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 Homers 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 kings daughters.
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.
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.
* 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 account may
be considered as true.
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.
[Illustation: 396.jpg THE RUINS OF PTERIA]
Drawn by Boudier, from Charles Texier.
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.
[Illustration: 396b.jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE SANCTUARY OF PTERIA]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Chantre.
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.
[Illustration: 398.jpg ONE OF THE PROCESSIONS IN THE RAVINE OF PTERIA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Chantre.
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
lions body and the head of a youth.*
* 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--in any case, before the Persian conquest.
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--fate sometimes favouring one and sometimes the other--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.*
* 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.
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 others arms and sucking the few drops of blood which
oozed from the puncture.***
* 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--Cicero, Solinus, and the
Armenian Eusebius--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.
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.
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.*
* 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.
[Illustration: 404.jpg AN EGYPTIAN VESSEL OF THE SAITE PERIOD]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph sent by G. Benédite.
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.
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.*
* 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.
[Illustration: 405.jpg THE ANCIENT HEAD OF THE RED SEA, NOW THE NORTHERN
EXTREMITY OF THE BITTER LAKES]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the railway
between Ismaïlia and Suez, on the eastern shore of the lake.
Another of Nechos 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 Ladders
of Incense. 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.*
* 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.
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--that ally
without whom none of Nechos 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. And like unto him, exclaims their chronicler, 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. *
* 2 Kings xxiii. 25.
The events which followed his violent death--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,--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 Hilkiahs 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.
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 Jehoiakims reign, Jeremiah took
up his station on the pavement of the temple and loudly apostrophised
the crowd of worshippers. 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. 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, Thou shalt surely die.
The people thronged into the temple, the princes of Judah went up to
the kings 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, Did Hezekiah King of Judah and
all Judah put him at all to death? 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, and certain men with him, who
brought him back to Judah, slew him with the sword, and cast his dead
body into the graves of the common people. * If popular feeling had
reached such a pitch before the battle of Carchemish, to what height
must it have risen when the news of Nebuchadrezzars 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.**
* Jer. xxvi., where the scene takes place at the beginning
of Jehoiakims 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.
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 scribes penknife, and threw the fragments into the
fire. Jeremiah recomposed the text from memory, and inserted in it a
malediction against the king. 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. *
* Jer. xxxvi. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the
contents of Jeremiahs 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.
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.*
* 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 Nebuchadrezzars 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.
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, 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. Nebuchadrezzars 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
monarchs 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.**
* [Jehoiachin is called Coniah in Jer. xxii. 24 and xxiv. 1,
and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.--Tr.]
** 2 Kings xxiv. 5-10; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6-9, where the
writer says that Nebuchadrezzar bound Jehoiakim in
fetters, to carry him to Babylon.
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).*
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 fathers 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.****
* 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10.
** The length of Nechos 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 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 Wiedemanns vigorous
defence of it. The Alysian mercenarys graffito contains
the Greek translation of the current Egyptian phrase when
his Majesty came on his first military expedition into this
country, 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 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.
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.
* 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 _above Kerlcis_. Wiedemann has
corrected _Kerkis_ into _Kortis_, 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.
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 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. Following the example of their
officers, the soldiers also wrote their names here and there, each in
his own language--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.
[Illustration: 417.jpg THE FAÇADE OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ABU-SIMBEL]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
Those of them who still remained in Jerusalem repeated at every turn,
Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon... the vessels of the Lords
house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon. 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--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--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.*
* Ezelc. i. 1, 2. We see him receiving the elders in his
house in chaps, viii. 1, xiv. 1, xx. 1, et. seq.
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 kings 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.***
* Jer. xxix. 3 gives the names of two of these transmitters
of the tribute--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: _In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim_,
contains a copyists error; the reading should be: _In the
beginning of the reign of Zedekiah_ (see ver. 12).
*** Jer. xxvii., xxviii.
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 Lords house .. . and
Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, with all the captives of
Judah that went to Babylon! 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, 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. The mirth of the
bystanders was roused, but on the morrow Jeremiah appeared with a yoke
of iron, which Jahveh had put upon the neck of all the nations, that
they may serve Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon. Moreover, to destroy in
the minds of the exiled Jews any hope of speedy deliverance, he wrote
to them: 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. 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: 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. Psammetichus II. died
in 589,* and his reign, though short, was distinguished by the activity
shown in rebuilding and embellishing the temples.
* 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.
His name is met with everywhere on the banks of the Nile--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.**
* 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.
[Illustration: 422.jpg APRIES, FROM A SPHINX IN THE LOUVRE]
Drawn by Boudier, from the bronze statuette in the Louvre
Museum.
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-kiahs 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.
[Illustration: 423.jpg STELE OF NEBUCHADREZZAR]
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.
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 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. 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--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.*
* 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 Kings thirty-seventh year to 568
B.C., during the war against Amasis which will be treated
below. I have chosen the first, because of Nebuchadrezzars
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.
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. 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. 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.*
* That, at least, is what Jeremiah seems to say (xxxvii. 7):
Behold, Pharaohs army, which is come forth to help you,
shall return to Egypt into their own land. There is no hint
here of defeat or even of a battle.
