summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/17328-h
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to '17328-h')
-rw-r--r--17328-h/17328-h.htm14194
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/003.jpgbin0 -> 160686 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/011.jpgbin0 -> 22758 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/017.jpgbin0 -> 128942 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/018.jpgbin0 -> 131172 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/023.jpgbin0 -> 195342 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/028.jpgbin0 -> 101005 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/028b-text.jpgbin0 -> 7913 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/028b.jpgbin0 -> 169509 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/030.jpgbin0 -> 324592 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/040.jpgbin0 -> 266849 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/048.jpgbin0 -> 88217 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/049.jpgbin0 -> 143212 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/052.jpgbin0 -> 126680 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/054.jpgbin0 -> 55026 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/063.jpgbin0 -> 50354 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/065.jpgbin0 -> 118956 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/066.jpgbin0 -> 121539 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/068.jpgbin0 -> 95745 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/069.jpgbin0 -> 214552 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/073.jpgbin0 -> 107212 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/074.jpgbin0 -> 355216 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/074th.jpgbin0 -> 84498 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/079.jpgbin0 -> 18979 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/080.jpgbin0 -> 21565 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/081.jpgbin0 -> 164453 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/082.jpgbin0 -> 194857 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/083.jpgbin0 -> 231686 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/087.jpgbin0 -> 34694 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/088.jpgbin0 -> 119148 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/090.jpgbin0 -> 403704 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/095.jpgbin0 -> 126156 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/096.jpgbin0 -> 66914 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/097.jpgbin0 -> 58832 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/098.jpgbin0 -> 88289 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/099.jpgbin0 -> 125521 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/101.jpgbin0 -> 13280 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/104.jpgbin0 -> 101454 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/105.jpgbin0 -> 104433 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/106.jpgbin0 -> 15345 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/110.jpgbin0 -> 36205 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/111.jpgbin0 -> 39417 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/115.jpgbin0 -> 103735 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/131.jpgbin0 -> 102756 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/137.jpgbin0 -> 45876 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/139.jpgbin0 -> 114174 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/142.jpgbin0 -> 228358 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/143.jpgbin0 -> 107562 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/144.jpgbin0 -> 120636 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/145.jpgbin0 -> 18686 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/156.jpgbin0 -> 67348 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/157.jpgbin0 -> 120663 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/158.jpgbin0 -> 78600 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/161.jpgbin0 -> 83657 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/168.jpgbin0 -> 73973 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/169.jpgbin0 -> 62085 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/174.jpgbin0 -> 92568 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/175.jpgbin0 -> 39011 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/181.jpgbin0 -> 61011 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/187.jpgbin0 -> 25635 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/190.jpgbin0 -> 146218 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/191.jpgbin0 -> 206473 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/195.jpgbin0 -> 9003 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/198.jpgbin0 -> 67843 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/206.jpgbin0 -> 121237 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/206b.jpgbin0 -> 282826 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/209.jpgbin0 -> 92430 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/210.jpgbin0 -> 107118 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/211.jpgbin0 -> 126027 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/212.jpgbin0 -> 335269 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/215.jpgbin0 -> 129395 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/216.jpgbin0 -> 66264 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/217.jpgbin0 -> 74003 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/228.jpgbin0 -> 286244 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/235.jpgbin0 -> 49451 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/240.jpgbin0 -> 79269 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/251.jpgbin0 -> 74734 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/252.jpgbin0 -> 230767 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/260-text.jpgbin0 -> 4666 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/260.jpgbin0 -> 117084 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/262.jpgbin0 -> 26547 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/263.jpgbin0 -> 144204 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/264.jpgbin0 -> 152661 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/265.jpgbin0 -> 185279 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/268.jpgbin0 -> 97812 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/269.jpgbin0 -> 38203 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/274.jpgbin0 -> 75629 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/279.jpgbin0 -> 56173 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/280.jpgbin0 -> 163603 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/282.jpgbin0 -> 218326 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/285.jpgbin0 -> 48769 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/287.jpgbin0 -> 59179 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/290.jpgbin0 -> 107422 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/290b.jpgbin0 -> 530470 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/290bth.jpgbin0 -> 154339 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/294.jpgbin0 -> 126470 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/297.jpgbin0 -> 74481 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/298.jpgbin0 -> 53129 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/300.jpgbin0 -> 160471 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/301.jpgbin0 -> 155697 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/302.jpgbin0 -> 68320 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/308.jpgbin0 -> 28695 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/311.jpgbin0 -> 46132 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/330.jpgbin0 -> 276387 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/335.jpgbin0 -> 38238 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/338.jpgbin0 -> 37169 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/347.jpgbin0 -> 36602 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/348a.jpgbin0 -> 25965 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/348b.jpgbin0 -> 10883 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/355.jpgbin0 -> 107432 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/356.jpgbin0 -> 125852 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/358-text.jpgbin0 -> 5065 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/358.jpgbin0 -> 106034 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/359.jpgbin0 -> 64420 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/361.jpgbin0 -> 108876 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/364.jpgbin0 -> 124988 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/378.jpgbin0 -> 11091 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/390.jpgbin0 -> 125816 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/391.jpgbin0 -> 85753 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/396.jpgbin0 -> 79029 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/397.jpgbin0 -> 178870 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/398.jpgbin0 -> 132788 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/404.jpgbin0 -> 21285 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/405.jpgbin0 -> 90412 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/417.jpgbin0 -> 131488 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/422.jpgbin0 -> 31452 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/423.jpgbin0 -> 197006 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/427.jpgbin0 -> 82951 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/428.jpgbin0 -> 69580 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/430.jpgbin0 -> 53846 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/430b.jpgbin0 -> 353754 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/436.jpgbin0 -> 42290 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/437.jpgbin0 -> 107667 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/440.jpgbin0 -> 70846 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/441.jpgbin0 -> 314559 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/443a.jpgbin0 -> 61065 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/443b.jpgbin0 -> 26065 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/444.jpgbin0 -> 119174 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/456.jpgbin0 -> 66660 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/457.jpgbin0 -> 42735 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/458.jpgbin0 -> 46351 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/459.jpgbin0 -> 101980 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/460.jpgbin0 -> 46817 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/cover.jpgbin0 -> 172973 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/frontispiece.jpgbin0 -> 128696 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/spines.jpgbin0 -> 128963 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/stone.jpgbin0 -> 4439 bytes
