The History of Antiquity Volume Iii Part 19

Each pair of rulers makes up a total of 75 years.

[532] Zeph. i. 1.

[533] Jerem. i. 1; xxv. 3.

[534] Jerem. iv. 6.

[535] Jerem. vi. 1.

[536] 2 Maccab. xii. 29. Strabo, p. 763; Joseph. "Antiq." 5, 1, 22, etc.

Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 5, 16; Steph. Byzant. [Greek: Skuthopolis].

[537] Justin, 1, 2-5.

[538] Syncell. "Chron." p. 405, ed. Bonn.

[539] Herod. 1, 6, 15, 16.

[540] Hippocr. "De aero," c. 22.

[541] "Ethic. Nicom." 7, 7 (8).

[542] Vol. V., chap. 3.

[543] Above, p. 164.

[544] Nahum iii. 8.

[545] Nahum ii. 13, 14; iii. 1-5, 12-15.

[546] Nahum i. 8, 14; iii. 7-12; iii. 7, 13.

[547] Zeph. ii. 13-15.

[548] In Polyhistor Sardanapalus reigns over the Chaldaeans for 21 years after Samuges.

[549] In Athenaeus, p. 553.

[550] Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 37, ed. Schone. Kiepert, "Monatsb. B. A.,"

1873, s. 191.

[551] Syncell. "Chron." p. 210, ed. Bonn.

[552] Asdahag is the Armenian form in the Armenian Eusebius.

[553] As we have the choice between the two eclipses of 610 and 584 B.C.

the preference must be given to that of 610 B.C. Where the battle was fought between the Medes and Lydians we do not know; but we do know that in the year 584 B.C. Cyaxares and Nabopola.s.sar were no longer alive. If we replace these names by Astyages and Nebuchadnezzar--although the children of the princes who conclude peace and alliance are expressly named as the parties contracting in marriage--and Astyages had no son, Nineveh had fallen long before 584 B.C., and Babylonia would not have had the least interest in bringing about a peace between Lydia and Media. On the contrary, Nebuchadnezzar, who had erected such enormous fortifications against Media, in order to secure his own weaker kingdom against any attacks of the Median power, would only have been too glad to keep Media engaged in the West by the continuance of the Lydian war.

Yet that it was a question of the rescue of Lydia in the interest of Babylonia cannot be supported in the face of the a.s.sertion of Herodotus, that the fortune of arms was equal. As the dates given by Herodotus for the reigns of the Lydian kings have to be replaced by those of Eusebius (below, Chapter 17), the dating of the beginning of the war at the year 615 B.C. would allow the first three years to fall in the reign of Sadyattes; but in this there is no difficulty.

[554] E. Schrader, "K. A. T.," s. 233.

[555] G. Smith, "Disc.," p. 344.

[556] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 382.

[557] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 382.

[558] Sayce, "Babylon. Litterature," p. 79, _seqq._

[559] "Anab." 3, 4, 7-9.

[560] Euseb. "Chron." I., p. 37, ed. Schone.

[561] Syncell, "Chron." p. 396, ed. Bonn.

[562] Strabo, p. 737.

[563] Ezek. x.x.xi. 11-16; x.x.xii. 22, 23.

CHAPTER XIII.

EGYPT UNDER PSAMMETICHUS AND NECHO.

According to the account of Herodotus, a blind man from the city of Anysis, and bearing the same name as his city, ruled over Egypt at the time when Sabakon marched through the country. He retired before the Ethiopians into the marshes, and fled to an island called Elbo. The island measured ten stades in every direction, and thither, in obedience to his command, the Egyptians by turns secretly brought him nourishment.

