The valley of Megiddo, forming the western part of the great
Plain of Esdraelon, in northern Palestine—stretching from the
valley of the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, along the
course of the river Kishon—was the field of many important
battles in ancient times. Thothmes III. of the eighteenth
Egyptian dynasty, whose reign is placed about 1600 B. C., met
there, near the city of Megiddo, and defeated a confederacy of
Syrian and Canaanite princes who attempted to throw off his
yoke. A remarkable account of his victory and of the spoils he
took is preserved in inscriptions on the walls of the temple
at Karnak.
_H. Brugsch,
History of Egypt,
chapter 13 (volume 1)._
It was at Megiddo, also, that Sisera, commanding the forces of
the Canaanites, was beaten and driven to flight by the
Israelites under Barak. Gideon's' assault on the Midianites
was from the slope of Mount Gilboa, which rises out of the
same valley. The latter battle has been called by historians
the Battle of Jezreel, and Jezreel is one of the forms of the
name of the valley of Esdraelon. It was there that the
Philistines were arrayed when Saul fought his last battle with
them, and on the slopes of Gilboa he fell on his sword and
died. On the same historic plain, near the city of Megiddo,
Josiah, king of Judah, fought against Necho, the Pharaoh of
Egypt, B. C. 609, and was defeated and mortally wounded. The
plain of Megiddo was so often, in fact, the meeting place of
ancient armies that it seems to have come to be looked upon as
the typical battle-ground, and apparently the name Armageddon
in Revelations is an allusion to it in that sense. The ancient
city of Megiddo has been identified in site with the present
town of Ledjûn, which is the Legio of the Romans—the station
of a Roman legion.
MEGISTANES, The.
"The king [of the Parthian monarchy] was permanently advised
by two councils, consisting of persons not of his own
nomination, whom rights, conferred by birth or office,
entitled to their seats. One of these was a family conclave,
… or assembly of the full-grown males of the Royal House;
the other was a senate comprising both the spiritual and the
temporal chiefs of the nation, the Sophi, or 'Wise Men,' and
the Magi, or 'Priests.' Together these two bodies constituted
the Megistanes, the 'Nobles' or 'Great Men'—the privileged
class which to a considerable extent checked and controlled
the monarch. The monarchy was elective; but only in the house
of the Arsacidæ."
_G. Rawlinson,
Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 6._