-rw-r--r--17328-h/images/titlepage.jpgbin0 -> 149652 bytes
148 files changed, 14194 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/17328-h/17328-h.htm b/17328-h/17328-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..061b520
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/17328-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,14194 @@
+<?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
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT, CHALDÆA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 17328-h.htm or 17328-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+ https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/2/17328/
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&ldquo;the Foundation&rdquo;
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; appears, or with which the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo; is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+&ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original &ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other
+form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+ the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+ you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
+ owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+ has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+ Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
+ must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+ prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+ returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+ sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+ address specified in Section 4, &ldquo;Information about donations to
+ the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.&rdquo;
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+ you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+ does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+ License. You must require such a user to return or
+ destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+ and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+ Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+ money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+ electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+ of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+ distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+&ldquo;Defects,&rdquo; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &ldquo;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&rdquo; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &lsquo;AS-IS&rsquo; WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm&rsquo;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation&rsquo;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state&rsquo;s laws.
+
+The Foundation&rsquo;s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation&rsquo;s web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+ Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+ Chief Executive and Director
+ gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+ https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/17328-h/images/003.jpg b/17328-h/images/003.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e048f95
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/003.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/011.jpg b/17328-h/images/011.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee67f34
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/011.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/017.jpg b/17328-h/images/017.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a49932
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/017.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/018.jpg b/17328-h/images/018.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..493cef0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/018.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/023.jpg b/17328-h/images/023.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e1bb9cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/023.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/028.jpg b/17328-h/images/028.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eedf167
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/028.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/028b-text.jpg b/17328-h/images/028b-text.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1049f46
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/028b-text.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/028b.jpg b/17328-h/images/028b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..01fb038
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/028b.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/030.jpg b/17328-h/images/030.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0058a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/030.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/040.jpg b/17328-h/images/040.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..923f141
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/040.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/048.jpg b/17328-h/images/048.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7670ae4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/048.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/049.jpg b/17328-h/images/049.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f239686
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/049.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/052.jpg b/17328-h/images/052.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..400f9d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/052.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/054.jpg b/17328-h/images/054.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e4f03fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/054.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/063.jpg b/17328-h/images/063.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ed6f38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/063.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/065.jpg b/17328-h/images/065.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a94f295
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/065.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/066.jpg b/17328-h/images/066.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7621e3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/066.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/068.jpg b/17328-h/images/068.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7ce3872
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/068.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/069.jpg b/17328-h/images/069.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c23b267
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/069.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/073.jpg b/17328-h/images/073.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb3c81d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/073.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/074.jpg b/17328-h/images/074.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9ea7d4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/074.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/074th.jpg b/17328-h/images/074th.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..da2d9b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/074th.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/079.jpg b/17328-h/images/079.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..29b155a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/079.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/080.jpg b/17328-h/images/080.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0832f94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/080.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/081.jpg b/17328-h/images/081.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f33ebb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/081.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/082.jpg b/17328-h/images/082.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..33cdd37
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/082.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/083.jpg b/17328-h/images/083.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bd49536
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/083.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/087.jpg b/17328-h/images/087.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e99a638
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/087.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/088.jpg b/17328-h/images/088.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..655b12e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/088.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/090.jpg b/17328-h/images/090.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c135a45
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/090.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/095.jpg b/17328-h/images/095.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bfdf024
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/095.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/096.jpg b/17328-h/images/096.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9187672
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/096.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/097.jpg b/17328-h/images/097.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2bb335
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/097.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/098.jpg b/17328-h/images/098.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17159d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/098.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/099.jpg b/17328-h/images/099.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0783467
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/099.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/101.jpg b/17328-h/images/101.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17899e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/101.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/104.jpg b/17328-h/images/104.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a7e757
