The collision came in B.C. 720. In that year Sargon, the founder of the last and greatest of the Assyrian dynasties, who had succeeded Shalmaneser IV. in B.C. 722, having arranged matters in Samaria and taken Hamath, pressed on against Philistia, the last inhabited country on the route which led to Egypt. Shabak, having made alliance with Hanun, king of Gaza, marched to his aid. The opposing hosts met at Ropeh, the Raphia of the Greeks, on the very borders of the desert. Sargon commanded in person on the one side, Shabak and Hanun on the other. A great battle was fought, which was for a long time stoutly contested; but the strong forms, the superior arms, and the better discipline of the Assyrians, prevailed. Asia proved herself, as she has generally done, stronger than Africa; the Egyptians and Philistines fled away in disorder; Hanun was made a prisoner; Shabak with difficulty escaped. Negotiations appear to have followed, and a convention to have been drawn up, to which the Ethiopian and Assyrian monarchs attached their seals. The lump of clay which received the impressions was found by Sir A. Layard at Nineveh, and is now in the British Museum.
Shortly afterwards, about B.C. 712, Shabak died, and was succeeded in Egypt by his son Shabatok, in Ethiopia by a certain Tehrak, who appears to have been his nephew, Tehrak exercised the paramount authority over the whole realm, but resided at Napata, while Shabatok held his court at Memphis and ruled Lower Egypt as Tehrak's representative, Assyrian aggression still continued. In B.C. 711 Sargon took Ashdod, and threatened an invasion of Egypt, which Shabatok averted by sending a submissive embassy with presents.
Six years afterwards Sargon died, and his son, Sennacherib, mounted the Assyrian throne. At once south-western Asia was in a ferment. The Phœnician and Philistine kings recently subjected by Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon, broke out in open revolt. Hezekiah, king of Judah, joined the malcontents. The aid of Egypt was implored, and certain promises of support and assistance received, in part from Tehrak, in part from Shabatok and other native rulers of nomes and cities. Sennacherib, in B.C. 701, led his army into Syria to suppress the rebellion, reduced Phœnicia, received the submission of Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and Edom; took Ascalon, Hazor, and Joppa, and was proceeding against Ekron, when for the first time he encountered an armed force in the field. A large Egyptian and Ethiopian contingent had at last reached Philistia, and, having united itself with the Ekronites, stood prepared to give the Assyrians battle near Eltekeh. The force consisted of chariots, horsemen, and footmen, and was so numerous that Sennacherib calls it "a multitude that no man could number." Once more, however, Africa had to succumb. Sennacherib at Eltekeh defeated the combined forces of Egypt and Ethiopia with as much ease and completeness as Sargon at Raphia; the multitudinous host was entirely routed, and fled from the field, leaving in the hands of the victors the greater portion of their war-chariots and several sons of one of their kings.
After this defeat, it is not surprising that Tehrak made no further effort. Hezekiah, the last rebel unsubdued, was left to defend himself as he best might. The Egyptians retreated to their own borders, and there awaited attack. It seemed as if the triumph of Assyria was assured, and as if her yoke must almost immediately be imposed alike upon Judea, upon Egypt, and upon the kingdom of Napata; but an extraordinary catastrophe averted the immediate danger, and gave to Egypt and Ethiopia a respite of thirty-four years. Sennacherib's army, of nearly two hundred thousand men, was almost totally destroyed in one night. "The angel of the Lord went forth," says the contemporary writer, Isaiah, "and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses" (Isa. xxxvii. 36). Whatever the agency employed in this remarkable destruction—whether it was caused by a simoon, or a pestilence, or by a direct visitation of the Almighty, as different writers have explained it—the event is certain. Its truth is written in the undeniable facts of later history, which show us a sudden cessation of Assyrian attack in this quarter, the kingdom of Judea saved from absorption, and the countries on the banks of the Nile left absolutely unobstructed by Assyria for the third part of a century. As the destruction happened on their borders, the Egyptians naturally enough ascribed it to their own gods, and made a boast of it centuries after. Everything marks, as one of the most noticeable facts in history, this annihilation of so great a portion of the army of the greatest of all the kings of Assyria.
The reign of Tirhakah (Tehrak) during this period appears to have been glorious. He was regarded by Judea as its protector, and exercised a certain influence over all Syria as far as Taurus, Amanus, and the Euphrates. In Africa, he brought into subjection the native tribes of the north coast, carrying his arms, according to some, as far as the Pillars of Hercules. He is exhibited at Medinet-Abou in the dress of a warrior, smiting with a mace ten captive foreign princes. He erected monuments in the Egyptian style at Thebes, Memphis, and Napata. Of all the Ethiopian sovereigns of Egypt he was undoubtedly the greatest; but towards the close of his life reverses befell him, which require to be treated of in another section.
XXI.
THE FIGHT OVER THE CARCASE—ETHIOPIA v. ASSYRIA.
