypt, was by no means deficient in resources. The
+mountains contained copper, iron, lead, some gold and silver,* several
+kinds of white or coloured marble,** and precious stones, such as topaz,
+garnets, emeralds, sapphires, cornelian, and lapis-lazuli, the latter
+being a substance held in the highest esteem by Eastern jewellers from
+time immemorial; Mount Bikni was specially celebrated for the fine
+specimens of this stone which were obtained there.*** Its mountains were
+in those days clothed with dense forests, in which the pine, the oak,
+and the poplar grew side by side with the eastern plane tree, the cedar,
+lime, elm, ash, hazel, and terebinth.****
+
+     * Rawlinson has collected traditions in reference to gold
+     and silver mining among the mountains in the neighbourhood
+     of Takht-i-Suleiman; one of these is still called _Zerreh-
+     Shardn_, the mount of the _gold-washers_.
+
+     ** The best known was the so-called Tauris marble quarried
+     from the hills in the neighbourhood of Lake Urumiyah.
+
+     *** The list of precious stones which Pliny tells us were
+     found in Media, contains several kinds which we are unable
+     to identify, _e.g_. the Zathene, the gassinades and
+     narcissitis. Pliny calls lapis-lazuli _sapphirus_, and
+     declares that the bright specks of pyrites it contained
+     rendered it unsuitable for engraving. In the Assyrian
+     inscriptions Mount Bikni, the modern Demavend, is described
+     as a mountain of Uknu, or lapis-lazuli.
+
+     **** A large part of the mountains and plains is now
+     treeless, but it is manifest, both from the evidence of the
+     inscriptions and from the observations of travellers, that
+     the whole of Media was formerly well wooded.
+
+The intermediate valleys were veritable orchards, in which the
+vegetation of the temperate zones mingled with tropical growths. The
+ancients believed that the lemon tree came originally from Persia.*
+To this day the peach, pear, apple, quince, cherry, apricot, almond,
+filbert, chestnut, fig, pistachio-nut, and pomegranate still flourish
+there: the olive is easily acclimatised, and the vine produces grapes
+equally suitable for the table or the winepress.** The plateau presents
+a poorer and less promising appearance--not that the soil is less
+genial, but the rivers become lost further inland, and the barrenness
+of the country increases as they come to an end one after another. Where
+artificial irrigation has been introduced, the fertility of the country
+is quite as great as in the neighbourhood of the mountains;*** outside
+this irrigated region no trees are to be seen, except a few on the banks
+of rivers or ponds, but wheat, barley, rye, oats, and an abundance of
+excellent vegetables grow readily in places where water is present.
+
+     * The apple obtained from Media was known as the Modicum
+     malum, and was credited with the property of being a
+     powerful antidote to poison: it was supposed that it would
+     not grow anywhere outside Media.
+
+     ** In some places, as, for instance, at Kirmanshahan, the
+     vine stocks have to be buried during the winter to protect
+     them from the frost.
+
+     *** Irrigation was effected formerly, as now, by means of
+     subterranean canals with openings at intervals, known as
+     _kanat_.
+
+The fauna include, besides wild beasts of the more formidable kinds,
+such as lions, tigers, leopards, and bears, many domestic animals,
+or animals capable of being turned to domestic use, such as the ass,
+buffalo, sheep, goat, dog, and dromedary, and the camel with two humps,
+whose gait caused so much merriment among the Ninevite idlers when
+they beheld it in the triumphal processions of their kings; there were,
+moreover, several breeds of horses, amongst which the Nisasan steed was
+greatly prized on account of its size, strength, and agility.* In
+short, Media was large enough and rich enough to maintain a numerous
+population, and offered a stable foundation to a monarch ambitious of
+building up a new empire.**
+
+     * In the time of the Seleucides, Media supplied nearly the
+     whole of Asia with these animals, and the grazing-lands of
+     Bagistana, the modern Behistun, are said to have supported
+     160,000 of them. Under the Parthian kings Media paid a
+     yearly tribute of 3000 horses, and the Nisaean breed was
+     still celebrated at the beginning of the Byzantine era.
+     Horses are mentioned among the tribute paid by the Medic
+     chiefs to the kings of Assyria.
+
+     ** The history of the Medes remains shrouded in greater
+     obscurity than that of any other Asiatic race. We possess no
+     original documents which owe their existence to this nation,
+     and the whole of our information concerning its history is
+     borrowed from Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, and from
+     the various legends collected by the Greeks, especially by
+     Herodotus and Ctesias, from Persian magnates in Asia Minor
+     or at the court of the Achaemenian kings, or from fragments
+     of vanished works such as the writings of Borosus. And yet
+     modern archaeologists and philologists have, during the last
+     thirty years, allowed their critical faculties, and often
+     their imagination as well, to run riot when dealing with
+     this very period. After carefully examining, one after
+     another, most of the theories put forward, I have adopted
+     those hypotheses which, while most nearly approximating to
+     the classical legends, harmonise best with the chronological
+     framework--far too imperfect as yet--furnished by the
+     inscriptions dealing with the closing years of Nineveh; I do
+     not consider them all to be equally probable, but though
+     they may be mere stop-gap solutions, they have at least the
+     merit of reproducing in many cases the ideas current among
+     those races of antiquity who had been in direct
+     communication with the Medes and with the last of their
+     sovereigns.
+
+[Illustration: 269.jpg NISAEAN HOUSES HARNESSED TO A ROYAL CHARIOT]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the bas-relief from
+     Persepolis now in the British Museum.
+
+The first person to conceive the idea of establishing one was, perhaps,
+a certain Fravartish, the Phraortes of the Greeks, whom Herodotus
+declares to have been the son and successor of Deiokes.*
+
+     * The ancient form of the name, Fravartish or Frawarti, has
+     been handed down to us by a passage in the great inscription
+     of Behistun; it means the man who proclaims faith in Ahura-
+     mazda, the believer.
+
+[Illustration: 280.jpg THE PERSIAN REALM]
+
+He came to the throne about 655 B.C. at a time when the styar of
+Assur-bani-pal was still in the ascendant, and at first does not seem
+to have thought of trying to shake off the incubus of Assyrian rule. He
+began very wisely by annexing such of the petty neighbouring states as
+had hitherto remained independent, and then set himself to attack the
+one other nation of Iranian blood which, by virtue of the number and
+warlike qualities of its clans, was in a position to enter into rivalry
+with his own people. The Persians, originally concentrated in the
+interior, among the steep valleys which divide the plateau on the south,
+had probably taken advantage of the misfortunes of Elam to extend their
+own influence at its expense. Their kings were chosen from among the
+descendants of a certain Akhamanish, the Achaemenes of the Greeks, who at
+the time of the Iranian invasion had been chief of the Pasargadae, one
+of the Persian clans. Achaemenes is a mythical hero rather than a real
+person; he was, we are told, fed during infancy by an eagle--that mighty
+eagle whose shadow, according to a Persian belief in mediaeval times,
+assured the sovereignty to him on whom it chanced to fall. Achaemenes
+would seem to have been followed by a certain Chaispi--or Teispes--a
+less fabulous personage, described in the legends as his son. It was,
+doubtless, during his reign that Assur-bani-pal, in hot pursuit of
+Tiumman and Khumban-khaldash, completed the downfall of Susa; Chaispi
+claimed the eastern half of Elam as his share of the spoil, and on the
+strength of his victory styled himself King of Anshan--a title on
+which his descendants still prided themselves a hundred years after his
+death.*
+
+     * The fact that Teispes was the immediate successor of
+     Achaemenes, indicated by Herodotus, is affirmed by Darius
+     himself in the Behistun inscription. According to Billet-
+     beck, the Anzan (Anshan) of the early Achaemenidae was merely
+     a very small part of the ancient Anzan (Anshan), viz. the
+     district on the east and south-east of Kuh-i-Dena, which
+     includes the modern towns of Yezdeshast, Abadeh, Yoklid, and
+     Kushkiserd.
+
+Persia, as then constituted, extended from the mouths of the
+Oroatis--the modern Tab--as far as the entrance to the Straits of
+Ormuzd.* The coast-line, which has in several places been greatly
+modified since ancient times by the formation of alluvial deposits,
+consists of banks of clay and sand, which lie parallel with the shore,
+and extend a considerable distance inland; in some places the country
+is marshy, in others parched and rocky, and almost everywhere barren and
+unhealthy. The central region is intersected throughout its whole length
+by several chains of hills, which rise terrace-like, one behind the
+other, from the sea to the plateau; some regions are sterile, more
+especially in the north and east, but for the most part the country is
+well wooded, and produces excellent crops of cereals. Only a few
+rivers, such as the Oroatis, which forms the boundary between Persia and
+Susiana,** the Araxes, and the Bagradas succeed in breaking through the
+barriers that beset their course, and reach the Persian Gulf;*** most of
+the others find no outlet, and their waters accumulate at the bottom of
+the valleys, in lakes whose areas vary at the different seasons.
+
+     * Herodotus imagined Carmania and Persia Proper to be one
+     and the same province; from the Alexandrine period onwards
+     historians and geographers drew a distinction between the
+     two.
+
+     ** The form of the name varies in different writers. Strabo
+     calls it the Oroatis, Nearchus the Arosis; in Pliny it
+     appears as Oratis and Zarotis, and in Ammianus Marcellinus
+     as Oroates.
+
+     *** The Araxes is the modern Bendamir. The Kyros, which
+     flowed past Persepolis, is now the Pulwar, an affluent of
+     the Bendamir. The Bagradas of Ptolemy, called the Hyperis by
+     Juba, is the modern Nabend.
+
+[Illustration: 282.jpg SCENE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF PERSIA.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Costs and Flandin, _Voyage en Perse_,
+     vol. i. pl. xcvi.
+
+[Illustration: 285.jpg HEAD OF A PERSIAN ARCHER]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the Naksh-i-Rustem
+     bas-relief taken by Dieulafoy.
+
+The mountainous district is furrowed in all directions by deep ravines,
+with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents
+follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage
+grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to
+the sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep
+precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail
+and narrow that they seem likely to be swept away in the first gail that
+blows. No country could present greater difficulties to the movements
+of a regular army or lend itself more readily to a system of guerrilla
+warfare. It was unequally divided between some ten or twelve tribes:*
+chief among these were the Pasargadaa, from which the royal family took
+its origin; after them came the Maraphii and Maspii.
+
+     * Herodotus only mentions ten Persian tribes; Xenophon
+     speaks of twelve.
+
+The chiefs of these two tribes were elected from among the members
+of seven families, who, at first taking equal rank with that of the
+Pasargadaae, had afterwards been reduced to subjection by the Achaemenidae,
+forming a privileged class at the court of the latter, the members
+of which shared the royal prerogatives and took a part in the work
+of government. Of the remaining tribes, the Panthialad, Derusiaei, and
+Carmenians lived a sedentary life, while the Dai, Mardians, Dropici,
+and Sagartians were nomadic in their habits. Each one of these tribes
+occupied its own allotted territory, the limits of which were not always
+accurately defined; we know that Sagartia, Parseta-kone, and Mardia
+lay towards the north, on the confines of Media and the salt desert,*
+Taokene extended along the seaboard, and Carmania lay to the east.
+The tribes had constructed large villages, such as Armuza, Sisidona,
+Apostana, Gogana, and Taoke, on the sea-coast (the last named possessing
+a palace which was one of the three chief residences of the Achaemenian
+kings),** and Carmana, Persepolis, Pasargadae, and Gabae in the
+interior.***
+
+     * Parsetakene, which has already been identified with the
+     Partukkanu (or Partakkanu) of the Assyrian inscriptions, is
+     placed by Ptolemy in Persia; Mardia corresponds to the
+     mountainous district of Bebahan and Kazrun.
+
+     ** The position of most of these towns is still somewhat
+     doubtful. Armuza is probably Ormuz (or Hormuz) on the
+     mainland, the forerunner of the insular Hormuz of the
+     Portuguese, as the French scholar d'Anville has pointed out;
+     Sisidona has been identified with the modern village of
+     Mogu, near Ras-Jerd, Apostana with the town of Shewar, the
+     name seeming to be perpetuated in that of the Jebel Asban
+     which rises not far from there. Gogana is probably Bender
+     Kongun, and Taoko, at the mouth of the Granis, is either
+     Khor Gasseir or Rohilla at the mouth of the Bishawer. The
+     palace, which was one of the three principal residences of
+     the Achaemenian kings, is probably mentioned by Strabo, and
+     possibly in Dionysius Periegetes.
+
+     *** Carmana is the modern Kerman; the exact position of
+     Gabae, which also possesses a palace, is not known.
+
+[Illustration: 287.jpg A PERSIAN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of one of the bas-
+     reliefs at Persepolis, in Dieulafoy.
+
+The Persians were a keen-witted and observant race, inured to all kinds
+of hardships in their occupation as mountain shepherds, and they were
+born warriors. The type preserved on the monuments differs but little
+from that which still exists at the present day in the more remote
+districts. It was marked by a tall and slender figure, with sturdy
+shoulders and loins, a small head, with a thick shock of hair and
+curling beard, a straight nose, a determined mouth, and an eye steady
+and alert. Yet, in spite of their valour, Phraortes overpowered them,
+and was henceforward able to reckon the princes of Anshan among his
+vassals; strengthened by the addition of their forces to his own,
+he directed his efforts to the subjection of the other races of the
+plateau. If we may believe the tradition of the Hellenic epoch, he
+reduced them to submission, and, intoxicated by his success, ventured at
+last to take up arms against the Assyrians, who for centuries past had
+held rule over Upper Asia.
+
+This was about 635 B.C., or less than ten years after the downfall of
+Elam, and it does not seem likely that the vital forces of Assyria can
+have suffered any serious diminution within so short a space of time.*
+
+     * The date is indicated by the figures given by Herodotus in
+     regard to the Medic kings, based on the calculations of
+     himself or his authorities. Phraortes died in 634 B.C.,
+     after a reign of twenty-two years, and as the last year of
+     his reign coincides with the war against Assyria, the
+     preparations for it cannot have been much earlier than 635
+     or 636 B.C., a year or two before the catastrophe.
+
+Assur-bani-pal, weary of fighting, even though he no longer directed
+operations in person, had apparently determined to remain entirely on
+the defensive, and not to take the field, unless absolutely compelled
+to do so by rebellion at home or an attack from outside. In view of the
+growing need of rest for the Assyrian nation, he could not have arrived
+at a wiser decision, provided always that circumstances allowed of its
+being carried into effect, and that the tributary races and frontier
+nations were willing to fall in with his intentions. They did so at
+first, for the fate of Elam had filled even the most unruly among them
+with consternation, and peace reigned supreme from the Persian Gulf to
+the Mediterranean. Assur-bani-pal took advantage of this unexpected lull
+to push forward the construction of public works in the valleys of the
+Tigris and Euphrates. The palace of Sennacherib, though it had been
+built scarcely fifty years before, was already beginning to totter on
+its foundations; Assur-bani-pal entirely remodeled and restored it--a
+proceeding which gave universal satisfaction. The common people had, as
+usual, to make the bricks with their own hands and convey them to the
+spot, but as the chariots employed for this purpose formed part of the
+booty recently brought back from Elam, the privilege of using these
+trophies did something to lighten the burden of the tasks imposed on
+them. Moreover, they had the satisfaction of seeing at work among the
+squads of labourers several real kings, the Arabian chiefs who had been
+pursued and captured in the heart of the desert by Assur-bani-pal's
+generals; they plodded along under their heavy baskets, stimulated by
+the crack of the whip, amid insults and jeers. This palace was one of
+the largest and most ornate ever built by the rulers of Assyria. True,
+the decoration does not reveal any novel process or theme; we find
+therein merely the usual scenes of battle or of the chase, but they are
+designed and executed with a skill to which the sculptor of Nineveh had
+never before attained. The animals, in particular, are portrayed with a
+light and delicate touch--the wild asses pursued by hounds, or checked
+while galloping at full speed by a cast of the lasso; the herds of goats
+and gazelles hurrying across the desert; the wounded lioness, which
+raises herself with a last dying effort to roar at the beaters. We are
+conscious of Egyptian influence underlying the Asiatic work, and the
+skilful arrangement of the scenes from the Elamite campaigns also
+reminds us of Egypt. The picture of the battle of Tulliz recalls, in
+the variety of its episodes and the arrangement of the perspective, the
+famous engagement at Qodshu, of which Ramses II. has left such
+numerous presentments on the Theban pylons. The Assyrians, led by the
+vicissitudes of invasion to Luxor and the Ramesseum, had, doubtless,
+seen these masterpieces of Egyptian art in a less mutilated state than
+that in which we now possess them, and profited by the remembrance when
+called upon to depict the private life of their king and the victories
+gained by his armies.
+
+[Illustration: 290.jpg A HERD OF WILD GOATS--A BAS-RELIEF OF THE TIME OF
+ASSUR-BANI-PAL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch by Place.
+
+It was in this magnificent residence that Assur-bani-pal led an
+existence of indolent splendour, such as the chroniclers of a later
+age were wont to ascribe to all the Assyrian monarchs from the time of
+Semiramis onwards.*
+
+     * Stories of the effeminacy of Sardanapalus had been
+     collected by Ctesias of Cnidus; they soon grew under the
+     hands of historians in the time of Alexander, and were
+     passed on by them to writers of the Roman and Byzantine
+     epochs.
+
+[Illustration: 290b ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT IN HEIROGLYPHICS]
+
+We would gladly believe that he varied the monotony of his hunting
+expeditions, his banquets, and entertainments in the gardens in company
+with the women of the harem, by pleasures of a more refined nature, and
+that he took an unusual interest in the history and literature of the
+races who had become subject to his rule. As a matter of fact, there
+have been discovered in several of the ruined chambers of his palaces
+the remains of a regular library, which must originally have contained
+thousands of clay tablets, all methodically arranged and catalogued for
+his use. A portion of them furnish us at first-hand with the records
+of his reign, and include letters exchanged with provincial governors,
+augural predictions, consultation of oracles, observations made by the
+royal astrologers, standing orders, accounts of income and expenditure,
+even the reports of physicians in regard to the health of members of the
+royal family or of the royal household: these documents reveal to us the
+whole machinery of government in actual operation, and we almost seem
+to witness the secret mechanism by which the kingdom was maintained in
+activity. Other tablets contain authentic copies of works which were
+looked upon as classics in the sanctuaries of the Euphrates. Probably,
+when Babylon was sacked, Sennacherib had ordered the books which
+lay piled up in E-Sagilla and the other buildings of the city to
+be collected and carried away to Nineveh along with the statues and
+property of the gods. They had been placed in the treasury, and there
+they remained until Esarhaddon re-established the kingdom of Karduniash,
+and Assur-bani-pal was forced to deliver up the statue of Marduk and
+restore to the sanctuaries, now rebuilt, all the wealth of which his
+grandfather had robbed them: but before sending back the tablets, he
+ordered copies to be made of them, and his secretaries set to work to
+transcribe for his use such of these works as they considered worthy of
+reproduction. The majority of them were treatises compiled by the most
+celebrated adepts in the sciences for which Chaldaea had been famous
+from time immemorial; they included collections of omens, celestial and
+terrestrial, in which the mystical meaning of each phenomenon and
+its influence on the destinies of the world was explained by examples
+borrowed from the Annals of world-renowned conquerors, such as Naramsin
+and Sargon of Agade; then there were formulae for exorcising evil spirits
+from the bodies of the possessed, and against phantoms, vampires, and
+ghosts, the recognised causes of all disease; prayers and psalms, which
+had to be repeated before the gods in order to obtain pardon for sin;
+and histories of divinities and kings from the time of the creation down
+to the latest date. Among these latter were several versions of the epic
+of Grilgames, the story of Etana, of Adapa, and many others; and we
+may hope to possess all that the Assyrians knew of the old Chaldaean
+literature in the seventh century B.C., as soon as the excavators have
+unearthed from the mound at Kouyunjik all the tablets, complete or
+fragmentary, which still lie hidden there. Even from the shreds of
+information which they have already yielded to us, we are able to piece
+together so varied a picture that we can readily imagine Assur-bani-pal
+to have been a learned and studious monarch, a patron of literature and
+antiquarian knowledge. Very possibly he either read himself, or had read
+to him, many of the authors whose works found a place in his library:
+the kings of Nineveh, like the Pharaohs, desired now and then to be
+amused by tales of the marvellous, and they were doubtless keenly alive
+to the delightful rhythm and beautiful language employed by the poets of
+the past in singing the praises of their divine or heroic ancestors.
+But the mere fact that his palace contained the most important literary
+collection which the ancient East has so far bequeathed to us, in no
+way proves that Assur-bani-pal displayed a more pronounced taste for
+literature than his predecessors; it indicates merely the zeal and
+activity of his librarians, their intelligence, and their respect and
+admiration for the great works of the past. Once he had issued his edict
+ordering new editions of the old masters to be prepared, Assur-bani-pal
+may have dismissed the matter from his mind, and the work would go on
+automatically without need for any further interference on his part.
+The scribes enriched his library for him, in much the same way as the
+generals won his battles, or the architects built his monuments: they
+were nothing more than nameless agents, whose individuality was eclipsed
+by that of their master, their skill and talent being all placed to his
+credit. Babylonia shared equally with Assyria in the benefits of his
+government. He associated himself with his brother Shamash-shumukin in
+the task of completing the temple of E-Sagilla; afterwards, when sole
+monarch, he continued the work of restoration, not only in Babylon, but
+in the lesser cities as well, especially those which had suffered most
+during the war, such as Uru, Uruk, Borsippa, and Cutha.*
+
+     He refers to the works at Borsippa and Kuta towards the end
+     of the account of his campaign against Shamash-shumukin, and
+     to those at Uruk in describing the war against Khumban-
+     khaldash.
+
+He remodelled the temple of Bel at Nippur, the walls built there by him
+being even now distinguishable from the rest by the size of the bricks
+and the careful dressing of the masonry. From the shores of the Persian
+Gulf to the mountains of Armenia, Assyria and Karduniash were covered
+with building-yards just as they had been in the most peaceful days of
+the monarchy.
+
+[Illustration: 294.jpg REMAINS OF ASSUR-BANI-PAL's WALL AT NIPPUR]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph published by
+     Peters.
+
+It was at this unique juncture of apparent grandeur and prosperity
+that Phraortes resolved to attack Assur-bani-pal. There is nothing to
+indicate that his action took place simultaneously with some movement on
+the part of other peoples, or with a serious insurrection in any of the
+Assyrian provinces. For my part, I prefer to set it down to one of those
+sudden impulses, those irresistible outbursts of self-confidence, which
+from time to time actuated the princes tributary to Nineveh or the kings
+on its frontier. The period of inactivity to which some previous defeat
+inflicted on them or on their predecessors had condemned them, allowed
+them to regain their strength, and one or two victories over less
+powerful neighbours served to obliterate the memory of former
+humiliation and disaster; they flew to arms full of hope in the result,
+and once more drew down defeat upon their heads, being lucky indeed if
+their abortive rising led to nothing worse than the slaughter of their
+armies, the execution of their generals, and an increase in the amount
+of their former tribute. This was the fate that overtook Phraortes;
+the conqueror of the Persians, when confronted by the veteran troops of
+Assyria, failed before their superior discipline, and was left dead upon
+the field of battle with the greater part of his army. So far the
+affair presented no unusual features; it was merely one more commonplace
+repetition of a score of similar episodes which had already taken place
+in the same region, under Tiglath-pileser III. or the early Sargonides;
+but Huvakshatara, the son of Phraortes, known to the Greeks as
+Cyaxares,* instead of pleading for mercy, continued to offer a stubborn
+resistance. Cyaxares belongs to history, and there can be no doubt that
+he exercised a decisive influence over the destinies of the Oriental
+world, but precise details of his exploits are wanting, and his
+personality is involved in such obscuring mists that we can scarcely
+seize it; the little we have so far been able to glean concerning him
+shows us, not so much the man himself, as a vague shadow of him seen
+dimly through the haze.
+
+     * The original form of the name is furnished by passages in
+     the Behistun inscription, where Chitrantakhma of Sagartia
+     and Fravartish of Media, two of the claimants for the throne
+     who rose against Darius, are represented as tracing their
+     descent from Huvakshatara.
+
+His achievements prove him to have been one of those perfect rulers of
+men, such as Asia produces every now and then, who knew how to govern as
+well as how to win battles--a born general and lawgiver, who could carry
+his people with him, and shone no less in peace than in war.*
+
+     * G. Rawlinson takes a somewhat different view of Cyaxares'
+     character; he admits that Cyaxares knew how to win
+     victories, but refuses to credit him with the capacity for
+     organisation required in order to reap the full benefits of
+     conquest, giving as his reason for this view the brief
+     duration of the Medic empire. The test applied by him does
+     not seem to me a conclusive one, for the existence of the
+     second Chaldaean empire was almost as short, and yet it would
+     be decidedly unfair to draw similar inferences touching the
+     character of Nabopolassar or Nebuchadrezzar from this fact.
+
+[Illustration: 297.jpg MEDIC AND PERSIAN FOOT-SOLDIERS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Coste and Flandin. The first
+     and third figures are Medes, the second and fourth Persians.
+
+The armies at the disposal of his predecessors had been little more than
+heterogeneous assemblies of feudal militia; each clan furnished its own
+contingent of cavalry, archers, and pikemen, but instead of all these
+being combined into a common whole, with kindred elements contributed
+by the other tribes, each one acted separately, thus forming a number of
+small independent armies within the larger one. Cyaxares saw that defeat
+was certain so long as he had nothing but these ill-assorted masses to
+match against the regular forces of Assyria: he therefore broke up the
+tribal contingents and rearranged the units of which they were composed
+according to their natural affinities, grouping horsemen with horsemen,
+archers with archers, and pikemen with pikemen, taking the Assyrian
+cavalry and infantry as his models.*
+
+* Herodotus tells us that Cyaxares was "the first to divide the Asiatics
+into different regiments, separating the pikemen from the archers and
+horsemen; before his time, these troops were all mixed up haphazard
+together." I have interpreted his evidence in the sense which seems
+most in harmony with what we know of Assyrian military tactics. It
+seems incredible that the Medic armies can have fought pell-mell, as
+Herodotus declares, seeing that for two hundred years past the Medes
+had been frequently engaged against such well-drilled troops as those
+of Assyria: if the statement be authentic, it merely means that Cyaxares
+converted all the small feudal armies which had hitherto fought side
+by side on behalf of the king into a single royal army in which the
+different kinds of troops were kept separate.
+
+The foot-soldiers wore a high felt cap known as a tiara; they had long
+tunics with wide sleeves, tied in at the waist by a belt, and sometimes
+reinforced by iron plates or scales, as well as gaiters, buskins of soft
+leather, and large wickerwork shields covered with ox-hide, which they
+bore in front of them like a movable bulwark; their weapons consisted of
+a short sword, which depended from the belt and lay along the thigh,
+one or two light javelins, a bow with a strongly pronounced curve, and
+a quiver full of arrows made from reeds.* Their horsemen, like those of
+other warlike nations II of the East, used neither saddle nor stirrups,
+and though they could make skilful use of lance and sword, their
+favourite weapon was the bow.**
+
+     * Herodotus describes the equipment of the Persians in much
+     the same terms as I have used above, and then adds in the
+     following chapter that "the Medes had the same equipment,
+     for it is the equipment of the Medes and not that of the
+     Persians."
+
+     ** Herodotus says that the Medic horsemen were armed in the
+     same manner as the infantry.
+
+[Illustration: 298.jpg A MEDIC HORSEMAN]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a cast of the Medic intaglio in
+     the Cabinet des Medailles.
+
+Accustomed from their earliest childhood to all kinds of equestrian
+exercises, they seemed to sit their horses as though they actually
+formed part of the animal. They seldom fought in line, but, from the
+very beginning of an action, hung like a dense cloud on the front and
+flanks of the enemy, and riddled them with missiles, without, however,
+coming to close quarters. Like the Parthians of a later epoch, they
+waited until they had bewildered and reduced the foe by their ceaseless
+evolutions before giving the final charge which was to rout them
+completely. No greater danger could threaten the Assyrians than the
+establishment of a systematically organised military power within
+the borders of Media. An invader starting from Egypt or Asia Minor,
+even if he succeeded in overthrowing the forces sent out to meet him,
+had still a long way to go before he could penetrate to the heart of
+the empire. Even if Cilicia and Syria should be conquered, nothing was
+easier than to oppose a further advance at the barrier of the Euphrates;
+and should the Euphrates be crossed, the Khabur still remained, and
+behind it the desert of Singar, which offered the last obstacle between
+Nineveh and the invaders. The distances were less considerable in the
+case of an army setting out from Urartu and proceeding along the basin
+of the Tigris or its affluents; but here, too, the difficulties of
+transit were so serious that the invader ran a great risk of gradually
+losing the best part of his forces on the road. On the north-east and
+east, however, the ancient heritage of Assur lay open to direct and
+swift attack. An enemy who succeeded in destroying or driving back the
+garrisons stationed as outposts on the rim of the plateau, from Kharkhar
+to Parsua, if he ventured to pursue his advantage and descended into the
+plain of the Tigris, had no less than three routes to choose from--the
+Kirind road on the south, the Baneh road on the north, and the
+Suleimanych road between the two. The last was the easiest of all, and
+led almost straight to the fords of Altun-Keupri and the banks of the
+Lesser Zab, on the confines of Assyria proper, close under the walls of
+Arbela, the holy city of Ishtar.
+
+[Illustration: 300.jpg THE ASSYRIAN TRIANGLE]
+
+He needed but to win two victories, one upon leaving the mountains, the
+other at the passage of the Zab, and two or three weeks' steady marching
+would bring him from Hamadan right up to the ramparts of Nineveh.
+Cyaxares won a victory over Assur-bani-pal's generals, and for the first
+time in over a hundred years Assyria proper suffered the ignominy of
+foreign invasion. The various works constructed by twenty generations of
+kings had gradually transformed the triangle enclosed between the Upper
+Zab, the Tigris, and the Jebel-Makhlub into a regular fortified camp.
+The southern point of this triangle was defended by Calah from the
+attacks of Chaldoa or from foes coming down from Media by Iiolwan and
+Suleimanyeh, while Nineveh guarded it on the northeast, and several
+lines of walled cities--among which Dur-Sharrukin and Imgur-Bel can
+still be identified--protected it on the north and east, extending from
+the Tigris as far as the G-hazir and Zab. It was necessary for an enemy
+to break through this complex defensive zone, and even after this had
+been successfully accomplished and the walls of the capital had been
+reached, the sight which would meet the eye was well calculated to
+dismay even the most resolute invader. Viewed as a whole, Nineveh
+appeared as an irregular quadrilateral figure, no two sides of which
+were parallel, lying on the left bank of the Tigris.
+
+[Illustration: 301.jpg MAP OF NINEVEH]
+
+The river came right up to the walls on the west, and the two mounds of
+Kouyunjik and Nebi-Yunus, on which stood the palaces of the Sargonides,
+were so skilfully fortified that a single wall connecting the two
+sufficed to ward off all danger of attack on this side. The south
+wall, which was the shortest of the four, being only about 870 yards
+in length, was rendered inaccessible by a muddy stream, while the north
+wall, some 2150 yards long, was protected by a wide moat which could be
+filled from the waters of the Khuzur.