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--the only
one which Egypt possessed--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.
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: 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.
[Illustration: 427.jpg PRISONERS UNDER TORTURE HAVING THEIR TONGUES TORN
OUT]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
British Museum.
The princes and officers of the king, however, complained to Zedekiah
of him: 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. 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.
[Illustration: 428.jpg A KING PUTTING OUT THE EYES OF A PRISONER]
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.
The king sent for him secretly and asked his advice, but could draw
from him nothing but threats: If thou wilt go forth unto the King of
Babylons 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 Babylons 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. 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.
[Illustration: 430b.jpg A PEOPLE CARRIED AWAY INTO CAPTIVITY]
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.
*Chron. xxxvi. 17-20. The following is the table of the
kings of Judah from the death of Solomon to the destruction
of Jerusalem:--
[Illustration: 430.jpg TABLE OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH]
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.****
* 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
all the Jews... which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes
(Daphno), and at Moph (corr. Moph, Memphis), and in the
country of Pathros.
Even after all these catastrophes Judahs 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:
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 neighbours
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. **
* 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.
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. 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.
There still remained to these misguided Jews one consolation which
they shared in common with the prophets--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.).*
* 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.
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.
[Illustration: 436.jpg BRONZE LION OF BOHBAIT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving in Mariette.
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.
* [One of the two obelisks of the Campus Martius, on which
site the Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva was built.--Tr.]
** Above the summary of the contents of the present chapter,
will be found one of these sphinxes which was discovered in
Rome.
[Illustration: 437.jpg THE SMALL OBELISK IN THE PIAZZA DELLA MINERVA AT
HOME]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
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.
* 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.
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 more fortunate than all the kings his
predecessors, and imagine, in his pride, that the gods themselves
were unable to injure him. 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.**
* 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 _Battos_ signifies _king_ 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.
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.
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.
[Illustration: 440.jpg THE OASIS OF AMOK AND THE SPRING OF THE SUN]
Drawn by Boudier, from Minutoli.
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.
[Illustration: 440b.jpg PORTION OF THE RUINS OF CYRENE]
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.
[Illustration: 443.jpg MAP OF LYBIA IN THE VITH CENTURY B.C.]
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.
[Illustration: 443b.jpg the Silphium ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast of a coin of Cyrene.
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.
[Illustration: 444.jpg WEIGHING SILPHIUM IN PRESENCE OF KING ARKESILAS]
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.
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.*
* The interpretation I have given to the sentiments of the
Egyptian army follows clearly enough from the observation of
Herodotus, that the Egyptians, having never experienced
themselves the power of the Greeks, had felt for them
nothing but contempt. 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.
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--possibly the same who had fought in the Ethiopian campaign
under Psammetichus II.--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--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 kings confidence by presenting
him with a crown of flowers on his birthday.*
* 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.
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.**
* 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.
In the south, the divine worshippers 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--Assur, Elam,
Meshech, Tubal, Edom, and Philistia--who, having incurred the vengeance
of Jahveh, had descended into the grave one after the other: 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! 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.
* 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.
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.
* 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.
This was Nebuchadrezzars 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--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. 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? 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.**
* 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.
** This seems to follow from Jeremiahs imprecations upon Kedar
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.*
* Moses of Chorene attributes to him long wars against an
Armenian king named Tigranes; but this is a fiction of a
later age.
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 _debris_ 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.**
* 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 _East India Companys Inscription_. A special
inscription, publ. by H. Rawlinson, gives an account of the
repairing of the canal Libil-khigallu, which crossed
Babylon.
We may well believe that all Nebuchadrezzars 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 _Wall of Media_; 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.
[Illustration: 456.jpg CITY DEFENDED BY A TRIPLE WALL]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of the time of
Sargon, in the Museum of the Louvre.
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.
[Illustration: 457.jpg PROBABLE SECTION OF THE TRIPLE WALL OF BABYLON]
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from the restoration by
Dieulafoy.
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.*
* 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 _East India Companys
Inscription_.
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.
[Illustration: 458.jpg FRAGMENT OF A BABYLONIAN BAS-RELIEF]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
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.
[Illustration: 459.jpg RUINS OF THE ZIGGURÂT OF THE TEMPLE OF BEL]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch in Layard.
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.*
* The sequel of this history is known from the narrative of
Berosus. Its authenticity is proved by passages on the
_Cylinder of Nabonidus_. Messer-schmidt considers that Amil-
marduk and Labashi-marduk were overthrown by the priestly
faction, but a passage on the _Cylinder_, 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.
[Illustration: 460.jpg THE STONE LION OF BABYLON]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph furnished by
Father Scheil.
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.).
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. Is not
this great Babylon, he cried, which I have built for the royal
dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my
majesty! and while he thus spake, there came a voice from heaven,
decreeing his metamorphosis into the form of a beast. 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 feathers, and his nails
like birds claws. 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.*
* Dan. iv.
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.
END OF VOL. VIII.