The miraculous destruction of his army was accepted by Sennacherib as a warning to desist from all further attempts against the independence of Judea, and from all further efforts to extend his dominions towards the south-west. He survived the destruction during a period of seventeen years, and was actively engaged in a number of wars towards the east, the north, and the north-west, but abstained carefully from further contact with either Palestine or Egypt. His son Esarhaddon succeeded him on the throne in B.C. 681, and at once, to a certain extent, modified this policy. He re-established the Assyrian dominion over Upper Syria, Phœnicia, and even Edom; but during the first nine years of his reign the memory of his father's disaster caused him to leave Judea and Egypt unattacked. At last, however, in B.C. 672, encouraged by his many military successes, by the troubled state of Judea under the idolatrous Manasseh, who "shed innocent blood very much from one end of Jerusalem to the other" (2 Kings xxi. 16), and by the advanced age of Tehrak, which seemed to render him a less formidable antagonist now than formerly, he resumed the designs on Egypt which his father and grandfather had entertained, swept Manasseh from his path by seizing him and carrying him off a prisoner to Babylon, marched his troops from Aphek along the coast of Palestine to Raphia, and there made the dispositions which seemed to him best calculated to effect the conquest of the coveted country. As Tirhakah, aware of his intentions, had collected all his available force upon his north-east frontier, about Pelusium and its immediate neighbourhood, the Assyrian monarch took the bold resolution of proceeding southward through the waste tract, known to the Hebrews as "the desert of Shur," in such a way as to turn the flank of Tirhakah's army, to reach Pithom (Heroopolis) and to attack Memphis along the line of the Old Canal. The Arab Sheikhs of the desert were induced to lend him their aid, and facilitate his march by conveying the water necessary for his army on the backs of their camels in skins. The march was thus made in safety, though the soldiers are said to have suffered considerably from fatigue and thirst, and to have been greatly alarmed by the sight of numerous serpents.
Tehrak, on his part, did all that was possible. On learning Esarhaddon's change of route, he broke up from Pelusium, and, by a hasty march across the eastern Delta succeeded in interposing his army between Memphis and the host of the Assyrians, which had to follow the line taken by Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1884, and encountered the enemy, probably, not far from the spot where the British general completely defeated the troops of Arabi. Here for the third time Asia and Africa stood arrayed the one against the other. Assyria brought into the field a host of probably not fewer than two hundred thousand men, including a strong chariot force, a powerful cavalry, and an infantry variously armed and appointed—some with huge shields and covered by almost complete panoplies, others lightly equipped with targe and dart, or even simply with slings. Egypt opposed to her a force, probably, even more numerous, but consisting chiefly of a light-armed infantry, containing a large proportion of mercenaries whose hearts would not be in the fight, deficient in cavalry, and apt to trust mainly to its chariots. In the flat Egyptian plains lightly accoutred troops fight at a great disadvantage against those whose equipment is of greater solidity and strength; cavalry are an important arm, since there is nothing to check the impetus of a charge; and personal strength is a most important element in determining the result of a conflict. The Assyrians were more strongly made than the Egyptians; they had probably a better training; they certainly wore more armour, carried larger shields and longer spears, and were better equipped both for offence and defence. We have, unfortunately, no description of the battle; but it is in no way surprising to learn that the Assyrians prevailed; Tehrak's forces suffered a complete defeat, were driven from the field in confusion, and hastily dispersed themselves.
Memphis was then besieged, taken, and given up to pillage. The statues of the gods, the gold and silver, the turquoise and lapis lazuli, the vases, censers, jars, goblets, amphorae, the stores of ivory, ebony, cinnamon, frankincense, fine linen, crystal, jasper, alabaster, embroidery, with which the piety of kings had enriched the temples—especially the Great Temple of Phthah—during fifteen or twenty centuries, were ruthlessly carried off by the conquerors, who destined them either for the adornment of the Ninevite shrines or for their own private advantage. Tehrak's wife and concubines, together with several of his children and numerous officers of his court, left behind in consequence of his hurried flight, fell into the enemy's hands. Tehrak himself escaped, and fled first to Thebes, and then to Napata; while the army of Esarhaddon, following closely on his footsteps, advanced up the valley of the Nile, scoured the open country with their cavalry, stormed the smaller towns, and after a siege of some duration took "populous No," or Thebes, "that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the great deep" (Nahum iii. 8). All Egypt was overrun from the Mediterranean to the First Cataract; thousands of prisoners were taken and carried away captive; the Assyrian monarch was undisputed master of the entire land of Mizraïm from Migdol to Syene and from Pelusium to the City of Crocodiles.
