As the siege of Azoth, although the longest recorded in history,
affords but little matter for relation, we will indulge our young
readers with a few of the circumstances which preceded it.
After the death of Tharaca, the last Ethiopian king who reigned in
Egypt, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the succession,
were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were great
disorders among them. At last, twelve of the principal noblemen,
conspiring together, seized upon the kingdom, and divided it among
themselves into as many parts. It was agreed by them that each should
govern his own district with equal power and authority, and that no
one should attempt to invade or seize the dominions of another. They
thought it necessary to make this agreement, and to bind it with the
most solemn oaths, to elude the prediction of an oracle, which had
foretold that he among them who should offer his libation to Vulcan out
of a brazen bowl, should gain the sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned
together fifteen years in the utmost harmony: and, to leave a lasting
monument of their concord to posterity, they jointly, and at a common
expense, built the famous labyrinth, which was a pile of building
consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many edifices underground
as appeared above it.
One day, as the twelve kings were assisting at a solemn and periodical
sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priest having to
present each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting.
Upon this Psammetichus, without any design, supplied the place of
this bowl with his brazen helmet, of which each wore one, and with
it performed the ceremony of the libation. This accident struck the
rest of the kings, and recalled to their memory the prediction of the
oracle above-mentioned. They thought it therefore necessary to secure
themselves against his attempts, and, with one consent, banished him
into the fenny parts of Egypt.
After Psammetichus had passed several years there, awaiting a
favourable opportunity to revenge himself for this affront, a messenger
brought him advice that brazen men were landed in Egypt. These were
Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon the
coast of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets,
cuirasses, and other arms of brass. Psammetichus immediately called to
mind an oracle which had answered him, that he should be succoured by
brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt that the prediction
was now fulfilled. He made a league with these strangers; engaged them
by great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces, and
put these Greeks at their head. Giving battle to the eleven kings, he
defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.
As this prince owed his success to the Ionians and Carians, he settled
them in Egypt, from which all foreigners had been excluded; and by
assigning them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget
their native country. By his order Egyptian children were put under
their care, to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by
this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the
Greeks; and from that era the Egyptian history, which till then had
been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifices of the priests,
begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and
certainty.
As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war
against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the
two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had
been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that
separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord,
as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. They were
eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the
stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all
Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government, thought it
high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against
the Assyrians, his neighbours, whose power increased daily. For this
purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army.
Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war an incident
related by Diodorus, that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks
posted on the right wing by the king himself, in preference to them,
quitted his service to the number of upwards of two hundred thousand
men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with a good settlement.
Be this as it may, Psammetichus entered Palestine, where his career was
stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which
gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty-nine
years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned
in history. This was anciently one of the five capital cities of the
Philistines. The Egyptians having seized it some time before, had
fortified it with such care that it was their strongest bulwark on that
side. Nor could Sennacherib enter Egypt till he had made himself master
of this city, which was taken by Tartan, one of his generals. The
Assyrians had possessed it hitherto, and it was not till after the long
siege just now mentioned that the Egyptians recovered it.
The extraordinary length of this siege ceases to surprise us, when we
consider that a siege was nothing but a badly-guarded blockade, where
that was expected from lassitude and famine which could not be obtained
by either bodily strength, which necessarily failed against stone
walls, or by military art, which had not yet learnt how to overthrow
them, or even to scale them.