+
+[Illustration: 302.jpg PART OF THE FOSSE AT NINEVEH]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+The eastern front had for a long time depended for its safety on
+a single wall reinforced by a moat, but Sennacherib, deeming it
+insufficiently protected against a sudden attack, had piled up obstacles
+in front of it, so that it now presented a truly formidable appearance.
+It was skirted throughout its whole length by a main rampart, 5400 yards
+long, which described a gentle curve from north to south, and rose to a
+height of about 50 feet, being protected by two small forts placed close
+to the main gates. The fosse did not run along the foot of the wall, but
+at a distance of about fifty yards in front of it, and was at least some
+20 feet deep and over 150 feet in width. It was divided into two unequal
+segments by the Khuzur: three large sluice-gates built on a level with
+the wall and the two escarpments allowed the river to be dammed back, so
+that its waters could be diverted into the fosse and thus keep it full
+in case of siege. In front of each segment was a kind of demi-lune,
+and--as though this was not precaution enough--two walls, each over
+4300 yards long, were built in front of the demi-lunes, the ditch which
+separated them being connected at one end with the Khuzur, and allowed
+to empty itself into a stream on the south. The number of inhabitants
+sheltered behind these defences was perhaps 300,000 souls;* each
+separate quarter of the city was enclosed by ramparts, thus forming, as
+it were, a small independent town, which had to be besieged and captured
+after a passage had been cut through the outer lines of defence.
+
+     * Jones and G. Rawlinson credit Nineveh with a population of
+     not more than 175,000.
+
+Cyaxares might well have lost heart in the face of so many difficulties,
+but his cupidity, inflamed by reports of the almost fabulous wealth of
+the city, impelled him to attack it with extraordinary determination:
+the spoils of Susa, Babylon, and Thebes, in fact, of the whole of
+Western Asia and Ethiopia, were, he felt, almost within his reach,
+and would inevitably fall into his hands provided his courage and
+perseverance did not fail him. After shutting up the remnant of the
+Assyrian army inside Nineveh he laid patient siege to the city, and the
+fame of his victories being noised abroad on all sides, it awoke among
+the subject races that longing for revenge which at one time appeared to
+have been sent to sleep for ever. It almost seemed as though the moment
+was approaching when the city of blood should bleed in its turn, when
+its kings should at length undergo the fate which they had so long
+imposed on other monarchs. Nahum the Elkoshite,* a Hebrew born in the
+Assyrian province of Samaria, but at that time an exile in Judah, lifted
+up his voice, and the echo of his words still resounds in our ears,
+telling us of the joy and hope felt by Judah, and with Judah, by the
+whole of Asia, at the prospect. Speaking as the prophet of Jahveh,
+it was to Jahveh that he attributed the impending downfall of the
+oppressor: "Jahveh is a jealous God and avengeth; Jahveh avengeth and
+is full of wrath; Jahveh taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He
+reserveth wrath for His enemies. Jahveh is slow to anger and great in
+power, and will by no means clear the guilty; Jahveh hath His way in the
+whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He
+rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan
+languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth."* And,
+"Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings."
+Then he goes on to unfold before the eyes of his hearers a picture of
+Nineveh, humiliated and in the last extremity.
+
+     * Elkosh is identified by Eusebius with Elkese, which St.
+     Jerome declares to have been in Galileo, the modern el-
+     Kauzeh, two and a half hours' walk south of Tibnin. The
+     prophecy of Nahum has been taken by some as referring to the
+     campaign of Phraortes against Assyria, but more frequently
+     to the destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Chaldaeans. It
+     undoubtedly refers to the siege interrupted by the Scythian
+     invasion.
+
+There she lies, behind her bastions of brick, anxiously listening for
+the approach of the victorious Medes. "The noise of the whip, and
+the noise of the rattling of wheels; and prancing horses and jumping
+chariots; the horsemen mounting, and the flashing sword, and the
+glittering spear; and a multitude of slain and a great heap of carcases:
+and there is no end of the corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
+because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot,
+the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms,
+and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith
+Jahveh of hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon they face; and I
+will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I
+will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set
+thee as a gazing-stock. And it shall come to pass that all they that
+look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who
+will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?" Thebes, the
+city of Amon, did not escape captivity; why then should Nineveh prove
+more fortunate? "All thy fortresses shall be like fig trees with the
+firstripe figs: if they be shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.
+Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; the gates of thy land
+are set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire hath devoured thy bars.
+Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses: go into the
+clay and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. There shall the
+fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off,... make thyself many as
+the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts. Thou hast multiplied
+thy merchants as the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth and flieth
+away. Thy crowned are as the locusts and thy marshals as the swarms of
+grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun
+ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
+Thy shepherds slumber, O King of Assyria: thy worthies are at rest: thy
+people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather
+them. There is no assuaging of thy hurt; thy wound is grievous: all that
+hear the bruit of thee clap the hands over thee; for upon whom hath not
+thy wickedness passed continually?"
+
+On this occasion Nineveh escaped the fate with which the prophet had
+threatened it, but its safety was dearly bought. According to the
+tradition accepted in Asia Minor two hundred years later, a horde of
+Scythians under King Madyes, son of Protothyes, setting out from the
+Bussian steppes in pursuit of the Cimmerians, made their appearance on
+the scene in the nick of time. We are told that they flung themselves
+through the Caspian Gates into the basin of the Kur, and came into
+contact with the Medes at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The defeat of the
+Medes here would necessarily compel them to raise the siege of Nineveh.
+This crisis in the history of Asia was certainly not determined by
+chance. For eighty years Assyria had been in contact with the Scythians,
+and the Assyrian kings had never ceased to keep an eye upon their
+movements, or lose sight of the advantage to which their bellicose
+temper might be turned in circumstances like the present. They had
+pitted them against the Cimmerians, then against the Medes, and probably
+against the kings of Urartu as well, and the intimacy between the two
+peoples came to be so close that the Scythian king Bartatua did not
+hesitate to demand one of the daughters of Bsarhaddon in marriage. From
+the very beginning of his reign Assur-bani-pal had shown them the
+utmost consideration, and when King Madyes, son of his ally Bartatua,
+intervened thus opportunely in the struggle, he did so, not by mere
+chance, as tradition would have us believe, but at the urgent request of
+Assyria. He attacked Media in the rear, and Cyaxares, compelled to raise
+the siege of Nineveh, hastened to join battle with him. The engagement
+probably took place on the banks of the Lower Araxes or to the north of
+Lake Urumiah, in the region formerly inhabited by the Mannai; but after
+defeating his foe and dictating to him the terms of submission, Madyes,
+carried away by the lust of conquest, did not hesitate to turn his arms
+against his ally. Exhausted by her recent struggle, Assyria lay at his
+mercy, her fortresses alone being able to offer any serious resistance:
+he overran the country from end to end, and though the walled cities
+withstood the fury of his attack, the rural districts were plundered
+right and left, and laid desolate for many a year to come. The Scythians
+of this epoch probably resembled those whom we find represented on the
+monuments of Greek art two centuries later. Tall fierce-looking men,
+with unkempt beards, their long and straggling locks surmounted by the
+_kyrbasis_, or pointed national cap of felt; they wore breeches and a
+blouse of embroidered leather, and were armed with lances, bows, and
+battle-axes. They rode bareback on untrained horses, herds of which
+followed their tribes about on their wanderings; each man caught the
+animal he required with the help of a lasso, put bit and bridle on him,
+and vaulting on to his back at a single bound, reduced him to a state
+of semi-obedience. No troops could stand their ground before the
+frantic charge of these wild horsemen; like the Huns of Roman times,
+the Scythians made a clean sweep of everything they found in their path.
+They ruined the crops, carried off or slaughtered the herds, and set
+fire to the villages from sheer love of destruction, or in order to
+inspire terror; every one who failed to fly to the mountains or take
+refuge in some fortress, was either massacred on the spot or led away
+into slavery.
+
+[Illustration: 308.jpg SCYTHIANS TENDING THEIR WOUNDED]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the reliefs on a silver vase
+     from Kul-Oba.
+
+Too ignorant of the arts of war to undertake a siege in the regular
+way, they usually contented themselves with levying ransoms on fortified
+towns; occasionally, however, when the wealth accumulated behind the
+walls held out a prospect of ample booty, they blockaded the place until
+famine compelled it to surrender. More than one ancient city which,
+thanks to the good government of its rulers and the industry of its
+citizens, had amassed treasure of inestimable value, was put to fire and
+sword, and more than one fertile and populous region left unfilled and
+deserted.* Most of the states which for the last three centuries had
+fought so stubbornly against the Assyrians for independence, went down
+before the storm, including the kingdoms of Urartu, of the Mushku, and
+of the Tabal,** the miserable end furnishing the Hebrew prophets full
+fifty years later with a theme of sombre rejoicing. "There is Meshech,
+Tubal, and all her multitude; her graves are round about her: all of
+them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in
+the land of the living. And they shall not lie with the mighty that
+are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their
+weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads,*** and
+their iniquities are upon their bones; for they were the terror of the
+mighty in the land of the living."****
+
+     * This may be deduced from the passage in Herodotus, where
+     he says that " the Scythians were masters of Asia for
+     twenty-eight years, and overturned everything by their
+     brutality and stupidity: for, in addition to tribute, they
+     exacted from every one whatever they chose, and, moreover,
+     they prowled here and there, plundering as they thought
+     good."
+
+     ** Strabo refers in general terms to the presence of
+     Scythians (or, as he calls them, Sacae) in Armenia,
+     Cappadocia, and on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+     *** This, doubtless, means that the Mushku and Tabal had
+     been so utterly defeated that they could not procure
+     honourable burial for their dead, i.e. with their swords
+     beneath their heads and their weapons on their bodies.
+
+     **** 1 Ezek. xxxii. 26, 27.
+
+The Cimmerians, who, since their reverses in Lydia and on Mount Taurus,
+had concentrated practically the whole of their tribes in Cappadocia
+and in the regions watered by the Halys and Thermodon, shared the good
+fortune of their former adversaries. At that time they lived under the
+rule of a certain Kobos, who seems to have left a terrible reputation
+behind him; tradition gives him a place beside Sesostris among the
+conquerors of the heroic age, and no doubt, like his predecessor
+Dugdamis, he owed this distinction to some expedition or other against
+the peoples who dwelt on the shores of the AEgean Sea, but our knowledge
+of his career is confined to the final catastrophe which overtook him.
+After some partial successes, such as that near Zela, for instance, he
+was defeated and made prisoner by Madyes. His subjects, as vassals of
+the Scythians, joined them in their acts of brigandage,* and together
+they marched from province to province, plundering as they went; they
+overran the western regions of the Assyrian kingdom from Melitene
+and Mesopotamia to Northern Syria, from Northern Syria to Phoenicia,
+Damascus, and Palestine,** and at length made their appearance on the
+Judaean frontier.
+
+     * It seems probable that this was so, when we consider the
+     confusion between the Scythians or Sakse, and the Cimmerians
+     in the Babylonian and Persian inscriptions of the
+     Achsemenian epoch.
+
+     ** Their migration from Media into Syria and Palestine is
+     expressly mentioned by Herodotus.
+
+Since the day when Sennacherib had been compelled to return to Assyria
+without having succeeded in destroying Jerusalem, or even carrying it by
+storm, Judah had taken little or no part in external politics. Divided
+at first by a conflict between the party of prudence, who advised
+submission to Nineveh, and the more warlike spirits who advocated an
+alliance with Egypt, it had ended by accepting its secondary position,
+and had on the whole remained fairly loyal to the dynasty of Sargon.
+
+[Illustration: 311.jpg IRANIAN SOLDIER FIGHTING AGAINST THE SCYTHIANS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast of a cylinder given by
+     Cunningham. The cylinder is usually described as Persian,
+     but the dress is that of the Medes as well as of the
+     Persians.
+
+On the death of Hezekiah, his successor, Manasseh, had, as we know,
+been tempted to intervene in the revolutions of the hour, but the prompt
+punishment which followed his first attempt put an end for ever to his
+desire for independence. His successor, Amon, during his brief reign of
+two years,* had no time to desert the ways of his father, and Josiah,**
+who came to the throne in 638 B.C., at the age of eight, had so far
+manifested no hostility towards Assyria.
+
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 18-26; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 20-25. The reign
+     of fifty-five years attributed to Manasseh by the Jewish
+     annalists cannot be fitted into the chronology of the
+     period; we must either take off ten years, thus reducing the
+     duration of the reign to forty-five years, or else we must
+     assume the first ten of Manasseh to be synchronous with the
+     last ten of Hezekiah.
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxii. 1; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 1.
+
+Thus, for more than fifty years, Judah enjoyed almost unbroken peace,
+and led as happy and prosperous an existence as the barrenness of its
+soil and the unruly spirit of its inhabitants would permit.
+
+But though its political activity had been almost nothing during this
+interval, its spiritual life had seldom been developed with a greater
+intensity. The reverse sustained by Sennacherib had undoubtedly been
+a triumph for Isaiah, and for the religious party of which we are
+accustomed to regard him as the sole representative. It had served to
+demonstrate the power of Jahveh, and His aversion for all idolatrous
+worship and for all foreign alliances. In vain did the partisans of
+Egypt talk loudly of Pharaoh and of all those principalities of this
+world which were drawn round in Pharaoh's orbit; Egypt had shown herself
+incapable of safeguarding her friends, and things had gone steadily from
+bad to worse so long as these latter held the reins of government;
+their removal from office had been, as it were, the signal for a welcome
+change in the fortunes of the Jews. Jahveh had delivered His city
+the moment when, ceasing to rely upon itself, it had surrendered its
+guidance into His hands, and the means of avoiding disaster in the
+future was clearly pointed out to it. Judah must be content to follow
+the counsels which Isaiah had urged upon it in the name of the Most
+High, and submissively obey the voice of its prophets. "Thine eyes shall
+see thy teachers: and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying,
+This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when
+ye turn to the left. And ye shall defile the over-laying of thy graven
+images of silver, and the plating of thy molten images of gold: thou
+shalt cast them away as an unclean thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get
+thee hence." Isaiah seems to disappear after his triumph, and none of
+his later prophecies have come down to us: yet the influence of his
+teaching lasted throughout the reign of Hezekiah, and the court,
+supported by the more religious section of the people, not only abjured
+the worship of false gods, but forsook the high places and discontinued
+the practices which he had so strenuously denounced. The great bulk of
+the nation, however, soon returned to their idolatrous practices, if,
+indeed, they had ever given them up, and many of the royal advisers grew
+weary of the rigid observances which it was sought to impose upon them;
+rites abhorrent to Jahveh found favour even among members of the king's
+own family, and on Hezekiah's death, about 686 B.C., a reaction promptly
+set in against both his religious views and the material reforms he had
+introduced.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 2-7 (cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 2-7), where, in
+     spite of manifest recensions of the text, the facts
+     themselves seem to have been correctly set forth.
+
+Manasseh was only thirteen years old when he came to the throne, and his
+youth naturally inclined him towards the less austere forms of divine
+worship: from the very first he tolerated much that his father had
+forbidden, and the spirit of eclecticism which prevailed among his
+associates rendered him, later on, an object of special detestation to
+the orthodox historians of Jerusalem. Worshippers again began openly
+to frequent the high places; they set up again the prostrate idols,
+replanted the sacred groves, and even "built altars for all the host
+of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jahveh." The chariots
+and horses of the sun reappeared within the precincts of the temple,
+together with the sacred courtesans. Baal and the Phoenician Astarte
+were worshipped on Mount Sion. The valley of Hinnom, where Ahaz had
+already burnt one of his children during a desperate crisis in the
+Syrian wars, was again lighted up by the flames of the sacred pyre.
+We are told that Manasseh himself set the example by passing his son
+through the flames; he also had recourse to astrologers, soothsayers,
+fortune-tellers, and sorcerers of the lowest type. The example of
+Assyria in matters of this kind exercised a preponderant influence on
+Jewish customs, and certainly it would have been a miracle if Jerusalem
+had succeeded in escaping it; did not Nineveh owe the lofty place it
+occupied to these occult sciences and to the mysterious powers of its
+gods? In thus imitating its conqueror, Judah was merely borrowing the
+weapons which had helped him to subdue the world. The partisans of the
+ancient religions who were responsible for these innovations must have
+regarded them as perfectly legitimate reforms, and their action was
+received with favour in the provinces: before long the latter contained
+as many sanctuaries as there were towns,* and by thus multiplying the
+centres of worship, they hoped that, in accordance with ancient belief,
+the ties which existed between Jahveh and His chosen people would also
+be increased.
+
+     * Jer. ii. 26-30. For the quotation see also Jer. xi. 13:
+     "For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O
+     Judah; and according to the number of the streets of
+     Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shameful thing, even
+     altars to burn incense unto Baal."
+
+The fact that the provinces had been ravaged from end to end in the days
+of Sennacherib, while Jerusalem had been spared, was attributed to the
+circumstance that Hezekiah had destroyed the provincial sanctuaries,
+leaving the temple on Mount Sion alone standing. Wherever Jahveh
+possessed altars, He kept guard over His people, but His protection was
+not extended to those places where sacrifices were no longer offered to
+Him. The reaction was not allowed to take place without opposition on
+the part of the prophets and their followers. We are told that Manasseh
+"shed innocent blood very much till he had filled Jerusalem from one
+end to another;" there is even a Kabbinic tradition to the effect that,
+weary of the admonitions of the aged Isaiah, he put him to death by
+shutting him up in the hollow trunk of a tree, and causing him to be
+sawn in two.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxi. 16. The tradition in regard to the fate of
+     Isaiah took its foundation in this text, and it is perhaps
+     indirectly referred to in Heb. xi. 37.
+
+For a long time after this no instance can be found of a prophet
+administering public affairs or directing the actions of the king
+himself; the priests and reformers, finding no outlet for their
+energy in this direction, fell back on private preaching and literary
+propaganda. And, above all, they applied themselves to the task of
+rewriting the history of Israel, which, as told by the chroniclers of
+the previous century, presented the national Deity in too material a
+light, and one which failed to harmonise with the ideals then obtaining.
+So long as there were two separate Hebrew kingdoms, the existence of the
+two parallel versions of the Elohist and Jahvist gave rise to but little
+difficulty: each version had its own supporters and readers, whose
+consciences were readily satisfied by the interpolation of a few new
+facts into the text as occasion arose. But now that Samaria had fallen,
+and the whole political and religious life of the Hebrew race
+was centred in Judah alone, the necessity for a double and often
+contradictory narrative had ceased to exist, and the idea occurred of
+combining the two in a single work. This task, which was begun in
+the reign of Hezekiah and continued under Manasseh, resulted in the
+production of a literature of which fragments have been incorporated
+into the historical books of our Bible.*
+
+The reign of Amon witnessed no alteration in the policy initiated by his
+predecessor Manasseh; but when, after less than two years' rule, he was
+suddenly struck down by the knife of an assassin, the party of reform
+carried the day, and the views of Hezekiah and Isaiah regained their
+ascendency. Josiah had been king, in name at any rate, for twelve
+years,** and was learning to act on his own responsibility, when the
+Scythian danger appeared on the horizon.
+
+     * The scheme of the present work prevents me from doing more
+     than allude in passing to these preliminary stages in the
+     composition of the Priestly Code. I shall have occasion to
+     return briefly to the subject at the close of Volume IX.
+
+     ** The date is supplied by the opening passage of the
+     prophecy of Jeremiah, "to whom the word of Jehovah came in
+     the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, King of Judah, in the
+     thirteenth year of his reign" (i. 2). Volney recognised
+     that chaps, i., iv., v., and vi. of Jeremiah refer to the
+     Scythian invasion, and since his time it has been admitted
+     that, with the exception of certain interpolations in chaps,
+     i. and iii., the whole of the first six chapters date from
+     this period, but that they underwent slight modifications in
+     the recension which was made in the fourth year of
+     Jehoiachin in order to make them applicable to the
+     threatened Chaldaean invasion. The date is important, since
+     by using it as a basis we can approximately restore the
+     chronology of the whole period. If we assume the thirteenth
+     year of Josiah to have been 627-626 B.C., we are compelled
+     to place all the early Medic wars in the reign of Assur-
+     bani-pal, as I have done.
+
+This barbarian invasion, which burst upon the peace of Assyria like
+a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky, restored to the faithful that
+confidence in the omnipotence of their God which had seemed about
+to fail them; when they beheld the downfall of states, the sack of
+provinces innumerable, whole provinces in flames and whole peoples
+irresistibly swept away to death or slavery, they began to ask
+themselves whether these were not signs of the divine wrath, indicating
+that the day of Jahveh was at hand. Prophets arose to announce
+the approaching judgment, among the rest a certain Zephaniah, a
+great-grandson of Hezekiah:* "I will utterly consume all things from off
+the face of the ground, saith Jahveh. I will consume man and beast; I
+will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the
+stumbling-blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face
+of the earth, saith Jahveh. And I will stretch out My hand upon Judah,
+and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the
+remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarim with the
+priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops;
+and them that worship, which swear to Jahveh and swear by Malcham; and
+them that are turned back from following Jahveh; and those that have not
+sought Jahveh nor inquired after Him. Hold thy peace at the presence
+of the Lord Jahveh; for the day of Jahveh is at hand; for Jahveh hath
+prepared a sacrifice, He hath sanctified His guests."
+
+     * Zephaniah gives his own genealogy at the beginning of his
+     prophecy (i. 1), though, it is true, he does not add the
+     title "King of Judah" after the name of his ancestor
+     Hezekiah.
+
+"That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of
+wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of
+clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm, against
+the fenced cities, and against the high battlements. And I will bring
+distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they
+have sinned against Jahveh: and their blood shall be poured out as dust,
+and their flesh as dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be
+able to deliver them in the day of Jahveh's wrath; but the whole land
+shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy; for He shall make an end,
+yea, a terrible end, of all them that dwell in the land." During this
+same period of stress and terror, there came forward another prophet,
+one of the greatest among the prophets of Israel--Jeremiah, son of
+Hilkiah. He was born in the village of Anathoth, near Jerusalem, being
+descended from one of those priestly families in which the faith had
+been handed down from generation to generation in all its original
+purity.*
+
+     * The descent and birthplace of Jeremiah are given at the
+     beginning of his prophecies (i. 1). He must have been quite
+     young in the thirteenth year of Josiah, as is evident from
+     the statement in i. 6. We are told in chap, xxxvi. that in
+     the fourth year of Jehoiakim he dictated a summary of all
+     the prophecies delivered by him from the thirteenth year of
+     Josiah up to the date indicated to his servant Baruch, and
+     that later on he added a number of others of the same kind.
+
+When Jahveh called him, he cried out in amazement, "Ah, Lord God!
+behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child." But Jahveh reassured him, and
+touching his lips, said unto him, "Behold, I have put My words in thy
+mouth: see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over
+the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to
+overthrow, to build and to plant." Then the prophet perceived a seething
+cauldron, the face of which appeared from the north, for the Eternal
+declared to him that "Out of the north evil shall break out upon all the
+inhabitants of the land." Already the enemy is hastening: "Behold, he
+shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind:
+his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled. O
+Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.
+How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee? For a voice
+declareth from Dan, and publisheth evil from the hills of Ephraim:
+make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem!" The
+Scythians had hardly been mentioned before they were already beneath the
+walls, and the prophet almost swoons with horror at the sound of their
+approach. "My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart: my heart
+is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because thou hast heard,
+O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon
+destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled, and my curtains in
+a moment. How long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the
+trumpet?" It would seem that the torrent of invasion turned aside
+from the mountains of Judah; it flowed over Galilee, Samaria, and the
+Philistine Shephelah, its last eddies dying away on the frontiers of
+Egypt. Psammetiehus is said to have bribed the barbarians to retire. As
+they fell back they plundered the temple of Derketo, near Ashkelon: we
+are told that in order to punish them for this act of sacrilege, the
+goddess visited them with a disease which caused serious ravages amongst
+them, and which the survivors carried back with them to their own
+country.*
+
+     * Herodotus calls the goddess Aphrodite Urania, by which we
+     must understand Derketo or Atargatis, who is mentioned by
+     several other classical authors, e.g. Xanthus of Lydia,
+     Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny. According to Justin, the
+     Scythians were stopped only by the marshes of the Delta. The
+     disease by which the Scythians were attacked is described by
+     Hippocrates; but in spite of what he tells us about it, its
+     precise nature has not yet been determined.
+
+There was, however, no need to introduce a supernatural agency in order
+to account for their rapid disappearance. The main body of invaders had
+never quitted Media or the northern part of the Assyrian empire, and
+only the southern regions of Syria were in all probability exposed to
+the attacks of isolated bands. These stragglers, who year after year
+embarked in one desperate adventure after another, must have found great
+difficulty in filling up the gaps which even victories made in their
+ranks; enervated by the relaxing nature of the climate, they could offer
+little resistance to disease, and excess completed what the climate had
+begun, the result being that most of them died on the way, and only
+a few survived to rejoin the main body with their booty. For several
+months the tide of invasion continued to rise, then it ebbed as quickly
+as it had risen, till soon nothing was left to mark where it had passed
+save a pathway of ruins, not easily made good, and a feeling of terror
+which it took many a year to efface. It was long before Judah forgot
+the "mighty nation, the ancient nation, the nation whose language thou
+knowest not, neither understandest thou what they say."* Men could
+still picture in imagination their squadrons marauding over the plains,
+robbing the fellah of his crops, his bread, his daughters, his sheep and
+oxen, his vines and fig trees, for "they lay hold on bow and spear; they
+are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and
+they ride upon horses; every one set in array as a man to the battle,**
+against thee, O daughter of Sion. We have heard the fame thereof; our
+hands wax feeble; anguish hath taken hold of us, and pangs as of a woman
+in travail."*** The supremacy of the Scythians was of short duration. It
+was said in after-times that they had kept the whole of Asia in a state
+of terror for twenty-eight years, dating from their defeat of Cyaxares;
+but the length of this period is exaggerated.****
+
+     * Jer. v. 15; it seems curious that the Hebrew prophet
+     should use the epithet "ancient," when we remember that the
+     Scythians claimed to be the oldest nation in the world,
+     older than even the Egyptians themselves.
+
+     ** An obvious allusion to the regular formation adopted by
+     the Scythian squadrons.
+
+     *** Jer. v. 17; vi. 23, 24.
+
+     **** The authenticity of the number of years given in
+     Herodotus has been energetically defended by some modern
+     historians, and not less forcibly denied by others, who
+     reduce it, for example, in accordance with a doubtful
+     passage of Justin, to eight years. By assigning all the
+     events relating to the Scythian invaders to the mean period
+     of twenty years, we should obtain the length of time which
+     best corresponds to what is actually known of the general
+     history of this epoch.
+
+The Medes soon recovered from their disaster, but before engaging their
+foes in open conflict, they desired to rid themselves of the prince
+who had conquered them, and on whom the fortunes of the whole Scythian
+nation depended. Cyaxares, therefore, invited Madyes and his officers
+to a banquet, and after plying them to excess with meat and drink, he
+caused them all to be slain.*
+
+     * This episode is regarded as legendary by many modern
+     historians. Winckler even goes so far as to deny the defeat
+     of the Scythians: according to his view, they held
+     possession of Media till their chief, Astyages, was
+     overthrown by Cyrus; Rost has gone even further, deeming
+     even Cyaxares himself to have been a Scythian. For my part,
+     I see no reason to reject the tradition of the fatal
+     banquet. Without referring to more ancient illustrations,
+     Noldeke recalls the fact that in a period of only ten years,
+     from 1030 to 1040 a.d., the princes reigning over the
+     Iranian lands rid themselves by similar methods of the
+     Turcoman bands which harassed them. Such a proceeding has
+     never been repugnant to Oriental morality, and it is of a
+     kind to fix itself in the popular mind: far from wishing to
+     suppress it, I should be inclined to see in it the nucleus
+     of the whole tradition.
+
+The barbarians made a brave resistance, in spite of the treason which
+had deprived them of their leaders: they yielded only after a long and
+bloody campaign, the details of which are unknown to us. Iranian
+legends wove into the theme of their expulsion all kinds of fantastic or
+romantic incidents. They related, for instance, how, in combination
+with the Parthians, the Scythians, under the leadership of their queen
+Zarinsea, several times defeated the Medes: she consented at last to
+conclude a treaty on equal terms, and peace having been signed, she
+retired to her capital of Boxanake, there to end her days. One body
+of the survivors re-entered Europe through the Caspian Gates, another
+wandered for some time between the Araxes and the Halys, seeking a
+country adapted to their native instincts and customs.* Cyaxares,
+relieved from the pressure put upon him by the Scythians, immediately
+resumed his efforts against Assyria, and was henceforward able to carry
+his plans to completion without encountering any serious obstacle. It
+would be incorrect to say that the Scythian invasion had overthrown the
+empire of the Sargonids: it had swept over it like a whirlwind, but
+had not torn from it one province, nor, indeed, even a single city. The
+nations, already exhausted by their struggles for independence, were
+incapable of displaying any energy when the barbarians had withdrawn,
+and continued to bow beneath the Ninevite yoke as much from familiarity
+with habitual servitude as from inability to shake themselves free.
+Assur-bani-pal had died about the year 625 B.C., after a reign of
+forty-two years, and his son Assur-etililani had assumed the double
+crown of Assyria and Babylon without opposition.**
+
+     * Herodotus speaks of these Scythians as having lived at
+     first on good terms with Cyaxares.
+
+     ** The date of Assur-bani-pal's death is not furnished by
+     any Assyrian monument, but is inferred from the Canon of
+     Ptolemy, where Saosduchin or Shamash-shumukin and Chinaladan
+     or Assur-bani-pal each reigns forty-two years, from 668 or
+     667 to 626 or 625 B.C. The order of succession of the last
+     Assyrian kings was for a long time doubtful, and Sin-shar-
+     ishkun was placed before Assur-etililani; the inverse order
+     seems to be now conclusively proved. The documents which
+     seemed at one time to prove the existence of a last king of
+     Assyria named Esarhaddon, identical with the Saracos of
+     classical writers, really belong to Esarhaddon, the father
+     of Assur-bani-pal. [Another king, Sin-sum-lisir, is
+     mentioned in a contract dated at Nippur in his accession
+     year. He may have been the immediate predecessor of
+     Sarakos.--? Ed.]
