over Egypt by the great monarchy of the south, exactly synchronized with
the development of Assyrian power in south-western Asia, which bordered
Egypt upon the north; and thus were brought into hostile collision, the
two greatest military powers of the then known world who fought over the
prostrate Egypt, like Achilles and Hector over the corpse of Patroclus.
Shabak's conquest of the Lower Nile valley took place about B.C. 725 or
724. Exactly at that time Shalmaneser IV. was proceeding to extremities
against the kingdom of Israel, and was thus threatening to sweep away
one of the last two feeble barriers which had hitherto been interposed
between the Assyrian territory and the Egyptian. Shabak, entreated by
Hoshea, the last Israelite monarch, to lend him aid, consented to take
the kingdom of Israel under his protection (2 Kings xvii. 4), actuated
no doubt by an enlightened view of his own interest. But when Samaria
was besieged (B.C. 723) and the danger became pressing, he had not the
courage to act up to his engagements. The stout resistance offered by
the Israelite capital for more than two years (2 Kings xvii. 5) drew
forth no corresponding effort on the part of the Ethiopic king. Hoshea
was left to his own resources, and in B.C. 722 was forced to succumb.
His capital was taken by storm, its inhabitants seized and carried off
by the conqueror, the whole territory absorbed into that of Assyria, and
the cities occupied by Assyrian colonists (2 Kings xvii. 24). Assyria
was brought one step nearer to Egypt, and it became more than ever
evident that contact and collision could not be much longer deferred.
The collision came in B.C. 720. In that year Sargon, the founder of the
last and greatest of the Assyrian dynasties, who had succeeded
Shalmaneser IV. in B.C. 722, having arranged matters in Samaria and
taken Hamath, pressed on against Philistia, the last inhabited country
on the route which led to Egypt. Shabak, having made alliance with
Hanun, king of Gaza, marched to his aid. The opposing hosts met at
Ropeh, the Raphia of the Greeks, on the very borders of the desert.
Sargon commanded in person on the one side, Shabak and Hanun on the
other. A great battle was fought, which was for a long time stoutly
contested; but the strong forms, the superior arms, and the better
discipline of the Assyrians, prevailed. Asia proved herself, as she has
generally done, stronger than Africa; the Egyptians and Philistines fled
away in disorder; Hanun was made a prisoner; Shabak with difficulty
escaped. Negotiations appear to have followed, and a convention to have
been drawn up, to which the Ethiopian and Assyrian monarchs attached
their seals. The lump of clay which received the impressions was found
by Sir A. Layard at Nineveh, and is now in the British Museum.
Shortly afterwards, about B.C. 712, Shabak died, and was succeeded in
Egypt by his son Shabatok, in Ethiopia by a certain Tehrak, who appears
to have been his nephew, Tehrak exercised the paramount authority over
the whole realm, but resided at Napata, while Shabatok held his court at
Memphis and ruled Lower Egypt as Tehrak's representative, Assyrian
aggression still continued. In B.C. 711 Sargon took Ashdod, and
threatened an invasion of Egypt, which Shabatok averted by sending a
submissive embassy with presents.
[Illustration: SEAL OF SHABAK.]
Six years afterwards Sargon died, and his son, Sennacherib, mounted the
Assyrian throne. At once south-western Asia was in a ferment. The
Phœnician and Philistine kings recently subjected by Tiglath-Pileser and
Sargon, broke out in open revolt. Hezekiah, king of Judah, joined the
malcontents. The aid of Egypt was implored, and certain promises of
support and assistance received, in part from Tehrak, in part from
Shabatok and other native rulers of nomes and cities. Sennacherib, in
B.C. 701, led his army into Syria to suppress the rebellion, reduced
Phœnicia, received the submission of Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and Edom; took
Ascalon, Hazor, and Joppa, and was proceeding against Ekron, when for
the first time he encountered an armed force in the field. A large
Egyptian and Ethiopian contingent had at last reached Philistia, and,
having united itself with the Ekronites, stood prepared to give the
Assyrians battle near Eltekeh. The force consisted of chariots,
horsemen, and footmen, and was so numerous that Sennacherib calls it "a
multitude that no man could number." Once more, however, Africa had to
succumb. Sennacherib at Eltekeh defeated the combined forces of Egypt
and Ethiopia with as much ease and completeness as Sargon at Raphia; the
multitudinous host was entirely routed, and fled from the field, leaving
in the hands of the victors the greater portion of their war-chariots
and several sons of one of their kings.