Upon conquest followed organization. The great Assyrian was not content merely to overrun Egypt; he was bent upon holding it. Acting on the Roman principle, "Divide et impera," he broke up the country into twenty distinct principalities, over each of which he placed a governor, while in the capital of each he put an Assyrian garrison. Of the governors, by far the greater number were native Egyptians; but in one or two instances the command was given to an Assyrian. For the most part, the old divisions of the nomes were kept, but sometimes two or more nomes were thrown together and united under a single governor. Neco, an ancestor of the great Pharaoh who bore the same name (2 Kings xxiii. 29-35), had Saïs, Memphis, and the nomes that lay between them; Mentu-em-ankh had Thebes and southern Egypt as far as Elephantine. Satisfied with these arrangements, the conqueror returned to Nineveh, having first, however, sculptured on the rocks at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb a representation of his person and an account of his conquests.
Egypt lay at the feet of Assyria for about three or four years (B.C. 672-669). Then the struggle was renewed. Tehrak, who had bided his time, learning that Esarhaddon was seized with a mortal malady, issued (B.C. 669) from his Ethiopian fastnesses, descended the valley of the Nile, expelled the governors whom Esarhaddon had set up, and possessed himself of the disputed territory. Thebes received him with enthusiasm, as one attached to the worship of Ammon; and the priests of Phthah opened to him the gates of Memphis, despite the efforts of Neco and the Assyrian garrison. The religious sympathy between Ethiopia and Egypt was an important factor in the as yet undecided contest, and helped much to further the Ethiopic cause. But in war sentiment can effect but little. Physical force, on the whole, prevails, unless in the rare instances where miracle intervenes, or where patriotic enthusiasm is exalted to such a pitch as to strike physical force with impotency.
In the conflict that was now raging patriotism had little part. Ethiopia and Assyria were contending, partly for military pre-eminence, partly for the prey that lay between them, inviting a master—the rich and now weak Egyptian kingdom. Tehrak's success, communicated to the Assyrian Court by the dispossessed governors, drew forth almost immediately a counter effort on the part of Assyria, which did not intend to relinquish without a struggle the important addition that Esarhaddon had made to the empire. In B.C. 668, Asshur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, having succeeded his father Esarhaddon, put the forces of Assyria once more in motion, and swooping down upon the unhappy Egypt, succeeded in carrying all before him, defeated Tehrak at Karbanit in the Delta, recovered Memphis and Thebes, forced Tehrak to take refuge at Napata, re-established in power the twenty petty kings, and restored the country in all respects to the condition into which it had been brought four years previously by Esarhaddon. Egypt thus passed under the Assyrians for the second time, Ethiopia relinquishing her hold upon the prey as soon as Assyria firmly grasped it.
Still the matter was not yet settled, the conflict was not yet ended. The petty kings themselves began now to coquet with Tehrak, and to invite his co-operation in an attempt, which they promised they would make, to throw off the yoke of the Assyrians. Detected in this intrigue, Neco and two others were arrested by the Assyrian commandants, loaded with chains, and sent as prisoners to Nineveh. But their arrest did not check the movement. On the contrary, the spirit of revolt spread. The commandants tried to stop it by measures of extreme severity: they sacked the great cities of the Delta—Saïs, Mendes, and Tanis or Zoan; but all was of no avail. Tehrak once more took the field, descended the Nile valley, recovered Thebes, and threatened Memphis. Asshur-bani-pal upon this hastily sent Neco from Nineveh at the head of an Assyrian army to exert his influence on the Assyrian side—which he was content to do, since the Ninevite monarch had made him chief of the petty kings, and conferred the principality of Athribis on his son, Psamatik. Tehrak, in alarm retreated from his bold attempt, evacuated Thebes and returned to his own dominions, where he shortly afterwards died (B.C. 667).
It might have been expected that the death of the aged warrior-king would have been the signal for Ethiopia to withdraw from the struggle so long maintained, and relinquish Egypt to her rival; but the actual result was the exact contrary. Tehrak was succeeded at Napata by his step-son, Rut-Ammon, a young prince of a bold and warlike temper. Far from recoiling from the enterprize which Tehrak had adjudged hopeless, he threw himself into it with the utmost ardour. Once more an Ethiopian army descended the Nile valley, occupied Thebes, engaged and defeated a combined Egyptian and Assyrian force near Memphis, took the capital, made its garrison prisoners, and brought under subjection the greater portion of the Delta. Neco, having fallen into the hands of the Ethiopians, was cruelly put to death. His son, Psamatik, saved himself by a timely flight.
History now "repeated itself." In B.C. 666 Asshur-bani-pal made, in person, a second expedition into Egypt, defeated Rut-Ammon upon the frontier, recovered Memphis, marched upon Thebes, Rut-Ammon retiring as he advanced, stormed and sacked the great city, inflicted wanton injury on its temples, carried off its treasures, and enslaved its population. The triumph of the Assyrian arms was complete. Very shortly all resistance ceased. The subject princes were replaced in their principalities. Asshur-bani-pal's sovereignty was universally acknowledged, and Ethiopia, apparently, gave up the contest.