+
+Nineveh had been saved from pillage by the strength of her ramparts,
+but the other fortresses, Assur, Calah, and Dur-Sharrukin, had been
+destroyed during the late troubles; the enemy, whether Medes or
+Scythians, had taken them by storm or reduced them by famine, and they
+were now mere heaps of ruin, deserted save for a few wretched remnants
+of their population. Assur-etililani made some feeble attempts to
+restore to them a semblance of their ancient splendour. He erected at
+Calah, on the site of the palaces which had been destroyed by fire, a
+kind of castle rudely built, and still more rudely decorated, the rooms
+of which were small and low, and the walls of sun-dried brick were
+panelled only to the height of about a yard with slabs of limestone
+roughly squared, and without sculpture or inscription: the upper part of
+the walls was covered with a coating of uneven plaster. We do not know
+how long the inglorious reign of Assur-etililani lasted, nor whether he
+was assassinated or died a natural death. His brother, Sin-shar-ishkun,*
+who succeeded him about 620 B.C., at first exercised authority, as he
+had done, over Babylon as well as Nineveh,** and laboured, like his
+predecessor, to repair the edifices which had suffered by the invasion,
+making war on his neighbours, perhaps even on the Medes, without
+incurring serious losses.
+
+     * The name of this king was discovered by G. Smith on the
+     fragments of a cylinder brought from Kouyunjik, where he
+     read it as Bel-zakir-iskun. The real reading is Sin-shar-
+     ishkun, and the similarity of this name with that of
+     Saracos, the last king of Assyria according to Greek
+     tradition, strikes one immediately. The relationship of this
+     king to Assur-etililani was pointed out by Father Scheil
+     from the fragment of a tablet on which Sin-shar-ishkun is
+     declared to be the son of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria.
+
+     ** This may be deduced from a passage of Abydenus, where
+     Saracos or Sin-shar-ishkun sends Bussalossoros (that is,
+     Nabopolassar) to defend Chaldae against the invasion of the
+     peoples of the sea; so according to Abydenus, or rather
+     Berosus, from whom Abydenus indirectly obtained his
+     information, Saracos was King of Babylon as well as of
+     Nineveh at the beginning of his reign.
+
+The Chaldaeans, however, merely yielded him obedience from force of
+habit, and the moment was not far distant when they would endeavour to
+throw off his yoke. Babylon was at that time under the rule of a certain
+Nabu-bal-uzur, known to us as Nabopolassar, a Kaldu of ancient lineage,
+raised possibly by Assur-bani-pal to the dignity of governor, but
+who, in any case, had assumed the title of king on the accession of
+Assur-etililani.*
+
+     * The Canon of Ptolemy makes Nabopolassar the direct
+     successor of Chinaladan, and his testimony is justified by
+     the series of Babylonian contracts which exist in fairly
+     regular succession from the second to the twenty-first years
+     of Nabopolassar. The account given by Berosus makes him a
+     general of Saracos, but the contradiction which this offers
+     to the testimony of the Canon can be explained if he is
+     considered as a vassal-king; the kings of Egypt and of Media
+     were likewise only satraps, according to Babylonian
+     tradition.
+
+His was but a local sovereignty, restricted probably to the city and its
+environs; and for twelve or thirteen years he had rested content with
+this secondary position, when an unforeseen incident presented him with
+the opportunity of rising to the first rank. Tradition asserted that
+an immense army suddenly landed at the mouths of the Euphrates and the
+Tigris; probably under this story is concealed the memory of one of
+those revolts of the Bit-Yakin and the tribes dwelling on the shores of
+the Nar-Marratum, such as had often produced consternation in the minds
+of the Sargonid kings.* Sin-shar-ishkun, distracted doubtless by other
+anxieties, acted as his ancestors had done in similar circumstances, and
+enjoined on his vassal to march against the aggressors and drive them
+into the sea; but Nabopolassar, instead of obeying his suzerain, joined
+forces with the rebels, and declared his independence. Assur-etililani
+and his younger brother had possibly neglected to take the hands of Bel,
+and were therefore looked upon as illegitimate sovereigns. The annalists
+of later times erased their names from the Royal Canon, and placed
+Nabopolassar immediately after Assur-bani-pal, whom they called
+Kandalanu. But however feeble Assyria had become, the cities on the
+Lower Euphrates feared her still, and refused to ally themselves with
+the pretender. Nabopolassar might perhaps have succumbed, as so many
+before him had done, had he been forced to rely entirely on his own
+resources, and he might have shared the sad fate of Merodach-baladan or
+of Shamash-shumukin; but Marduk, who never failed to show favour to his
+faithful devotees, "raised up help for him and secured him an ally."
+The eyes of all who were oppressed by the cruel yoke of Nineveh were now
+turned on Cyaxares, and from the time that he had dispersed the Scythian
+hordes it was to him that they looked for salvation. Nabopolassar
+besought his assistance, which the Median king graciously promised;** it
+is even affirmed that a marriage concluded between one of his daughters,
+Amyfcis, and Nebuchadrezzar, the heir to the throne of Babylon, cemented
+the alliance.***
+
+     * Formerly these barbarians were identified with the remains
+     of the Scythian hordes, and this hypothesis has been
+     recently revived by Prashek. G. Rawlinson long ago
+     recognised that the reference must be to the Chaldaeans, who
+     were perhaps joined by the Susians.
+
+     ** The _Cylinder of Nabonichs_, the only original document
+     in which allusion is made to the destruction of Nineveh,
+     speaks of the Umman-Manda and their king, whom it does not
+     name, and it has been agreed to recognise Cyaxares in this
+     sovereign. On the other hand, the name of Umman-Manda
+     certainly designates in the Assyrian texts the wandering
+     Iranian tribes to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sakse or
+     Scythians; the result, in the opinions of several
+     Assyriologists of the present day, is that neither Astyages
+     nor Cyaxares were Medes in the sense in which we have
+     hitherto accepted them as such on the evidence of Herodotus,
+     but that they were Scythians, the Scythians of the great
+     invasion. This conclusion does not seem to me at present
+     justified. The Babylonians, who up till then had not had any
+     direct intercourse either with the Madai or the Umman-Manda,
+     did as the Egyptians had done whether in Saite or Ptolemaic
+     times, continuing to designate as Khari, Kafiti, Lotanu, and
+     Khati the nations subject to the Persians or Macedonians;
+     they applied a traditional name of olden days to present
+     circumstances, and I see, at present, no decisive reason to
+     change, on the mere authority of this one word, all that the
+     classical writers have handed down concerning the history of
+     the epoch according to the tradition current in their days.
+
+     *** The name of the princess is written Amuhia, Amyitis. The
+     classical sources, the only ones which mention her, make her
+     the daughter of Astyages, and this has given rise to various
+     hypotheses. According to some, the notice of this princess
+     has no historical value. According to others, the Astyages
+     mentioned as her father is not Cyaxares the Mede, but a
+     Scythian prince who came to the succour of Nabopolassar,
+     perhaps a predecessor of Cyaxares on the Median throne, and
+     in this case Phraortes himself under another name. The most
+     prudent course is still to admit that Abydenus, or one of
+     the compilers of extracts to whom we owe the information,
+     has substituted the name of the last king of Media for that
+     of his predecessor, either by mistake, or by reason of some
+     chronological combinations. Amyitis, transported into the
+     harem of the Chaldaean monarch, served, like all princesses
+     married out of their own countries, as a pledge for the
+     faithful observance by her relatives of the treaty which had
+     been concluded.
+
+The western provinces of the empire did not permit themselves to be
+drawn into the movement, and Judah, for example, remained faithful to
+its suzerain till the last moment,* but Sin-shar-ishkun received no help
+from them, and was obliged to fight his last battles single-handed. He
+shut himself up in Nineveh, and held out as long as he could; but when
+all his resources were exhausted--ammunitions of war, men and food
+supplies--he met his fate as a king, and burnt himself alive in his
+palace with his children and his wives, rather than fall alive into the
+hands of his conquerors (608 B.C.). The Babylonians would take no
+part in pillaging the temples, out of respect for the gods, who were
+practically identical with their own, but the Medes felt no such
+scruples. "Their king, the intrepid one, entirely destroyed the
+sanctuaries of the gods of Assur, and the cities of Accad which had
+shown themselves hostile to the lord of Accad, and had not rendered him
+assistance. He destroyed their holy places, and left not one remaining;
+he devastated their cities, and laid them waste as it were with a
+hurricane." Nineveh laid low, Assyria no longer existed. After the lapse
+of a few years, she was named only among the legends of mythical days:
+two centuries later, her very site was forgotten, and a Greek army
+passed almost under the shadow of her dismantled towers, without a
+suspicion that there lay before it all that remained of the city where
+Semiramis had reigned in her glory.**
+
+     * It was to oppose the march of Necho _against the King of
+     Assyria_ that Josiah fought the battle of Megiddo (2 Kings
+     xxiii. 29, 30; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-24, where the mention
+     of the King of Assyria is suppressed).
+
+     ** This is what the _Ten Thousand_ did when they passed
+     before Larissa and Mespila. The name remained famous, and
+     later on the town which bore it attained a relative
+     importance.
+
+It is true that Egypt, Chaldaea, and the other military nations of the
+East, had never, in their hours of prosperity, shown the slightest
+consideration for their vanquished foes; the Theban Pharaohs had
+mercilessly crushed Africa and Asia beneath their feet, and had led into
+slavery the entire population of the countries they had subdued. But
+the Egyptians and Chaldaeans had, at least, accomplished a work of
+civilization whose splendour redeemed the brutalities of their acts of
+reprisal. It was from Egypt and Chaldaea that the knowledge and the
+arts of antiquity--astronomy, medicine, geometry, physical and natural
+sciences--spread to the ancestors of the classic races; and though
+Chaldaea yields up to us unwillingly, with niggard hand, the monuments
+of her most ancient kings, the temples and tombs of Egypt still exist to
+prove what signal advances the earliest civilised races made in the arts
+of the sculptor and the architect. But on turning to Assyria, if,
+after patiently studying the successive centuries during which she held
+supreme sway over the Eastern world, we look for other results besides
+her conquests, we shall find she possessed nothing that was not
+borrowed from extraneous sources. She received all her inspirations from
+Chaldaea--her civilisation, her manners, the implements of her industries
+and of agriculture, besides her scientific and religious literature: one
+thing alone is of native growth, the military tactics of her generals
+and the excellence of her soldiery. From the day when Assyria first
+realised her own strength, she lived only for war and rapine; and as
+soon as the exhaustion of her population rendered success on the field
+of battle an impossibility, the reason for her very existence vanished,
+and she passed away.
+
+Two great kingdoms rose simultaneously from her ruins. Cyaxares
+claimed Assyria proper and its dependencies on the Upper Tigris, but he
+specially reserved for himself the yet unconquered lands on the northern
+and eastern frontiers, whose inhabitants had only recently taken part
+in the political life of the times. Nabopolassar retained the suzerainty
+over the lowlands of Elam, the districts of Mesopotamia lying along
+the Euphrates, Syria, Palestine, and most of the countries which had
+hitherto played a part in history;* he claimed to exert his supremacy
+beyond the Isthmus, and the Chaldaean government looked upon the Egyptian
+kings as its feudatories because for some few years they had owned the
+suzerainty of Nineveh.**
+
+     * There was no actual division of the empire, as has been
+     often asserted, but each of the allies kept the portion
+     which fell into his power at the moment of their joint
+     effort. The two new states gradually increased in power by
+     successive conquests, each annexing by degrees the ancient
+     provinces of Assyria nearest to its own frontier.
+
+     ** This seems to be implied by the terms in which Berosus
+     speaks of Necho: he considers him as a rebel satrap over the
+     provinces of Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, and
+     enumerates Egypt in conjunction with Syria, Phoenicia, and
+     Arabia among the dependencies of Nabopolassar and
+     Nebuchadrezzar. Just as the Egyptian state documents never
+     mentioned the Lotanu or the Kharu without entitling them
+     _Children of Rebellion_, so the Chaldaean government, the
+     heir of Assyria, could only look upon the kings of Syria,
+     Arabia, and Egypt as rebellious vassals.
+
+[Illustration: 330. MAP OF THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE TIME OF
+NEBUCHADNEZZAR]
+
+The Pharaoh, however, did not long tolerate this pretension, and far
+from looking forward to bend the knee before a Chaldaean monarch, he
+believed himself strong enough to reassert his ancestral claims to the
+possession of Asia. Egypt had experienced many changes since the day
+when Tanuatamanu, returning to Ethiopia, had abandoned her to the
+ambition of the petty dynasties of the Delta. One of the romances
+current among the people of Sais in the fifth century B.C. related that
+at that time the whole land was divided between twelve princes. They
+lived peaceably side by side in friendly relations with each other,
+until an oracle predicted that the whole valley would finally belong to
+that prince among them who should pour a libation to Phtah into a brazen
+cup, and thenceforward they jealously watched each other each time they
+assembled to officiate in the temple of Memphis. One day, when they had
+met together in state, and the high priest presented to them the golden
+cups they were wont to use, he found he had mistaken their number, and
+had only prepared eleven. Psammetichus was therefore left without one,
+and in order not to disarrange the ceremonial he took off his brazen
+helmet and used it to make his libation; when the rest perceived this,
+the words of the oracle came to their remembrance, and they exiled the
+imprudent prince to the marshes along the sea-coast, and forbade him
+ever to quit them. He secretly consulted the oracle of Isis of Buto to
+know what he might expect from the gods, and she replied that the means
+of revenge would reach him from the sea, on the day when brazen soldiers
+should issue from its waters. He thought at first that the priests were
+mocking him, but shortly afterwards Ionian and Carian pirates, clad in
+their coats of mail, landed not far from his abode. The messenger who
+brought tidings of their advent had never before seen a soldier fully
+armed, and reported that brazen men had issued from the waves and
+were pillaging the country. Psammetichus, realising at once that the
+prediction was being fulfilled, ran to meet the strangers, enrolled them
+in his service, and with their aid overthrew successively his eleven
+rivals.*
+
+     * The account given by Diodorus of these events is in
+     general derived from that of Herodotus, with additional
+     details borrowed directly or indirectly from some historian
+     of the same epoch, perhaps Hellanicus of Mitylene: the
+     reason of the persecution endured by Psammetichus is,
+     according to him, not the fear of seeing the prediction
+     fulfilled, but jealousy of the wealth the Saite prince had
+     acquired by his commerce with the Greeks. I have separated
+     the narrative of Herodotus from his account of the Labyrinth
+     which did not originally belong to it, but was connected
+     with a different cycle of legends. The original romance was
+     part of the cycle which grew up around the oracle of Buto,
+     so celebrated in Egypt at the Persian epoch, several other
+     fragments of which are preserved in Herodotus; it had been
+     mixed up with one of the versions of the stories relating to
+     the Labyrinth, probably by some dragoman of the Fayyum. The
+     number twelve does not correspond with the information
+     furnished by the Assyrian texts, which enumerate more than
+     twenty Egyptian princes; it is perhaps of Greek origin, like
+     the _twelve_ great gods which the informants of Herodotus
+     tried to make out in Egypt, and was introduced into the
+     Egyptian version by a Greek interpreter.
+
+A brazen helmet and an oracle had dethroned him; another oracle and
+brazen men had replaced him on his throne. A shorter version of these
+events made no mention of the twelve kings, but related instead that a
+certain Pharaoh named Tementhes had been warned by the oracle of Amon to
+beware of cocks. Now Psammetichus had as a companion in exile a Carian
+named Pigres, and in conversing with him one day, he learned by chance
+that the Carians had been the first people to wear crested helmets; he
+recalled at once the words of the oracle, and hired from Asia a number
+of these "cocks," with whose assistance he revolted and overthrew his
+suzerain in battle under the walls of Memphis, close to the temple of
+Isis. Such is the legendary account of the Saite renaissance; its true
+history is not yet clearly and precisely known. Egypt was in a state
+of complete disintegration when Psammetichus at length revived the
+ambitious projects of his family, but the dissolution of the various
+component parts had not everywhere taken place in the same manner.
+
+[Illustration: 335.jpg THREE HOPLITES IN ACTION]
+
+     Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from an archaic vase-painting in the
+     collection of Salzmann.
+
+In the north, the Delta and the Nile valley, as far as Siut, were in the
+power of a military aristocracy, supported by irregular native troops
+and bands of mercenaries, for the most part of Libyan extraction, who
+were always designated by the generic name of Mashauasha. Most of these
+nobles were in possession of not more than two or three cities apiece:
+they had barely a sufficient number of supporters to maintain their
+precarious existence in their restricted domains, and would soon have
+succumbed to the attacks of their stronger neighbours, had they not
+found a powerful protector to assist them. They had finally separated
+themselves into two groups, divided roughly by the central arm of the
+Nile. One group comprised the districts that might be designated as
+the Asiatic zone of the country--Heliopolis, Bubastis, Mendes, Tanis,
+Busiris, and Seben-nytos--and it recognised as chief the lord of one or
+other of those wealthy cities, now the ruler of Bubastis, now of Tanis,
+and lastly Pakruru of Pisaptit. The second group centred in the lords
+of Sais, to whom the possession of Memphis had secured a preponderating
+voice in the counsels of the state for more than a century.*
+
+     * This grouping, which might already have been suspected
+     from the manner in which the Assyrian and Egyptian monuments
+     of the period show us the feudal princes rallying round
+     Necho I. and Pakruru, is indicated by the details in the
+     demotic romance published by Krall, where the foundation of
+     the story is the state of Egypt in the time of the "twelve
+     kings."
+
+The fiefs and kingdoms of Middle Egypt wavered between the two
+groups, playing, however, a merely passive part in affairs: abandoning
+themselves to the stream of events rather than attempting to direct it,
+they owed allegiance to Sais and Tanis alternately as each prevailed
+over its rival. On passing thence into the Thebaid a different world
+appeared to be entered. There Amon reigned, ever increasingly supreme,
+and the steady advance of his influence had transformed his whole domain
+into a regular theocracy, where the women occupied the highest position
+and could alone transmit authority. At first, as we have seen, it
+was passed on to their husbands and their children, but latterly the
+rapidity with which the valley had changed masters had modified this law
+of succession in a remarkable way. Each time the principality shifted
+its allegiance from one king to another, the new sovereign naturally
+hastened to install beside the _divine female worshipper_ a man devoted
+to his interests, who should administer the fief to the best advantage
+of the suzerain. It is impossible to say whether he actually imposed
+this minister on her as a husband, or whether the time came when she was
+obliged to submit to as many espousals as there occurred revolutions
+in the destinies of Egypt.* However this may be, we know that from
+the first half of the seventh century B.C. the custom arose of placing
+beside "the divine worshipper" a princess of the dominant family, whom
+she adopted, and who thus became her heiress-designate. Taharqa had in
+this way associated one of his sisters, Shapenuapit II., with the
+queen Amenertas when the latter had lost her husband, Pionkhi; and
+Shapenuapit, succeeding her adopted mother, had reigned over Thebes in
+the Ethiopian interest during many years. There is nothing to show
+that she was married, and perhaps she was compensated for her official
+celibacy by being authorised to live the free life of an ordinary
+Pallacide;** her minister Montumihait directed her affairs for her so
+completely that the Assyrian conquerors looked upon him as petty king
+of Thebes. Tanuatamanu confirmed him in his office when the Assyrians
+evacuated the Said, and the few years which had elapsed since that event
+had in no way modified the _regime_ established immediately on their
+departure.
+
+     * They would have been, in fact, in the same condition as
+     the Hova queens of our century, who married the ministers
+     who reigned in their names.
+
+     ** It is perhaps these last female descendants of the high
+     priests that are intended in a passage where Strabo speaks
+     of the Pallacides who were chosen from among the most noble
+     families of the city. Diodorus mentions their tombs, quoting
+     from Hecatous of Abdera, but he does not appear to know the
+     nature of their life; but the name of Pallacides which he
+     applies to them proves that their manner of life was really
+     that which Strabo describes.
+
+It is uncertain how long Assur-bani-pal in the north, and Tanuatamanu
+in the south, respectively maintained a precarious sovereignty over the
+portions of Egypt nearest to their own capitals.
+
+[Illustration: 338.jpg STATUE OF A THEBAN QUEEN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Bissing. The
+     statue, whose feet are missing, represents either Amenertas
+     I. or Mutertas; it was never completely finished, and
+     several of the parts have never received their final polish.
+
+The opening of the reign of Psammetichus seems to have been fraught with
+difficulties, and the tradition which represents him as proscribed by
+his peers, and confined to the marshes of the sea-coast, has probably a
+certain basis of truth. Pakruru, who had brought all the western part
+of the Delta under his own influence, and who, incessantly oscillating
+between Assyria and Ethiopia, had yet been able to preserve his power
+and his life, had certainly not of his own free will renounced the
+hope of some day wearing the double crown. It was against him or his
+successor that Psammetichus must have undertaken his first wars, and
+it was perhaps with the help of Assyrian governors that the federal
+coalition drove him back to the coast. He extricated himself from this
+untoward situation by the help of Greek and Asiatic mercenaries, his
+Ionians and Carians. Some historians stated that the decisive battle
+was fought near Memphis, in sight of the temple of Isis; others affirmed
+that it took place at Momemphis, that several of the princes perished
+in the conflict, and that the rest escaped into Libya, whence they never
+returned; others, again, spoke of an encounter on the Nile, when the
+fleet of the Saite king dispersed that of his rivals. It is, in fact,
+probable that a single campaign sufficed for Psammetichus, as formerly
+for the Ethiopian pretenders, to get the upper hand, and that the
+Egyptian feudal lords submitted after one or two defeats at most, hoping
+that, as in days gone by, when the first dash made by the new Pharaoh
+was over, his authority would decline, and their own would regain the
+ascendency. Events showed that they were deceived. Psammetichus, better
+served by his Hellenes than Tafnakhti or Bocchoris had been by
+their Libyans, or Pionkhi and Tanuatamanu by their Ethiopians, soon
+consolidated his rule over the country he had conquered. From 660 or
+659 B.C. he so effectively governed Egypt that foreigners, and even the
+Assyrians themselves commonly accorded him the title of king. The fall
+of the Ninevite rule had been involved in that of the feudal lords,
+but it was generally believed that Assur-bani-pal would leave no
+means untried to recall the countries of the Nile to their obedience:
+Psammetichus knew this, and knew also that, as soon as they were no
+longer detained by wars or rebellions elsewhere, the Assyrian armies
+would reappear in Egypt. He therefore entered into an alliance with
+Gyges,* and subsequently, perhaps, with Shamash-shumukin also; then,
+while his former suzerain was waging war in Elam and Chaldaea, he turned
+southwards, in 658 B.C., and took possession of the Thebaid without
+encountering any opposition from the Ethiopians, as his ancestor
+Tafnakhti had from Pionkhi-Miamun. Mon-tumihait** negotiated this
+capitulation of Thebes, as he had already negotiated so many others;
+in recompense for this service, he was confirmed in his office, and his
+queen retained her high rank.
+
+     * The annexation of the Thebaid and the consequent
+     pacification of Egypt was an accomplished fact in the year
+     IX. of Psammetichus I. The analogy of similar documents,
+     e.g. the stele of the high priest Menkhopirri, shows that
+     the ceremony of adoption which consecrated the reunion of
+     Upper and Lower Egypt cannot have been separated by a long
+     interval from the completion of the reunion itself: in
+     placing this at the end of the year VIII., we should have
+     for the two events the respective dates of 658-657 and 657-
+     656 B.C.
+
+     ** The part played by Montumihait in this affair is easily
+     deduced: (1) from our knowledge of his conduct some years
+     previously under Taharqa and Tanuatamanu; (2) from the
+     position he occupied at Thebes, in the year IX., with regard
+     to Shapenuapit, according to the stele of Legrain.
+
+A century or two earlier Psammetichus would have married one of the
+princesses of sacerdotal lineage, and this union would have sufficed to
+legalise his position; perhaps he actually associated Shapenuapit with
+himself by a show of marriage, but in any case he provided her with an
+adopted daughter according to the custom instituted by the Ethiopian
+Pharaohs. She already had one daughter by adoption, whom she had
+received at the hands of Taharqa, and who, in changing her family, had
+assumed the name of Amenertas in honour of the queen who had preceded
+Shapenuapit: Psammetichus forced her to replace the Ethiopian princess
+by one of his own daughters, who was henceforth called Shapenuapit,
+after her new mother. A deputation of the nobles and priests of Thebes
+came to escort the princess from Memphis, in the month of Tybi, in the
+ninth year of the reign: Psammetichus formally presented her to them,
+and the ambassadors, having listened to his address, expatiated in the
+customary eulogies on his splendour and generosity. "They shall endure
+as long as the world lasteth; all that thou ordainest shall endure. How
+beautiful is that which God hath done for thee, how glorious that which
+thy divine father hath done for thee? He is pleased that thy double
+should be commemorated, he rejoices in the pronouncing of thy name, for
+our lord Psammetichus has made a gift to his father Amon, he has given
+him his eldest daughter, his beloved Mtauqrit Shapenuapit, to be his
+divine spouse, that she may shake the sistrum before him!" On the 28th
+of Tybi the princess left the harem, clothed in fine linen and adorned
+with ornaments of malachite, and descended to the quay, accompanied by
+an immense throng, to set out for her new home. Relays stationed along
+the river at intervals made the voyage so expeditious that at the end
+of sixteen days the princess came in sight of Thebes. She disembarked on
+the 14th of Khoiak, amid the acclamations of the people: "She comes, the
+daughter of the King of the South, Nitauqrit, to the dwelling of
+Amon, that he may possess her and unite her to himself; she comes, the
+daughter of the King of the North, Shapenuapit, to the temple of
+Karnak, that the gods may there chant her praises." As soon as the
+aged Shapenuapit had seen her coadjutor, "she loved her more than
+all things," and assigned her a dowry, the same as that which she had
+received from her own parents, and which she had granted to her
+first adopted daughter Amenertas. The magnates of Thebes--the aged
+Montumihait, his son Nsiphtah, and the prophets of Amon--vied with each
+other in their gifts of welcome: Psammetichus, on his side, had acted
+most generously, and the temples of Egypt assigned to the princess an
+annual income out of their revenues, or bestowed upon her grants of
+houses and lands, in all constituting a considerable inheritance,
+which somewhat consoled the Thebans for their subjection to a dynasty
+emanating from the cities of the north. The rest of the principality
+imitated the example of Thebes and the whole of Egypt, from the shores
+of the Mediterranean to the rocks of the first cataract, once more found
+itself reunited under the sceptre of an Egyptian king. A small part of
+Nubia, the portion nearest to Elephantine, followed this movement, but
+the greater part refused to cut itself off from the Ethiopians. These
+latter were henceforth confined to the regions along the middle course
+of the Nile, isolated from the rest of the world by the deserts, the
+Red Sea, and Egypt. It is probable that they did not give up without a
+struggle the hope of regaining the ground they had lost, and that their
+armies made more than one expedition in a northerly direction. The
+inhabitants of the Thebaid could hardly fail to remain faithful to them
+at heart, and to recognise in them the legitimate representatives of the
+posterity of Amon; it is possible that now and again they succeeded in
+penetrating as far as the ancient capital, but if so, their success was
+always ephemeral, and their sojourn left no permanent traces. The same
+causes, however, which had broken up the constituent elements, and
+destroyed the unity of Greater Egypt at the end of the Theban period,
+were still at work in Saite times to prevent the building up again of
+the empire. The preservation of the balance of power in this long and
+narrow strip of country depended on the centre of attraction and on the
+seat of government being nearly equidistant from the two extremities.
+This condition had been fulfilled as long as the court resided at
+Thebes; but as the removal of the seat of government to the Delta caused
+the loss and separation of the southern provinces, so its sudden return
+to the extreme south, with a temporary sojourn at Napata, necessarily
+produced a similar effect, and led to the speedy secession of the
+northern provinces. In either case, the dynasty placed at one extremity
+of the empire was unable to sustain for any length of time the weight
+depending on it at the other; when once the balance became even
+slightly disturbed, it could not regain its equilibrium, and there was
+consequently a sudden dislocation of the machinery of government.
+
+The triumph of the Saite dynasty accomplished the final ruin of the work
+begun under the Papis, and brought to completion by the Amenemhaits and
+the Usirtasens. Greater Egypt ceased to exist, after more than twenty
+centuries of glorious life, and was replaced by the Little Egypt of the
+first ages of history. The defeat of the military chiefs of the north,
+the annexation of the principality of Amon, and the final expulsion of
+the Ethiopians and the Asiatics had occupied scarcely nine years, but
+these feats constituted only the smaller part of the work Psammetichus
+had to accomplish: his subsequent task lay in restoring prosperity to
+his kingdom, or, at all events, in raising it from the state of misery
+into which two centuries of civil wars and invasions had plunged it. The
+important cities had suffered grievously: Memphis had been besieged and
+taken by assault by both Pionkhi and Esar-haddon, Thebes had been twice
+sacked by the veterans of Assur-bani-pal, and from Syene to Pelusium
+there was not a township but had suffered at the hands of foreigners
+or of the Egyptians themselves. The country had enjoyed a moment's
+breathing-space under Sabaco, but the little good which this prince had
+been able to accomplish was effaced immediately after his death: the
+canals and dykes had been neglected, the supervision of the police
+relaxed, and the population, periodically decimated or driven to take
+refuge in the strongholds, had often allowed the lands to lie waste, so
+that famine had been superadded to the other evils under which the land
+already groaned. Psammetichus, having forced the feudal lords to submit
+to his supremacy, deprived them of the royal titles they had unduly
+assumed; he no longer tolerated their habits of private warfare, but
+restricted them to the functions of hereditary governors, which their
+ancestors had exercised under the conquering dynasties of former times,*
+and this enforced peace soon allowed the rural population to devote
+themselves joyfully to their regular occupations.
+
+     * During the last few years records of a certain number of
+     persons have been discovered whose names and condition prove
+     that they were the descendants of semi-independent princes
+     of the Ethiopian and Bubastite periods: e.g. a certain
+     Akaneshu, who was prince of Sebennytos under Psammetichus
+     I., and who very probably was the grandson of Akaneshu,
+     prince of the same town under Pionkhi; and a Sheshonq of
+     Busiris, who was perhaps a descendant of Sheshonq, prince of
+     Busiris under Pionkhi.