When fifty years had expired from the time that he made himself master of Egypt, Sabakon saw in a dream a man who bade him summon all the priests of Egypt, and cause each to be cut into two pieces. Then Sabakon said that the G.o.ds had announced to him by this vision that he would by some evil deed bring upon himself severe punishment from the G.o.ds or from men. Such a deed he would not commit: the time had pa.s.sed which was allotted to him for the rule of Egypt; an oracle in Ethiopia had announced to him that he would rule over Egypt for fifty years. As this period was now completed, Sabakon voluntarily retired from Egypt, the blind man returned from the island of Elbo, and reigned as before. He was followed by the priest Sethos, against whom Sennacherib, the king of the Arabians and a.s.syrians, marched, but the G.o.d of Memphis saved him by sending field mice into the camp (p. 141). After the death of Sethos the Egyptians became free, but as they could not live without a king they elected twelve kings, and divided Egypt into twelve parts. These twelve kings contracted family alliances with each other, and agreed that none of the twelve should seek greater possessions than another, or attempt to crush the others, but that all should be on the best terms with each other. They then determined to leave behind a common memorial, and with this object built the labyrinth on Lake Moeris, and ruled with justice. In the course of time it happened that the twelve kings were sacrificing together in the temple--for they came in a body to all sacrifices--and when at the close of the sacrifice they poured libations, the high priest brought only eleven of the golden goblets from which they were wont to pour libations, instead of twelve. The last in the list at this sacrifice was Psammetichus of Sais, whose father Necho had been killed by Sabakon. He had himself fled to Syria, to escape Sabakon, but after the retirement of the Ethiopians he had been brought back by the inhabitants of the canton of Sais. As no goblet was left for him, he took the brazen helmet from his head and poured the libation from that. Then the rest of the princes remembered a prophecy given to them at the very beginning of their reign,--that whosoever among them should pour a libation out of a brazen goblet should be king over all Egypt. Mindful of this oracle the kings were not inclined to punish Psammetichus with death, because they found on inquiry that he had not used his helmet with premeditation; but they took from him the greater part of his power, confined him to the marshes, and bade him not to leave them or trouble himself about the rest of Egypt. Perceiving that injustice was done to him, Psammetichus bethought him how to avenge himself on those who had driven him out; and when he inquired of the oracle of Buto he received the answer, "Vengeance would come from the sea, when the brazen men appeared." Psammetichus did not believe the oracle. But Ionians and Carians, who had taken s.h.i.+p for plunder, were driven out of their course to Egypt. When they got on the sh.o.r.e in their brazen armour, an Egyptian announced to Psammetichus that brazen men who were come from the sea were laying waste the plains. Then Psammetichus saw that the oracle was fulfilled. He received the Ionians and Carians in a friendly manner, and induced them by great promises to stay with him. And with these, and the Egyptians who were on his side to help him, he conquered the rest of the kings, and became lord over all Egypt.[564]

Diodorus gives us a similar account. He celebrates the gentle and wise rule of the Ethiopian Sabakon, and then continues. "His piety is shown by his conduct in consequence of a dream, and his resignation of the throne. The G.o.d of Thebes appeared to him in a dream, and said that he could not govern Egypt prosperously and for long unless he collected all the priests and cut each into two parts, and marched between the parts with his body-guard. As this dream appeared frequently, he summoned the priests, and said to them, that he should displease the G.o.d if he remained longer in the land, or he would never have advised such an act in a dream. He preferred to retire while pure from that guilt, and leave his future to fortune rather than to rule over all Egypt by outraging the G.o.d, and staining his own life by wicked murder. Then he resigned the government of Egypt to the Egyptians, and retired to Ethiopia. But as the people were unquiet, and domestic strife broke out, the most distinguished princes, twelve in number, met at Memphis, and made a league, and swore to remain friendly and faithful to each other, and made themselves kings. In pursuance of this agreement they reigned for fifteen years in harmony, and formed the resolution, that as in their lives they shared equal honours, so after death their bodies should rest in the same place, and that a sepulchre built in common should preserve the common fame of the kings buried there. The size of this structure, for which they selected a site on Lake Moeris, was to surpa.s.s the works of all the kings before them. But one of them, Psammetichus of Sais, who was lord of the coast, secured an extensive trade to all merchants, especially to the Phenicians and Greeks. By the sale of the products of his canton and his share in that which the foreigners brought he not only obtained greater resources, but he won the friends.h.i.+p of these nations and their princes. Roused by envy the rest of the kings made war upon Psammetichus, who obtained necessaries from the Ionians and Carians, and conquered in the battle near the city of Momemphis. Of the kings, his opponents, some fell in the battle, others fled to Libya, and were no longer in a position to contest the throne.