One more effort was, however, made by the southern power. On the death of Rut-Ammon, Mi-Ammon-Nut, probably a son of Tirhakah's, became king of Ethiopia, and resolved on a renewal of the war. Egyptian disaffection might always be counted on, whichever of the two great powers held temporary possession of the country; and Mi-Ammon-Nut further courted the favour of the Egyptian princes, priests, and people, by an ostentatious display of zeal for their religion. Assyria had allowed the temples to fall into decay; the statues of the gods had in some instances been cast down, the temple revenues confiscated, the priests restrained in their conduct of the religious worship. Mi-Ammon-Nut proclaimed himself the chosen of Ammon, and the champion of the gods of Egypt. On entering each Egyptian town he was careful to visit its chief temple, to offer sacrifices and gifts, to honour the images and lead them in procession, and to pay all due respect to the college of priests. This prudent policy met with complete success. As he advanced down the Nile valley, he was everywhere received with acclamations. "Go onward in the peace of thy name," they shouted, "go onward in the peace of thy name. Dispense life throughout all the land—that the temples may be restored which are hastening to ruin; that the statues of the gods may be set up after their manner; that their revenues may be given back to the gods and goddesses, and the offerings of the dead to the deceased; that the priest may be established in his place, and all things be fulfilled according to the Holy Ritual." In many places where it had been intended to oppose his advance in arms, the news of his pious acts produced a complete revulsion of feeling, and "those whose intention it had been to fight were moved with joy." No one opposed him until he had nearly reached the northern capital, Memphis, which was doubtless held in force by the Assyrians, to whom the princes of Lower Egypt were still faithful. A battle, accordingly, was fought before the walls, and in this Mi-Ammon-Nut was victorious; the Egyptians probably did not fight with much zeal, and the Assyrians, distrusting their subject allies, may well have been dispirited. After the victory, Memphis opened her gates, and soon afterwards the princes of the Delta thought it best to make their submission—the Assyrians, we must suppose, retired—Mi-Ammon-Nut's authority was acknowledged, and the princes, having transferred their allegiance to him, were allowed to retain their governments.
The consequences of this last Ethiopian invasion of Egypt appear to have been transient. Mi-Ammon-Nut did not live very long to enjoy his conquest, and in Egypt he had no successor. He was not even recognized by the Egyptians among their legitimate kings. Egypt at his death reverted to her previous position of dependence upon Assyria, feeling herself still too weak to stand alone, and perhaps not greatly caring, so that she had peace, which of the two great powers she acknowledged as her suzerain. She had now (about B.C. 650) for above twenty years been fought over by the two chief kingdoms of the earth—each of them had traversed with huge armies, as many as five or six times, the Nile valley from one extremity to the other; the cities had been half ruined, harvest after harvest destroyed, trees cut down, temples rifled, homesteads burnt, villas plundered. Thebes, the Hundred-gated, probably for many ages quite the most magnificent city in the world, had become a by-word for desolation (Nahum iii. 8, 9); Memphis, Heliopolis, Tanis, Saïs, Mendes, Bubastis, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis; Crocodilopolis, had been taken and retaken repeatedly; the old buildings and monuments had been allowed to fall into decay; no king had been firmly enough established on his throne to undertake the erection of any but insignificant new ones. Egypt was "fallen, fallen, fallen—fallen from her high estate;" an apathy, not unlike the stillness of death, brooded over her; literature was silent, art extinct; hope of recovery can scarcely have lingered in many bosoms. As events proved, the vital spark was not actually fled; but the keenest observer would scarcely have ventured to predict, at any time between B.C. 750 and B.C. 650, such a revival as marked the period between B.C. 650 and B.C. 530.
XXII.
THE CORPSE COMES TO LIFE AGAIN—PSAMATIK I. AND HIS SON NECO.
When a country has sunk so gradually, so persistently, and for so long a series of years as Egypt had now been sinking, if there is a revival, it must almost necessarily come from without. The corpse cannot rise without assistance—the expiring patient cannot cure himself. All the vital powers being sapped, all the energies having departed, the Valley of the Shadow of Death having been entered, nothing can arrest dissolution but some foreign stock, some blood not yet vitiated, some "saviour" sent by Divine providence from outside the nation (Isa. xix. 20), to recall the expiring life, to revivify the paralyzed frame, to infuse fresh energy into it, and to make it once more live, breathe, act, think, assert itself. Yet the saviour must not be altogether from without. He must not be a conqueror, for conquest necessarily weakens and depresses; he must not be too remote in blood, or he will lack the power fully to understand and sympathize with the nation which he is to restore, and without true understanding and true sympathy he can effect nothing; he must not be a stranger to the nation's recent history, or he will make mistakes that will be irremediable. What is wanted is a scion of a foreign stock, connected by marriage and otherwise with the nation that he is to regenerate, and well acquainted with its circumstances, character, position, history, virtues, weaknesses. No entirely new man can answer to these requirements; he must be found, if he is to be found at all, among the principal men of the time, whose lot has for some considerable period been cast in with the State which is to be renovated.