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/104.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/105.jpg b/17328-h/images/105.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7c531a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/105.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/106.jpg b/17328-h/images/106.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1c52cbd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/106.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/110.jpg b/17328-h/images/110.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c6f00f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/110.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/111.jpg b/17328-h/images/111.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e07a4c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/111.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/115.jpg b/17328-h/images/115.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f756bbc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/115.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/131.jpg b/17328-h/images/131.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56e4139
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/131.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/137.jpg b/17328-h/images/137.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17f2719
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/137.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/139.jpg b/17328-h/images/139.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf46e7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/139.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/142.jpg b/17328-h/images/142.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fbfc6c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/142.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/143.jpg b/17328-h/images/143.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..250b89d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/143.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/144.jpg b/17328-h/images/144.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bde3162
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/144.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/145.jpg b/17328-h/images/145.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f8aef75
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/145.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/156.jpg b/17328-h/images/156.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..600e299
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/156.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/157.jpg b/17328-h/images/157.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6890f9b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/157.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/158.jpg b/17328-h/images/158.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b06d02c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/158.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/161.jpg b/17328-h/images/161.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c963a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/161.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/168.jpg b/17328-h/images/168.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aad591c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/168.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/169.jpg b/17328-h/images/169.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c62b838
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/169.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/174.jpg b/17328-h/images/174.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..88060f6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/174.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/175.jpg b/17328-h/images/175.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f6f11b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/175.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/181.jpg b/17328-h/images/181.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dff8007
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/181.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/187.jpg b/17328-h/images/187.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a379a4a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/187.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/190.jpg b/17328-h/images/190.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34f2d1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/190.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/191.jpg b/17328-h/images/191.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1fb4ab0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/191.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/195.jpg b/17328-h/images/195.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea371c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/195.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/198.jpg b/17328-h/images/198.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..523a216
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/198.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/206.jpg b/17328-h/images/206.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f57770
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/206.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/206b.jpg b/17328-h/images/206b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8533f1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/206b.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/209.jpg b/17328-h/images/209.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..effdfbb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/209.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/210.jpg b/17328-h/images/210.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..719b4ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/210.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/211.jpg b/17328-h/images/211.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87cc683
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/211.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/212.jpg b/17328-h/images/212.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f9c6d64
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/212.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/215.jpg b/17328-h/images/215.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e5faca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/215.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/216.jpg b/17328-h/images/216.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2f72d28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/216.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/217.jpg b/17328-h/images/217.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f6e5047
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/217.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/228.jpg b/17328-h/images/228.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9214bd4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/228.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/235.jpg b/17328-h/images/235.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dbe551a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/235.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/240.jpg b/17328-h/images/240.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e7839a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/240.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/251.jpg b/17328-h/images/251.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6e46ef6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/251.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/252.jpg b/17328-h/images/252.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..74abdaa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/252.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/260-text.jpg b/17328-h/images/260-text.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d87e0ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/260-text.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/260.jpg b/17328-h/images/260.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5bb07e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/260.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/262.jpg b/17328-h/images/262.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75e61ec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/262.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/263.jpg b/17328-h/images/263.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45627fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/263.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/264.jpg b/17328-h/images/264.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..379a9e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/264.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/265.jpg b/17328-h/images/265.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..95b8303
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/265.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/268.jpg b/17328-h/images/268.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa57e97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/268.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/269.jpg b/17328-h/images/269.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..22af23e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/269.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/274.jpg b/17328-h/images/274.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..042502f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/274.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/279.jpg b/17328-h/images/279.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f006ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/279.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/280.jpg b/17328-h/images/280.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23ee996
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/280.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/282.jpg b/17328-h/images/282.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1803050
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/282.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/285.jpg b/17328-h/images/285.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b51333f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/285.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/287.jpg b/17328-h/images/287.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5a5178e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/287.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/290.jpg b/17328-h/images/290.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1c5f4e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/290.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/290b.jpg b/17328-h/images/290b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e56560c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/290b.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/290bth.jpg b/17328-h/images/290bth.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..688b40b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/290bth.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/294.jpg b/17328-h/images/294.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5ef6643