Thus after fifteen years the sovereignty in Egypt again came into the hands of one man."[565]

We saw that the real course of affairs differed widely from the accounts given by the Egyptians, from which come the narratives of Herodotus and Diodorus. Manetho's list, at any rate, does not conceal the fact that after king Bocchoris had succ.u.mbed to the incursion of the Ethiopians, three kings of Ethiopia ruled over Egypt in succession. The Hebrew Scriptures and the tablets of the a.s.syrians then informed us how Israel, trusting in the help of Sabakon, refused payment of tribute to Nineveh, and what misfortunes punished this rebellion in the year 722 B.C.--how Sabakon was defeated two years afterwards at Raphia, in the neighbourhood of Gaza, by Sargon. Afterwards Sargon could boast of receiving tribute from the successor of Sabakon, Sevechus, in the year 716 B.C., and later still could demand and obtain the surrender of a fugitive opponent (711 B.C.). But Tirhaka, the successor of Sevechus, fought with success at Eltekeh in the year 701 against Sennacherib of a.s.syria, and forced him to raise the siege of Jerusalem. Thirty years afterwards the situation was entirely changed. In order to take from Sidon, Tyre, Judah, and the Syrian States their hopes in Napata and Egypt, which caused their resistance to be constantly bursting into fresh flame, Esarhaddon, king of a.s.syria, invaded Egypt in the year 672 B.C., and drove Tirhaka back to his native land. Tirhaka's repeated attempts to win Egypt from this position were wrecked like those of his successor, Urdamane: they only brought about the sack and devastation of Thebes and its sanctuaries (663 B.C.).

Hence it was not of their own free will that the Ethiopians retired to their home; the dominion over Egypt which the Ethiopians of Napata, who had long acquired the manners and civilisation of Egypt, had exercised for sixty years, was replaced by another and far heavier foreign dominion--the rule of the kings on the Tigris. The Egyptians did not set up twelve kings after the Ethiopians, who pledged themselves to equality and friends.h.i.+p, as Herodotus supposes, nor did the twelve leading princes make themselves kings as Herodotus supposes. Still less did they rule Egypt in common; least of all could they erect the structure on Lake Moeris, the temple of Amenemha III., for it had already been in existence fifteen centuries (I. 109). It is the twenty va.s.sal princes, whom Esarhaddon and a.s.surbanipal set up over Egypt--among whom must have been represented some of the dynastic families which rose under the Pharaohs of Bubastis and Tanis--out of whom the Egyptians have constructed the twelve kings.

Among these princes, by means of the a.s.syrians, Necho and his son Psammetichus rose into power. It was Esarhaddon who entrusted to Necho the government of Memphis and Sais. If Herodotus states that Sabakon put Necho, the father of Psammetichus, to death, the inscriptions of a.s.surbanipal prove the contrary. It must, therefore, have been the grandfather of Psammetichus, the Nechepsus of Manetho, who suffered this fate, and he must have suffered at the hands of Tirhaka, and not at the hands of Sabakon.[566] The flight of Psammetichus before Sabakon into Syria, which Herodotus relates, cannot have taken place till Tirhaka's time. In the account given by Herodotus only so much can be regarded as certain as is also clear from Manetho's list--_i.e._ that Necho and Psammetichus belonged to the district of Sais. Though raised by Esarhaddon, Necho began, after the death of that prince and the first campaign of a.s.surbanipal to Egypt, to join in a conspiracy with Tirhaka in connection with two of his fellow-va.s.sals. He was taken prisoner and carried to Nineveh, but received pardon, and was, at any rate, again placed over Sais. His son, who had a.s.sumed the a.s.syrian name of Neboshezban, received the canton of Athribis. Necho died towards the year 664 B.C.; his son succeeded him in the administration of the district of Sais. Ten or twelve years afterwards (653 B.C.[567]), apparently availing himself of the dissension which broke out in the royal house of a.s.syria, the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin against his brother, he undertook to liberate Egypt from the dominion of the Medes, and at the same time to make himself master of Egypt. As to the manner in which this was done, and the means of doing it, we have no information beyond very scanty facts, suppositions, and conclusions. We saw above, from the inscriptions of a.s.surbanipal, that Psammetichus acted in concert with Gyges of Lydia, that "Gyges sent his power to aid him in breaking off the yoke of the a.s.syrians" (p. 170). The Ionians and Carians in brazen armour, in Herodotus, who come up from the sea, were thus the soldiers whom Gyges sent over the sea. He could only send his auxiliaries or Ionian vessels; and that he was in close combination with Carians will be made clear below. This fact does not make it at all impossible that Psammetichus before he revolted did not on his part gain the favour of the Ionians and Phenicians by opening the harbours of his canton, and favouring their trade, as Diodorus states (p. 298). This would give the harbour cities of the Greeks in Asia Minor sufficient reason to support strongly the rising of Psammetichus. For the independent support of Psammetichus by the Ionian cities of Asia Minor we have evidence in a statement of Strabo, according to which thirty s.h.i.+ps from Miletus were active in the cause of Psammetichus, and also the position afterwards a.s.signed to the Ionians in Egypt under the reign of Psammetichus. The s.h.i.+ps of the Milesians are said to have conquered Inarus, _i.e._ no doubt one of the princes who opposed the rising of Psammetichus, in a naval engagement on the Nile.[568]