After this defeat, it is not surprising that Tehrak made no further
effort. Hezekiah, the last rebel unsubdued, was left to defend himself
as he best might. The Egyptians retreated to their own borders, and
there awaited attack. It seemed as if the triumph of Assyria was
assured, and as if her yoke must almost immediately be imposed alike
upon Judea, upon Egypt, and upon the kingdom of Napata; but an
extraordinary catastrophe averted the immediate danger, and gave to
Egypt and Ethiopia a respite of thirty-four years. Sennacherib's army,
of nearly two hundred thousand men, was almost totally destroyed in one
night. "The angel of the Lord went forth," says the contemporary writer,
Isaiah, "and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore
and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold,
they were all dead corpses" (Isa. xxxvii. 36). Whatever the agency
employed in this remarkable destruction--whether it was caused by a
simoon, or a pestilence, or by a direct visitation of the Almighty, as
different writers have explained it--the event is certain. Its truth is
written in the undeniable facts of later history, which show us a sudden
cessation of Assyrian attack in this quarter, the kingdom of Judea saved
from absorption, and the countries on the banks of the Nile left
absolutely unobstructed by Assyria for the third part of a century. As
the destruction happened on their borders, the Egyptians naturally
enough ascribed it to their own gods, and made a boast of it centuries
after. Everything marks, as one of the most noticeable facts in
history, this annihilation of so great a portion of the army of the
greatest of all the kings of Assyria.
[Illustration: HEAD OF TEHRAK (TIRHAKAH).]
The reign of Tirhakah (Tehrak) during this period appears to have been
glorious. He was regarded by Judea as its protector, and exercised a
certain influence over all Syria as far as Taurus, Amanus, and the
Euphrates. In Africa, he brought into subjection the native tribes of
the north coast, carrying his arms, according to some, as far as the
Pillars of Hercules. He is exhibited at Medinet-Abou in the dress of a
warrior, smiting with a mace ten captive foreign princes. He erected
monuments in the Egyptian style at Thebes, Memphis, and Napata. Of all
the Ethiopian sovereigns of Egypt he was undoubtedly the greatest; but
towards the close of his life reverses befell him, which require to be
treated of in another section.
XXI.
THE FIGHT OVER THE CARCASE--ETHIOPIA _v_. ASSYRIA.
The miraculous destruction of his army was accepted by Sennacherib as a
warning to desist from all further attempts against the independence of
Judea, and from all further efforts to extend his dominions towards the
south-west. He survived the destruction during a period of seventeen
years, and was actively engaged in a number of wars towards the east,
the north, and the north-west, but abstained carefully from further
contact with either Palestine or Egypt. His son Esarhaddon succeeded him
on the throne in B.C. 681, and at once, to a certain extent, modified
this policy. He re-established the Assyrian dominion over Upper Syria,
Phœnicia, and even Edom; but during the first nine years of his reign
the memory of his father's disaster caused him to leave Judea and Egypt
unattacked. At last, however, in B.C. 672, encouraged by his many
military successes, by the troubled state of Judea under the idolatrous
Manasseh, who "shed innocent blood very much from one end of Jerusalem
to the other" (2 Kings xxi. 16), and by the advanced age of Tehrak,
which seemed to render him a less formidable antagonist now than
formerly, he resumed the designs on Egypt which his father and
grandfather had entertained, swept Manasseh from his path by seizing him
and carrying him off a prisoner to Babylon, marched his troops from
Aphek along the coast of Palestine to Raphia, and there made the
dispositions which seemed to him best calculated to effect the conquest
of the coveted country. As Tirhakah, aware of his intentions, had
collected all his available force upon his north-east frontier, about
Pelusium and its immediate neighbourhood, the Assyrian monarch took the
bold resolution of proceeding southward through the waste tract, known
to the Hebrews as "the desert of Shur," in such a way as to turn the
flank of Tirhakah's army, to reach Pithom (Heroopolis) and to attack
Memphis along the line of the Old Canal. The Arab Sheikhs of the desert
were induced to lend him their aid, and facilitate his march by
conveying the water necessary for his army on the backs of their camels
in skins. The march was thus made in safety, though the soldiers are
said to have suffered considerably from fatigue and thirst, and to have
been greatly alarmed by the sight of numerous serpents.