+
+With so fertile a soil, two or three years of security, during which
+the fellahin were able to sow and reap their crops free from the fear
+of marauding bands, sufficed to restore abundance, if not wealth, to
+the country, and Psammetichus succeeded in securing both these and
+other benefits to Egypt, thanks to the vigilant severity of his
+administration. He would have been unable to accomplish these reforms
+had he relied only on the forces which had been at the disposal of
+his ancestors--the native troops demoralised by poverty, and the
+undisciplined bands of Libyan mercenaries, which constituted the sole
+normal force of the Tanite and Bubastite Pharaohs and the barons of the
+Delta and Middle Egypt. His experience of these two classes of soldiery
+had decided him to look elsewhere for a less precarious support, and
+ever since chance had brought him in contact with the Ionians and
+Carians, he had surrounded himself with a regular army of Hellenic and
+Asiatic mercenaries. It is impossible to exaggerate the terror that the
+apparition of these men produced in the minds of the African peoples, or
+the revolution they effected, alike in peace or war, in Oriental states:
+the charge of the Spanish soldiery among the lightly clad foot-soldiers
+of Mexico and Peru could not have caused more dismay than did that
+of the hoplites from beyond the sea among the half-naked archers and
+pikemen of Egypt and Libya. With their bulging corselets, the two plates
+of which protected back and chest, their greaves made of a single piece
+of bronze reaching from the ankle to the knee, their square or oval
+bucklers covered with metal, their heavy rounded helmets fitting closely
+to the head and neck, and surmounted by crests of waving plumes, they
+were, in truth, men of brass, invulnerable to any Oriental weapon. Drawn
+up in close array beneath their "tortoise," they received almost unhurt
+the hail of arrows and stones hurled against them by the lightly armed
+infantry, and then, when their own trumpet sounded the signal for
+attack, and they let themselves fall with their whole weight upon the
+masses of the enemy, brandishing their spears above the upper edge
+of their bucklers, there was no force of native troops or company of
+Mashauasha that did not waver beneath the shock and finally give
+way before their attack. The Egyptians felt themselves incapable of
+overcoming them except by superior numbers or by stratagem, and it was
+the knowledge of their own hopeless inferiority which prevented the
+feudal lords from attempting to revenge themselves on Psammetichus. To
+make themselves his equals, they would have been obliged either to take
+a sufficient number of similar warriors into their own pay--and this
+they were not able to afford--or they must have won over those
+already in the employ of their suzerain; but the liberality with
+which Psammetichus treated his mercenaries gave them good cause to be
+faithful, even if military honour had not sufficed to keep them loyal to
+their employer. Psammetichus granted to them and their compatriots, who
+were attracted by the fame of Egypt, a concession of the fertile lands
+of the Delta stretching along the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and
+he was careful to separate the Ionians from the Carians by the whole
+breadth of the river: this was a wise precaution, for their union
+beneath a common flag had not extinguished their inherited hatred of
+one another, and the authority of the general did not always suffice
+to prevent fatal quarrels breaking out between contingents of different
+nationalities.
+
+[Illustration: 347.jpg THE SAITE FORTRESS OF DAPHNE]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Fl. Petrie.
+
+They occupied, moreover, regularly entrenched camps, enclosed within
+massive walls, containing a collection of mud huts or houses of
+brick, the whole enclosure commanded by a fortress which formed the
+headquarters of the general and staff of officers. Some merchants from
+Miletus, emboldened by the presence of their fellow-countrymen, sailed
+with thirty vessels into the mouth of the Bolbitine branch of the
+Nile, and there founded a settlement which they named the Port of the
+Milesians, and, following in their wake, successive relays of emigrants
+arrived to reinforce the infant colony. The king entrusted a certain
+number of Egyptian children to the care of these Greek settlers, to be
+instructed in their language,* and the interpreters thus educated in
+their schools increased in proportion as the bonds of commercial and
+friendly intercourse between Greece and Egypt became strengthened, so
+that ere long, in the towns of the Delta, they constituted a regular
+class, whose function was to act as intermediaries between the two
+races.
+
+     * Diodorus, or rather the historian whom he follows, assures
+     us that Psammetichus went still further, and gave his own
+     children a Greek education; what is possible and even
+     probable, is, that he had them taught Greek. A bronze Apis
+     in the Gizeh Museum was dedicated by an interpreter who
+     inscribed on it a bilingual inscription in hieroglyphics and
+     Carian.
+
+[Illustration: 348a.jpg EGYPTIAN GREEK]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from PI, Petrie. The original
+     statuette in alabaster is now in the Gizeh Museum; the
+     Cyprian style of the figure is easily recognised.
+
+[Illustration: 348b.jpg EGYPTIAN GREEK]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from PI. Petrie. The original
+     limestone statuette is in the Gizeh Museum.
+
+By thus bringing his subjects in contact with an active, industrious,
+and enterprising nation, full of youthful vigour, Psammetichus no doubt
+hoped to inspire them with some of the qualities which he discerned in
+the colonists, but Egypt during the last two centuries had suffered too
+much at the hands of foreigners of all kinds to be favourably disposed
+to these new-comers. It would have been different had they presented
+themselves in humble guise like the Asiatics and Africans to whom Egypt
+had opened her doors so freely after the XVIIIth dynasty, and if
+they had adopted the obsequious manners of the Phoenician and Hebrew
+merchants; but they landed from their ships fully equipped for war, and,
+proud of their own courage and ability, they vied with the natives of
+the ancient race, whether of plebeian or noble birth, for the favour
+of the sovereign. Their language, their rude military customs, their
+cunning devices in trade, even the astonishment they manifested at the
+civilisation of the country, rendered them objects of disdain, as well
+as of jealous hatred to the Egyptian. The food of which they partook
+made them unclean in native estimation, and the horrified fellah shunned
+contact with them from fear of defiling himself, refusing to eat with
+them, or to use the same knife or cooking-vessel: the scribes and
+members of the higher classes, astonished at their ignorance, treated
+them like children with no past history, whose ancestors a few
+generations back had been mere savages.
+
+Although unexpressed at first, this hostility towards the Hellenes was
+not long in manifesting itself openly. The Saite tradition attributed it
+to a movement of wounded vanity. Psammetichus, to recompense the prowess
+of his Ionian and Carian soldiers, had attached them to his own person,
+and assigned to them the post of honour on the right wing when the army
+was drawn up for review or in battle array.*
+
+     * Diodorus Siculus states that it was during the Syrian war
+     that the king thus honoured his mercenary troops. Wiedemann
+     thinks this is an erroneous inference drawn from the passage
+     of Herodotus, in which he explains the meaning of the word
+     Asmakh.
+
+They reaped thus the double advantage of the glory, which they greatly
+prized, and of the higher pay attached to the title of body-guard, but
+the troops who had hitherto enjoyed these advantages were naturally
+indignant at losing them, and began to murmur. One particularly galling
+circumstance at last caused their discontent to break out. The eastern
+and southern frontiers of Egypt were conterminous with those of two
+conquering empires, Assyria and Ethiopia, and on the west the Libyan
+tribes along the shores of the Mediterranean were powerful enough
+to demand constant vigilance on the part of the border garrisons.
+Psammetichus, among other reforms, had reorganised the ancient system
+of defence. While placing outposts at the entrance to the passes leading
+from the desert into the Nile valley, he had concentrated considerable
+masses of troops at the three most vulnerable points--the outlets of
+the road to Syria, the country surrounding Lake Mareotis, and the first
+cataract; he had fortified Daphnse, near the old town of Zalu, as a
+defence against the Assyrians, Marea against the Libyan Bedawin, and
+Elephantine against the Ethiopians. These advanced posts had been
+garrisoned with native troops who were quartered there for a year at a
+time. To be condemned to such an exile for so long a period raised
+in them a sense of profound indignation, but when the king apparently
+forgot them and left them there three years without sending other troops
+to relieve them, their anger knew no bounds. They resolved to put an end
+to such treatment, and as the hope of a successful rebellion seemed but
+small, they decided to leave the country. Two hundred and forty thousand
+of them assembled on a given day with their arms and baggage, and
+marched in good order towards Ethiopia. Psammetichus, warned of their
+intentions when ifc was too late, hastened after them with a handful of
+followers, and coming up with them, besought them not to desert their
+national gods, their wives, and their children. He had nearly prevailed
+on them to return, when one soldier, with a significant gesture,
+intimated that while manhood lasted they had power to create new
+families wherever they might chance to dwell. The details of this story
+betray the popular legend, but nevertheless have a basis of truth. The
+inscriptions from the time of Psammetichus onwards never mention the
+Mashauasha, while their name and their exploits constantly recur in the
+history of the preceding dynasties: henceforth they and their chiefs
+vanish from sight, and discord and brigandage simultaneously cease in
+the Egyptian nomes. It was very probably the most turbulent among these
+auxiliaries who left the country in the circumstances above narrated:
+since they could not contest the superiority of their Greek rivals,
+they concluded that their own part was played out, and rather than be
+relegated to the second rank, they preferred to quit the land in a body.
+Psammetichus, thus deprived of their support at the moment when Egypt
+had more than ever need of all her forces to regain her rightful
+position in the world, reorganised the military system as best he could.
+He does not seem to have relied much upon the contingents from Upper
+Egypt, to whom was doubtless entrusted the defence of the Nubian
+frontier, and who could not be withdrawn from their posts without danger
+of invasion or revolt. But the source of imminent peril did not lie in
+this direction, where Ethiopia, exhausted by the wars of Taharqa and
+Tanuatamanu, perhaps needed repose even more than Egypt itself, but
+rather on the Asiatic side, where Assur-bani-pal, in spite of the
+complications constantly arising in Karduniash and Elam, had by no means
+renounced his claims to the suzerainty of Egypt. The Pharaoh divided the
+feudatory militia of the Delta into two classes, which resided apart
+in different sets of nomes. The first group, who were popularly called
+Hermotybies, were stationed at Busiris, Sais, and Khemmis, in the island
+of Prosopitis, and in one half of Natho--in fact, in the district which
+for the last century had formed the centre of the principality of
+the Saite dynasty: perhaps they were mostly of Libyan origin, and
+represented the bands of Mashauasha who, from father to son, had served
+under Tafnakhti and his descendants. Popular report numbered them at
+160,000 men, all told, and the total number of the other class, known as
+the Calasiries, at 250,000; these latter belonged, in my opinion, to the
+pure Egyptian race, and were met with at Thebes, while the troops of
+the north, who were more generally called out, were scattered over the
+territory which formerly supported the Tanite and Bubastite kings, and
+latterly Pakruru, and which comprised the towns of Bubastis, Aphthis,
+Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytos, Athribis, Pharbaathos, Thmuis, Onuphis,
+Anysis, and Myecphoris. Each year one thousand Hermotybies and one
+thousand Calasiries were chosen to form the royal body-guard, and these
+received daily five minae of bread apiece, two minas of beef, and four
+bowls of wine; the jealousy which had been excited by the Greek
+troops was thus lessened, as well as the discontent provoked by the
+emigration.*
+
+     * _Calasiris_, the exact transcription of _Khala-shiri,
+     Khala-shere_, signifying _young man_. The meaning and
+     original of the word transcribed Hermotybies by Herodotus,
+     and Hermotymbies according to a variant given by Stephen of
+     Byzantium, is as yet unknown, but it seems to me to conceal
+     a title analogous to that of _Hir-mazaiu_, and to designate
+     what remained of Libyan soldiers in Egypt. This organisation
+     of the army is described by Herodotus as existing in his own
+     days, and there were Calasiries and Hermotybies in the
+     Egyptian contingent which accompanied the army of Mardonius
+     to Greece; it is nowhere stated that it was the work of
+     Psammetichus, but everything points to the conclusion that
+     it was so, at all events in the form in which it was known
+     to the Greeks.
+
+The King of Napata gladly welcomed the timely reinforcements which
+arrived to fill up the vacancies in his army and among his people,
+weakened by a century of rapid changes, and generously gave them
+permission to conquer for themselves some territory in the possession
+of his enemies! Having driven out the barbarians, they established
+themselves in the peninsula formed by the White and Blue Niles, and
+their numbers increased so greatly that in course of time they became a
+considerable nation. They called themselves Asmakh, the men who stand on
+the king's left hand, in memory of the affront put upon them, and which
+they had avenged by their self-exile: Greek travellers and geographers
+called them sometimes Automoli, sometimes Sembrites, names which clung
+to them till almost the beginning of our present era.
+
+This departure of the Mashauasha was as the last blast of wind after a
+storm: the swell subsided by degrees, and peace reigned in the interior.
+Thebes accommodated itself as best it could to the new order of
+things under the nominal administration of the Divine Spouses, the two
+Shapenuapits. Building works were recommenced at all points where it
+appeared necessary, and the need of restoration was indeed pressing
+after the disorders occasioned by the Assyrian invasion and the
+Ethiopian suzerainty. At Karnak, and in the great temples on both banks
+of the Nile, Psammetichus, respecting the fiction which assigned the
+chief authority to the Pallacides, effaced himself in favour of them,
+allowing them to claim all the merit of the work; in the cities they
+erected small chapels, in which they are portrayed as queens fulfilling
+their sacerdotal functions, humbly escorted by the viceroy who in other
+respects exercised the real power. The king's zeal for restoration is
+manifest all along the Nile, at Coptos, Abydos,* and in the plains of
+the Delta, which are crowded with memorials of him. His two favourite
+capitals were Memphis and Sais, on both of which he impartially lavished
+his favours.
+
+     * The first Egyptologists attributed the prenommai cartouche
+     of Psammetichus I. to Psammetichus II., and _vice versa_:
+     this error must always be kept in mind in referring to their
+     works.
+
+At Memphis he built the propylons on the south side of the temple of
+Phtah, and the court in which the living Apis took his exercise and was
+fed: this court was surrounded by a colonnade, against the pillars of
+which were erected statues twelve cubits high, probably representing
+Osiris as in the Eames-seum and at Medinet-Habu. Apis even when dead
+also received his share of attention. Since the days when Ramses II.
+had excavated the subterranean Serapeum as a burial-place of the sacred
+bulls, no subsequent Pharaoh who had reigned at Memphis had failed to
+embellish their common tomb, and to celebrate with magnificence their
+rites of sepulture.
+
+[Illustration: 355.jpg CHAMBER AND SARCOPHAGUS OF AN APIS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving published in
+     Mariette.
+
+The body of the Apis, carefully embalmed, was sealed up in a coffin or
+sarcophagus of hard stone, the mouth of the vault was then walled up,
+and against the fresh masonry, at the foot of the neighbouring rocks,
+on the very floor of the passage, or wherever there was a clear space
+available, the high dignitaries, the workmen or the priests who had
+taken any part in the ceremonial, set up a votive stele calling down
+upon themselves and their families divine benedictions.
+
+[Illustration: 356.jpg THE GREAT GALLERY OF THE SERAPEUM]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving of Deveria.
+
+The gallery was transformed by degrees into a kind of record-office,
+where each dynasty in turn recorded its name, whenever a fresh
+apotheosis afforded them the opportunity: these records were discovered
+in our own time by Mariette, almost perfect in spite of the destroying
+hand of men, and comprised inscriptions by the Bubastites, by Bocchoris,
+and even by the Ethiopians. Taharqa, when menaced by the Assyrians, had
+stayed at Memphis, only a year before his death, in the interval between
+two campaigns, in order to bury an Apis, and Psammetichus likewise
+took care not to neglect this part of his regal duties. He at first was
+content to imitate his predecessors, but a subsidence having occurred in
+that part of the Serapeum where the Apis who had died in the twentieth
+year of his reign reposed, he ordered his engineers to bore another
+gallery in a harder vein of limestone, and he performed the opening
+ceremony in his fifty-second year. It was the commencement of a thorough
+restoration. The vaults in which the sacred bulls were entombed were
+severally inspected, the wrappings were repaired together with the mummy
+cases, the masonry of the chapel was strengthened, and the building
+endowed with woods, stuffs, perfumes, and the necessary oils. No less
+activity apparently was displayed at Sais, the native home and favourite
+residence of the Pharaoh; but all the monuments which adorned the place,
+including the temple of Nit, and the royal palace, have been entirely
+destroyed; the enclosing wall of unbaked bricks alone remains, and here
+and there, amid the _debris_ of the houses, may be seen some heaps of
+shattered stone where the public buildings once stood. On several blocks
+the name and titles of Psammetichus may yet be deciphered, and there are
+few cities in the Delta which cannot make a similar show. From one end
+of the Nile valley to the other the quarries were reopened, and the
+arts, stimulated by the orders which flowed in, soon flourished anew.
+The engraving of hieroglyphics and the art of painting both attained
+a remarkable degree of elegance; fine statues and bas-reliefs were
+executed in large numbers, and a widely spread school of art was
+developed. The local artists had scrupulously observed and handed down
+the traditions which obtained in the time of the Pyramids, and more
+especially those of the first Theban period; even the few fragments
+that have come down to us of the works of these artists in the age of
+the Ramessides recall rather the style of the VIth and XIIth dynasties
+than that of their Theban contemporaries. Their style, brought to
+perfection by evident imitation of the old Memphite masters, pleases
+us by its somewhat severe elegance, the taste shown in the choice of
+detail, and the extraordinary skill displayed in the working of
+the stone. The Memphites had by preference used limestone for their
+sculpture, the Thebans red and grey granite or sandstone; but the
+artists of the age of Psammetichus unhesitatingly attacked basalt,
+breccia, or serpentine, and obtained marvellous effects from these
+finely grained materials of regular and even texture. The artistic
+renaissance which they brought to its height had been already
+inaugurated under the Ethiopians, and many of the statues we possess
+of the reign of Taharqa are examples of excellent workmanship. That of
+Amenertas was over-praised at the time of its discovery; the face, half
+buried by the wig which we usually associate with the statues of the
+goddesses, has a dull and vacant expression in spite of its set smile,
+and the modelling of the figure is rather weak, but nevertheless there
+is something easy and refined in the gracefulness of the statue as a
+whole.
+
+[358.jpg Chieck Beled--Gizeh Museum]
+
+A statuette of another "Divine Spouse," though mutilated and
+unfinished, is pleasing from its greater breadth of style, although such
+breadth is rarely found in the works of this school, which toned down,
+elongated, and attenuated the figure till it often lost in vigour what
+it gained in distinction. The one point in which the Saite artists made
+a real advance, was in the treatment of the heads of their models.
+
+[Illustration: 359.jpg MEMPHITE BAS-RELIEF OF THE SAITE EPOCH]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a heliogravure in Mariette. The bas-
+     relief was worked into the masonry of a house in Memphis in
+     the Byzantine period, and it was in order to fit it to the
+     course below that the masons bevelled the lower part of it.
+
+The expression is often refined and idealised as in the case of older
+works, but occasionally the portraiture is exact even to coarseness. It
+was not the idealised likeness of Montumihait which the artist wished
+to portray, but Montumihait himself, with his low forehead, his small
+close-set eyes, his thin cheeks, and the deep lines about his nose and
+mouth. And besides this, the wrinkles, the crows' feet, the cranial
+projections, the shape of ear and neck, are brought out with minute
+fidelity. A statue was no longer, as in earlier days, merely a piece
+of sacred stone, the support of the divine or human double, in which
+artistic value was an accessory of no importance and was esteemed only
+as a guarantee of resemblance: without losing aught of its religious
+significance, a statue henceforward became a work of art, admired and
+prized for the manner in which the sculptor faithfully represented his
+model, as well as for its mystic utility.
+
+The reign of Psammetichus lasted till nearly the end of the century, and
+was marked by peace both at home and abroad. No doubt skirmishes of some
+kind took place in Lydia and Nubia, but we know nothing of them, nor
+have we any account of engagements with the Asiatics which from time to
+time must have taken place during this reign. Psammetichus followed with
+a vigilant eye the revolutionary changes beyond the isthmus, actuated
+at first by the fear of an offensive movement on the part of Syria, and
+when that ceased to be a danger, by the hope of one day recovering,
+in Southern Syria, at all events, that leading position which his
+predecessors had held so long. Tradition asserts that he wisely confined
+his ambition to the conquest of the Philistine Pentapolis; it is even
+reported that he besieged Ashdod for twenty-nine years before gaining
+possession of it. If we disregard the cipher, which is evidently
+borrowed from some popular romance, the fact in itself is in no way
+improbable. Ashdod was a particularly active community, and had played
+a far more important part in earlier campaigns than any other member of
+the Pentapolis. It possessed outside the town proper, which was situated
+some little distance from the coast, a seaport similar to that of Gaza,
+and of sufficient size to shelter a whole fleet.
+
+[Illustration: 361.jpg THE RUINS OF SAIS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudior, from a photograph by Golenischeff.
+
+Whoever held this harbour could exercise effective control over the main
+routes leading from Syria into Egypt. Psammetichus probably undertook
+this expedition towards the end of his life, when the victories gained
+by the Medes had demonstrated the incapacity of Assyria to maintain the
+defence of her distant provinces.*
+
+     * At one time I was inclined to explain this period of
+     twenty-nine years by assuming that the fall of Ashdod took
+     place in the twenty-ninth year of the king's reign, and that
+     Herodotus had mistaken the date of its surrender for the
+     duration of the siege: such an hypothesis is, however,
+     unnecessary, since it is very probable that we have here one
+     of those exaggerated estimates of time so dear to the hearts
+     of popular historians. If we are to believe the account
+     given by Diodorus, it was in Syria that Psammetichus granted
+     the honour of a place in the right wing of his army to the
+     Greek mercenaries: the capture of Ashdod must, in this case,
+     have occurred before the emigration of the native troops. In
+     Jer. xxv. 20, reference is made to "the remnant of Ashdod,"
+     in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e. about 603 B.C., and
+     the decadence of the city is generally attributed to the war
+     with Egypt; it might with equal probability be ascribed to
+     the Scythian invasion.
+
+The attack of the Scythians, which might have proved dangerous to Egypt,
+had it been pushed far enough, had left her unharmed, and was in the
+end even advantageous to her. It was subsequent to the retreat of the
+barbarians, no doubt, that Psam-metichus sent his troops into Philistia
+and succeeded in annexing the whole or part of it. After this success
+he was content to wait and watch the course of events. The surprising
+revival of Egypt must have had the effect of infusing fresh life into
+the Egyptian factions existing in all the autonomous states, and in the
+prefectures of Syria. The appearance of the Pharaoh's troops, and
+the toleration of their presence within the territory of the Assyrian
+empire, aroused on all sides the hope of deliverance, and incited the
+malcontents to take some immediate action.
+
+We do not know what may have happened at Tyre and Sidon, or among the
+peoples of Edom and Arabia, but Judah, at any rate, under the rule of
+Josiah, carefully abstained from any action inconsistent with the pledge
+of fidelity which it had given to Assyria. Indeed, the whole kingdom
+was completely absorbed in questions of a theological nature, and the
+agitations which affected the religious life of the nation reacted on
+its political life as well. Josiah, as he grew older, began to identify
+himself more and more with the doctrines taught by the prophets, and,
+thanks to his support, the party which sought to complete the reforms
+outlined by Hezekiah gained fresh recruits every day. The opposition
+which they had formerly aroused among the priests of the temple had
+gradually died out, partly as the result of genuine conviction, and
+partly because the priests had come to realise that the establishment
+of a single exclusive sanctuary would work for their own interest
+and advantage. The high priest Hilkiah took up the line followed by
+Jeremiah, and was supported by a number of influential personages such
+as Shaphan the scribe, son of Azaliah, Ahikam, Achbor son of Micaiab,
+and a prophetess named Huldah, who had married the keeper of the royal
+wardrobe. The terrors of the Scythian invasion had oppressed the hearts
+and quickened the zeal of the orthodox. Judah, they declared, had no
+refuge save Jahveh alone; all hope was lost if it persisted in the
+doctrines which had aroused against the faithless the implacable wrath
+of Jahveh; it must renounce at once those idols and superstitious rites
+with which His worship had been disfigured, and overthrow the altars
+which were to be found in every part of the country in order to
+concentrate all its devotion on the temple of Solomon. In a word, Judah
+must return to an observance of the strict letter of the law, as it had
+been followed by their forefathers. But as this venerable code was not
+to be found either in the "Book of the Covenant" or in any of the other
+writings held sacred by Israel, the question naturally arose as to where
+it was now hidden. In the eighteenth year of his reign, Josiah sent
+Shaphan the scribe to the temple in order to audit the accounts of the
+sums collected at the gates for the maintenance of the building. After
+the accounts had been checked, Hilkiah suddenly declared that he had
+"found the Book of the Law" in the temple, and thereupon handed the
+document to Shaphan, who perused it forthwith. On his return to the
+palace, the scribe made his report: "Thy servants have emptied out the
+money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand
+of the workmen;" then he added "Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a
+book," and proceeded to read it to the king. When the latter had heard
+the words contained in this Book of the Law, he was seized with anguish,
+and rent his garments; then, unable to arrive at any decision by
+himself, he sent Hilkiah, Shaphan, Ahikam, Achbor, and Asaiah to inquire
+of Jahveh for him and for his people, "for great is the wrath of the
+Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened
+unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is
+written concerning us."
+
+[Illustration: 364.jpg DECORATIONS ON THE WRAPPINGS OF A MUMMY.]
+
+The envoys betook themselves not to the official oracle or the
+recognised prophets, but to a woman, the prophetess Huldah, who was
+attached to the court in virtue of her husband's office; and she bade
+them, in the name of the Most High, to summon a meeting of the faithful,
+and, after reading the new code to them, to call upon all present to
+promise that they would henceforth observe its ordinances: thus Jahveh
+would be appeased, and since the king had "rent his garments and wept
+before Me, I also have heard thee, saith Jahveh. Therefore, behold, I
+will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave
+in peace." Josiah thereupon having summoned the elders of Judah and
+Jerusalem, went up into the temple, and there, standing on the platform,
+he read the Book of the Law in the presence of the whole people.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxii. 3-20; xxiii. 1, 2. The narrative has
+     undergone slight interpolation in places, e.g. verses 46,
+     5a, 6, and 7, where the compiler has made it harmonise with
+     events previously recorded in connection with the reign of
+     Joash (2 Kings xii. 6-16). The beginning of Huldah's
+     prophecy was suppressed, when the capture of Jerusalem
+     proved that the reform of divine worship had not succeeded
+     in averting the wrath of Jahveh. It probably contained
+     directions to read the _Book of the Covenant_ to the people,
+     and to persuade them to adopt its precepts, followed by a
+     promise to save Judah provided it remained faithful to its
+     engagements.
+
+It dealt with questions which had been frequent subjects of debate in
+prophetic circles since the days of Hezekiah, and the anonymous writer
+who had compiled it was so strongly imbued with the ideas of Jeremiah,
+and had so closely followed his style, that some have been inclined to
+ascribe the work to Jeremiah himself. It has always been a custom among
+Orientals to affirm that any work for which they profess particular
+esteem was discovered in the temple of a god; the Egyptian priests,
+for instance, invented an origin of this nature for the more important
+chapters of their Book of the Dead, and for the leading treatises in the
+scientific literature of Egypt. The author of the Book of the Law had
+ransacked the distant past for the name of the leader who had delivered
+Israel from captivity in Egypt. He told how Moses, when he began to feel
+the hand of death upon him, determined to declare in Gilead the decrees
+which Jahveh had delivered to him for the guidance of His people.* In
+these ordinances the indivisible nature of God, and His jealousy of
+any participation of other deities in the worship of His people, are
+strongly emphasised. "Ye shall surely destroy all the places wherein
+the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high
+mountains and upon the hills, and under every green tree: and ye shall
+break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn
+their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of
+their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place."**
+
+     * Even St. Jerome and St. John Chrysostom admitted that
+     Deuteronomy was the book discovered by Hilkiah in the temple
+     during the reign of Josiah, and this view is accepted at
+     present, though it is applied, not to the book of
+     Deuteronomy as it appears in the Pentateuch, but rather to
+     the nucleus of this book, and especially chaps, xii.-xxvi.
+
+     ** Deut. xii. 2, 3.
+
+Even were a prophet or dreamer of dreams to arise in the midst of the
+faithful and direct them by a sign or a miracle to turn aside after
+those accursed gods, they must not follow the teaching of these false
+guides, not even if the sign or miracle actually came to pass, but must
+seize and slay them. Even "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy
+son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is
+as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve
+other gods,... thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him:
+neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither
+shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall
+be first upon him to put him to death, and, afterwards the hand of all
+the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die; because he
+hath sought to draw thee away from Jahveh!"* And this Jahveh was not the
+Jahveh of any special place. He was not the Jahveh of Bethel, or of Dan,
+or of Mizpah, or of Geba, or of Beersheba; He is simply Jahveh.** Yet
+the seat of His worship was not a matter of indifference to Him. "Unto
+the place which Jahveh shall choose out of all your tribes to put His
+name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt
+thou come: and thither shall ye bring your... sacrifices and your
+tithes."*** Jerusalem is not mentioned by name, but the reference to it
+was clear, since every one knew that the suppression of the provincial
+sanctuaries must necessarily benefit it. One part of the new code dealt
+with the relations between different members of the community. The king
+was to approximate as closely as possible to the ideal priest; he was
+not to lift up his heart above his brethren, nor set his mind on the
+possession of many chariots, horses, or wives, but must continually read
+the law of God and ponder over His ordinances, and observe them word for
+word all the days of his life.****
+
+     * Deut. xiii. 1-10.
+
+     ** Deut. vi. 4. The expression found in Zecli. xiv. 9 was
+     borrowed from the second of the introductions added to
+     _Deuteronomy_ at a later date; the phrase harmonises so
+     closely with the main purpose of the book itself, that there
+     can be no objection to employing it here.
+
+     *** Deut. xii. 5, 6.
+
+     **** Deut. xvii. 14-20; cf. xx. 1-9 for the regulations in
+     regard to the levying of troops.
+
+Even in time of war he was not to put his trust in his soldiers or in
+his own personal valour; here again he must allow himself to be guided
+by Jahveh, and must undertake nothing without first consulting Him
+through the medium of His priests. The poor,* the widow, and the
+orphan,** the bondservant,*** and even the stranger within the gates--in
+remembrance of the bondage in Egypt ****--were all specially placed
+under the divine protection; every Jew who had become enslaved to a
+fellow-countryman was to be set at liberty at the end of six years, and
+was to receive a small allowance from his master which would ensure him
+for a time against starvation.^
+
+     * As to the poor, and the charitable obligations towards
+     them imposed by their common religion, cf. Deut. xv. 7-11;
+     as to the rights of the hired servant, cf. xxiv. 14, 15.
+
+     ** Deut. xxiv. 17-22 forbids the taking of a widow's
+     clothing in pledge, and lays down regulations in regard to
+     gleaning permitted to widows and orphans (cf. Lev. xix. 9,
+     10); reference is also made to their share in triennial
+     tithe (Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13) and in the solemn
+     festivals (Deut. xvi. 11-14).
+
+     *** Slaves were allowed to share in the rejoicings during
+     the great festivals (Deut. xvi. 11, 14), and certain rights
+     were accorded to women taken prisoners in war who had become
+     their captors' concubines (Deut. xxi. 10-14).
+
+     ****Participation of the stranger in the triennial tithe
+     (Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13).
+
+     ^ Deut. xv. 12-18.
+
+The regulations in regard to divine worship had not as yet been drawn
+up in that spirit of hair-splitting minuteness which, later on, became
+a characteristic of Hebrew legislation. Only three great festivals are
+mentioned in the Book of the Law. The Passover was celebrated in the
+month of Abib, when the grain is in the ear, and had already come to be
+regarded as commemorative of the Exodus; but the other two, the Feast
+of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles, were merely associated with the
+agricultural seasons, and took place, the former seven weeks after the
+beginning of the harvest, the latter after the last of the crops had
+been housed.* The claim of the priest to a share in the victim and in
+the offerings made on various occasions is maintained, and the lawgiver
+allows him to draw a similar benefit from the annual and triennial
+tithes which he imposes on corn and wine and on the firstborn of cattle,
+the produce of this tithe being devoted to a sort of family festival
+celebrated in the Holy Place.** The priest was thus placed on the same
+footing as the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, and his
+influence was but little greater than it had been in the early days of
+the monarchy. It was to the prophet and not to the priest that the duty
+belonged of directing the public conscience in all those cases for which
+the law had made no provision. "I will put My words into his mouth (said
+Jahveh), and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
+And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto My words
+which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him. But the
+prophet which shall speak a word presumptuously in My name, which I have
+not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other
+gods, that same prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How
+shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?--when a prophet
+speaketh in the name of Jahveh, if the thing follow not, nor come to
+pass, that is the thing which Jahveh hath not spoken: the prophet hath
+spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him."