Beyond this we have no further information about the course of the struggle, and its duration. Beside Inarus we have the name of one other opponent of Psammetichus, Tementhes.[569] We do not know whether all the va.s.sals of a.s.syria ranged themselves against Psammetichus, or whether some of these princes followed his leaders.h.i.+p against a.s.syria and the dependants of a.s.syria. We do not know whether he had merely to contend against his own fellow-princes or against a.s.syrian garrisons also, and a.s.syrian forces. According to Polyaenus the decisive battle took place in the neighbourhood of Memphis, five stadia from the city, near the temple of Isis; Diodorus puts the battle-field at Momemphis in the western Delta, between the Canopic arm of the Nile and the Mareotic Lake. It is remarkable that the decisive battle should have been fought so far to the west, near the border of Libya, but it is not impossible. But we must not overlook the fact, that according to Herodotus, a later decisive battle took place at Momemphis--and from the circ.u.mstances it is clear that this battle must have been fought there--so that a confusion between the two is not impossible.

We do not know what claim Psammetichus could make to the sovereignty of Egypt besides the summons to the liberation from a.s.syria, and the accomplishment of this liberation. His family belonged to the canton of Sais, from which, in previous times, Tnephachtus and Bocchoris had sprung. It would be possible that the house of Necho was in some connection with these princes, that Necho and Psammetichus were successors or descendants of Tnephactus. From this we may explain the story that the blind king, who fled before Sabakon into the marshes, recovered the throne after the retirement of the Ethiopians, and also the persecution which Necho and Psammetichus had to undergo from the Ethiopians. From such a connection we could also explain the fact that Necho took the part of a.s.syria against Tirhaka in the campaign of Esarhaddon, and received in reward from Esarhaddon the government of Memphis and Sais. The subsequent conspiracy of Necho with Tirhaka, when the latter had been driven back to Napata, would then show that Necho had attempted first to drive out the Ethiopians by the a.s.syrians, and then the a.s.syrians by the Ethiopians, and liberate Egypt by using one against the other. However this may be, Psammetichus, when liberating Egypt from a.s.syria, succeeded also in removing and destroying the dynastic families, which had risen up since the times of the Pharaohs of Bubastis and Tanis, and had maintained themselves under the Ethiopians and a.s.syrians, though in diminished importance and with a change in the position of their families. Thus Psammetichus accomplished the work which Tnephachtus began and Bocchoris was unable to carry on and maintain. According to the indications of an Egyptian inscription, Psammetichus strengthened his royal position by taking to wife Shabanatep, the heiress of a dynasty of Thebes. She was, apparently, the daughter of a prince Pianchi, who must have governed the canton of Thebes under Sabakon, and of Ameniritis, the sister of Sabakon, whom he gave to Pianchi to wife.[570]