In Egypt, at the time of which we are speaking, exactly this position was occupied by Psamatik, son of Neco. He was, according to all appearance, of Libyan origin; his stock was new; his name and his father's name are unheard of hitherto in Egyptian history; etymologically, they are non-Egyptian; and Psamatik has a non-Egyptian countenance. He was probably of the same family as "Inarus the Libyan," whose father was a Psamatik. He belonged thus to a Libyan stock, which had, however, been crossed, more than once, with the blood of the Egyptians. The family was one of those Libyan families which had long been domiciled at Saïs, and had intermarried with the older Saites, who were predominantly Egyptian. He had also for twenty years or more been an important unit in the Egyptian political system, having shared the vicissitudes of his father's fortunes from B.C. 672 to B.C. 667, and having then been placed at the head of one of the many principalities into which Egypt was divided. In the same, or the next, year he seems to have succeeded his father; and he had reigned at Saïs for sixteen or seventeen years before he felt himself called upon to take any step that was at all abnormal, or attempt in any way to change his position.
Familiar with the politics and institutions of Egypt, yet, as a semi-Libyan, devoid of Egyptian prejudices, and full of the ambition which naturally inspires young princes of a vigorous stock, Psamatik had at once the desire to shake off the yoke of Assyria, and reunite Egypt under his own sway, and also a willingness to adopt any means, however new and strange, by which such a result might be accomplished. He had probably long watched for a favourable moment at which to give his ambition vent, and found it at last in the circumstances that ushered in the second half of the seventh century. Assyria was, about B.C. 651, brought into a position of great difficulty, by the revolt of Babylon in alliance with Elam, and was thus quite unable to exercise a strict surveillance over the more distant parts of the Empire. The garrison by which she held Egypt had probably been weakened by the withdrawal of troops for the defence of Assyria Proper; at any rate, it could not be relieved or strengthened under the existing circumstances. At the same time a power had grown up in Asia Minor, which was jealous of Assyria, having lately been made to tremble for its independence. Gyges of Lydia had, in a moment of difficulty, been induced to acknowledge himself Assyria's subject; but he had emerged triumphant from the perils surrounding him, had reasserted his independent authority, and was anxious that the power of Assyria should be, as much as possible, diminished. Psamatik must have been aware of this. Casting his eyes around the political horizon in search of any ally at once able and willing to lend him aid, he fixed upon Lydia as likely to be his best auxiliary, and dispatched an embassy into Asia Minor. Gyges received his application favourably, and sent him a strong Asiatic contingent, chiefly composed of Ionians and Carians. Both races were at this time warlike, and wore armour of much greater weight and strength than any which the Egyptians were accustomed to carry. It was in reliance, mainly, on these foreigners, that Psamatik ventured to proclaim himself "King of the Two Countries," and to throw out a gage of defiance at once to his Assyrian suzerain and to his nineteen fellow-princes.
The gage was not taken up by Assyria. Immersed in her own difficulties, threatened in three quarters, on the south, on the south-east, and on the east by Babylonia, by Elam, and by Media, she had enough to do at home in guarding her own frontiers, and seeking to keep under her immediate neighbours, and was therefore in no condition to engage in distant expeditions, or even to care very much what became of a remote and troublesome dependency. Thus Assyria made no sign. But the petty princes took arms at once. To them the matter was one of life or death; they must either crush the usurper or be themselves swept out of existence. So they gathered together in full force. Pakrur from Pisabtu, and Petubastes from Tanis, and Sheshonk from Busiris, and Tafnekht from Prosopitis, and Bek-en-nefi from Athribis, and Nakh-he from Heracleopolis, and Pimai from Mendes, and Lamentu from Hermopolis, and Mentu-em-ankh from Thebes, and other princes from other cities, met and formed their several contingents into a single army, and stood at bay near Momemphis, the modern Menouf, in the western Delta, on the borders of the Libyan Desert. Here a great battle was fought, which was for some time doubtful; but the valour of the Greco-Carians, and the superiority of their equipment, prevailed. The victory rested with Psamatik; his adversaries were defeated and dispersed; following up his first success, he proceeded to attack city after city, forcing all to submit, and determined that he would nowhere tolerate even the shadow of a rival. Disintegration had been the curse of Egypt for the space of above a century; Psamatik put an end to it. No more princes of Bubastis, or of Tanis, or of Saïs, or of Mendes, or of Heracleopolis, or of Thebes! No more eikosiarchies, dodecarchies, or heptarchies even! Monarchy pure, the absolute rule of one and one only sovereign over the whole of Egypt, from the cataracts of Syene to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from Pelusium and Migdol to Momemphis and Marea, was established, and henceforth continued, as long as Egyptian rule endured. The lesson had been learnt at a tremendous cost, but it had now at last been thoroughly learnt, that only in unity is there strength—that the separate sticks of the faggot are impotent to resist the external force which the collective bundle might without difficulty have defied and scorned.