+
+     * Deut. xvi. 1-17.
+
+     ** Deut. xviii. 1-8; as to the share in the triennial tithe,
+     cf. Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13.
+
+When the reading of the law had ended, Josiah implored the people to
+make a covenant with Jahveh; that is to say, "to walk after Jahveh, and
+to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with
+all their hearts and all their souls, to confirm the words of this
+covenant that were written in this book." The final words, which
+lingered in every ear, contained imprecations of even more terrible
+and gloomy import than those with which the prophets had been wont to
+threaten Judah. "If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jahveh thy
+God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I
+command thee this day; then all these curses shall come upon thee, and
+overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou
+be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
+Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, the
+increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock.... Thou shalt betroth
+a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build an house,
+and shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not
+use the fruit thereof. Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and
+thou shalt not eat thereof.... Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given
+unto another people; and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing
+for them all the day: and there shall be naught in the power of thine
+hand.... Jahveh shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end
+of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not
+understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shalt not regard the
+person of the old, nor show favour to the young." This enemy was to burn
+and destroy everything: "and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates,
+throughout all thy land, which Jahveh thy God hath given thee. And thou
+shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy
+daughters... in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall straiten
+thee." Those who escape must depart into captivity, and there endure for
+many a long year the tortures of direst slavery; "thy life shall hang
+in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have
+none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it
+were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for
+the fear of thine heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of
+thine eyes which thou shalt see."*
+
+     * Deut. xxviii. The two sets of imprecations (xxvii.,
+     xxviii.) which terminate the actual work are both of later
+     redaction, but the original MS. undoubtedly ended with some
+     analogous formula. I have quoted above the most
+     characteristic parts of the twenty-eighth chapter.
+
+The assembly took the oath required of them, and the king at once
+displayed the utmost zeal in exacting literal performance of the
+ordinances contained in the Book of the Law. His first step was to
+purify the temple: Hilkiah and his priests overthrew all the idols
+contained in it, and all the objects that had been fashioned in
+honour of strange gods--the Baals, the Asherim, and all the Host of
+Heaven--and, carrying them out of Jerusalem into the valley of the
+Kidron, cast them into the flames, and scattered the ashes upon the
+place where all the filth of the city was cast out. The altars and the
+houses of the Sodomites which defiled the temple courts were demolished,
+the chariots of the sun broken in pieces, and the horses of the god
+sent to the stables of the king's chamberlain;* the sanctuaries and high
+places which had been set up at the gates of the city, in the public
+places, and along the walls were razed to the ground, and the Tophet,
+where the people made their children pass through the fire, was
+transformed into a common sewer.
+
+     * [The Hebrew text admits of this meaning, which is,
+     however, not clear in the English A.V.--Tr.]
+
+The provincial sanctuaries shared the fate of those of the capital; in
+a short time, from Geba to Beersheba, there remained not one of those
+"high places," at which the ancestors of the nation and their rulers
+had offered prayers for generations past. The wave of reform passed even
+across the frontier and was borne into the Assyrian province of Samaria;
+the temple and image which Jeroboam had set up at Bethel were reduced to
+ashes, and human bones were burnt upon the altar to desecrate it beyond
+possibility of purification.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 3-20, 24-27, where several glosses and
+     interpolations are easily recognisable, such as the episode
+     at Bethel (v. 15-20), the authenticity of which is otherwise
+     incontestable. The account in 2 Chron. xxxiv. is a defaced
+     reproduction of that of 2 Kings, and it places the reform,
+     in part at least, before the discovery of the new law.
+
+The governor offered no objection to these acts; he regarded them, in
+the first place, as the private affairs of the subjects of the empire,
+with which he had no need to interfere, so long as the outburst of
+religious feeling did not tend towards a revolt: we know, moreover, that
+Josiah, guided on this point by the prophets, would have believed that
+he was opposing the divine will had he sought to free himself from the
+Assyrian yoke by ordinary political methods; besides this, in 621, under
+Assur-etililani, five years after the Scythian invasion, the prefect of
+Samaria had possibly not sufficient troops at his disposal to oppose the
+encroachments of the vassal princes. It was an affair of merely a few
+months. In the following year, when the work of destruction was
+over, Josiah commanded that the Passover should be kept in the manner
+prescribed in the new book; crowds flocked into Jerusalem, from Israel
+as well as from Judah, and the festival made a deep impression on the
+minds of the people. Centuries afterwards the Passover of King Josiah
+was still remembered: "There was not kept such a Passover from the days
+of the Judges... nor in all the days of the Kings of Israel, nor of the
+Kings of Judah."*
+
+     1 2 Kings xxiii. 21-23; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-19. The text of
+     the Soptuagint appears to imply that it was the first
+     Passover celebrated in Jerusalem. It also gives in chap.
+     xxii. 3, after the mention of the eighteenth year, a date of
+     the seventh or eighth month, which is not usually accepted,
+     as it is in contradiction with what is affirmed in chap,
+     xxiii. 21-23, viz. that the Passover celebrated at Jerusalem
+     was in the same year as the reform, in the eighteenth year.
+     It is to do away with the contradiction between these two
+     passages that the Hebrew text has suppressed the mention of
+     the month. I think, however, it ought to be considered
+     authentic and be retained, if we are allowed to place the
+     celebration of the Passover in what would be one year after.
+     To do this it would not be needful to correct the regnal
+     date in the text: admitting that the reform took place in
+     621, the Passover of 620 would still quite well have taken
+     place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, that being dependent
+     on the time of year at which the king had ascended the
+     throne.
+
+The first outburst of zeal having spent itself, a reaction was ere long
+bound to set in both among the ruling classes and among the people, and
+the spectacle that Asia at that time presented to their view was truly
+of a nature to incite doubts in the minds of the faithful. Assyria--that
+Assyria of which the prophets had spoken as the irresistible emissary of
+the Most High--had not only failed to recover from the injuries she had
+received at the hands, first of the Medes, and then of the Scythians,
+but had with each advancing year seen more severe wounds inflicted upon
+her, and hastening her irretrievably to her ruin. And besides this,
+Egypt and Chaldaea, the ancient kingdoms which had for a short time bent
+beneath her yoke, had now once more arisen, and were astonishing the
+world by their renewed vigour. Psammetichus, it is true, after having
+stretched his arm across the desert and laid hands upon the citadel
+which secured to him an outlet into Syria for his armies, had proceeded
+no further, and thus showed that he was not inclined to reassert
+the ancient rights of Egypt over the countries of the Jordan and the
+Orontes; but he had died in 611, and his son, Necho II., who succeeded
+him, did not manifest the same peaceful intentions.*
+
+     * The last dated stele of Psammetichus I. is the official
+     epitaph of the Apis which died in his fifty-second year. On
+     the other hand, an Apis, born in the fifty-third year of
+     Psammetichus, died in the sixteenth year of Necho, after
+     having lived 16 years, 7 months, 17 days. A very simple
+     calculation shows that Psammetichus I. reigned fifty-four
+     years, as stated by Herodotus and Manetho, according to
+     Julius Africanus.
+
+If he decided to try his fortune in Syria, supported by his Greek and
+Egyptian battalions, what would be the attitude that Judah would assume
+between moribund Assyria and the kingdom of the Pharaohs in its renewed
+vigour? It was in the spring of 608 that the crisis occurred. Nineveh,
+besieged by the Medes, was on the point of capitulating, and it was easy
+to foresee that the question as to who should rule there would shortly
+be an open one: should Egypt hesitate longer in seizing what she
+believed to be her rightful heritage, she would run the risk of finding
+the question settled and another in possession. Necho quitted Memphis
+and made his way towards the Asiatic frontier with the army which his
+father had left to him. It was no longer composed of the ill-organised
+bands of the Ethiopian kings or the princes of the Delta, temporarily
+united under the rule of a single leader, but all the while divided by
+reciprocal hatreds and suspicions which doomed it to failure. All the
+troops which constituted it--Egyptians, Libyans, and Greeks alike--were
+thoroughly under the control of their chief, and advanced in a compact
+and irresistible mass "like the Nile: like a river its volume rolls
+onward. It said: I arise, I inundate the earth, I will drown cities
+and people! Charge, horses! Chariots, fly forward at a gallop! Let the
+warriors march, the Ethiopian and the Libyan under the shelter of his
+buckler, the fellah bending the bow!"*
+
+     * Jer. xlvi. 7-9, where the prophet describes, not the army
+     which marched against Josiah, but that which was beaten at
+     Carchemish. With a difference of date of only three or four
+     years, the constituent elements of the army were certainly
+     the same, so that the description of one would apply to the
+     other.
+
+As soon as Josiah heard the news, he called together his troops
+and prepared to resist the attack. Necho affected not to take his
+demonstrations seriously, and sent a disdainful message recommending him
+to remain neutral: "What have I to do with thee, thou King of Judah? I
+come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have
+war: and God hath commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling
+with God who is with me, that He destroy thee not!"*
+
+     * The message of Necho to Josiah is known to us from 2
+     Chron. xxxv. 20-22.
+
+Having despatched the message, probably at the moment of entering the
+Shephelah, he continued in a northerly direction, nothing doubting that
+his warning had met a friendly reception; but however low Nineveh had
+fallen, Josiah could not feel that he was loosed from the oaths which
+bound him to her, and, trusting in the help of Jahveh, he threw himself
+resolutely into the struggle. The Egyptian generals were well acquainted
+with the route as far as the farther borders of Philistia, having
+passed along it a few years previously, at the time of the campaign of
+Psammetichus; but they had no experience of the country beyond Ashdod,
+and were solely dependent for guidance on the information of merchants
+or the triumphant records of the old Theban Pharaohs. These monuments
+followed the traditional road which had led their ancestors from Gaza
+to Megiddo, from Megiddo to Qodshu, from Qodshu to Carchemish, and they
+were reckoning on passing through the valley of the Jordan, and then
+that of the Orontes, without encountering any resistance, when, at the
+entrance to the gorges of Carmel, they were met by the advance guard of
+the Judaean army.
+
+Josiah, not having been warned in time to meet them as they left the
+desert, had followed a road parallel to their line of march, and had
+taken up his position in advance of them on the plain of Megiddo, on the
+very spot where Thutmosis III. had vanquished the Syrian confederates
+nearly ten centuries before. The King of Judah was defeated and killed
+in the confusion of the battle, and the conqueror pushed on northwards
+without, at that moment, giving the fate of the scattered Jews a further
+thought.* He rapidly crossed the plain of the Orontes by the ancient
+caravan track, and having reached the Euphrates, he halted under the
+walls of Carchemish. Perhaps he may have heard there of the fall of
+Nineveh, and the fear of drawing down upon himself the Medes or the
+Babylonians prevented him from crossing the river and raiding the
+country of the Balikh, which, from the force of custom, the royal
+scribes still persisted in designating by the disused name of Mitanni.**
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 29; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 22, 23. It is
+     probably to this battle that Herodotus alludes when he says
+     that Necho overcame the Syrians at Magdolos. The identity of
+     Magdolos and Megiddo, accepted by almost all historians, was
+     disputed by Gutschmid, who sees in the Magdolos of Herodotus
+     the Migdol of the Syro-Egyptian frontier, and in the
+     engagement itself, an engagement of Necho with the Assyrians
+     and their Philistine allies; also by Th. Reinach, who
+     prefers to identify Magdolos with one of the Migdols near
+     Ascalon, and considers this combat as fought against the
+     Assyrian army of occupation. If the information in Herodotus
+     were indeed borrowed from Hecatasus of Miletus, and by the
+     latter from the inscription placed by Necho in the temple of
+     Branchidae, it appears to me impossible to admit that
+     Magdolos does not here represent Megiddo.
+
+     ** The text of 2 Kings xxiii. 29 says positively that Necho
+     was marching towards the Euphrates. The name Mitanni is
+     found even in Ptolemaic times.
+
+He returned southwards, after having collected the usual tributes and
+posted a few garrisons at strategic points; at Biblah he held a kind of
+_Durbar_ to receive the homage of the independent Phoenicians* and of
+the old vassals of Assyria, who, owing to the rapidity of his movements,
+had not been able to tender their offerings on his outward march.
+
+     * The submission of the Phoenicians to Necho is gathered
+     from a passage in Berosus, where he says that the Egyptian
+     army beaten at Carchemish comprised Phoenicians, besides
+     Syrians and Arabs.
+
+[Illustration: 378.jpg Victorious Necho]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph published in
+     Mariette. This scarab, now in the Gizeh Museum, is the only
+     Egyptian monument which alludes to the victories of Necho.
+     Above, the king stands between Nit and Isis; below, the
+     vanquished are stretched on the ground.
+
+The Jews had rescued the body of their king and had brought it back in
+his chariot to Jerusalem; they proclaimed in his stead, not his eldest
+son Eliakim, but the youngest, Shallum, who adopted the name of Jehoahaz
+on ascending the throne. He was a young man, twenty-three years of age,
+light and presumptuous of disposition, opposed to the reform movement,
+and had doubtless been unwise enough to display his hostile feelings
+towards the conqueror. Necho summoned him to Eiblah, deposed him after
+a reign of three months, condemned him to prison, and replaced him by
+Eliakim, who changed his name to that of Jehoiakim--"he whom Jahveh
+exalts;" and after laying Judah under a tribute of one hundred talents
+of silver and one of gold, the Egyptian monarch returned to his own
+country. Certain indications lead us to believe that he was obliged to
+undertake other punitive expeditions. The Philistines, probably deceived
+by false rumours of his defeat, revolted against him about the time that
+he was engaged in hostilities in Northern Syria, and on receiving news
+not only of his safety, but of the victory he had gained, their alarm
+was at once aroused. Judah forgot her own sorrows on seeing the peril in
+which they stood, and Jeremiah pronounced against them a prophecy full
+of menace. "Behold," he cried, "waters rise up out of the north, and
+shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all
+that is therein, the city and them that dwell therein; and the men shall
+cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl... for the Lord will
+spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the Isle of Caphtor. Baldness is
+come upon Gaza; Ascalon is dumb with terror, and you, all that are left
+of the giants, how long will ye tear your faces in your mourning?"*
+Ascalon was sacked and then Gaza,** and Necho at length was able to
+re-enter his domains, doubtless by the bridge of Zalu, following in this
+his models, his heroic ancestors of the great Theban dynasties.
+
+     * [R.V., "Ashkolon is brought to nought, the remnant of
+     their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?"--Tr.]
+
+     ** Jer. xlvii., which is usually attributed to a period
+     subsequent to the defeat at Carchemish or even later; the
+     title, which alone mentions the Egyptians, is wanting in the
+     LXX. If we admit that the enemy coming from the north is the
+     Egyptian and not the Chaldaean, as do most writers, the only
+     time that danger could have threatened Philistia from the
+     Egyptians coming from the north, was when Necho, victorious,
+     was returning from his first campaign. In this case, the
+     Kadytis of Herodotus, which has caused so much trouble to
+     commentators, would certainly be Gaza, and there would be no
+     difficulty in explaining how the tradition preserved by the
+     Greek historian placed the taking of this town after the
+     battle of Megiddo.
+
+He wished thereupon to perpetuate the memory of the Greeks who had
+served him so bravely, and as soon as the division of the spoil had been
+made, he sent as an offering to the temple of Apollo at Miletus, the
+cuirass which he had worn throughout the campaign.
+
+We can picture the reception which his subjects gave him, and how the
+deputations of priests and nobles in white robes flocked out to meet him
+with garlands of flowers in their hands, and with acclamations similar
+to those which of old had heralded the return of Seti I. or Ramses II.
+National pride, no doubt, was flattered by this revival of military
+glory, but other motives than those of vanity lay at the root of the
+delight exhibited by the whole country at the news of the success of the
+expedition. The history of the century which was drawing to its close,
+had demonstrated more than once how disadvantageous it was to Egypt to
+be separated from a great power merely by the breadth of the isthmus.
+If Taharqa, instead of awaiting the attack on the banks of the Nile, had
+met the Assyrians at the foot of Carmel, or even before Gaza, it would
+have been impossible for Esarhaddon to turn the glorious kingdom of the
+Pharaohs into an Assyrian province after merely a few weeks of fighting.
+The dictates of prudence, more than those of ambition, rendered,
+therefore, the conquest of Syria a necessity, and Necho showed his
+wisdom in undertaking it at the moment when the downfall of Nineveh
+reduced all risk of opposition to a minimum; it remained to be seen
+whether the conquerors of Sin-shar-ishkun would tolerate for long the
+interference of a third robber, and would consent to share the spoil
+with these Africans, who, having had none of the trouble, had hastened
+to secure the profit. All the Mediterranean dependencies of Assyria,
+such as Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judae, fell naturally within the
+sphere of Babylon rather than that of Media, and, indeed, Cyaxares never
+troubled himself about them; and Nabopolassar, who considered them
+his own by right, had for the moment too much in hand to permit of his
+reclaiming them. The Aramaeans of the Khabur and the Balikh, the nomads
+of the Mesopotamian plain, had not done homage to him, and the country
+districts were infested with numerous bands of Cimmerians and Scythians,
+who had quite recently pillaged the sacred city of Harran and violated
+the temple of the god Sin.* Nabopolassar, who was too old to command
+his troops in person, probably entrusted the conduct of them to
+Nebuchadrezzar, who was the son he had appointed to succeed him, and who
+had also married the Median princess. Three years sufficed this prince
+to carry the frontier of the new Chaldaean empire as far as the Syrian
+fords of the Euphrates, within sight of Thapsacus and Carchemish. Harran
+remained in the hands of the barbarians,** probably on condition of
+their paying a tribute, but the district of the Subaru was laid waste,
+its cities reduced to ashes, and the Babylonian suzerainty established
+on the southern slopes of the Masios.
+
+     * _Inscrip. of the Cylinder of Nabonidus_ mentions the
+     pillage of Harran as having taken place fifty-four years
+     before the date of its restoration by Nabonidus. This was
+     begun, as we know, in the third year of that king, possibly
+     in 554-3. The date of the destruction is, therefore, 608-7,
+     that is to say, a few months before the destruction of
+     Nineveh.
+
+     ** The passage in the _Cylinder of Nabonidus_ shows that the
+     barbarians remained in possession of the town.
+
+Having brought these preliminary operations to a successful issue,
+Nabopolassar, considering himself protected on the north and north-east
+by his friendship with Cyaxares, no longer hesitated to make an effort
+to recover the regions dominated by Egyptian influence, and, if the
+occasion presented itself, to reduce to submission the Pharaoh who was
+in his eyes merely a rebellious satrap. Nebuchadrezzar again placed
+himself at the head of his troops; Necho, warned of his projects,
+hastened to meet him with all the forces at his disposal, and, owing
+probably to the resistance offered by the garrisons which he possessed
+in the Hittite fortresses, he had time to continue his march as far as
+the Euphrates. The two armies encountered each other at Carchemish; the
+Egyptians were completely defeated in spite of their bravery and the
+skilful tactics of their Greek auxiliaries, and the Asiatic nations, who
+had once more begun to rely on Egypt, were obliged to acknowledge that
+they were as unequal to the task of overcoming Chaldaea as they had been
+of sustaining a struggle with Assyria.*
+
+     * Jer. xlvi. 2; cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 7, where the editor,
+     without mentioning the battle of Carchemish, recalls in
+     passing that "the King of Babylon had taken, from the brook
+     of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the
+     King of Egypt."
+
+The religious party in Judah, whose hopes had been disappointed by the
+victory of Pharaoh at Megiddo, now rejoiced at his defeat, and when the
+remains of his legions made their way back across the Philistine plain,
+closely pressed by the enemy, Jeremiah hailed them as they passed with
+cutting irony. Two or three brief, vivid sentences depicting the spirit
+that had fired them a few months before, and then the picture of their
+disorderly flight: "Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to
+battle. Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth
+with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.
+Wherefore have I seen it? They are dismayed and turn backward; and their
+mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back;
+terror is on every side, saith the Lord. Let not the swift flee away,
+nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Euphrates have
+they stumbled and fallen.... Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin
+daughter of Egypt; in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no
+healing for thee. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is
+full of thy cry: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty,
+they are fallen both of them together."* Nebuchadrezzar received by the
+way the submission of Jehoiakim, and of the princes of Ammon, Moab, and
+the Philistines;** he was nearing Pelusium on his way into Egypt, when a
+messenger brought him the news of his father's death.
+
+     * Jer. xlvi. 3-6, 11, 12.
+
+     ** The submission of all these peoples is implied by the
+     passage already cited in 2 Kings xxiv. 7; Berosus speaks of
+     the Phoenician, Jewish, and Syrian prisoners whom
+     Nebuchadrezzar left to his generals, when he resolved to
+     return to Babylon by the shortest route.
+
+He feared lest a competitor should dispute his throne--perhaps his
+younger brother, that Nabu-shum-lishir who had figured at his side
+at the dedication of a temple to Marduk. He therefore concluded an
+armistice with Necho, by the terms of which he remained master of the
+whole of Syria between the Euphrates and the Wady el-Arish, and then
+hastily turned homewards. But his impatience could not brook the
+delay occasioned by the slow march of a large force, nor the ordinary
+circuitous route by Carchemish and through Mesopotamia. He hurried
+across the Arabian desert, accompanied by a small escort of light
+troops, and presented himself unexpectedly at the gates of Babylon. He
+found all in order. His Chaldaean ministers had assumed the direction of
+affairs, and had reserved the throne for the rightful heir; he had only
+to appear to be acclaimed and obeyed (B.C. 605).
+
+His reign was long, prosperous, and on the whole peaceful. The recent
+changes in Asiatic politics had shut out the Chaldaeans from the majority
+of the battle-fields on which the Assyrians had been wont to wage
+warfare with the tribes on their eastern and northern frontiers. We no
+longer see stirring on the border-land those confused masses of tribes
+and communities of whose tumultuous life the Ninevite annals make such
+frequent record: Elam as an independent state no longer existed, neither
+did Philipi and Namri, nor the Cossaeans, nor Parsua, nor the Medes
+with their perpetual divisions, nor the Urartians and the Mannai in
+a constant state of ferment within their mountain territory; all that
+remained of that turbulent world now constituted a single empire, united
+under the hegemony of the Medes, and the rule of a successful conqueror.
+The greater part of Blam was already subject to those Achaemenides who
+called themselves sovereigns of Anshan as well as of Persia, and whose
+fief was dependent on the kingdom of Ecbatana:* it is probable that
+Chaldasa received as her share of the ancient Susian territory the low
+countries of the Uknu and the Ulai, occupied by the Aramaean tribes
+of the Puqudu, the Eutu, and the Grambulu;** but Susa fell outside her
+portion, and was soon transformed into a flourishing Iranian town.
+
+     * "The king and the princes of Elam" mentioned in Jer. xxv.
+     25, xlix.35-39, and in Ezele. xxxii. 24, 25, in the time of
+     Nebuchadrezzar, are probably the Persian kings of Anshan and
+     their Elamite vassals--not only, as is usually believed, the
+     kings and native princes conquered by Assur-bani-pal; the
+     same probably holds good of the Elam which an anonymous
+     prophet associates with the Medes under Nabonidus, in the
+     destruction of Babylon (Isa. xxi. 2). The princes of Malamir
+     appear to me to belong to an anterior epoch.
+
+     ** The enumeration given in Ezelc. xxiii. 23, "the
+     Babylonians and all the Chaldaeans, Pelted, and Shoa, and
+     Koa," shows us probably that the Aramaeans of the Lower
+     Tigris represented by Pekod, as those of the Lower Euphrates
+     are by the Chaldaeans, belonged to the Babylonian empire in
+     the time of the prophet. They are also considered as
+     belonging to Babylon in the passage of an anonymous prophet
+     (Jer. I. 21), who wrote in the last days of the Chaldaen
+     empire: "Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against
+     it and the inhabitants of Pekod." Translators and
+     commentators have until quite recently mistaken the import
+     of the name Pekod.
+
+The plains bordering the right bank of the Tigris, from the Uknu to
+the Turnat or the Eadanu, which had belonged to Babylon from the very
+earliest times, were no doubt still retained by her;* but the mountain
+district which commanded them certainly remained in the hands of
+Cyaxares, as well as the greater part of Assyria proper, and there
+is every reason to believe that from the Eadanu northwards the Tigris
+formed the boundary between the two allies, as far as the confluence of
+the Zab.
+
+     * This is what appears to me to follow from the account of
+     the conquest oL Babylon by Cyrus, as related by Herodotus.
+
+The entire basin of the Upper Tigris and its Assyrian colonies, Amidi
+and Tushkan were now comprised in the sphere of Medic influence, and the
+settlement of the Scythians at Harran, around one of the most venerated
+of the Semitic sanctuaries, shows to what restrictions the new authority
+of Chaldasa was subjected, even in the districts of Mesopotamia, which
+were formerly among the most faithful possessions of Nineveh. If these
+barbarians had been isolated, they would not long have defied the King
+of Babylon, but being akin to the peoples who were subject to Cyaxares,
+they probably claimed his protection, and regarded themselves as his
+liege men; it was necessary to treat them with consideration, and
+tolerate the arrogance of their presence upon the only convenient road
+which connected the eastern with the western provinces of the kingdom.
+It is therefore evident that there was no opening on this side for those
+ever-recurring struggles in which Assyria had exhausted her best powers;
+one war was alone possible, that with Media, but it was fraught with
+such danger that the dictates of prudence demanded that it should be
+avoided at all costs, even should the alliance between the two courts
+cease to be cemented by a royal marriage. However great the confidence
+which he justly placed in the valour of his Chaldaeans, Nebuchadrezzar
+could not hide from himself the fact that for two centuries they had
+always been beaten by the Assyrians, and that therefore he would run
+too great a risk in provoking hostilities with an army which had got the
+better of the conquerors of his people. Besides this, Cyaxares was fully
+engaged in subjecting the region which he had allotted to himself, and
+had no special desire to break with his ally. Nothing is known of his
+history during the years which followed the downfall of Nineveh, but it
+is not difficult to guess what were the obstacles he had to surmount,
+and the result of the efforts which he made to overcome them. The
+country which extends between the Caspian and the Black Sea--the
+mountain block of Armenia, the basins of the Araxes and the Kur, the
+valleys of the Halys, the Iris, and the Thermodon, and the forests
+of the Anti-Taurus and the Taurus itself--had been thrown into utter
+confusion by the Cimmerians and the Scythians. Nothing remained of the
+previous order of things which had so long prevailed there, and the
+barbarians who for a century and a half had destroyed everything in the
+country seemed incapable of organising anything in its place. Urartu had
+shrunk within its ancient limits around Ararat, and it is not known
+who ruled her; the civilisation of Argistis and Menuas had almost
+disappeared with the dynasty which had opposed the power of Assyria, and
+the people, who had never been much impregnated by it, soon fell back
+into their native rude habits of life. Confused masses of European
+barbarians were stirring in Etiaus and the regions of the Araxes,
+seeking a country in which to settle themselves, and did not succeed in
+establishing themselves firmly till a much later period in the district
+of Sakasene, to which was attached the name of one of their tribes.*
+
+     * Strabo states that Armenia and the maritime regions of
+     Cappadocia suffered greatly from the invasion of the
+     Scythians.
+
+Such of the Mushku and the Tabal as had not perished had taken refuge in
+the north, among the mountains bordering the Black Sea, where they were
+ere long known to the Greeks as the Moschi and the Tibarenians. The
+remains of the Cimmerian hordes had taken their place in Cappadocia,
+and the Phrygian population which had followed in their wake had spread
+themselves over the basin of the Upper Halys and over the ancient
+Milidu, which before long took from them the name of Armenia.* All these
+elements constituted a seething, struggling, restless mass of people,
+actuated by no plan or method, and subject merely to the caprice of its
+chiefs; it was, indeed, the "seething cauldron" of which the
+Hebrew prophets had had a vision, which at times overflowed over the
+neighbouring nations, and at others was consumed within and wasted
+itself in fruitless ebullition.**
+
+     * The Phrygian origin of the Armenians is pointed out by
+     Herodotus and by Eudoxius.
+
+     ** Jer. i. 13.
+
+It took Cyaxares years to achieve his conquests; he finally succeeded,
+however, in reducing the various elements to subjection--Urartians,
+Scythians, Cimmerians, Chaldae, and the industrious tribes of the
+Chalybes and the White Syrians--and, always victorious, appeared at last
+on the right hank of the Halys; but having reached it, he found himself
+face to face with foes of quite a different calibre from those with
+whom he had hitherto to deal. Lydia had increased both in wealth and
+in vigour since the days when her king Ardys informed his ally
+Assur-bani-pal that he had avenged the death of his father and driven
+the Cimmerians from the valley of the Msoander.
+
+He had by so doing averted all immediate danger; but as long as the
+principal horde remained unexterminated, another invasion was always
+to be feared; besides which, the barbarian inroad, although of short
+duration, had wrought such havoc in the country that no native power in
+Asia Minor appeared, nor in reality was, able to make the effort needful
+to destroy them. Their king Dugdamis, it will be remembered, met his
+death in Cilicia at the hands of the Assyrians about the year 640, and
+Kobos, his successor, was defeated and killed by the Scythians under
+Madyes about 633. The repeated repulses they had suffered had the effect
+of quickly relieving Lydia, Phrygia, and the remaining states of the
+AEgean and the Black Sea from their inroads; the Milesians wrested
+Sinope from them about 630, and the few bands left behind when the main
+body set out for the countries of the Euphrates were so harried and
+decimated by the people over whom they had terrorised for nearly a
+century, that they had soon no refuge except round the fortress of
+Antandros, in the mountains of the Troad. Most of the kingdoms whose
+downfall they had caused never recovered from their reverses; but
+Lydia, which had not laid down its arms since the death of Gyges, became
+possessed by degrees of the whole of their territory; Phrygia proper
+came back to her in the general redistribution, and with it most of the
+countries which had been under the rule of the dynasty of Midas, from
+the mountains of Lycia to the shores of the Black Sea. The transfer was
+effected, apparently, with very slight opposition and with little loss
+of time, since in the four or five years which followed the death of
+Kobos, Ardys had risen in the estimation of the Greeks to the position
+enjoyed by Gyges; and when, in 628, Aristomenes, the hero of the
+Messenian wars, arrived at Rhodes, it is said that he contemplated
+proceeding from thence, first to Sardes and then to Ecbatana, for the
+purpose of gaining the adherence of Lydia and Media to his cause.
+
+[Illustration: 390.jpgA VIEW IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MESSOGIS]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Rayet and Thomas.