Tehrak, on his part, did all that was possible. On learning Esarhaddon's
change of route, he broke up from Pelusium, and, by a hasty march across
the eastern Delta succeeded in interposing his army between Memphis and
the host of the Assyrians, which had to follow the line taken by Sir
Garnet Wolseley in 1884, and encountered the enemy, probably, not far
from the spot where the British general completely defeated the troops
of Arabi. Here for the third time Asia and Africa stood arrayed the one
against the other. Assyria brought into the field a host of probably not
fewer than two hundred thousand men, including a strong chariot force, a
powerful cavalry, and an infantry variously armed and appointed--some
with huge shields and covered by almost complete panoplies, others
lightly equipped with targe and dart, or even simply with slings. Egypt
opposed to her a force, probably, even more numerous, but consisting
chiefly of a light-armed infantry, containing a large proportion of
mercenaries whose hearts would not be in the fight, deficient in
cavalry, and apt to trust mainly to its chariots. In the flat Egyptian
plains lightly accoutred troops fight at a great disadvantage against
those whose equipment is of greater solidity and strength; cavalry are
an important arm, since there is nothing to check the impetus of a
charge; and personal strength is a most important element in determining
the result of a conflict. The Assyrians were more strongly made than the
Egyptians; they had probably a better training; they certainly wore more
armour, carried larger shields and longer spears, and were better
equipped both for offence and defence. We have, unfortunately, no
description of the battle; but it is in no way surprising to learn that
the Assyrians prevailed; Tehrak's forces suffered a complete defeat,
were driven from the field in confusion, and hastily dispersed
themselves.
Memphis was then besieged, taken, and given up to pillage. The statues
of the gods, the gold and silver, the turquoise and lapis lazuli, the
vases, censers, jars, goblets, amphorae, the stores of ivory, ebony,
cinnamon, frankincense, fine linen, crystal, jasper, alabaster,
embroidery, with which the piety of kings had enriched the
temples--especially the Great Temple of Phthah--during fifteen or twenty
centuries, were ruthlessly carried off by the conquerors, who destined
them either for the adornment of the Ninevite shrines or for their own
private advantage. Tehrak's wife and concubines, together with several
of his children and numerous officers of his court, left behind in
consequence of his hurried flight, fell into the enemy's hands. Tehrak
himself escaped, and fled first to Thebes, and then to Napata; while the
army of Esarhaddon, following closely on his footsteps, advanced up the
valley of the Nile, scoured the open country with their cavalry, stormed
the smaller towns, and after a siege of some duration took "populous
No," or Thebes, "that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters
round about it, whose rampart was the great deep" (Nahum iii. 8). All
Egypt was overrun from the Mediterranean to the First Cataract;
thousands of prisoners were taken and carried away captive; the Assyrian
monarch was undisputed master of the entire land of Mizraïm from Migdol
to Syene and from Pelusium to the City of Crocodiles.
Upon conquest followed organization. The great Assyrian was not content
merely to overrun Egypt; he was bent upon holding it. Acting on the
Roman principle, "_Divide et impera_," he broke up the country into
twenty distinct principalities, over each of which he placed a governor,
while in the capital of each he put an Assyrian garrison. Of the
governors, by far the greater number were native Egyptians; but in one
or two instances the command was given to an Assyrian. For the most
part, the old divisions of the nomes were kept, but sometimes two or
more nomes were thrown together and united under a single governor.
Neco, an ancestor of the great Pharaoh who bore the same name (2 Kings
xxiii. 29-35), had Saïs, Memphis, and the nomes that lay between them;
Mentu-em-ankh had Thebes and southern Egypt as far as Elephantine.
Satisfied with these arrangements, the conqueror returned to Nineveh,
having first, however, sculptured on the rocks at the mouth of the
Nahr-el-Kelb a representation of his person and an account of his
conquests.
[Illustration: FIGURE OF ESAR-HADDON AT THE NAHR-EL-KELB.]
Egypt lay at the feet of Assyria for about three or four years (B.C.
672-669). Then the struggle was renewed. Tehrak, who had bided his time,
learning that Esarhaddon was seized with a mortal malady, issued (B.C.
669) from his Ethiopian fastnesses, descended the valley of the Nile,
expelled the governors whom Esarhaddon had set up, and possessed himself
of the disputed territory. Thebes received him with enthusiasm, as one
attached to the worship of Ammon; and the priests of Phthah opened to
him the gates of Memphis, despite the efforts of Neco and the Assyrian
garrison. The religious sympathy between Ethiopia and Egypt was an
important factor in the as yet undecided contest, and helped much to
further the Ethiopic cause. But in war sentiment can effect but little.
