The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)

The number of the emigrants in this narrative, which is obviously part of the tradition of Egypt, is of course exaggerated. Manetho gives the same number (240,000) for the Hyksos who emigrated from Egypt, and for these emigrants. Even Diodorus found a difficulty in this number; he diminished it, and says, "more than 200,000." Moreover, in any case, a considerable number of the old military order must have remained in Egypt. The successors of Psammetichus, who favoured the Greek mercenaries as much as Psammetichus himself, certainly did not increase the native military order, still less did the Persians after their conquest of the land. Yet Herodotus tells us that about the middle of the fifth century, i. e. more than a century and a half after the emigration, the military order in Egypt numbered more than 400,000. If the number of the emigrants really reached 240,000 men, it is inexplicable why so strong a body did not prefer to make themselves masters of Egypt, rather than go in laborious search of uncertain conquests in distant lands. Herodotus' statement that it was the garrison at Elephantine which emigrated no doubt leads us in the direction of the actual occurrence. This garrison cannot have been 240,000 strong, as his narrative states; we cannot assume that it was stronger than the ordinary border garrison against Syria, i. e. from 30,000 to 40,000 men. It may have been a part of the army, of about this strength, encamped on the southern border, which deserted to the king of Napata, and preferred service with the Ethiopians to service with Psammetichus. To Psammetichus himself it could only appear a desirable thing, if the discontented elements of the old army left the country. But this desertion to the king of Napata added considerably to the fighting strength of the latter, and might entice him even into an attack on Egypt. The emigration could not be hindered by force; it was the garrison in charge of the border who were emigrating. To pursue the emigrants with a force was only to be too late, and kindle war with Napata. It entirely suits this situation that Psammetichus should send after the fugitives, and then go in person, in order to induce them to return by gracious promises. According as the Syrian war of Psammetichus is placed before or after the Scythian invasion, this emigration, which in Diodorus is a consequence of that war, must be placed after the year 630 B.C. or after the year 615 B.C.

The Greeks were not favoured in the army only. It was part of the political system of Psammetichus to open the mouths of the Nile to them and the Phenicians, to give them access to all the harbours, and allow them, the "unclean" in the view of the older Egyptians, to settle on Egyptian soil. The Greeks soon came in considerable numbers. The Milesians obtained permission to build a citadel on the Bolbitinic mouth, and higher up, at the separation of the Bolbitinic and Canopic arms, they built the city of Naucratis, the name of which was taken, no doubt, from the conflict on the Nile (p. 302). The Phenicians obtained a special quarter on the Nile, "the camp of the Tyrians," in which to erect a temple to the Syrian goddess.

Psammetichus continued to sit on the throne of the Pharaohs for 40 years after he had expelled the Assyrians, and obtained the absolute power (from 650-610 B.C.). How far he succeeded, in this space of time, in healing the grievous wounds inflicted on the country by the alternating struggle of Ethiopians and Assyrians, and the war of liberation, the civil war, – in restoring Memphis, Sais, Tanis, and Thebes, after their destruction, we cannot ascertain. But the impulse given to trade and intercourse by the opening of the harbours, the favour shown to the Greeks and Phenicians, in any case increased the welfare of Egypt, and the industrial and artistic activity which begins in the reign of Psammetichus presupposes considerable prosperity in the land. Psammetichus knew how to restore the ancient splendour of the double crown. He built at Karnac and on the island of Philæ. At Sais, the home of his family and his residence, he built a splendid residence. The ancient shrine of Ptah at Memphis he surrounded with a wall, and added a new gate to the temple towards the south. Opposite this gate he built a new hall for the Apis, the walls of which were covered with sculptures, and the porticoes had colossi 12 cubits in height.576 In the burying-ground at Memphis he caused the temple of Osiris-Apis, "his father," the grave-temple on the eminence, to which the double row of sphinxes led from the city (I. 67), to be restored; "that it might be as it had been before." As the gallery which Ramses II. had caused to be hewn in the rock for the reception of the Apis bulls was no longer sufficient, Psammetichus added one still larger and more beautiful. The two Apis bulls which died in his reign – in the twentieth and the thirty-fifth year – were buried with due solemnity and pomp, the second being placed in the new gallery.577 From no reign is the number of monuments in these tombs of the Apis, by which those who dedicated them sought to recommend themselves to the favour of Osiris, greater than from the reign of Psammetichus. With his buildings Egyptian art took a new impulse, which was also the last. The forms are lighter, more delicate, more mobile, and far more natural; the hieroglyphics are carried to a marvellous degree of delicacy. For the statues the artists of this period preferred the black and grey basalt to granite. In the dimensions, sculpture as well as architecture remained far behind the period of the ancient kingdom, behind the period of the Tuthmosis and Amenophis, of Sethos and Ramses.