+
+Death put an end to his projects, but he would not for a moment have
+entertained them had not Ardys been at that time at the head of a
+renowned and flourishing kingdom. The renewal of international commerce
+followed closely on the re-establishment of peace, and even if the long
+period of Scythian invasion, followed by the destruction of Nineveh,
+rendered the overland route less available for regular traffic than
+before, at all events relations between the inhabitants of the Euphrates
+valley and those of the iEgean littoral were resumed to such good
+purpose that before long several fresh marts were opened in Lydia.
+
+[Illustration: 391.jpg THE SITE OF PRIENE.]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Rayet and Thomas.
+
+Kyme and Ephesus put the region of the Messogis and the Tmolus into
+communication with the sea, but the lower valleys of the Hermos and
+the Masander were closed by the existence of Greek colonies at
+Smyrna, Clazomenas, Colophon, Priene, and Miletus--all hostile to the
+Mermnadae--which it would be necessary to overcome if these countries
+were to enjoy the prosperity shared by other parts of the kingdom; hence
+the principal effort made by the Lydians was either directly to annex
+these towns, or to impose such treaties on them as would make them their
+dependencies. Ardys seized Priene towards 620, and after having thus
+established himself on the northern shore of the Latrnio Gulf,* he
+proceeded to besiege Miletus in 616, at the very close of his career.
+Hostilities were wearily prolonged all through the reign of Sadyattes
+(615-610), and down to the sixth year of Alyattes.**
+
+     * The well-known story that Priene was saved under Alyattes
+     by a stratagem of the philosopher Bias is merely a fable, of
+     which several other examples are found. It would not be
+     possible to conclude from it, as Grote did, that Ardys' rule
+     over the town was but ephemeral.
+
+     ** The periods of duration assigned here to the reigns of
+     these princes are those of Euschius--that is to say, 15
+     years for Crosus, 37 for Alyattes, 5 for Sadyattes, 37 for
+     Ardys; Julius Africanus gives 15 for Sadyattes and 38 for
+     Ardys, while Herodotus suggests 14 for Crosus, 57 for
+     Alyattes, 12 for Sadyattes, and 59 for Ardys.
+
+The position of Miletus was too strong to permit of its being carried by
+a _coup de main_; besides which, the Lydians were unwilling to destroy
+at one blow a town whose colonies, skilfully planted at the seaports
+from the coasts of the Black Sea to those of Egypt, would one day
+furnish them with so many outlets for their industrial products. Their
+method of attacking it resolved itself into a series of exhausting
+raids. "Every year, as soon as the fruit crops and the harvests began
+to ripen, Alyattes set out at the head of his troops, whom he caused
+to march and encamp to the sound of instruments. Having arrived in the
+Milesian territory, he completely destroyed the crops and the orchards,
+and then again withdrew." In these expeditions he was careful to
+avoid any excesses which would have made the injury inflicted appear
+irretrievable; his troops were forbidden to destroy dwelling-houses
+or buildings dedicated to the gods; indeed, on one occasion, when the
+conflagration which consumed the lands accidentally spread to the temple
+of Athena near Assesos, he rebuilt two temples for the goddess at his
+own expense. The Milesians sustained the struggle courageously, until
+two reverses at Limeneion and in the plain of the Maeander at length
+induced them to make terms. Their tyrant, Thrasybulus, acting on the
+advice of the Delphic Apollo and by the mediation of Periander of
+Corinth, concluded a treaty with Alyattes in which the two princes,
+declaring themselves the guest and the ally one of the other, very
+probably conceded extensive commercial privileges to one another both by
+land and sea (604).*
+
+     * Thrasybulus' stratagem is said to have taken place at
+     Priene by Diogenes Laertes and by Polysenus. The war begins
+     under Ardys, lasts for five years under Sadyattes, instead
+     of the six years which Herodotus attributes to it, and five
+     years under Alyattes.
+
+Alyattes rewarded the oracle by the gift of a magnificent bowl, the work
+of Glaucus of Chios, which continued to be shown to travellers of
+the Roman period as one of the most remarkable curiosities of Delphi.
+Alyattes continued his expeditions against the other Greek colonies, but
+directed them prudently and leisurely, so as not to alarm his European
+friends, and provoke the formation against himself of a coalition of the
+Hellenic communities shattered over the isles or along the littoral
+of the AEgean. We know that towards the end of his reign he recovered
+Colophon, which had been previously acquired by Gyges, but had regained
+its independence during the Cimmerian crisis;* he razed Smyrna to the
+ground, and forced its inhabitants to occupy unfortified towns, where
+his suzerainty could not be disputed;** he half devastated Clazomense,
+whose citizens saved it by a despairing effort, and he renewed the
+ancient alliances with Ephesus, Kyme, and the cities of the region of
+the Caicus and the Hellespont,*** though it is impossible to attribute
+an accurate date to each of these particular events.
+
+     * Polysenus tells the story of the trick by which Alyattes,
+     after he had treated with the people of Colophon, destroyed
+     their cavalry and seized on their town. The fact that a
+     treaty was made seems to be confirmed by a fragment of
+     Phylarchus, and the surrender of the town to the Lydians by
+     a fragment of Xenophanes, quoted in Athenseus. Schubert does
+     not seem to believe that the town was taken by Alyattes; I
+     have adopted the opinion of Ladet on this point.
+
+     ** Herodotus and Nicolas of Damascus confine themselves to
+     relating the capture of the city; adds that the Lydians
+     compelled the inhabitants to dwell in unfortified towns.
+     Schubert thinks that the passage in Strabo refers, not to
+     the time of Alyattes, but to a subsequent event in the fifth
+     century; he relies for this opinion on a fragment of Pindar,
+     which represents Smyrna as still flourishing in his time.
+     But, as Busolt has pointed out, the intention of the text of
+     Pindar is to represent the state of the city at about the
+     time of Homer's birth, and not in the fifth century.
+
+     *** The peace between Ephesus and Lydia must have been
+     troubled for a little while in the reign of Sadyattes, but
+     it was confirmed under Alyattes by the marriage of Melas II.
+     with one of the king's daughters.
+
+Most of them had already taken place or were still proceeding when the
+irruption of the Medes across the Halys obliged him to concentrate all
+his energies on the eastern portion of his kingdom.
+
+The current tradition in Lydia of a century later attributed the
+conflict of the two peoples to a romantic cause. It related that
+Cyaxares had bestowed his favour on the bands of Scythians who had
+become his mercenaries on the death of Madyes, and that he had entrusted
+to them the children of some of the noblest Medic families, that they
+might train them to hunt and also teach them the use of the bow. One
+day, on their returning from the chase without any game, Cyaxares
+reproached them for their want of skill in such angry and insulting
+terms, that they resolved on immediate revenge. They cut one of the
+children in pieces, which they dressed after the same manner as that
+in which they were accustomed to prepare the game they had killed, and
+served up the dish to the king; then, while he was feasting upon it with
+his courtiers, they lied in haste and took refuge with Alyattes. The
+latter welcomed them, and refused to send them back to Cyaxares;
+hence the outbreak of hostilities. It is, of course, possible that the
+emigration of a nomad horde may have been the cause of the war,* but
+graver reasons than this had set the two nations at variance.
+
+     * Grote has collected a certain number of examples in later
+     times to show that the journeying of a nomad horde from one
+     state to another may provoke wars, and he concludes
+     therefrom that at least the basis of Herodotus' account may
+     be considered as true.
+
+The hardworking inhabitants of the valleys of the Iris and the Halys
+were still possessed of considerable riches, in spite of the losses
+they had suffered from the avaricious Cimmerians, and their chief towns,
+Comana, Pteria and Teiria, continued to enjoy prosperity under the rule
+of their priest-kings. Pteria particularly had developed in the course
+of the century, thanks to her favourable situation, which had enabled
+her to offer a secure refuge to the neighbouring population during the
+late disasters.
+
+[Illustation: 396.jpg THE RUINS OF PTERIA]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Charles Texier.
+
+The town itself was crowded into a confined plain, on the left bank of
+a torrent which flowed into the Halys, and the city walls may still
+be clearly traced upon the soil; the outline of the houses, the silos,
+cisterns, and rock-cut staircases are still visible in places, besides
+the remains of a palace built of enormous blocks of almost rough-hewn
+limestone. The town was defended by wide ramparts, and also by two
+fortresses perched upon enormous masses of rock, while a few thousand
+yards to the east of the city, on the right bank of the torrent, three
+converging ravines concealed the sanctuary of one of those mysterious
+oracles whose fame attracted worshippers from far and wide during the
+annual fairs.
+
+[Illustration: 396b.jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE SANCTUARY OF PTERIA]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Chantre.
+
+The bas-reliefs which decorate them belong to that semi-barbarous
+art which we have already met with in the monuments attributed to the
+Khafci, near the Orontes and Euphrates, on both slopes of the Amanus, in
+Cilioia, and in the ravines of the Taurus.
+
+[Illustration: 398.jpg ONE OF THE PROCESSIONS IN THE RAVINE OF PTERIA]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre.
+
+Long processions of priests and votaries defile before figures of the
+gods and goddesses standing erect upon their sacred animals; in one
+scene, a tall goddess, a Cybele or an Anaitis, leans affectionately upon
+her chosen lover, and seems to draw him with her towards an image with a
+lion's body and the head of a youth.*
+
+     * These bas-reliefs seem to me to have been executed at
+     about the time with which we are dealing, or perhaps a few
+     years later--in any case, before the Persian conquest.
+
+Pteria and its surrounding hills formed a kind of natural fortress which
+overlooked the whole bend of the Halys; it constituted, in the land of
+the Lydians, an outpost which effectually protected their possessions in
+Phrygia and Papnlagonia against an attack from the East; in the hands
+of the Medes it would be a dominant position which would counteract the
+defensive features of the Halys, and from it they might penetrate into
+the heart of Asia Minor without encountering any serious obstacles. The
+struggle between the two sovereigns was not so unequal as might at first
+appear. No doubt the army of Alyattes was inferior in numbers, but
+the bravery of its component forces and the ability of its leaders
+compensated for its numerical inferiority, and Cyaxares had no troop to
+be compared with the Carian lancers, with the hoplites of Ionia, or with
+the heavy Maeonian cavalry. During six years the two armies met again and
+again--fate sometimes favouring one and sometimes the other--and
+were about to try their fortune once more, after several indecisive
+engagements, when an eclipse of the sun suspended operations (585).
+The Iranian peoples would fight only in full daylight, and their
+adversaries, although warned, so it is said, by the Milesian philosopher
+Thaies of the phenomenon about to take place in the heavens, were
+perhaps not completely reassured as to its significance, and the two
+hosts accordingly separated without coming to blows.*
+
+     * This eclipse was identified at one time with that of Sept.
+     30, 610, at another with that of May 28, 585. The latter of
+     these two dates appears to me to be the correct one, and is
+     the only one which agrees with what we know of the general
+     history of the sixth century.
+
+Nebuchadrezzar had followed, not without some misgivings, the
+vicissitudes of the campaign, and his anxiety was shared by the
+independent princes of Asia Minor, who were allies of the Lydians; he
+and they alike awaited with dread a decisive action, which, by crushing
+one of the belligerents beyond hope of recovery, would leave the
+onlookers at the mercy of the victor in the full flush of his success.
+Tradition relates that Syennesis of Cilicia and the Babylonian Nabonidus
+had taken advantage of the alarm produced by the eclipse to negotiate
+an armistice, and that they were soon successful in bringing the rival
+powers to an agreement.* The Halys remained the recognised frontier of
+the two kingdoms, but the Lydians probably obtained advantages for their
+commerce, which they regarded as compensatory for the abandonment of
+their claim to the district of Pteria. To strengthen the alliance, it
+was agreed that Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis in marriage
+to Ishtuvigu, or, as the Greeks called him, Astyages, the son of
+Cyaxares.** According to the custom of the times, the two contracting
+parties, after taking the vow of fidelity, sealed the compact by
+pricking each other's arms and sucking the few drops of blood which
+oozed from the puncture.***
+
+     * The name Labynetos given by Herodotus is a transcript of
+     Nabonidus, but cannot here designate the Babylonian king of
+     that name, for the latter reigned more than thirty years
+     after the peace was concluded between the Lydians and the
+     Medes. If Herodotus has not made the mistake of putting
+     Labynetos for Nebuchadrezzar, we may admit that this
+     Labynetos was a prince of the royal family, or simply a
+     general who was commanding the Chaldoan auxiliaries of
+     Cyaxares.
+
+     ** The form Ishtuvigu is given us by the Chaldoan documents.
+     Its exact transcript was Astuigas, Astyigas, according to
+     Ctosias; in fact, this coincides so remarkably with the
+     Babylonian mode of spelling, that we may believe that it
+     faithfully reproduces the original pronunciation.
+
+     *** Many ancient authors have spoken of this war, or at
+     least of the eclipse which brought it to an end. Several of
+     them place the conclusion of peace not in the reign of
+     Cyaxares, but in that of Astyages--Cicero, Solinus, and the
+     Armenian Eusebius--and their view has been adopted by some
+     modern historians. The two versions of the account can be
+     reconciled by saying that Astyages was commanding the Median
+     army instead of his father, who was too old to do so, but
+     such an explanation is unnecessary, and Cyaxares, though
+     over seventy, might still have had sufficient vigour to wage
+     war. The substitution of Astyages for Cyaxares by the
+     authors of Roman times was probably effected with the object
+     of making the date of the eclipse agree with a different
+     system of chronology from that followed by Herodotus.
+
+Cyaxares died in the following year (584), full of days and renown, and
+was at once succeeded by Astyages. Few princes could boast of having had
+such a successful career as his, even in that century of unprecedented
+fortunes and boundless ambitions. Inheriting a disorganised army,
+proclaimed king in the midst of mourning, on the morrow of a defeat
+in which the fate of his kingdom had hung in the balance, he succeeded
+within a quarter of a century in overthrowing his enemies and
+substituting his supremacy for theirs throughout the whole of Western
+Asia. At his accession Media had occupied only a small portion of the
+Iranian table-land; at his death, the Median empire extended to
+the banks of the Halys. It is now not difficult to understand why
+Nebuchadrezzar abstained from all expeditions in the regions of the
+Taurus, as well as in those of the Upper Tigris. He would inevitably
+have come into contact with the allies of the Lydians, perchance with
+the Lydians themselves, or with the Medes, as the case might be; and
+he would have been drawn on to take an active part in their dangerous
+quarrels, from which, after all, he could not hope to reap any personal
+advantage. In reality, there was one field of action only open to him,
+and that was Southern Syria, with Egypt in her rear. He found himself,
+at this extreme limit of his dominions, in a political situation almost
+identical with that of his Assyrian predecessors, and consequently more
+or less under the obligation of repeating their policy. The Saites, like
+the Ethiopians before them, could enjoy no assured sense of security in
+the Delta, when they knew that they had a great military state as their
+nearest neighbour on the other side of the isthmus; they felt with
+reason that the thirty leagues of desert which separated Pelusium from
+Gaza was an insufficient protection from invasion, and they desired
+to have between themselves and their adversary a tract of country
+sufficiently extensive to ward off the first blows in the case of
+hostilities. If such a buffer territory could be composed of feudal
+provinces or tributary states, Egyptian pride would be flattered, while
+at the same time the security of the kingdom would be increased, and
+indeed the victorious progress of Necho had for the moment changed their
+most ambitious dreams into realities. Driven back into the Nile valley
+after the battle of Carchemish, their pretensions had immediately
+shrunk within more modest limits; their aspirations were now confined to
+gaining the confidence of the few surviving states which had preserved
+some sort of independence in spite of the Assyrian conquest, to
+detaching them from Chaldoan interests and making them into a protecting
+zone against the ambition of a new Esarhaddon. To this work Necho
+applied himself as soon as Nebuchadrezzar had left him in order to
+hasten back to Babylon. The Egyptian monarch belonged to a persevering
+race, who were never kept, down by reverses, and had not once allowed
+themselves to be discouraged during the whole of the century in which
+they had laboured to secure the crown for themselves; his defeat had
+not lessened his tenacity, nor, it would seem, his certainty of final
+success. Besides organising his Egyptian and Libyan troops, he enrolled
+a still larger number of Hellenic mercenaries, correctly anticipating
+that the restless spirits of the Phoenicians and Jews would soon furnish
+him with an opportunity of distinguishing himself upon the scene of
+action.
+
+It was perhaps at this juncture that he decided to strengthen his
+position by the co-operation of a fleet. The superiority of the Chaldoan
+battalions had been so clearly manifested, that he could scarcely hope
+for a decisive victory if he persisted in seeking it on land; but if
+he could succeed in securing the command of the sea, his galleys, by
+continually cruising along the Syrian coast, and conveying troops,
+provisions, arms, and money to the Phoenician towns, would so
+successfully foster and maintain a spirit of rebellion, that the
+Chaldaeans would not dare to venture into Egypt until they had dealt
+with this source of danger in their rear. He therefore set to work
+to increase the number of his war-vessels on the Bed Sea, but more
+especially on the Mediterranean, and as he had drawn upon Greece for his
+troops, he now applied to her for shipbuilders.*
+
+     * Herodotus tells us that in his time the ruins of the docks
+     which Necho had made for the building of his triremes could
+     still be seen on the shore of the Red Sea as well as on that
+     of the Mediterranean. He seems also to say that the building
+     of the fleet was anterior to the first Syrian expedition.
+
+[Illustration: 404.jpg AN EGYPTIAN VESSEL OF THE SAITE PERIOD]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph sent by G. Benedite.
+
+The trireme, which had been invented by either the Samian or Corinthian
+naval constructors, had as yet been little used, and possibly Herodotus
+is attributing an event of his own time to this earlier period when
+he affirms that Necho filled a dockyard with a whole fleet of these
+vessels; he possessed, at any rate, a considerable number of them, and
+along with them other vessels of various build, in which the blunt stem
+and curved poop of the Greeks were combined with the square-cabined
+barque of the Egyptians. At the same time, in order to transport the
+squadron from one sea to another when occasion demanded, he endeavoured
+to reopen the ancient canal.
+
+He improved its course and widened it so as to permit of two triremes
+sailing abreast or easily clearing each other in passing. The canal
+started from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, not far from Patumos, and
+skirted the foot of the Arabian hills from west to east; it then plunged
+into the Wady Tumilat, and finally entered the head of the bay which now
+forms the Lake of Ismailia. The narrow channel by which this sheet
+of water was anciently connected with the Gulf of Suez was probably
+obstructed in places, and required clearing out at several points, if
+not along its entire extent. A later tradition states that after having
+lost 100,000 men in attempting this task, the king abandoned the project
+on the advice of an oracle, a god having been supposed to have predicted
+to him that he was working for the barbarians.*
+
+     * The figures, 100,000 men, are evidently exaggerated, for
+     in a similar undertaking, the digging of the Mahmudiyeh
+     canal, Mehemet-Ali lost only 10,000 men, though the work was
+     greater.
+
+[Illustration: 405.jpg THE ANCIENT HEAD OF THE RED SEA, NOW THE NORTHERN
+EXTREMITY OF THE BITTER LAKES]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the railway
+     between Ismailia and Suez, on the eastern shore of the lake.
+
+Another of Necho's enterprises excited the admiration of his
+contemporaries, and remained for ever in the memory of the people. The
+Carthaginians had discovered on the ocean coast of Libya, a country rich
+in gold, ivory, precious woods, pepper, and spices, but their political
+jealousy prevented other nations from following in their wake in the
+interests of trade. The Egyptians possibly may have undertaken to
+dispute their monopoly, or the Phoenicians may have desired to reach
+their colony by a less frequented highway than the Mediterranean. The
+merchants of the Said and the Delta had never entirely lost touch with
+the people dwelling on the shores of the Red Sea, and though the royal
+fleets no longer pursued their course down it on their way to Punt as
+in the days of Hatshopsitu and Ramses III., private individuals ventured
+from time to time to open trade communications with the ancient "Ladders
+of Incense." Necho despatched the Phoenician captains of his fleet in
+search of new lands, and they started from the neighbourhood of Suez,
+probably accompanied by native pilots accustomed to navigate in those
+waters. The undertaking, fraught with difficulty even in the last
+century, was, indeed, a formidable one for the small vessels of the
+Saite period. They sailed south for months with the east to the left
+of them, and on their right the continent which seemed to extend
+indefinitely before them. Towards the autumn they disembarked on some
+convenient shore, sowed the wheat with which they were provided, and
+waited till the crop was ripe; having reaped the harvest, they again
+took to the sea. Any accurate remembrance of what they saw was soon
+effaced; they could merely recollect that, having reached a certain
+point, they observed with astonishment that the sun appeared to have
+reversed its course, and now rose on their right hand. This meant that
+they had turned the southern extremity of Africa and were unconsciously
+sailing northwards. In the third year they passed through the pillars
+of Hercules and reached Egypt in safety. The very limited knowledge of
+navigation possessed by the mariners of that day rendered this voyage
+fruitless; the dangerous route thus opened up to commerce remained
+unused, and its discovery was remembered only as a curious feat devoid
+of any practical use.*
+
+     * The Greek writers after Herodotus denied the possibility
+     of such a voyage, and they thought that it could not be
+     decided whether Africa was entirely surrounded by water, and
+     that certainly no traveller had ever journeyed above 5000
+     stadia beyond the entrance to the Red Sea. Modern writers
+     are divided on the point, some denying and others
+     maintaining the authenticity of the account. The observation
+     made by the navigators of the apparent change in the course
+     of the sun, which Herodotus has recorded, and which neither
+     he nor his authorities understood, seems to me to be so
+     weighty an argument for its authenticity, that it is
+     impossible to reject the tradition until we have more
+     decided grounds for so doing.
+
+In order to obtain any practical results from the arduous voyage, it
+would have been necessary for Egypt to devote a considerable part of
+its resources to the making of such expeditions, whereas the country
+preferred to concentrate all its energies on its Tyrian policy. Necho
+certainly possessed the sympathies of the Tyrians, who had transferred
+their traditional hatred of the Assyrians to the Chaldaeans. He could
+also count with equal certainty on the support of a considerable party
+in Moab, Ammon, and Edom, as well as among the Nabataeans and the Arabs
+of Kedar; but the key of the whole position lay with Judah--that ally
+without whom none of Necho's other partisans would venture to declare
+openly against their master. The death of Josiah had dealt a fatal blow
+to the hopes of the prophets, and even long after the event they could
+not recall it without lamenting the fate of this king after their own
+heart. "And like unto him," exclaims their chronicler, "was there no
+king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with
+all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses;
+neither after him arose there any like him."*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiii. 25.
+
+The events which followed his violent death--the deposition of Jehoahaz,
+the establishment and fall of the Egyptian supremacy, the proclamation
+of the Chaldaean suzerainty, the degradation of the king and the misery
+of the people brought about by the tribute exacted from them by their
+foreign masters,--all these revolutions which had succeeded each other
+without break or respite had all but ruined the belief in the efficacy
+of the reform due to Hilkiah's discovery, and preached by Jeremiah
+and his followers. The people saw in these calamities the vengeance of
+Jahveh against the presumptuous faction which had overthrown His various
+sanctuaries and had attempted to confine His worship to a single temple;
+they therefore restored the banished attractions, and set themselves to
+sacrifice to strange gods with greater zest than ever.
+
+A like crisis occurred and like party divisions had broken out around
+Jehoiakim similar to those at the court of Ahaz and Hezekiah a century
+earlier. The populace, the soldiery, and most of the court officials,
+in short, all who adhered to the old popular form of religion or were
+attracted to strange devotions, hoped to rid themselves of the Chaldaeans
+by earthly means, and since Necho declared himself an implacable enemy
+of their foe, their principal aim was to come to terms with Egypt.
+Jeremiah, on the contrary, and those who remained faithful to the
+teaching of the prophets, saw in all that was passing around them
+cogent reasons for rejecting worldly wisdom and advice, and for yielding
+themselves unreservedly to the Divine will in bowing before the Chaldaean
+of whom Jahveh made use, as of the Assyrian of old, to chastise the sins
+of Judah. The struggle between the two factions constantly disturbed
+the public peace, and it needed little to cause the preaching of the
+prophets to degenerate into an incitement to revolt. On a feast-day
+which occurred in the early months of Jehoiakim's reign, Jeremiah took
+up his station on the pavement of the temple and loudly apostrophised
+the crowd of worshippers. "Thus saith the Lord: If ye will not hearken
+unto Me, to walk in My law, which I have set before you, to hearken to
+the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send unto you, even rising
+up early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make
+this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the
+nations of the earth." Such a speech, boldly addressed to an audience
+the majority of whom were already moved by hostile feelings, brought
+their animosity to a climax; the officiating priests, the prophets, and
+the pilgrims gathered round Jeremiah, crying, "Thou shalt surely die."
+The people thronged into the temple, the princes of Judah went up to
+the king's house and to the house of the Lord, and sat in council in the
+entry of the new gate. They decreed that Jeremiah, having spoken in
+the name of the Lord, did not merit death, and some of their number,
+recalling the precedent of Micaiah the Morasthite, who in his time had
+predicted the ruin of Jerusalem, added, "Did Hezekiah King of Judah and
+all Judah put him at all to death?" Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, one of
+those who had helped in restoring the law, took the prophet under his
+protection and prevented the crowd from injuring him, but some
+others were not able to escape the popular fury. The prophet Uriah of
+Kirjath-jearim, who unweariedly prophesied against the city and country
+after the manner of Jeremiah, fled to Egypt, but in vain; Jehoiakim
+despatched Elnathan, the son of Achbor, "and certain men with him," who
+brought him back to Judah, "slew him with the sword, and cast his dead
+body into the graves of the common people."* If popular feeling had
+reached such a pitch before the battle of Carchemish, to what height
+must it have risen when the news of Nebuchadrezzar's victory had given
+the death-blow to the hopes of the Egyptian faction! Jeremiah believed
+the moment ripe for forcibly arresting the popular imagination while
+it was swayed by the panic of anticipated invasion. He dictated to his
+disciple Baruch the prophecies he had pronounced since the appearance of
+the Scythians under Josiah, and on the day of the solemn fast proclaimed
+throughout Judah during the winter of the fifth year of the reign, a few
+months after the defeat of the Egyptians, he caused the writing to be
+read to the assembled people at the entry of the new gate.**
+
+     * Jer. xxvi., where the scene takes place at the beginning
+     of Jehoiakim's reign, i.e. under the Egyptian domination.
+
+     ** The date given in Jer. xxxvi. 9 makes the year begin in
+     spring, since the ninth month occurs in winter; this date
+     belongs, therefore, to the later recensions of the text. It
+     is nevertheless probably authentic, representing the exact
+     equivalent of the original date according to the old
+     calendar.
+
+Micaiah, the son of Gremariah, was among those who listened, and noting
+that the audience were moved by the denunciations which revived the
+memory of their recent misfortunes, he hastened to inform the ministers
+sitting in council within the palace of what was passing. They at once
+sent for Baruch, and begged him to repeat to them what he had read.
+They were so much alarmed at its recital, that they advised him to hide
+himself in company with Jeremiah, while they informed the king of the
+matter. Jehoiakim was sitting in a chamber with a brazier burning before
+him on account of the severe cold: scarcely had they read three or four
+pages before him when his anger broke forth; he seized the roll, slashed
+it with the scribe's penknife, and threw the fragments into the
+fire. Jeremiah recomposed the text from memory, and inserted in it a
+malediction against the king. "Thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim,
+King of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and
+his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night
+to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for
+their iniquity: and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants
+of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have
+pronounced against them; but they hearkened not."*
+
+     * Jer. xxxvi. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the
+     contents of Jeremiah's roll, and most of the authors who
+     have dealt with this subject think that the roll contained
+     the greater part of the fragments which, in the book of the
+     prophet, occupy chaps, i. 4-11, ii., iii. 1-5, 19-25, iv.-
+     vi., vii., viii., ix. 1-21, x. 17-25, xi., xii. 1-6, xvii.
+     19-27, xviii., xix. 1-13, which it must be admitted have not
+     in every case been preserved in their original form, but
+     have been abridged or rearranged after the exile. Other
+     chapters evidently belong to the years previous to the fifth
+     year of Jehoiakim, as well as part of the prophecies against
+     the barbarians, but they could not have been included in the
+     original roll, as the latter would then have been too long
+     to have been read three times in one day.
+
+The Egyptian tendencies evinced at court, at first discreetly veiled,
+were now accentuated to such a degree that Nebuchadrezzar became
+alarmed, and came in person to Jerusalem in the year 601. His presence
+frustrated the intrigues of Pharaoh. Jehoiakim was reduced to order for
+a time, but three years later he revolted afresh at the instigation of
+Necho, and this time the Chaldaean satraps opened hostilities in earnest.
+They assembled their troops, which were reinforced by Syrian, Moabite,
+and Ammonite contingents, and laid siege to Jerusalem.*
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiv. 1-4. The passage is not easy to be
+     understood as it stands, and it has been differently
+     interpreted by historians. Some have supposed that it refers
+     to events immediately following the battle of Carchemish,
+     and that Jehoiakim defended Jerusalem against Nebuchadrezzar
+     in 605. Others think that, after the battle of Carchemish,
+     Jehoiakim took advantage of Nebuchadrezzar's being obliged
+     to return at once to Babylon, and would not recognise the
+     authority of the Chaldaeans; that Nebuchadrezzar returned
+     later, towards 601, and took Jerusalem, and that it is to
+     this second war that allusion is made in the Book of Kings.
+     It is more simple to consider that which occurred about 600
+     as a first attempt at rebellion which was punished lightly
+     by the Chaldaeans.
+
+Jehoiakim, left to himself, resisted with such determination that
+Nebuchadrezzar was obliged to bring up his Chaldaean forces to assist in
+the attack. Judah trembled with fear at the mere description which her
+prophet Habakkuk gave of this fierce and sturdy people, "which march
+through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling-places which are
+not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their
+dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than
+leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their
+horsemen spread themselves; yea, their horsemen come from far; they
+fly as an eagle that hasteneth to devour. They come all of them for
+violence; their faces are set eagerly as the east wind, and they gather
+captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a
+derision unto him: he derideth every stronghold: for he heapeth up dust
+and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over the
+guilty, even he whose might is his god." Nebuchadrezzar's army must have
+presented a spectacle as strange as did that of Necho. It contained,
+besides its nucleus of Chaldaen and Babylonian infantry, squadrons of
+Scythian and Median cavalry, whose cruelty it was, no doubt, that had
+alarmed the prophet, and certainly bands of Greek hoplites, for the
+poet Alcasus had had a brother, Antimenidas by name, in the Chaldaean
+monarch's service. Jehoiakim died before the enemy appeared beneath the
+walls of Jerusalem, and was at once succeeded by his son Jeconiah,* a
+youth of eighteen years, who assumed the name of Jehoiachin.**
+
+     * [Jehoiachin is called Coniah in Jer. xxii. 24 and xxiv. 1,
+     and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.--Tr.]
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxiv. 5-10; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6-9, where the
+     writer says that Nebuchadrezzar bound Jehoiakim "in
+     fetters, to carry him to Babylon."