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/294.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/297.jpg b/17328-h/images/297.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae0b015
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/297.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/298.jpg b/17328-h/images/298.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..305e394
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/298.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/300.jpg b/17328-h/images/300.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..141d86a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/300.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/301.jpg b/17328-h/images/301.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0280df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/301.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/302.jpg b/17328-h/images/302.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75f5f4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/302.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/308.jpg b/17328-h/images/308.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..084278b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/308.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/311.jpg b/17328-h/images/311.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..082dafa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/311.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/330.jpg b/17328-h/images/330.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..00ab955
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/330.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/335.jpg b/17328-h/images/335.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..22129aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/335.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/338.jpg b/17328-h/images/338.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e8c4f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/338.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/347.jpg b/17328-h/images/347.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f3ac2a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/347.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/348a.jpg b/17328-h/images/348a.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc663a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/348a.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/348b.jpg b/17328-h/images/348b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..25a9c4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/348b.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/355.jpg b/17328-h/images/355.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a3b7c04
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/355.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/356.jpg b/17328-h/images/356.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9c7462e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/356.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/358-text.jpg b/17328-h/images/358-text.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8980622
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/358-text.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/358.jpg b/17328-h/images/358.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6bb31f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/358.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/359.jpg b/17328-h/images/359.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..842fc44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/359.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/361.jpg b/17328-h/images/361.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc83db7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/361.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/364.jpg b/17328-h/images/364.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7974ef1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/364.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/378.jpg b/17328-h/images/378.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2abe7cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/378.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/390.jpg b/17328-h/images/390.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c47ce7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/390.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/391.jpg b/17328-h/images/391.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c192b13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/391.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/396.jpg b/17328-h/images/396.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5da6222
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/396.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/397.jpg b/17328-h/images/397.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ebb346d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/397.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/398.jpg b/17328-h/images/398.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..396a737
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/398.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/404.jpg b/17328-h/images/404.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d08738e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/404.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/405.jpg b/17328-h/images/405.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41bf5fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/405.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/417.jpg b/17328-h/images/417.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6720e66
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/417.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/422.jpg b/17328-h/images/422.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..27a8719
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/422.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/423.jpg b/17328-h/images/423.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0943509
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/423.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/427.jpg b/17328-h/images/427.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bbab670
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/427.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/428.jpg b/17328-h/images/428.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4fc81b9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/428.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/430.jpg b/17328-h/images/430.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10a3dc5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/430.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/430b.jpg b/17328-h/images/430b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7dffd7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/430b.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/436.jpg b/17328-h/images/436.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b8f981
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/436.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/437.jpg b/17328-h/images/437.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a751749
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/437.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/440.jpg b/17328-h/images/440.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3d8c07f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/440.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/441.jpg b/17328-h/images/441.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d70a77
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/441.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/443a.jpg b/17328-h/images/443a.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7268a79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/443a.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/443b.jpg b/17328-h/images/443b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..db26304
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/443b.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/444.jpg b/17328-h/images/444.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e60151
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/444.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/456.jpg b/17328-h/images/456.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..612bee9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/456.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/457.jpg b/17328-h/images/457.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6604deb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/457.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/458.jpg b/17328-h/images/458.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d9ba589
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/458.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/459.jpg b/17328-h/images/459.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be8ff2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/459.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/460.jpg b/17328-h/images/460.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c792fba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/460.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/cover.jpg b/17328-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..013bc1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/cover.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/17328-h/images/frontispiece.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6324419
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/frontispiece.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/spines.jpg b/17328-h/images/spines.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee35490
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/spines.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/stone.jpg b/17328-h/images/stone.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d357f39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/stone.jpg
Binary files differ
diff --git a/17328-h/images/titlepage.jpg b/17328-h/images/titlepage.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..54cebef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17328-h/images/titlepage.jpg
Binary files differ