The son and successor of Psammetichus, who was called Necho after his grandfather, followed in the path which his father had pointed out and opened. He paid especial attention to the foreign trade, the arming of Egypt on the sea. He hastened to create a navy for Egypt on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Herodotus observes that he had himself seen the docks for the ships on his journey to Egypt.578 Egypt was stronger by sea if the same fleet could be used on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Thus Necho came back to the views of Ramses II., to the great canal for uniting the Nile with the Red Sea. By this the trade of Egypt with South Arabia, and the trade on the Arabian Gulf, was brought into direct connection with the marine trade of the Mediterranean. Necho took up the excavation of the canal commenced by Ramses II., which was at that time carried as far as the region of the Bitter Lakes. The excavation was first to be carried eastward as far as the Bitter Lakes, and from this point the land was to be pierced in a southerly direction as far as the apex of the Red Sea. At the same time the canal was to be widened, and the new watercourse made so broad, that two triremes could easily find a place side by side – an undertaking worthy to be placed by the side of the buildings of the ancient kings. The old canal was soon excavated more completely, the Bitter Lakes were reached,579 but the reach from this point to the Red Sea remained unaccomplished, though the work was carried on so vigorously and even ruthlessly that, according to Herodotus, 120,000 men perished there in the desert. According to Herodotus too, a prophecy induced the king to desist from the completion of the canal: it was announced to him that he was working for barbarians, but Strabo, with greater probability, states that the death of the king interrupted the work.

Necho did not wait for the completion of the canal in order to explore the coasts of the Arabian Gulf and the Sea in the South. The Phenicians who, from the times of Solomon in Israel, had desired to gain the trade with South Arabia by sea, who under Solomon, Jehoshaphat, and Uzziah, had commenced and carried on navigation thither from Elath and Eziongeber, could now renew these voyages from Egypt. With a view of furthering trade and navigation, Necho sent, as Herodotus tells us, Phenicians down the Red Sea, with the injunction to return through the pillars of Heracles. These Phenicians, we are told, passed into the South Sea; "and when it was autumn they went ashore and sowed the land, whereon they happened to be in Libya, and waited for the harvest, and when they had gathered it in, they again went on board ship, so that after they had been two years at sea, they rounded the pillars in the third year, and came to Egypt. And they told a story, which to me is incredible, though perhaps not equally so to another. They said that when they sailed round Libya, they had the sun on the right hand." By this to him incredible statement Herodotus proves the reality of this, the most ancient circumnavigation of Africa. As soon as the equator was passed, the expedition would see the sun on the north, i. e. on the right hand, which to Herodotus, according to the Greek conception of the sun and the earth, must have seemed incredible.

The kingdom of the Assyrians, which for more than a hundred years had threatened Egypt, governed her, and threatened her again, was at the last gasp when Necho, in the year 610 B.C., ascended the throne of his father. The inundation of the Sacæ had shattered the cohesion of the Assyrian power; Nabopolassar of Babylon, and Cyaxares of Media, had already been united against Assyria for ten years past; even now, after Nabopolassar had brought about a peace between Lydia and Media, they set themselves to give the last blow to the fallen remnant of Assyria. Psammetichus had attempted to establish himself in the south-west corner of Syria; a more favourable moment could not come to Egypt for winning Syria, for repeating the campaigns of the ancient Pharaohs to the Euphrates, and showing in this direction also the new royal house to be the restorer of the ancient glory. Apart from such considerations, prudence bade them not to leave the spoil to the Babylonians alone. What would Egypt win by the fall of Assyria, if Babylon took her place in Syria and became the neighbour of Egypt? Necho marched against Syria. It seems that in order to avoid the difficult route through the desert, he transported his army on board his fleet to the Syrian coast. The landing took place in the neighbourhood of Carmel – at any rate we find that the first collision of the Egyptians and Syrians took place there.