The independence of Egypt was won. After a foreign rule of nearly 80 years (on the lowest calculation the Ethiopians had ruled for 58 years, and the a.s.syrians nearly 20), Egypt was again her own mistress, and obeyed a king taken from her midst. But every one must have made up his mind to see new armies marching from the Tigris to the Nile, as soon as the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin was crushed, and a.s.surbanipal's hands were free. The question was, whether Egypt's power was equal to such a struggle. Psammetichus was not put to this trial. After the capture of Babylon, a.s.surbanipal turned the full weight of his arms to the subjugation and destruction of Elam. The new conflict must have appeared unavoidable when a.s.surbanipal, about the year 643 B.C., punished the Arabian tribes on the borders of the Ammonites and Moabites. If he still omitted the attack on Egypt he must have regarded his forces as insufficient for the purpose, or they must have been seriously occupied in another direction. We may a.s.sume with tolerable certainty that it was the union of the Median tribes by Phraortes, the son of Deioces, and their combination with the Persians, which drew a.s.surbanipal back to the East, and kept him there. According to the statement of Herodotus, already considered, Psammetichus on his side advanced to the offensive beyond his own borders towards Syria. This war of Psammetichus in Syria, and the supposed long conflict for Ashdod, can only mean that Psammetichus attempted to bring the cities of the Philistines, and especially those of the desert, into his hands, in order to make the march through the desert, which must commence from this point, impossible, or at any rate difficult, for the a.s.syrians. Here also we are ignorant whether Psammetichus had to contend with the Philistines alone or with the a.s.syrian forces also: this only is clear, that he could not besiege Ashdod before Gaza and Ascalon were in his hands. If Psammetichus was really moved to this war by the object we impute to him, we must put the war in the period in which there was still danger to be apprehended from the Tigris: _i.e._ in the decade from 640 to 630 B.C. According to this, the impossible 29 years which Herodotus allows to the siege of Ashdod must be reduced to nine years, just as we had to cut down the 28 years which he gives for the dominion of the Scythians in Hither Asia to about ten years. But in the advance of these Scythians towards Egypt (in the year 625 B.C.), described by Herodotus, he does not tell us that Ashdod, Ascalon, or Gaza, were subject to Psammetichus; he represents the Scythians as pa.s.sing beyond the cities of the Philistines to the borders of Egypt, where Psammetichus, by gifts and entreaties, induces them to desist from any further advance, and turn back to Syria. If the war of Psammetichus in Syria is placed after the incursion of the Scythians, _i.e._ in the last fifteen years of his reign, another event shortly to be mentioned will have also to be placed at the end of his reign,--an event which must certainly have belonged to a previous period. In no case did Psammetichus obtain success in Syria.

If his successor had to conquer Gaza, _i.e._ the city nearest Egypt, it is obvious that Psammetichus maintained none of these border cities, though one or other may have been brought for a time into his power.

Egypt had been liberated and restored, but not by her own power. We saw that even from the times of the later Ramessids the military power of Egypt had been replaced by foreign mercenaries, especially by Libyans; that the house of the Pharaohs of Bubastis owed its rise to the command of these troops. We saw how under these Pharaohs, and those of the succeeding house of Tanis, the leaders of these troops became hereditary lords of the districts--how these dynasties summoned the Ethiopians against Tnephachtus and Bocchoris, and then others, including Necho and Psammetichus, joined a.s.syria against the Ethiopians. Before the reign of Sabakon it was chiefly Libyans on whom the power of the princes rested; under Sabakon, Sevechus, and Tirhaka it was the Ethiopians who supported the authority of the crown; and in the same way Psammetichus succeeded in breaking loose from a.s.syria, and establis.h.i.+ng his authority in Egypt, and on the throne of the Pharaohs, mainly by strangers and mercenaries, by Ionians and Carians. Psammetichus could not do without them. In his internal administration they were required to keep down the overthrown dynastic families, and he needed them to protect his kingdom from without. His elevation, the foundation of his power, the restoration of Egypt, rested on the attempt to establish Egypt and his own crown, as against Ethiopia and a.s.syria, on a third external power, the mariners of the north. Psammetichus therefore was compelled to give preference to Ionians and Carians over the native soldiers, the warrior caste, who, under the dominion of the kings of Napata, must obviously have received a considerable addition of Ethiopians from the native land of the kings. In the Syrian war also, as Diodorus tells us, the Ionians and Carians received the place of honour on the right wing, in the order of battle. The Ionians and Carians were entrusted with the protection of the eastern border, the most important border of the kingdom. There they were placed in a standing camp, on the Pelusic arm of the Nile; on one bank was the camp of the Ionians, on the other the camp of the Carians.[571] These Ionians and Carians--their numbers under the successors of Psammetichus reached 30,000 men--received valuable allotments of land, and were so handsomely treated that the prophet Jeremiah compares them to "stall-fed oxen."[572] They had also to educate Egyptians in their language, their customs, and their mode of war: Psammetichus placed in their hands Egyptian boys for education and training, and caused even his own sons to be instructed in Greek.[573]

The old warrior caste was limited to the protection of the southern and western borders against Napata and the Libyans, the border service at Elephantine and Marea.