Psamatik had gained the object of his ambition—sovereignty over all Egypt; he had now to consider how it might best be kept. And first, as that which is won by the sword must be kept by the sword, he made arrangements with the troops sent to his aid by Gyges, that they should take permanent service under his banner, and form the most important element in his standing army. His native troops were quartered at Elephantine, in the extreme south, and in Marea and Daphnæ, at the two extremities of the Delta towards the west and east. The new accession to his military strength he stationed at no great distance from the capital, settling them in permanent camps on either side of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, near the city of Bubastis. We are told that this exaltation of the new corps to the honourable position of keeping watch upon the capital, greatly offended the native troops, and induced 200,000 of them to quit Egypt and seek service with the Ethiopians. The facts have probably been exaggerated, for Ethiopia certainly does not gain, or Egypt lose, in strength, either at or after this period.
Psamatik, further, for the better securing of his throne against pretenders, thought it prudent to contract a marriage with the descendant of a royal stock held in honour by many of his subjects. The princess, Shepenput, was the daughter of a Piankhi, who claimed descent from the unfortunate Bek-en-ranf, the king burnt alive by Shabak, and who had also probably some royal Ethiopian blood in his veins. By his nuptials with this princess, Psamatik assured to his crown the legitimacy which it had hitherto lacked. Uniting henceforth in his own person the rights of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth dynasties, those of the Saïtes and those of the Ethiopians, he became the one and only legal king, and no competitor could possibly arise with a title to sovereignty higher or better than his own.
Being now personally secure, he could turn his attention to the restoration and elevation of the nationality of which he had taken it upon him to assume the direction. He could cast his eyes over the unhappy Egypt—depressed, down-trodden, well-nigh trampled to death—and give his best consideration to the question what was to be done to restore her to her ancient greatness. There she lay before his eyes in a deplorable state of misery and degradation. All the great cities, her glory and her boast in former days, had suffered more or less in the incessant wars; Memphis had been besieged and pillaged half a dozen times; Thebes had been sacked and burnt twice; from Syene to Pelusium there was not a town which had not been injured in one or other of the many invasions. The canals and roads, carefully repaired by Shabak, had since his decease met with entire neglect; the cultivable lands had been devastated, and the whole population decimated periodically. Out of the ruins of the old Egypt, Psamatik had to raise up a new Egypt. He had to revivify the dead corpse, and put a fresh life into the stiff and motionless limbs. With great energy and determination he set himself to accomplish the task. Applying himself, first of all, to the restoration of what was decayed and ruined, he re-established the canals and the roads, encouraged agriculture, favoured the development of the population. The ruined towns were gradually repaired and rebuilt, and vast efforts made everywhere to restore, and even to enlarge and beautify the sacred edifices. At Memphis, Psamatik built the great southern portal which gave completeness to the ancient temple of the god Phthah, and also constructed a grand court for the residence of the Apis-Bulls, surrounded by a colonnade, against the piers of which stood colossal figures of Osiris, from eighteen to twenty feet in height. At Thebes he re-erected the portions of the temple of Karnak, which had been thrown down by the Assyrians; at Saïs, Mendes, Heliopolis, and Philæ he undertook extensive works. The entire valley of the Nile became little more than one huge workshop, where stone-cutters and masons, bricklayers and carpenters, laboured incessantly. Under the liberal encouragement of the king and of his chief nobles, the arts recovered themselves and began to flourish anew. The engraving and painting of the hieroglyphics were resumed with success, and carried out with a minuteness and accuracy that provokes the admiration of the beholder. Bas-reliefs of extreme beauty and elaboration characterize the period. There rests upon some of them "a gentle and almost feminine tenderness, which has impressed upon the imitations of living creatures the stamp of an incredible delicacy both of conception and execution." Statues and statuettes of merit were at the same time produced in abundance. The "Saïtie art", as that of the revival under the Psamatiks has been called, is characterized by an extreme neatness of manipulation in the drawings and lines, the fineness of which often reminds us of the performances of a seal-engraver, by grace, softness, tenderness, and elegance. It is not the broad, but somewhat realistic style of the Memphitic period, much less the highly imaginative and vigorous style of the Ramesside kings; but it is a style which has quiet merits of its own, sweet and pure, full of refinement and delicacy.
Egypt was thus rendered flourishing at home; her magnificent temples and other edifices put off their look of neglect; her cities were once more busy seats of industry and traffic; her fields teemed with rich harvests; her population increased; her whole aspect changed. But the circumstances of the time led Psamatik to attempt something more. His employment of Greek and Carian mercenaries naturally led him on into an intimacy with foreigners, and into a regard and consideration for them quite unknown to previous Pharaohs, and in contradiction to ordinary Egyptian prejudices. Egypt was the China of the Old World, and had for ages kept herself as much as possible aloof from foreigners, and looked upon them with aversion. Foreign vessels were, until the time of Psamatik, forbidden to enter any of the Nile mouths, or to touch at an Egyptian port. Psamatik saw that the new circumstances required an extensive change. The mercenaries, if they were to be content with their position, must be allowed to communicate freely with the cities and countries from which they came, and intercourse between Greece and Egypt must be encouraged rather than forbidden. Accordingly the Greeks were invited to make settlements in the Delta, and Naucratis, favourably situated on the Canopic branch of the Nile, was specially assigned to them as a residence. Most of the more enterprizing among the commercial states of the time took advantage of the opening, and Miletus, Phocæa, Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Mytilene, Halicarnassus, and Ægina established factories at the locality specified, built temples there to the Greek gods, and sent out a body of colonists. A considerable trade grew up between Egypt and Greece. The Egyptians of the higher classes especially appreciated the flavour and quality of the Greek wines, which were consequently imported into the country in large quantities. Greek pottery and Greek glyptic art also attracted a certain amount of favour. On her side Egypt exported corn, alum, muslin and linen fabrics, and the excellent paper which she made from the Cyperus Papyrus.