+
+The new king continued the struggle at first courageously, but the
+advent of Nebuchadrezzar so clearly convinced him of the futility of the
+defence, that he suddenly decided to lay down his arms. He came forth
+from the city with his mother Nehushta, the officers of his house, his
+ministers, and his eunuchs, and prostrated himself at the feet of
+his suzerain. The Chaldaen monarch was not inclined to proceed to
+extremities; he therefore exiled to Babylon Jehoiachin and the whole of
+his seditious court who had so ill-advised the young king, the best of
+his officers, and the most skilful artisans, in all 3023 persons,
+but the priests and the bulk of the people remained at Jerusalem. The
+conqueror appointed Mattaniah, the youngest son of Josiah, to be their
+ruler, who, on succeeding to the crown, changed his name, after the
+example of his predecessors, adopting that of Zedekiah. Jehoiachin had
+reigned exactly three months over his besieged city (596).*
+
+The Egyptians made no attempt to save their ally, but if they felt
+themselves not in a condition to defy the Chaldasans on Syrian
+territory, the Chaldaeans on their side feared to carry hostilities
+into the heart of the Delta. Necho died two years after the disaster at
+Jerusalem, without having been called to account by, or having found an
+opportunity of further annoying, his rival, and his son Psammetichus II.
+succeeded peacefully to the throne.** He was a youth at this time,***
+and his father's ministers conducted the affairs of State on his behalf,
+and it was they who directed one of his early campaigns, if not the very
+first, against Ethiopia.****
+
+     * 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10.
+
+     ** The length of Necho's reign is fixed at sixteen years by
+     Herodotus, and at six or at nine years by the various
+     abbreviators of Manetho. The contemporaneous monuments have
+     confirmed the testimony of Herodotus on this point as
+     against that of Manetho, and the stelse of the Florentine
+     Museum, of the Leyden Museum, and of the Louvre have
+     furnished certain proof that Necho died in the sixteenth
+     year, after fifteen and a half years' reign.
+
+     *** His sarcophagus, discovered in 1883, and now preserved
+     in the Gizeh Museum, is of such small dimensions that it can
+     have been used only for a youth.
+
+     **** The graffiti of Abu-Simbel have been most frequently
+     attributed to Psammetichus I., and until recently I had
+     thought it possible to maintain this opinion. A. von
+     Gutsehmid was the first to restore them to Psammetichus IL,
+     and his opinion has gained ground since Wiedemann's vigorous
+     defence of it. The Alysian mercenary's graffito contains
+     the Greek translation of the current Egyptian phrase "when
+     his Majesty came on his first military expedition into this
+     country," which seems to point to no very early date in a
+     reign for a first campaign. Moreover, one of the generals in
+     command of the expedition is a Psammetichus, son of
+     Theocles, that is, a Greek with an Egyptian name. A
+     considerable lapse of time must have taken place since
+     Psammetichus' first dealings with the Greeks, for otherwise
+     the person named after the king would not have been of
+     sufficiently mature age to be put at the head of a body of
+     troops.
+
+They organised a small army for him composed of Egyptians, Greeks, and
+Asiatic mercenaries, which, while the king was taking up his residence
+at Elephantine, was borne up the Nile in a fleet of large vessels.* It
+probably went as far south as the northern point of the second cataract,
+and not having encountered any Ethiopian force,** it retraced its course
+and came to anchor at Abu-Simbel.
+
+     * The chief graffito at Abu-Simbel says, in fact, that the
+     king came to Elephantine, and that only the troops
+     accompanying the General Psammetichus, the son of Theocles,
+     went beyond Kerkis. It was probably during his stay at
+     Elephantine, while awaiting the return of the expedition,
+     that Psammetichus II. had the inscriptions containing his
+     cartouches engraved upon the rocks of Bigga, Abaton, Philo,
+     and Konosso, or among the ruins of Elephantine and of
+     Phila?.
+
+     ** The Greek inscription says _above Kerlcis_. Wiedemann has
+     corrected _Kerkis_ into _Kortis_, the Korte of the first
+     cataract, but the reading Kerkis is too well established for
+     there to be any reason for change. The simplest explanation
+     is to acknowledge that the inscription refers to a place
+     situated a few miles above Abu-Simbel, towards Wady-Halfa.
+
+The officers in command, after having admired the rock-cut chapel of
+Ramses II., left in it a memento of their visit in a fine inscription
+cut on the right leg of one of the colossi. This inscription informs us
+that "King Psammatikhos having come to Elephantine, the people who were
+with Psammatikhos, son of Theocles, wrote this. They ascended above
+Kerkis, to where the river ceases; Potasimto commanded the foreigners,
+Amasis the Egyptians. At the same time also wrote Arkhon, son of
+Amoibikhos, and Peleqos, son of Ulamos." Following the example of their
+officers, the soldiers also wrote their names here and there, each in
+his own language--Ionians, Rhodians, Carians, Phoenicians, and perhaps
+even Jews; e.g. Elesibios of Teos, Pabis of Colophon, Telephos of
+Ialysos, Abdsakon son of Petiehve, Gerhekal son of Hallum. The whole of
+this part of the country, brought to ruin in the gradual dismemberment
+of Greater Egypt, could not have differed much from the Nubia of to-day;
+there were the same narrow strips of cultivation along the river banks,
+gigantic temples half buried by their own ruins, scattered towns
+and villages, and everywhere the yellow sand creeping insensibly down
+towards the Nile. The northern part of this province remained in the
+hands of the Saite Pharaohs, and the districts situated further south
+just beyond Abu-Simbel formed at that period a sort of neutral ground
+between their domain and that of the Pharaohs of Napata. While all this
+was going on, Syria continued to plot in secret, and the faction which
+sought security in a foreign alliance was endeavouring to shake off the
+depression caused by the reverses of Jehoiakim and his son; and the tide
+of popular feeling setting in the direction of Egypt became so strong,
+that even Zedekiah, the creature of Nebuchadrezzar, was unable to stem
+it. The prophets who were inimical to religious reform, persisted in
+their belief that the humiliation of the country was merely temporary.
+
+[Illustration: 417.jpg THE FACADE OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ABU-SIMBEL]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Daniel Heron.
+
+Those of them who still remained in Jerusalem repeated at every turn,
+"Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon... the vessels of the Lord's
+house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon." Jeremiah
+endeavoured to counteract the effect of their words, but in vain; the
+people, instead of listening to the prophet, waxed wroth with him,
+and gave themselves more and more recklessly up to their former sins.
+Incense was burnt every morning on the roofs of the houses and at the
+corners of the streets in honour of Baal, lamentations for Tammuz again
+rent the air at the season of his festival; the temple was invaded
+by uncircumcised priests and their idols, and the king permitted the
+priests of Moloch to raise their pyres in the valley of Hinnom. The
+exiled Jews, surrounded on all sides by heathen peoples, presented a no
+less grievous spectacle than their brethren at Jerusalem; some openly
+renounced the God of their fathers, others worshipped their chosen idols
+in secret, while those who did not actually become traitors to their
+faith, would only listen to such prophets as promised them a speedy
+revenge--Ahab, Zedekiah, son of Maaseiah, and Shemaiah. There was one
+man, however, who appeared in their midst, a priest, brought up from his
+youth in the temple and imbued with the ideas of reform--Ezekiel, son of
+Buzi, whose words might have brought them to a more just appreciation of
+their position, had they not drowned his voice by their clamour; alarmed
+at their threats, he refrained from speech in public, but gathered round
+him a few faithful adherents at his house in Tel-AMb, where the spirit
+of the Lord first came upon him in their presence about the year 592.*
+
+     * Ezelc. i. 1, 2. We see him receiving the elders in his
+     house in chaps, viii. 1, xiv. 1, xx. 1, et. seq.
+
+This little band of exiles was in constant communication with the
+mother-country, and the echo of the religious quarrels and of the
+controversies provoked between the various factions by the events of
+the political world, was promptly borne to them by merchants, travelling
+scribes, or the king's legates who were sent regularly to Babylon with
+the tribute.* They learnt, about the year 590, that grave events were at
+hand, and that the moment had come when Judah, recovering at length from
+her trials, should once more occupy, in the sight of the sun, that place
+for which Jahveh had destined her. The kings of Moab, Ammon, Edom,
+Tyre, and Sidon had sent envoys to Jerusalem, and there, probably at the
+dictation of Egypt, they had agreed on what measures to take to stir
+up a general insurrection against Chaldaea.** The report of their
+resolutions had revived the courage of the national party, and of its
+prophets; Hananiah, son of Azzur, had gone through the city announcing
+the good news to all.***
+
+     * Jer. xxix. 3 gives the names of two of these transmitters
+     of the tribute--Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the
+     son of Hilkiah, to whom Jeremiah had entrusted a message for
+     those of the captivity.
+
+     ** Jer. xxvii. 1-3. The statement at the beginning of this
+     chapter: _In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim_,
+     contains a copyist's error; the reading should be: _In the
+     beginning of the reign of Zedekiah_ (see ver. 12).
+
+     *** Jer. xxvii., xxviii.
+
+"Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have
+broken the yoke of the King of Babylon. Within two full years will I
+bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house .. . and
+Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, with all the captives of
+Judah that went to Babylon!" But Jeremiah had made wooden yokes and
+had sent them to the confederate princes, threatening them with divine
+punishment if they did not bow their necks to Nebuchadrezzar; the
+prophet himself bore one on his own neck, and showed himself in the
+streets on all occasions thus accoutred, as a living emblem of the
+slavery in which Jahveh permitted His people to remain for their
+spiritual good. Hananiah, meeting the prophet by chance, wrested the
+yoke from him and broke it, exclaiming, "Thus saith the Lord: Even so
+will I break the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, within two
+full years from off the neck of all the nations." The mirth of the
+bystanders was roused, but on the morrow Jeremiah appeared with a yoke
+of iron, which Jahveh had put "upon the neck of all the nations, that
+they may serve Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon." Moreover, to destroy in
+the minds of the exiled Jews any hope of speedy deliverance, he wrote
+to them: "Let not your prophets that be in the midst of you, and your
+diviners, deceive you, neither hearken ye to your dreams which ye cause
+to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in My name: I have
+not sent them, saith the Lord." The prophet exhorted them to resign
+themselves to their fate, at all events for the time, that the unity
+of their nation might be preserved until the time when it might indeed
+please Jahveh to restore it: "Build ye houses and dwell in them, and
+plant gardens and eat the fruit of them: take ye wives and beget sons
+and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to
+husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply ye there
+and be not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have
+caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it:
+for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." Psammetichus II. died
+in 589,* and his reign, though short, was distinguished by the activity
+shown in rebuilding and embellishing the temples.
+
+     * Herodotus reckoned the length of the reign of Psammetichus
+     II. at six years, in which he agrees with the Syncellus,
+     while the abbreviators of Manetho fix it at seventeen years.
+     The results given by the reading of a stele of the Louvre
+     enable us to settle that the figure 6 is to be preferred to
+     the other, and to reckon the length of the reign at five
+     years and a half.
+
+His name is met with everywhere on the banks of the Nile--at Karnak,
+where he completed the decoration of the great columns of Taharqa, at
+Abydos, at Heliopolis, and on the monuments that have come from that
+town, such as the obelisk set up in the Campus Martius at Borne. The
+personal influence of the young sovereign did not count for much in the
+zeal thus displayed; but the impulse that had been growing during three
+or four generations, since the time of the expulsion of the Assyrians,
+now began to have its full effect. Egypt, well armed, well governed
+by able ministers, and more and more closely bound to Greece by both
+mercantile and friendly ties, had risen to a very high position in the
+estimation of its contemporaries; the inhabitants of Elis had deferred
+to her decision in the question whether they should take part in the
+Olympic games in which they were the judges, and following the advice
+she had given on the matter, they had excluded their own citizens from
+the sports so as to avoid the least suspicion of partiality in the
+distribution of the prizes.* The new king, probably the brother of
+the late Pharaoh, had his prenomen of Uahibn from his grandfather
+Psammetichus I., and it was this sovereign that the Greeks called
+indifferently Uaphres and Apries.**
+
+     * Diodorus Siculus has transferred the anecdote to Amasis,
+     and the decision given is elsewhere attributed to one of the
+     seven sages. The story is a popular romance, of which
+     Herodotus gives the version current among the Greeks in
+     Egypt.
+
+     ** According to Herodotus, Apries was the son of Psammis.
+     The size of the sarcophagus of Psammetichus II., suitable
+     only for a youth, makes this filiation improbable.
+     Psammetichus, who came to the throne when he was hardly more
+     than a child, could have left behind him only children of
+     tender age, and Apries appears from the outset as a prince
+     of full mental and physical development.
+
+[Illustration: 422.jpg APRIES, FROM A SPHINX IN THE LOUVRE]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from the bronze statuette in the Louvre
+     Museum.
+
+He was young, ambitious, greedy of fame and military glory, and longed
+to use the weapon that his predecessors had for some fifteen years past
+been carefully whetting; his emissaries, arriving at Jerusalem at
+the moment when the popular excitement was at its height, had little
+difficulty in overcoming Zede-kiah's scruples. Edoni, Moab, and the
+Philistines, who had all taken their share in the conferences of the
+rebel party, hesitated at the last moment, and refused to sever their
+relations with Babylon. Tyre and the Ammonites alone persisted in their
+determination, and allied themselves with Egypt on the same terms as
+Judah.
+
+[Illustration: 423.jpg STELE OF NEBUCHADREZZAR]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Pognon. The figures
+     have been carefully defaced with the hammer, but the outline
+     of the king can still be discerned on the left; he seizes
+     the rampant lion by the right paw, and while it raises its
+     left paw against him, he plunges his dagger into the body of
+     the beast.
+
+Nebuchadrezzar, thus defied by three enemies, was at a loss to decide
+upon which to make his first attack. Ezekiel, whose place of exile put
+him in a favourable position for learning what was passing, shows him to
+us as he "stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways,
+to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the
+teraphim, he looked in the liver." Judah formed as it were the bridge
+by which the Egyptians could safely enter Syria, and if Nebuchadrezzar
+could succeed in occupying it before their arrival, he could at once
+break up the coalition into three separate parts incapable of rejoining
+one another--Ammon in the desert to the east, Tyre and Sidon on the
+seaboard, and Pharaoh beyond his isthmus to the south-west. He therefore
+established himself in a central position at Eiblah on the Orontes, from
+whence he could observe the progress of the operations, and hasten
+with his reserve force to a threatened point in the case of unforeseen
+difficulties; having done this, he despatched the two divisions of
+his army against his two principal adversaries. One of these divisions
+crossed the Lebanon, seized its fortresses, and, leaving a record of its
+victories on the rocks of the Wady Brissa, made its way southwards along
+the coast to blockade Tyre.*
+
+     * The account of this Phoenician campaign is contained in
+     one of the inscriptions discovered and commented on by
+     Pognon. Winckler, the only one to my knowledge who has tried
+     to give a precise chronological position to the events
+     recorded in the inscription, places them at the very
+     beginning of the reign, after the victory of Carchemish,
+     about the time when Nebuchadrezzar heard that his father had
+     just died. I think that this date is not justified by the
+     study of the inscription, for the king speaks therein of the
+     great works that he had accomplished, the restoration of the
+     temples, the rebuilding of the walls of Babylon, and the
+     digging of canals, all of which take us to the middle or the
+     end of his reign. We are therefore left to choose between
+     one of two dates, namely, that of 590-587, during the Jewish
+     war, and that from the King's thirty-seventh year to 568
+     B.C., during the war against Amasis which will be treated
+     below. I have chosen the first, because of Nebuchadrezzar's
+     long sojourn at Riblah, which gave him sufficient time for
+     the engraving of the stelse on Lebanon: the bas-reliefs of
+     Wady. Brissa could have been cut before the taking of
+     Jerusalem, for no allusion to the war against the Jews is
+     found in them. The enemy mentioned in the opening lines is
+     perhaps Apries, whose fleet was scouring the Phoenician
+     coasts.
+
+The other force bore down upon Zedekiah, and made war upon him
+ruthlessly. It burnt the villages and unwalled towns, gave the rural
+districts over as a prey to the Philistines and the Edomites, surrounded
+the two fortresses of Lachish and Azekah, and only after completely
+exhausting the provinces, appeared before the walls of the capital.
+Jerusalem was closely beset when the news reached the Chaldaeans that
+Apries was approaching Gaza; Zedekiah, in his distress, appealed to him
+for help, and the promised succour at length came upon the scene. The
+Chaldaeans at once raised the siege with the object of arresting the
+advancing enemy, and the popular party, reckoning already on a Chaldean
+defeat, gave way to insolent rejoicing over the prophets of evil.
+Jeremiah, however, had no hope of final success. "Deceive not
+yourselves, saying, The Chaldaeans shall surely depart from us; for
+they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the
+Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men
+among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this
+city with fire." What actually took place is not known; according to one
+account, Apries accepted battle and was defeated; according to another,
+he refused to be drawn into an engagement, and returned haughtily to
+Egypt.*
+
+     * That, at least, is what Jeremiah seems to say (xxxvii. 7):
+     "Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you,
+     shall return to Egypt into their own land." There is no hint
+     here of defeat or even of a battle.
+
+His fleet probably made some effective raiding on the Phoenician coast.
+It is easy to believe that the sight of the Chaldoan camp inspired him
+with prudence, and that he thought twice before compromising the effects
+of his naval campaign and risking the loss of his fine army--the only
+one which Egypt possessed--in a conflict in which his own safety was
+not directly concerned. Nebuchadrezzar, on his side, was not anxious to
+pursue so strongly equipped an adversary too hotly, and deeming himself
+fortunate in having escaped the ordeal of a trial of strength with him,
+he returned to his position before the walls of Jerusalem.
+
+The city receiving no further succour, its fall was merely a question of
+time, and resistance served merely to irritate the besiegers. The Jews
+nevertheless continued to defend it with the heroic obstinacy and, at
+the same time, with the frenzied discord of which they have so often
+shown themselves capable. During the respite which the diversion caused
+by Apries afforded them, Jeremiah had attempted to flee from Jerusalem
+and seek refuge in Benjamin, to which tribe he belonged. Arrested at the
+city gate on the pretext of treason, he was unmercifully beaten, thrown
+into prison, and the king, who had begun to believe in him, did not
+venture to deliver him. He was confined in the court of the palace,
+which served as a gaol, and allowed a ration of a loaf of bread for his
+daily food.1 The courtyard was a public place, to which all comers had
+access who desired to speak to the prisoners, and even here the prophet
+did not cease to preach and exhort the people to repentance: "He that
+abideth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the
+pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldaeans shall live, and
+his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live. Thus saith the
+Lord, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the
+King of Babylon, and he shall take it."
+
+[Illustration: 427.jpg PRISONERS UNDER TORTURE HAVING THEIR TONGUES TORN
+OUT]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
+     British Museum.
+
+The princes and officers of the king, however, complained to Zedekiah
+of him: "Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he
+weakeneth the hands of the men of war, and the hands of all the people
+in speaking such words." Given up to his accusers and plunged in a
+muddy cistern, he escaped by the connivance of a eunuch of the royal
+household, only to renew his denunciations with greater force than ever.
+
+[Illustration: 428.jpg A KING PUTTING OUT THE EYES OF A PRISONER]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from several engravings in Botta.
+     The mutilated remains of several bas-reliefs have been
+     combined so as to form a tolerably correct scene; the
+     prisoners have a ring passed through their lips, and the
+     king holds them by a cord attached to it.
+
+The king sent for him secretly and asked his advice, but could draw
+from him nothing but threats: "If thou wilt go forth unto the King of
+Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be
+burned with fire, and thou shalt live and thine house: but if thou wilt
+not go forth to the King of Babylon's princes, then shall this city
+be given into the hand of the Chal-dseans, and they shall burn it with
+fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand." Zedekiah would have
+asked no better than to follow his advice, but he had gone too far to
+draw back now. To the miseries of war and sickness the horrors of famine
+were added, but the determination of the besieged was unshaken; bread
+was failing, and yet they would not hear of surrender. At length, after
+a year and a half of sufferings heroically borne, in the eleventh year
+of Zedekiah, the eleventh month, and the fourth day of the month, a
+portion of the city wall fell before the attacks of the battering-rams,
+and the Chaldaean army entered by the breach. Zedekiah assembled his
+remaining soldiers, and took counsel as to the possibility of cutting
+his way through the enemy to beyond the Jordan; escaping by night
+through the gateway opposite the Pool of Siloam, he was taken prisoner
+near Jericho, and carried off to Eiblah, where Nebuchadrezzar was
+awaiting with impatience the result of the operations. The Chaldaeans
+were accustomed to torture their prisoners in the fashion we frequently
+see represented on the monuments of Nineveh, and whenever an unexpected
+stroke of good fortune brings to light any decorative bas-relief from
+their palaces, we shall see represented on it the impaling stake,
+rebels being flayed alive, and chiefs having their tongues torn out.
+Nebuchadrezzar, whose patience was exhausted, caused the sons of
+Zedekiah to be slain in the presence of their father, together with all
+the prisoners of noble birth, and then, having put out his eyes, sent
+the king of Babylon loaded with chains. As for the city which had so
+long defied his wrath, he gave it over to Nebuzaradan, one of the
+great officers of the crown, with orders to demolish it and give it up
+systematically to the flames. The temple was despoiled of its precious
+wall-coverings, the pillars and brazen ornaments of the time of Solomon
+which still remained were broken up, and the pieces carried off to
+Chaldoa in sacks, the masonry was overthrown and the blocks of stone
+rolled down the hill into the ravine of the Kedron. The survivors among
+the garrison, the priests, scribes, and members of the upper classes,
+were sent off into exile, but the mortality during the siege had been
+so great that the convoy barely numbered eight hundred and thirty-two
+persons.
+
+[Illustration: 430b.jpg A PEOPLE CARRIED AWAY INTO CAPTIVITY]
+
+Some of the poorer population were allowed to remain in the environs,
+and the fields and vineyards of the exiles were divided among them.1
+Having accomplished the work of destruction, the Chal-dseans retired,
+leaving the government in the hands of Gedaliah, son of Ahikam,* a
+friend of Jeremiah. Gedaliah established himself at Mizpah, where
+he endeavoured to gather around him the remnant of the nation, and
+fugitives poured in from Moab, Ammon, and Edom.
+
+     *Chron. xxxvi. 17-20. The following is the table of the
+     kings of Judah from the death of Solomon to the destruction
+     of Jerusalem:--
+
+[Illustration: 430.jpg TABLE OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH]
+
+It seemed that a Jewish principality was about to rise again from the
+ruins of the kingdom. Jeremiah was its accredited counsellor, but his
+influence could not establish harmony among these turbulent spirits,
+still smarting from their recent misfortunes.* The captains of the bands
+which had been roaming over the country after the fall of Jerusalem
+refused, moreover, to act in concert with Gedaliah, and one of them,
+Ishmael by name, who was of the royal blood, assassinated him, but,
+being attacked in Gibeon by Johanan, the son of Kareah, was forced to
+escape almost alone and take refuge with the Ammonites.** These acts
+of violence aroused the vigilance of the Chaldasans; Johanan feared
+reprisals, and retired into Egypt, taking with him Jeremiah, Baruch,
+and the bulk of the people.*** Apries gave the refugees a welcome, and
+assigned them certain villages near to his military colony at Daphnae,
+whence they soon spread into the neighbouring nomes as far as Migdol,
+Memphis, and even as far as the Thebaid.****
+
+     * For the manner in which Jeremiah was separated from the
+     rest of the captives, set at liberty and sent back to
+     Gedaliah, see Jer. xxxix. 11-18, xl. 1-6.
+
+     ** 2 Kings xxv. 23-25, and Jer. xl. 7-16, xli. 1-15, where
+     these events are recorded at length.
+
+     *** 2 Kings xxv. 26; Jer. xli. 16-18, xlii., xliii. 1-7.
+
+     **** Jer. xliv. 1, where the word of the Lord is spoken to
+     "all the Jews... which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes
+     (Daphno), and at Moph (corr. Moph, Memphis), and in the
+     country of Pathros."
+
+Even after all these catastrophes Judah's woes were not yet at an end.
+In 581, the few remaining Jews in Palestine allied themselves with the
+Moabites and made a last wild effort for independence; a final defeat,
+followed by a final exile, brought them to irretrievable ruin.* The
+earlier captives had entertained no hope of advantage from these
+despairing efforts, and Ezekiel from afar condemned them without pity:
+"They that inherit those waste places in the land of Israel speak,
+saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many;
+the land is given us for inheritance.... Ye lift up your eyes unto your
+idols and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land? Ye stand upon your
+sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour's
+wife: and shall ye possess the land?... Thus saith the Lord God: As I
+live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword,
+and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be
+devoured, and they that be in the strongholds and in the caves shall die
+of the pestilence."**
+
+     * Josephus, following Berosus, speaks of a war against the
+     Moabites and the Ammonites, followed by the conquest of
+     Egypt in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar. To this
+     must be added a Jewish revolt if we are to connect with
+     these events the mention of the third captivity, carried out
+     in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar by Nebuzaradan.
+
+     ** Ezek. xxxiii. 23-27.
+
+The first act of the revolution foreseen by the prophets was over; the
+day of the Lord, so persistently announced by them, had at length come,
+and it had seen not only the sack of Jerusalem, but the destruction of
+the earthly kingdom of Judah. Many of the survivors, refusing still to
+acknowledge the justice of the chastisement, persisted in throwing the
+blame of the disaster on the reformers of the old worship, and saw no
+hope of salvation except in their idolatrous practices. "As for the
+word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not
+hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone
+forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to
+pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers,
+our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of
+Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well and saw no
+evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven and
+to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and
+have been consumed by the sword and by the famine."
+
+There still remained to these misguided Jews one consolation which
+they shared in common with the prophets--the certainty of seeing the
+hereditary foes of Israel involved in the common overthrow: Ammon had
+been already severely chastised; Tyre, cut off from the neighbouring
+mainland, seemed on the point of succumbing, and the turn of Egypt
+must surely soon arrive in which she would have to expiate in bitter
+sufferings the wrongs her evil counsels had brought upon Jerusalem.
+Their anticipated joy, however, of witnessing such chastisements was not
+realised. Tyre defied for thirteen years the blockade of Nebuchadrezzar,
+and when the city at length decided to capitulate, it was on condition
+that its king, Ethbaal III., should continue to reign under the almost
+nominal suzerainty of the Chaldeans (574 B.C.).*
+
+     * The majority of Christian writers have imagined, contrary
+     to the testimony of the Phoenician annals, that the island
+     of Tyre was taken by Nebuchadrezzar; they say that the
+     Chaldaeans united the island to the mainland by a causeway
+     similar to that constructed subsequently by Alexander. It is
+     worthy of notice that a local tradition, still existing in
+     the eleventh century of our era, asserted that the besiegers
+     were not successful in their enterprise.
+
+Egypt continued not only to preserve her independence, but seemed to
+increase in prosperity in proportion to the intensity of the hatred
+which she had stirred up against her.
+
+[Illustration: 436.jpg BRONZE LION OF BOHBAIT]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving in Mariette.
+
+Apries set about repairing the monuments and embellishing the temples:
+he erected throughout the country stelae, tables of offerings, statues
+and obelisks, some of which, though of small size, like that which
+adorns the Piazza della Minerva at Borne,* erected so incongruously on
+the back of a modern elephant, are unequalled for purity of form and
+delicacy of cutting. The high pitch of artistic excellence to which the
+schools of the reign of Psam-metichus II. had attained was maintained
+at the same exalted level. If the granite sphinxes** and bronze lions of
+this period lack somewhat in grace of form, it must be acknowledged that
+they display greater refinement and elegance in the technique of carving
+or moulding than had yet been attained.
+
+     * [One of the two obelisks of the Campus Martius, on which
+     site the Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva was built.--Tr.]
+
+     ** Above the summary of the contents of the present chapter,
+     will be found one of these sphinxes which was discovered in
+     Rome.
+
+[Illustration: 437.jpg THE SMALL OBELISK IN THE PIAZZA DELLA MINERVA AT
+HOME]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
+
+While engaged in these works at home, Apries was not unobservant of
+the revolutions occurring in Asia, upon which he maintained a constant
+watch, and in the years which followed the capitulation of Tyre, he found
+the opportunity, so long looked for, of entering once more upon the
+scene. The Phoenician navy had suffered much during the lengthy blockade
+of their country, and had become inferior to the Egyptian, now well
+organised by Thelonians: Apries therefore took the offensive by sea, and
+made a direct descent on the Phoenician coasts. Nebuchadrezzar opposed
+him with the forces of the recently subjugated Tyrians, and the latter,
+having cooled in their attachment to Egypt owing to the special favour
+shown by the Pharaoh to their rivals the Hellenes, summoned their
+Cypriote vassals to assist them in repelling the attack. The Egyptians
+dispersed the combined fleets, and taking possession of Sidon, gave
+it up to pillage. The other maritime cities surrendered of their own
+accord,* including Gebal, which received an Egyptian garrison, and
+where the officers of Pharaoh founded a temple to the goddess whom they
+identified with the Egyptian Hathor.
+
+     * The war of Apries against the Phoenicians cannot have
+     taken place before the capitulation of Tyre in 574 B.C.,
+     because the Tyrians took part in it by order of
+     Nebuchadrezzar, and on the other hand it cannot be put later
+     than 569 B.C., the date of the revolt of Amasis; it must
+     therefore be assigned to about 571 B.C.
+
+The object at which Necho and Psammetichus II. had aimed for fifteen
+years was thus attained by Apries at one fortunate blow, and he could
+legitimately entitle himself "more fortunate than all the kings his
+predecessors," and imagine, in his pride, that "the gods themselves
+were unable to injure him." The gods, however, did not allow him long
+to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Greeks had often visited Libya since
+the time when Egypt had been thrown open to the trade of the iEgean.
+Their sailors had discovered that the most convenient course thither
+was to sail straight to Crete, and then to traverse the sea between this
+island and the headlands of the Libyan plateau; here they fell in with a
+strong current setting towards the east, which carried them quickly and
+easily as far as Eakotis and Canopus, along the Marmarican shore. In
+these voyages they learned to appreciate the value of the country; and
+about 631 B.C. some Dorians of Thera, who had set out to seek for a new
+home at the bidding of the Delphic oracle, landed in the small desert
+island of Platsea, where they built a strongly fortified settlement.
+Their leader, Battos,* soon crossed over to the mainland, where, having
+reached the high plateau, he built the city of Cyrene on the borders of
+an extremely fertile region, watered by abundant springs. The tribes of
+the Labu, who had fought so valiantly against the Pharaohs of old, still
+formed a kind of loose confederation, and their territory stretched
+across the deserts from the Egyptian frontier to the shores of the
+Syrtes. The chief of this confederation assumed the title of king, as in
+the days of Minephtah or of Ramses III.**
+
+     * Herodotus seems to have been ignorant of the real name of
+     the founder of Cyrene, which has been preserved for us by
+     Pindar, by Callimachus, by the spurious Heraclides of
+     Pontus, and by the chronologists of the Christian epoch.
+     Herodotus says that _Battos_ signifies _king_ in the
+     language of Libya.