Physical force, on the whole, prevails, unless in the rare instances
where miracle intervenes, or where patriotic enthusiasm is exalted to
such a pitch as to strike physical force with impotency.
In the conflict that was now raging patriotism had little part. Ethiopia
and Assyria were contending, partly for military pre-eminence, partly
for the prey that lay between them, inviting a master--the rich and now
weak Egyptian kingdom. Tehrak's success, communicated to the Assyrian
Court by the dispossessed governors, drew forth almost immediately a
counter effort on the part of Assyria, which did not intend to
relinquish without a struggle the important addition that Esarhaddon had
made to the empire. In B.C. 668, Asshur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of
the Greeks, having succeeded his father Esarhaddon, put the forces of
Assyria once more in motion, and swooping down upon the unhappy Egypt,
succeeded in carrying all before him, defeated Tehrak at Karbanit in the
Delta, recovered Memphis and Thebes, forced Tehrak to take refuge at
Napata, re-established in power the twenty petty kings, and restored the
country in all respects to the condition into which it had been brought
four years previously by Esarhaddon. Egypt thus passed under the
Assyrians for the second time, Ethiopia relinquishing her hold upon the
prey as soon as Assyria firmly grasped it.
Still the matter was not yet settled, the conflict was not yet ended.
The petty kings themselves began now to coquet with Tehrak, and to
invite his co-operation in an attempt, which they promised they would
make, to throw off the yoke of the Assyrians. Detected in this intrigue,
Neco and two others were arrested by the Assyrian commandants, loaded
with chains, and sent as prisoners to Nineveh. But their arrest did not
check the movement. On the contrary, the spirit of revolt spread. The
commandants tried to stop it by measures of extreme severity: they
sacked the great cities of the Delta--Saïs, Mendes, and Tanis or Zoan;
but all was of no avail. Tehrak once more took the field, descended the
Nile valley, recovered Thebes, and threatened Memphis. Asshur-bani-pal
upon this hastily sent Neco from Nineveh at the head of an Assyrian army
to exert his influence on the Assyrian side--which he was content to do,
since the Ninevite monarch had made him chief of the petty kings, and
conferred the principality of Athribis on his son, Psamatik. Tehrak, in
alarm retreated from his bold attempt, evacuated Thebes and returned to
his own dominions, where he shortly afterwards died (B.C. 667).
It might have been expected that the death of the aged warrior-king
would have been the signal for Ethiopia to withdraw from the struggle so
long maintained, and relinquish Egypt to her rival; but the actual
result was the exact contrary. Tehrak was succeeded at Napata by his
step-son, Rut-Ammon, a young prince of a bold and warlike temper. Far
from recoiling from the enterprize which Tehrak had adjudged hopeless,
he threw himself into it with the utmost ardour. Once more an Ethiopian
army descended the Nile valley, occupied Thebes, engaged and defeated a
combined Egyptian and Assyrian force near Memphis, took the capital,
made its garrison prisoners, and brought under subjection the greater
portion of the Delta. Neco, having fallen into the hands of the
Ethiopians, was cruelly put to death. His son, Psamatik, saved himself
by a timely flight.
History now "repeated itself." In B.C. 666 Asshur-bani-pal made, in
person, a second expedition into Egypt, defeated Rut-Ammon upon the
frontier, recovered Memphis, marched upon Thebes, Rut-Ammon retiring as
he advanced, stormed and sacked the great city, inflicted wanton injury
on its temples, carried off its treasures, and enslaved its population.
The triumph of the Assyrian arms was complete. Very shortly all
resistance ceased. The subject princes were replaced in their
principalities. Asshur-bani-pal's sovereignty was universally
acknowledged, and Ethiopia, apparently, gave up the contest.