The trade thus established was carried on mainly, if not wholly, in Greek bottoms, the Egyptians having a distaste to the sea, and regarding commerce with no great favour. Nevertheless, the life and stir which foreign commerce introduced among them, the familiarity with strange customs and manners, engendered by daily intercourse with the Greeks, the acquisition (on the part of some) of the Greek language, the sight of Greek modes of worship, of Greek painting and Greek sculpture, the insight into Greek habits of thought, which could not but follow, produced no inconsiderable effect upon the national character of the Egyptians, shaking them out of their accustomed groove, and awakening curiosity and inquiry. The effect was scarcely beneficial. Egyptian national life had been eminently conservative and unchanging. The introduction of novelty in ten thousand shapes unsettled and disturbed it. The old beliefs were shaken, and a multitude of superstitions rushed in. The corruptions introduced by the Greeks were more easy of adoption and imitation than the sterling points of their character, their intelligence, their unwearied energy, their love of truth. Egypt was awakened to a new life by the novel circumstances of the Psamatik period; but it was a fitful life, unquiet, unnatural, feverish. The character of the men lost in dignity and strength by the discontinuance of military training consequent upon the substitution for a native army of an army of mercenaries. The position of the women sank through the adoption of those ideas concerning them which their contact with orientals had engrained into the minds of the Asiatic Greeks. The national spirit of the people was sapped by the concentration of the royal favour on a race of foreigners whose manners and customs were abhorrent to them, and whom they regarded with envy and dislike. If some improvement is to be seen on the surface of Egyptian life under the Psamatiks, some greater activity and enterprise, some increased intellectual stir, some improved methods in art, these ameliorations scarcely compensate for the indications of decline which lie deeper, and which in the sequel determined the fate of the nation.
The later years of the reign of Psamatik were coincident with a time of extreme trouble and confusion in Asia, in the course of which the Assyrian Monarchy came to an end, and south-western Asia was partitioned between the Medes and the Babylonians. A tempting field was laid open for an ambitious prince, who might well have dreamt of Syrian or even Mesopotamian conquest, and of recalling the old glories of Seti, Thothmes, and Amenhotep. Psamatik did go so far as to make an attack upon Philistia, but met with so little success that he was induced to restrain any grander aspirations which he may have cherished, and to leave the Asiatic monarchs to settle Asiatic affairs as it pleased them. Ashdod, we are told, resisted the Egyptian arms for twenty-nine years; and though it fell at last, the prospect of half-a-dozen such sieges was not encouraging. Psamatik, moreover, was an old man by the time that the Assyrian Empire fell to pieces, and we can understand his shrinking from a distant and dangerous expedition. He left the field open for his son, Neco, having in no way committed him, but having secured for him a ready entrance into Asia by his conquest of the Philistine fortress.
Neco, the son of Psamatik I., from the moment that he ascended the throne, resolved to make the bold stroke for empire from which his father had held back. Regarding his mercenary army as a sufficient land force, he concentrated his energies on the enlargement and improvement of his navy, which was weak in numbers and of antiquated construction. Naval architecture had recently made great strides, first by the inventiveness of the Phœnicians, who introduced the bireme, and then by the skill of the Greeks, who, improving on the hint furnished them, constructed the trireme. Neco, by the help of Greek artificers, built two fleets, both composed of triremes, one in the ports which opened on the Red Sea, the other in those upon the Mediterranean. He then, with the object of uniting the two fleets into one, when occasion should require, made an attempt to re-open the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, which had been originally constructed by Seti I. and Ramesses II., but had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The Nile mud and the desert sand had combined to silt it up. Neco commenced excavations on a large scale, following the line of the old cutting, but greatly widening it, so that triremes might meet in it and pass each other, without shipping their oars. After a time, however, he felt compelled to desist, without effecting his purpose, owing to an extraordinary mortality among the labourers. According to Herodotus, 120,000 of them perished. At any rate, the suffering and loss of life, probably by epidemics, was such as induced him to relinquish his project, and to turn his thoughts toward gaining his end in another way.