+
+     ** The description given by Herodotus of these Libyan tribes
+     agrees with the slight amount of information furnished by
+     the Egyptian monuments for the thirteenth century B.C.
+
+The most civilised of these tribes were those which now dwelt nearest
+to the coast: first the Adyrmakhides, who were settled beyond Marea, and
+had been semi-Egyptianised by constant intercourse with the inhabitants
+of the Delta; then the Giligammes, who dwelt between the port of Plynus
+and the island of Aphrodisias; and beyond these, again, the Asbystes,
+famed for their skill in chariot-driving, the Cabales, and the
+Auschises. The oases of the hinterland were in the hands of the
+Nasamones and of the Mashauasha, whom the Greeks called Maxyes.
+
+One of the revolutions so frequent among the desert tribes had compelled
+the latter to remove from their home near the Nile valley, to a district
+far to the west, on the banks of the river Triton.
+
+[Illustration: 440.jpg THE OASIS OF AMOK AND THE SPRING OF THE SUN]
+
+     Drawn by Boudier, from Minutoli.
+
+There they had settled down in a permanent fashion, dwelling in houses
+of stone, and giving themselves up to the cultivation of the soil. They
+continued, however, to preserve in their new life some of their ancient
+customs, such as that of painting their bodies with vermilion, and of
+shaving off the hair from their heads, with the exception of one lock
+which hung over the right ear. The Theban Pharaohs had formerly placed
+garrisons in the most important oases, and had consecrated temples there
+to their god Amon.
+
+[Illustration: 440b.jpg PORTION OF THE RUINS OF CYRENE]
+
+One of these sanctuaries, built close to an intermittent spring, which
+gave forth alternately hot and cold water, had risen to great eminence,
+and the oracle of these Ammonians was a centre of pilgrimage from far
+and near. The first Libyans who came into contact with the Greeks, the
+Asbystes and the Giligammes, received the new-comers kindly, giving
+them their daughters in marriage; from the fusion of the two races
+thus brought about sprang, first under Battos and then under his son
+Arkesilas I., an industrious and valiant race.
+
+[Illustration: 443.jpg MAP OF LYBIA IN THE VITH CENTURY B.C.]
+
+The main part of their revenues was derived from commerce in silphium
+and woollen goods, and even the kings themselves did not deem it beneath
+their dignity to preside in person at the weighing of the crop, and the
+storing of the trusses in their magazines. The rapid increase in the
+wealth of the city having shortly brought about a breach in the friendly
+relations hitherto maintained between it and its neighbours, Battos
+the Fortunate, the son of Arkesilas I., sent for colonists from
+Greece: numbers answered to his call, on the faith of a second oracular
+prediction, and in order to provide them with the necessary land, Battos
+did not hesitate to dispossess his native allies. The latter appealed to
+Adikran, king of the confederacy, and this prince, persuaded that this
+irregular militia would not be able to withstand the charge of the
+hoplites, thereupon applied in his turn to Apries for assistance.
+
+[Illustration: 443b.jpg the Silphium ]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast of a coin of Cyrene.
+
+There was much tempting spoil to be had in Cyrene, and Apries was fully
+aware of the fact, from the accounts of the Libyans and the Greeks. His
+covetousness must have been aroused at the prospect of such rich booty,
+and perhaps he would have thought of appropriating it sooner, had he not
+been deterred from the attempt by his knowledge of the superiority of
+the Greek fleets, and of the dangers attendant on a long and painful
+march over an almost desert country through disaffected tribes.
+
+[Illustration: 444.jpg WEIGHING SILPHIUM IN PRESENCE OF KING ARKESILAS]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
+     the Coin Room in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. The
+     king here represented is Arkesilas II. the Bad.
+
+Now that he could rely on the support of the Libyans, he hesitated no
+longer to run these risks. Deeming it imprudent, with good reason,
+to employ his mercenary troops against their own compatriots, Apries
+mobilised for his encounter with Battos an army exclusively recruited
+from among his native reserves. The troops set out full of confidence
+in themselves and of disdain for the enemy, delighted moreover at an
+opportunity for at length convincing their kings of their error in
+preferring barbarian to native forces. But the engagement brought to
+nought all their boastings. The Egyptians were defeated in the first
+encounter near Irasa, hard by the fountain of Theste, near the spot
+where the high plateaus of Cyrene proper terminate in the low cliffs
+of Marmarica: and the troops suffered so severely during the subsequent
+retreat that only a small remnant of the army regained in safety the
+frontier of the Delta.*
+
+     * The interpretation I have given to the sentiments of the
+     Egyptian army follows clearly enough from the observation of
+     Herodotus, that "the Egyptians, having never experienced
+     themselves the power of the Greeks, had felt for them
+     nothing but contempt." The site of Irasa and the fountain of
+     Theste has been fixed with much probability in the fertile
+     district watered still by the fountain of Ersen, Erazem, or
+     Erasan.
+
+This unexpected reverse was the occasion of the outbreak of a revolution
+which had been in preparation for years. The emigration to Ethiopia
+of some contingents of the military class had temporarily weakened
+the factions hostile to foreign influence; these factions had felt
+themselves powerless under the rule of Psammetichus I., and had bowed to
+his will, prepared all the while to reassert themselves when they felt
+strong enough to do so successfully. The reorganisation of the native
+army furnished them at once with the means of insurrection, of which
+they had temporarily been deprived. Although Pharaoh had lavished
+privileges on the Hermotybies and Calasiries, she had not removed the
+causes for discontent which had little by little alienated the good will
+of the Mashauasha: to do so would have rendered necessary the disbanding
+of the Ionian guard, the object of their jealousy, and to take this step
+neither he nor his successors could submit themselves. The hatred
+of these mercenaries, and the irritation against the sovereigns who
+employed them, grew fiercer from reign to reign, and now wanted nothing
+but a pretext to break forth openly: such a pretext was furnished by the
+defeat at Irasa. When the fugitives arrived at the entrenched camp of
+Marea, exasperated by their defeat, and alleging doubtless that it was
+due to treachery, they found others who affected to share their belief
+that Pharaoh had despatched his Egyptian troops against Cyrene with
+the view of consigning to certain death those whose loyalty to him was
+suspected, and it was not difficult to stir up the disaffected soldiers
+to open revolt. It was not the first time that a military tumult had
+threatened the sovereignty of Apries. Some time previous to this, in
+an opposite quarter of the Nile valley, the troops stationed at
+Elephantine, composed partly of Egyptians, partly of Asiatic and Greek
+mercenaries--possibly the same who had fought in the Ethiopian campaign
+under Psammetichus II.--had risen in rebellion owing to some neglect
+in the payment of their wages: having devastated the Thebaid, they had
+marched straight across the desert to the port of Shashirit, in the hope
+of there seizing ships to enable them to reach the havens of Idumaea
+or Nabatoa. The governor of Elephantine, Nsihor, had at first held them
+back with specious promises; but on learning that Apries was approaching
+with reinforcements, he attacked them boldly, and driving them before
+him, hemmed them in between his own force and that of the king and
+massacred them all. Apries thought that the revolt at Marea would have a
+similar issue, and that he might succeed in baffling the rebels by
+fair words; he sent to them as his representative Amasis, one of his
+generals, distantly connected probably with the royal house. What took
+place in the camp is not clearly known, for the actual events have been
+transformed in the course of popular transmission into romantic legends.
+The story soon took shape that Amasis was born of humble parentage in
+the village of Siuph, not far from Sais; he was fond, it was narrated,
+of wine, the pleasures of the table, and women, and replenished
+his empty purse by stealing what he could lay his hands on from his
+neighbours or comrades--a gay boon-companion all the while, with an
+easy disposition and sarcastic tongue. According to some accounts, he
+conciliated the favour of Apries by his invariable affability and good
+humour; according to others, he won the king's confidence by presenting
+him with a crown of flowers on his birthday.*
+
+     * The king to whom Amasis made this offering is called
+     Patarmis, and the similarity of this name with the
+     Patarbemis of Herodotus seems to indicate a variant of the
+     legend, in which Patarmis or Patarbemis took the place of
+     Apries.
+
+The story goes on to say that while he was haranguing the rebels, one
+of them, slipping behind him, suddenly placed on his head the rounded
+helmet of the Pharaohs: the bystanders immediately proclaimed him king,
+and after a slight show of resistance he accepted the dignity. As
+soon as the rumour of these events had reached Sais, Apries despatched
+Patarbemis, one of his chief officers, with orders to bring back the
+rebel chief alive. The latter was seated on his horse, on the point of
+breaking up his camp and marching against his former patron, when the
+envoy arrived. On learning the nature of his mission, Amasis charged
+him to carry back a reply to the effect that he had already been making
+preparation to submit, and besought the sovereign to grant him patiently
+a few days longer, so that he might bring with him the Egyptian subjects
+of Pharaoh. Tradition adds that, on receiving this insolent defiance,
+Apries fell into a violent passion, and without listening to
+remonstrance, ordered the nose and ears of Patarbemis to be cut off,
+whereupon the indignant people, it is alleged, deserted his cause and
+ranged themselves on the side of Amasis. The mercenaries, however,
+did not betray the confidence reposed in them by their Egyptian lords.
+Although only thirty thousand against a whole people, they unflinchingly
+awaited the attack at Momemphis (569 B.C.); but, being overwhelmed by
+the numbers of their assailants, disbanded and fled, after a conflict
+lasting one day. Apries, taken prisoner in the rout, was at first well
+treated by the conqueror, and seems even to have retained for a time
+the external pomp of royalty; but the populace of Sais demanding his
+execution with vehemence, Amasis was at length constrained to deliver
+him up to their vengeance, and Apries was strangled by the mob. He was
+honourably interred between the royal palace and the temple of Nit, not
+far from the spot where his predecessors reposed in their glory,* and
+the usurper made himself sole master of the country. It was equivalent
+to a change of dynasty, and Amasis had recourse to the methods usual in
+such cases to consolidate his power. He entered into a marriage alliance
+with princesses of the Saite line, and thus legitimatised his usurpation
+as far as the north was concerned.**
+
+     * It was probably from this necropolis that the coffin of
+     Psammetichus II. came.
+
+     ** The wife of Amasis, who was mother of Psammetichus III.,
+     the queen Tintkhiti, daughter of Petenit, prophet of Phtah,
+     was probably connected with the royal family of Sais.
+
+In the south, the "divine worshippers" had continued to administer the
+extensive heritage of Amon, and Nitocris, heiress of Shapenuapit, had
+adopted in her old age a daughter of her great-nephew, Psammetichus IL,
+named Ankhnasnofiribri: this princess was at this time in possession of
+Thebes, and Amasis appears to have entered into a fictitious marriage
+with her in order to assume to himself her rights to the crown. He had
+hardly succeeded in establishing his authority on a firm basis when he
+was called upon to repel the Chaldaean invasion. The Hebrew prophets had
+been threatening Egypt with this invasion for a long time, and Ezekiel,
+discounting the future, had already described the entrance of Pharaoh
+into Hades, to dwell among the chiefs of the nations--Assur, Elam,
+Meshech, Tubal, Edom, and Philistia--who, having incurred the vengeance
+of Jahveh, had descended into the grave one after the other: "Pharaoh
+and all his army shall be slain by the sword, saith the Lord God! For I
+have put this terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in
+the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword,
+even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God!" Nebuchadrezzar
+had some hesitation in hazarding his fortune in a campaign on the banks
+of the Nile: he realised tolerably clearly that Babylon was not in
+command of such resources as had been at the disposal of Nineveh under
+Esarhaddon or Assur-bani-pal, and that Egypt in the hands of a Saite
+dynasty was a more formidable foe than when ruled by the Ethiopians. The
+report of the revolution of which Apries had become a victim at length
+determined him to act; the annihilation of the Hellenic troops, and the
+dismay which the defeat at Irasa had occasioned in the hearts of
+the Egyptians, seemed to offer an opportunity too favourable to be
+neglected. The campaign was opened by Nebuchadrezzar about 568, in the
+thirty-seventh year of his reign,* but we have no certain information as
+to the issue of his enterprise.
+
+     * A fragment of his Annals, discovered by Pinches, mentions
+     in the thirty-seventh year of his reign a campaign against
+     [Ah]masu, King of Egypt; and Wiedemann, from the evidence of
+     this document combined with the information derived from one
+     of the monuments in the Louvre, thought that the fact of a
+     conquest of Egypt as far as Syeno might be admitted; at that
+     point the Egyptian general Nsihor would have defeated the
+     Chaldaeans and repelled the invasion, and this event would
+     have taken place during the joint reign of Apries and
+     Amasis. A more attentive examination of the Egyptian
+     monument shows that it refers not to a Chaldaean war, but to
+     a rebellion of the garrisons in the south of Egypt,
+     including the Greek and Semitic auxiliaries.
+
+According to Chaldaean tradition, Nebuchadrezzar actually invaded the
+valley of the Nile and converted Egypt into a Babylonian province,
+with Amasis as its satrap.* We may well believe that Amasis lost the
+conquests won by his predecessor in Phoenicia, if, indeed, they still
+belonged to Egypt at his accession: but there is nothing to indicate
+that the Chaldaeans ever entered Egypt itself and repeated the Assyrian
+exploit of a century before.
+
+     * These events would have taken place in the twenty-third
+     year of Nebuchadrezzar; the reigning king (Apries) being
+     killed and his place taken by one of his generals (Amasis),
+     who remained a satrap of the Babylonian empire.
+
+This was Nebuchadrezzar's last war, the last at least of which history
+makes any mention. As a fact, the kings of the second Babylonian empire
+do not seem to have been the impetuous conquerors which we have fancied
+them to be. We see them as they are depicted to us in the visions of the
+Hebrew prophets, who, regarding them and their nation as a scourge in
+the hands of God, had no colours vivid enough or images sufficiently
+terrible to portray them. They had blotted out Nineveh from the list of
+cities, humiliated Pharaoh, and subjugated Syria, and they had done
+all this almost at their first appearance in the field--such a feat as
+Assyria and Egypt in the plenitude of their strength had been unable to
+accomplish: they had, moreover, destroyed Jerusalem and carried Judah
+into captivity. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that this
+Nebuchadrezzar, whose history is known to us almost entirely from Jewish
+sources, should appear as a fated force let loose upon the world. "O
+thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up
+thyself into the scabbard; rest and be still! How canst thou be quiet,
+seeing the Lord hath given thee a charge?" But his campaigns in
+Syria and Africa, of which the echoes transmitted to us still seem so
+formidable, were not nearly so terrible in reality as those in which
+Blam had perished a century previously; they were, moreover, the only
+conflicts which troubled the peace of his reign. The Arabian chroniclers
+affirm, indeed, that the fabulous wealth of Yemen had incited him to
+invade that region. Nebuchadrezzar, they relate, routed, not far from
+the town of Dhat-irk, the Joctanides of Jorhom, who had barred his
+road to the Kaabah, and after seizing Mecca, reached the borders of
+the children of Himyra: the exhausted condition of his soldiers having
+prevented him from pressing further forward in his career of conquest,
+he retraced his steps and returned to Babylon with a great number of
+prisoners, including two entire tribes, those of Hadhura and Uabar,
+whom he established as colonists in Chaldaea.* He never passed in this
+direction beyond the limits reached by Assur-bani-pal, and his exploits
+were restricted to some successful raids against the tribes of Kedar and
+Nabatsea.**
+
+* Most of the Arabic legends relating to these conquests of
+Nebuchadrezzar are indirectly derived from the biblical story; but it is
+possible that the history of the expeditions against Central Arabia is
+founded on fact.
+
+** This seems to follow from Jeremiah's imprecations upon Kedar
+
+The same reasons which at the commencement of his reign had restrained
+his ambition to extend his dominions towards the east and north, were
+operative up to the end of his life. Astyages had not inherited the
+martial spirit of his father Cyaxares, and only one warlike expedition,
+that against the Cadusians, is ascribed to him.*
+
+     * Moses of Chorene attributes to him long wars against an
+     Armenian king named Tigranes; but this is a fiction of a
+     later age.
+
+Naturally indolent, lacking in decision, superstitious and cruel, he
+passed a life of idleness amid the luxury of a corrupt court, surrounded
+by pages, women, and eunuchs, with no more serious pastime than the
+chase, pursued within the limits of his own parks or on the confines
+of the desert. But if the king was weak, his empire was vigorous, and
+Nebuchadrezzar, brought up from his youth to dread the armies of Media,
+retained his respect for them up to the end of his life, even when there
+was no longer any occasion to do so. Nebuchadrezzar was, after all, not
+so much a warrior as a man of peace, whether so constituted by nature
+or rendered so by political necessity in its proper sense, and he
+took advantage of the long intervals of quiet between his campaigns to
+complete the extensive works which more than anything else have won
+for him his renown. During the century which had preceded the fall of
+Nineveh, Babylonia had had several bitter experiences; it had suffered
+almost entire destruction at the hands of Sennacherib; it had been given
+up to pillage by Assur-bani-pal, not to mention the sieges and ravages
+it had sustained in the course of continual revolts. The other cities
+of Babylonia, Sippara, Borsippa, Kutha, Nipur, Uruk, and Uru, had been
+subjected to capture and recapture, while the surrounding districts,
+abandoned in turn to Elamites, Assyrians, and the Kalda, had lain
+uncultivated for many years. The canals at the same time had become
+choked with mud, the banks had fallen in, and the waters, no longer
+kept under control, had overflowed the land, and the plains long since
+reclaimed for cultivation had returned to their original condition of
+morasses and reed-beds; at Babylon itself the Arakhtu, still encumbered
+with the _debris_ cast into it by Sennacherib, was no longer navigable,
+and was productive of more injury than profit to the city: in some parts
+the aspect of the country must have been desolate and neglected as at
+the present day, and the work accomplished by twenty generations had to
+be begun entirely afresh. Nabopolassar had already applied himself to
+the task in spite of the anxieties of his Assyrian campaigns, and had
+raised many earthworks in both the capital and the provinces. But a
+great deal more still remained to be done, and Nebuchadrezzar pushed
+forward the work planned by his father, and carried it to completion
+undeterred and undismayed by any difficulties.* The combined system
+of irrigation and navigation introduced by the kings of the first
+Babylonian empire twenty centuries previously, was ingeniously repaired;
+the beds of the principal canals, the Royal river and the Arakhtu,
+were straightened and deepened; the drainage of the country between the
+Tigris and the Euphrates was regulated by means of subsidiary canals and
+a network of dykes; the canals surrounding Babylon or intersecting in
+the middle of the city were cleaned out, and a waterway was secured
+for navigation from one river to the other, and from the plateau of
+Mesopotamia to the Nar-Marratum.**
+
+     * The only long inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar which we
+     possess, are those commemorating the great works he designed
+     and executed.
+
+     ** The irrigation works of Nebuchadrezzar are described at
+     length, and perhaps exaggerated, by Abydenus, who merely
+     quotes Berosus more or less inaccurately. The completion of
+     the quays along the Arakhtu, begun by Nabopolassar, is
+     noticed in the _East India Company's Inscription_. A special
+     inscription, publ. by H. Rawlinson, gives an account of the
+     repairing of the canal Libil-khigallu, which crossed
+     Babylon.
+
+We may well believe that all Nebuchadrezzar's undertakings were carried
+out in accordance with a carefully prepared scheme for perfecting
+the defences of the kingdom while completing the system of internal
+communication. The riches of Karduniash, now restored to vigour by
+continued peace, and become the centre of a considerable empire, could
+not fail to excite the jealousy of its neighbours, and particularly that
+of the most powerful among them, the Medes of Ecbatana. It is true
+that the relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages continued to be
+cordial, and as yet there were no indications of a rupture; but it
+was always possible that under their successors the good understanding
+between the two courts might come to an end, and it was needful to
+provide against the possibility of the barbarous tribes of Iran being
+let loose upon Babylon, and attempting to inflict on her the fate they
+had brought upon Nineveh. Nebuchadrezzar, therefore, was anxious to
+interpose, between himself and these possible foes, such a series of
+fortifications that the most persevering enemy would be worn out by the
+prolonged task of forcing them one after another, provided that they
+were efficiently garrisoned. He erected across the northern side of the
+isthmus between the two rivers a great embankment, faced with bricks
+cemented together with bitumen, called the _Wall of Media_; this wall,
+starting from Sippara, stretched from the confluence of the Saklauiyeh
+with the Euphrates to the site of the modern village of Jibbara on the
+Tigris; on both sides of it four or five deep trenches were excavated,
+which were passable on raised causeways or by bridges of boats, so
+arranged as to be easily broken up in case of invasion.
+
+[Illustration: 456.jpg CITY DEFENDED BY A TRIPLE WALL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of the time of
+     Sargon, in the Museum of the Louvre.
+
+The eastern frontier was furnished with a rampart protected by a wide
+moat, following, between Jibbara and Nipur, the contours of a low-lying
+district which could be readily flooded. The western boundary was
+already protected by the Pallakottas, and the lakes or marshes of
+Bahr-i-Nejif: Nebuchadrezzar multiplied the number of the dikes, and so
+arranged them that the whole country between the suburbs of Borsippa and
+Babylon could be inundated at will. Babylon itself formed as it were the
+citadel in the midst of these enormous outlying fortifications, and
+the engineers both of Nabopo-lassar and of his son expended all the
+resources of their art on rendering it impregnable. A triple rampart
+surrounded it and united it to Borsippa, built on the model of those
+whose outline is so frequently found on the lowest tier of an Assyrian
+bas-relief.
+
+[Illustration: 457.jpg PROBABLE SECTION OF THE TRIPLE WALL OF BABYLON]
+
+     Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from the restoration by
+     Dieulafoy.
+
+A moat of great width, with banks of masonry, communicating with
+the Euphrates, washed the foot of the outer wall, which retained the
+traditional name of Imgur-bel: behind this wall rose Nimitti-bel, the
+true city wall, to a height of more than ninety feet above the level of
+the plain, appearing from a distance, with its battlements and towers,
+more like a mountain chain than a rampart built by the hand of man;
+finally, behind Nimitti-bel ran a platform on the same level as the
+curtain of Imgur-bel, forming a last barrier behind which the garrison
+could rally before finally owning itself defeated and surrendering the
+city. Large square towers rose at intervals along the face of the walls,
+to the height of some eighteen feet above the battlements: a hundred
+gates fitted with bronze-plated doors, which could be securely shut at
+need, gave access to the city.*
+
+     * The description of the fortifications of the city is
+     furnished by Herodotus, who himself saw them still partially
+     standing; the account of their construction has been given
+     by Nebuchadrezzar himself, in the _East India Company's
+     Inscription_.
+
+The space within the walls was by no means completely covered by houses,
+but contained gardens, farms, fields, and, here and there, the ruins of
+deserted buildings. As in older Babylon, the city proper clustered round
+the temple of Merodach, with its narrow winding streets, its crowded
+bazaars, its noisy and dirty squares, its hostelries and warehouses of
+foreign merchandise.
+
+[Illustration: 458.jpg FRAGMENT OF A BABYLONIAN BAS-RELIEF]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+The pyramid of Esarhad-don and Assur-bani-pal, too hastily built, had
+fallen into ruins: Nebuchadrezzar reconstructed its seven stages, and
+erected on the topmost platform a shrine furnished with a table of
+massive gold, and a couch on which the priestess chosen to be the spouse
+of the god might sleep at night. Other small temples were erected here
+and there on both banks of the river, and the royal palace, built in the
+marvellously short space of fifteen days, was celebrated for its hanging
+gardens, where the ladies of the harem might walk unveiled, secure from
+vulgar observation. No trace of all these extensive works remains at the
+present day.
+
+[Illustration: 459.jpg RUINS OF THE ZIGGURAT OF THE TEMPLE OF BEL]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
+
+Some scattered fragments of crumbling walls alone betray the site of
+the great ziggurat, a few bas-reliefs are strewn over the surface of the
+ground, and a lion of timeworn stone, lying on its back in a depression
+of the soil, is perhaps the last survivor of those which kept watch,
+according to custom, at the gates of the palace. But the whole of this
+vast work of reconstruction and ornamentation must not be attributed to
+Nebuchadrezzar alone. The plans had been designed by Nabopolassar under
+the influence of one of his wives, who by a strange chance bears in
+classic tradition the very Egyptian name of Nitocris; but his work was
+insignificant compared with that accomplished by his son, and the name
+of Nebuchadrezzar was justly connected with the marvels of Babylon by
+all ancient writers. But even his reign of fifty-five years did not
+suffice for the completion of all his undertakings, and many details
+still remained imperfect at his death in the beginning of 562 B.C.
+Though of Kaldu origin, and consequently exposed to the suspicions
+and secret enmity of the native Babylonians, as all of his race, even
+Mero-dach-Baladan himself, had been before him, he had yet succeeded
+throughout the whole of his reign in making himself respected by the
+turbulent inhabitants of his capital, and in curbing the ambitious
+pretensions of the priests of Merodach. As soon as his master-hand
+was withdrawn, the passions so long repressed broke forth, and
+proved utterly beyond the control of his less able or less fortunate
+successors.*
+
+     * The sequel of this history is known from the narrative of
+     Berosus. Its authenticity is proved by passages on the
+     _Cylinder of Nabonidus_. Messer-schmidt considers that Amil-
+     marduk and Labashi-marduk were overthrown by the priestly
+     faction, but a passage on the _Cylinder_, in which Nabonidus
+     represents himself as inheriting the political views of
+     Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur, leads me to take the
+     opposite view. We know what hatred Nabonidus roused in the
+     minds of the priests of Merodach because his principles of
+     government were opposed to theirs: the severe judgment he
+     passed on the rule of Amil-marduk and Labashi-marduk seems
+     to prove that he considered them as belonging to the rival
+     party in the state, that is, to the priestly faction. The
+     forms of the names and the lengths of the several reigns
+     have been confirmed by contemporary monuments, especially by
+     the numerous contract tablets. The principal inscriptions
+     belonging to the reign of Nergal-sharuzur deal only with
+     public works and the restoration of monuments.
+
+[Illustration: 460.jpg THE STONE LION OF BABYLON]
+
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph furnished by
+     Father Scheil.
+
+As far as we are able to judge by the documents which have come down to
+us, two factions had arisen in the city since the fall of Nineveh, both
+of which aspired to power and strove to gain a controlling influence
+with the sovereign. The one comprised the descendants of the Kalda who
+had delivered the city from the Assyrian yoke, together with those
+of the ancient military nobility. The other was composed of the great
+priestly families and their adherents, who claimed for the gods or their
+representatives the right to control the affairs of the state, and
+to impose the will of heaven on the rulers of the kingdom. The latter
+faction seems to have prevailed at first at the court of Amil-marduk,
+the sole surviving son and successor of Nebuchadrezzar. This prince on
+his accession embraced a policy contrary to that pursued by his father:
+and one of his first acts was to release Jehoiachin, King of Judah, who
+had been languishing in chains for twenty-seven years, and to ameliorate
+the condition of the other expatriated Jews. The official history of a
+later date represented him as having been an unjust sovereign, but we
+have no information as to his misdeeds, and know only that after two
+years a conspiracy broke out against him, led by his own brother-in-law,
+Nergal-sharuzur, who assassinated him and seized the vacant throne
+(560 B.C.). Nergal-sharuzur endeavoured to revive the policy of
+Nebuchadrezzar, and was probably supported by the military party, but
+his reign was a short one; he died in 556 B.C., leaving as sole heir
+a youth of dissipated character named Labashi-marduk, whose name is
+stigmatised by the chroniclers as that of a prince who knew not how to
+rule. He was murdered at the end of nine months, and his place taken
+by a native Babylonian, a certain Nabonaid (Nabonidus), son of
+Nabo-balatsu-ikbi, who was not connected by birth with his immediate
+predecessors on the throne (556-555 B.C.).
+
+No Oriental empire could escape from the effects of frequent and
+abrupt changes in its rulers: like so many previous dynasties, that of
+Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after
+the death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and
+decrepitude. Popular imagination, awe-struck by such a sudden downfall
+from exalted prosperity, recognised the hand of God in the events which
+brought about the catastrophe. A Chaldaean legend, current not long
+after, related how Nebuchadrezzar, being seized towards the end of his
+life with the spirit of prophecy, mounted to the roof of his palace,
+and was constrained, as a punishment for his pride, to predict to his
+people, with his own lips, the approaching ruin of their city; thereupon
+the glory of its monarch suffered an eclipse from which there was no
+emerging. The Jews, nourishing undying hatred for conqueror who had
+overthrown Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon, were
+not satisfied with a punishment so inadequate. According to them,
+Nebuchadrezzar, after his victorious career, was so intoxicated with
+his own glory that he proclaimed himself the equal of God. "Is not
+this great Babylon," he cried, "which I have built for the royal
+dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my
+majesty!" and while he thus spake, there came a voice from heaven,
+decreeing his metamorphosis into the form of a beast. "He was driven
+from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew
+of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails
+like birds' claws." For seven years the king remained in this state,
+to resume his former shape at the end of this period, and recover his
+kingdom after having magnified the God of Israel.*
+
+     * Dan. iv.
+
+The founder of the dynasty which replaced that of Nebuchadrezzar,
+Nabonidus, was certainly ill fitted to brave the storms already
+threatening to break over his kingdom. It has not been ascertained
+whether he had any natural right to the throne, or by what means he
+attained supreme power, but the way in which he dwells on the names
+of Nebuchadrezzar and Nergal-sharuzur renders it probable that he was
+raised to the throne by the military faction. He did not prove, as
+events turned turned out, a good general, nor even a soldier of moderate
+ability, and it is even possible that he also lacked that fierce courage
+of which none of his predecessors was ever destitute. He allowed his
+army to dwindle away and his fortresses to fall into ruins; the foreign
+alliances existing at his accession, together with those which he
+himself had concluded, were not turned to the best advantage;
+his provinces were badly administered, and his subjects rendered
+discontented: his most salient characteristic was an insatiable
+curiosity concerning historical and religious antiquities, which
+stimulated him to undertake excavations in all the temples, in order
+to bring to light monuments of ages long gone by. He was a monarch
+of peaceful disposition, who might have reigned with some measure of
+success in a century of unbroken peace, or one troubled only by petty
+wars with surrounding inferior states; but, unfortunately, the times
+were ill suited to such mild sovereignty. The ancient Eastern world,
+worn out by an existence reckoned by thousands of years, as well as by
+its incessant conflicts, would have desired, indeed, no better fate than
+to enjoy some years of repose in the condition in which recent events
+had left it; but other nations, the Greeks and the Persians, by no means
+anxious for tranquillity, were entering the lists. For the moment
+the efforts of the Greeks were concentrated on Egypt, where Pharaoh
+manifested for them inexhaustible good will, and on Cyprus, two-thirds
+of which belonged to them; the danger for Chaldaea lay in the Persians,
+kinsfolk and vassals of the Medes, whose semi-barbarous chieftains had
+issued from their mountain homes some eighty years previously to occupy
+the eastern districts of Elam.
+
+END OF VOL. VIII.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12), by G. Maspero
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #17328 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17328)