One more effort was, however, made by the southern power. On the death
of Rut-Ammon, Mi-Ammon-Nut, probably a son of Tirhakah's, became king of
Ethiopia, and resolved on a renewal of the war. Egyptian disaffection
might always be counted on, whichever of the two great powers held
temporary possession of the country; and Mi-Ammon-Nut further courted
the favour of the Egyptian princes, priests, and people, by an
ostentatious display of zeal for their religion. Assyria had allowed the
temples to fall into decay; the statues of the gods had in some
instances been cast down, the temple revenues confiscated, the priests
restrained in their conduct of the religious worship. Mi-Ammon-Nut
proclaimed himself the chosen of Ammon, and the champion of the gods of
Egypt. On entering each Egyptian town he was careful to visit its chief
temple, to offer sacrifices and gifts, to honour the images and lead
them in procession, and to pay all due respect to the college of
priests. This prudent policy met with complete success. As he advanced
down the Nile valley, he was everywhere received with acclamations. "Go
onward in the peace of thy name," they shouted, "go onward in the peace
of thy name. Dispense life throughout all the land--that the temples may
be restored which are hastening to ruin; that the statues of the gods
may be set up after their manner; that their revenues may be given back
to the gods and goddesses, and the offerings of the dead to the
deceased; that the priest may be established in his place, and all
things be fulfilled according to the Holy Ritual." In many places where
it had been intended to oppose his advance in arms, the news of his
pious acts produced a complete revulsion of feeling, and "those whose
intention it had been to fight were moved with joy." No one opposed him
until he had nearly reached the northern capital, Memphis, which was
doubtless held in force by the Assyrians, to whom the princes of Lower
Egypt were still faithful. A battle, accordingly, was fought before the
walls, and in this Mi-Ammon-Nut was victorious; the Egyptians probably
did not fight with much zeal, and the Assyrians, distrusting their
subject allies, may well have been dispirited. After the victory,
Memphis opened her gates, and soon afterwards the princes of the Delta
thought it best to make their submission--the Assyrians, we must
suppose, retired--Mi-Ammon-Nut's authority was acknowledged, and the
princes, having transferred their allegiance to him, were allowed to
retain their governments.
The consequences of this last Ethiopian invasion of Egypt appear to have
been transient. Mi-Ammon-Nut did not live very long to enjoy his
conquest, and in Egypt he had no successor. He was not even recognized
by the Egyptians among their legitimate kings. Egypt at his death
reverted to her previous position of dependence upon Assyria, feeling
herself still too weak to stand alone, and perhaps not greatly caring,
so that she had peace, which of the two great powers she acknowledged as
her suzerain. She had now (about B.C. 650) for above twenty years been
fought over by the two chief kingdoms of the earth--each of them had
traversed with huge armies, as many as five or six times, the Nile
valley from one extremity to the other; the cities had been half ruined,
harvest after harvest destroyed, trees cut down, temples rifled,
homesteads burnt, villas plundered. Thebes, the Hundred-gated, probably
for many ages quite the most magnificent city in the world, had become a
by-word for desolation (Nahum iii. 8, 9); Memphis, Heliopolis, Tanis,
Saïs, Mendes, Bubastis, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis; Crocodilopolis, had
been taken and retaken repeatedly; the old buildings and monuments had
been allowed to fall into decay; no king had been firmly enough
established on his throne to undertake the erection of any but
insignificant new ones. Egypt was "fallen, fallen, fallen--fallen from
her high estate;" an apathy, not unlike the stillness of death, brooded
over her; literature was silent, art extinct; hope of recovery can
scarcely have lingered in many bosoms. As events proved, the vital spark
was not actually fled; but the keenest observer would scarcely have
ventured to predict, at any time between B.C. 750 and B.C. 650, such a
revival as marked the period between B.C. 650 and B.C. 530.
XXII.
THE CORPSE COMES TO LIFE AGAIN--PSAMATIK I. AND HIS SON NECO.
When a country has sunk so gradually, so persistently, and for so long a
series of years as Egypt had now been sinking, if there is a revival, it
must almost necessarily come from without. The corpse cannot rise
without assistance--the expiring patient cannot cure himself. All the
vital powers being sapped, all the energies having departed, the Valley
of the Shadow of Death having been entered, nothing can arrest
dissolution but some foreign stock, some blood not yet vitiated, some
"saviour" sent by Divine providence from outside the nation (Isa. xix.
20), to recall the expiring life, to revivify the paralyzed frame, to
infuse fresh energy into it, and to make it once more live, breathe,
act, think, assert itself. Yet the saviour must not be altogether from
without. He must not be a conqueror, for conquest necessarily weakens
and depresses; he must not be too remote in blood, or he will lack the
power fully to understand and sympathize with the nation which he is to
restore, and without true understanding and true sympathy he can effect
nothing; he must not be a stranger to the nation's recent history, or
he will make mistakes that will be irremediable. What is wanted is a
scion of a foreign stock, connected by marriage and otherwise with the
nation that he is to regenerate, and well acquainted with its
circumstances, character, position, history, virtues, weaknesses. No
entirely new man can answer to these requirements; he must be found, if
he is to be found at all, among the principal men of the time, whose lot
has for some considerable period been cast in with the State which is to
be renovated.