Might not Nature have herself established a water communication between the two seas by which Egypt was washed? It was well known that the Mediterranean and the Red Sea both communicated with an open ocean, and it was the universal teaching of the Greek geographers, that the ocean flowed round the whole earth. Neco determined to try whether Africa was not circumnavigable. Manning some ships with Phœnician mariners, as the boldest and most experienced, accustomed to brave the terrors of the Atlantic outside the Pillars of Hercules, he dispatched them from a port on the Red Sea, with orders to sail southwards, keeping the coast of Africa on their right, and see if they could not return to Egypt by way of the Mediterranean. The enterprise succeeded. The ships, under the skilful guidance of the Phœnicians, anticipated the feat of Vasco di Gama—rounded the Cape of Storms, and returned by way of the Atlantic, the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean to the land from which they had set out. But they did not reach Egypt till the third year. The success obtained was thus of no practical value, so far as the Pharaoh's warlike projects were concerned. He had to relinquish the idea of uniting his two fleets in one, owing to the length of the way and the dangers of the navigation.
He had, however, no mind to relinquish his warlike projects, Syria, Phœnicia, and Palestine were still in an unsettled state, the yoke of Assyria being broken, and that of Babylon not yet firmly fixed on them. Josiah was taking advantage of the opportunity to extend his authority over Samaria. Phœnicia was hesitating whether to submit to Nabopolassar or to assert her freedom. The East generally was In a ferment. Neco in B.C. 608, determined to make his venture. At the head of a large army, consisting mainly of his mercenaries, he took the coast route into Syria, supported by his Mediterranean fleet along the shore, and proceeding through the low tracts of Philistia and Sharon, prepared to cross the ridge of hills which shuts in on the south the great plain of Esdraëlon; but here he found his passage barred by an army. Josiah, either because he feared that, if Neco were successful, his own position would be imperilled, or because he had entered into engagements with Nabopolassar, had resolved to oppose the further progress of the Egyptian army, and had occupied a strong position near Megiddo, on the southern verge of the plain. In vain did Neco seek to persuade him to retire, and leave the passage free. Josiah was obstinate, and a battle became unavoidable. As was to be expected, the Jewish army suffered complete defeat; Neco swept it from his path, and pursued his way, while Josiah mortally wounded, was conveyed in his reserve chariot to Jerusalem. The triumphant Pharaoh pushed forward into Syria and carried all before him as far as Carchemish on the Euphrates. The whole country submitted to him. After a campaign which lasted three months, Neco returned in triumph to his own land, carrying with him Jehoahaz, the second son of Josiah, as a prisoner, and leaving Jehoiakim, the eldest son, as tributary monarch, at Jerusalem.
For three years Egypt enjoyed the sense of triumph, and felt herself once more a conquering power, capable of contending on equal terms with any state or kingdom that the world contained. But then Nemesis swooped down on her. In B.C. 605 Nabopolassar of Babylon woke up to a consciousness of his loss of prestige, and determined on an effort to retrieve it. Too old to undertake a distant campaign in person, he placed his son, Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of his troops, and sent him into Syria to recover the lost provinces. Neco met him on the Euphrates. A great battle was fought at Carchemish between the forces of Egypt and Babylon, in which the former suffered a terrible defeat. We have no historical account of it, but may gratefully accept, instead, the prophetic description of Jeremiah:—
Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets;
Furbish the spears, and put on the brigandines.
Wherefore have I seen them dismayed, and turned away backward?
And their mighty ones are beaten down, and fled apace, and look not behind them;
For fear is round about, saith Jehovah.
Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty men escape;
They shall stumble and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates.
Who is this that cometh up as a flood [like the Nile], whose waters are moved as the rivers?
Egypt rises up as a flood [like the Nile], and his waters are moved as the rivers;
And he saith, I will go up, and I will cover the earth;
I will destroy the city, with its inhabitants.
Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth;
Cush and Phut, that handle the shield, and Lud that handles and bends the bow.
For this is the day of the Lord, the Lord of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may smite his foes;
And the sword shall devour, and be made satiate and drunk with blood;
For the Lord, the Lord of Hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country, by the river Euphrates.
Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt!
In vain shalt thou use many medicines; to thee no cure shall come.
The nations have heard of thy shame, and thy cry hath filled the land;
For the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, and both are fallen together."[29]
The disaster was utter, complete, not to be remedied—the only thing to be done was to "fly apace," to put the desert and the Nile between the vanquished and the victors, and to deprecate the conqueror's anger by submission. Neco gave up the contest, evacuated Syria and Palestine, and hastily sought the shelter of his own land, whither Nebuchadnezzar would probably have speedily followed him, had not news arrived of his father's, Nabopolassar's, death. To secure the succession, he had to return, as quickly as he could, to Babylon, and to allow the Egyptian monarch, at any rate, a breathing space.
Thus ended the dream of the recovery of an Asiatic Empire, which Psamatik may have cherished, and of which Neco attempted the realization. The defeat of Carchemish shattered the unsubstantial fabric into atoms, and gave a death-blow to hopes which no Pharaoh ever entertained afterwards.