Twelve years had elapsed since king Josiah of Judah had introduced the new law, and rigorously enforced the worship of Jehovah. The dominion of the kings of Nineveh over Syria was past: Josiah was not inclined to exchange this for the yoke of Egypt. Had the Egyptians come by land, Josiah must have met the army of Necho in the South of Judah. The armies met under Carmel on the Kishon: the battle broke out in the valley of Megiddo. The numbers of the Egyptian army ensured victory, they must have been overpowering. The Jews were defeated; Josiah fell; his corpse was carried from the battle-field by his servants (609 B.C.). In the camp at Hadad Rimmon the remnant of the Jewish army lamented over the pious king – who then found his resting-place in the sepulchres of his fathers at Jerusalem – and sang songs of lamentation.580 Passing by the two elder sons of Josiah, the people raised to the throne the third son, Jehoahaz.581 If Necho afterwards dedicated the armour which he wore at the victory of Megiddo to Apollo, in his ancient temple at Miletus, where the Branchidæ were his ministers, the conclusion may be drawn that the Ionian soldiers in his army had especially distinguished themselves in winning the victory. He did not pursue the army of Judah, but rather turned to the North, towards Damascus. Soon after his accession, the successor of Josiah repaired to the camp of the Pharaoh, to pledge his obedience. Necho was encamped at Riblah (now Ribleh), south of Emesa, in a grassy plain on the Orontes, where the road which leads from the Euphrates to the coast is cut by the road which follows the valley of the Orontes. Necho caused Jehoahaz to be secured, and sent him as a prisoner to Egypt. There he remained till his death: he had sat on the throne only three months. The Judæans were not permitted to raise any more kings to the throne: on the contrary, Necho made Jehoiakim, the second son of Josiah, prince of Judah, and imposed on the land a contribution of 100 kikkar of silver, and one kikkar of gold. Of the subsequent achievements of Necho in Syria, we have precise information only about the capture of Gaza. From the subsequent events we must conclude that Necho succeeded in subjugating all the Syrian states to his supremacy.582

Meanwhile Jehoiakim, set up by Necho to be king of Judah, undisturbed by his dependence on Egypt, or by the contribution which the land had to pay, occupied himself with building palaces in Jerusalem, and for that object extorted money and service from his subjects. The prophet Jeremiah, who had supported the introduction of the Book of the Law under the reign of his father, opposed this action of the king without regard to consequences: "Weep not for the dead king," Jeremiah said to the Jews, "neither bemoan him; weep rather for him who is carried away (Jehoahaz): he will die there, and see no more his native country. They will not lament for Jehoiakim, saying, Ah! my brother. Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work. Woe to him that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows, and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign because thou contendest with houses of cedar? Thy father did eat and drink, but he did judgment and justice; he judged the cause of the poor and needy, and it was well with him. But thine eyes and thy heart are for nought but thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression and violence. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn forth and cast beyond the gates of Jerusalem."583 The prophet had to thank the protection of Ahikam, a son of the scribe Zaphan (p. 213), that he escaped the anger of the king. Another prophet who prophesied in the same strain, Urijah by name, was brought by Jehoiakim out of Egypt, whither he had fled, and put to death.584

While Necho, in Syria, subjugated one district after another, the Babylonians and Medes were engaged in a severe struggle with the remnant of Assyria. At length Nineveh fell. Soon after, in the year 605 B.C., Necho marched to the Euphrates, no doubt with the intention of extending his dominion as far as Karchemish. The roads through the deserts, traversed by the caravans, by which the armies of the Assyrians had so often travelled, ran from Hamath and Damascus to Thipsach and Karchemish, which lay opposite the modern Biredshik.

Nabopolassar of Babylon found himself at the goal of his wishes. Nineveh was at his feet. When after his long and heavy labour he had entered into the enjoyment of the independent sovereignty over Babylon, a new enemy appeared unexpectedly, an army from the Nile, in order to encamp on the Euphrates, and set foot on the borders of Babylon, and endanger the state which Nabopolassar had just restored, if he did not actually diminish the results obtained.585 He felt himself no longer equal to the toil of war, so Berosus tells us, and handed over a part of the army to Nebuchadnezzar, who "was in his youthful strength."586 Nebuchadnezzar and the Egyptians met at Karchemish. Necho suffered a severe defeat, which put a speedy end to all his schemes of conquest. "Who is this," exclaims Jeremiah, "that cometh up as the Nile, whose waters are moved as the rivers? The Egyptian cometh up like the Nile, and saith, I will go up and will cover the earth, and will destroy the city, and the inhabitants thereof. Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to the battle. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen. Put on the helmets and the brigandines, and furbish the spears. Come up, ye horses, and rage, ye chariots; let the Ethiopians come forth that handle the shield, and the Libyans that bend the bow. But why have I seen them dismayed and turned back, and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace and look not back? Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates, and the sword shall devour, and it shall be made satiate, and shall be drunk with the blood of the Egyptians. Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt. But there is no medicine for thee. The people have heard thy shame, and thy cry has filled the land."587

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RESTORATION OF BABYLON

In the Median poems, from which Ctesias and Nicolaus have told us the story of the overthrow of the Assyrian kingdom by the combined Medes and Babylonians, the leader of the Medes naturally occupies the most prominent place. From him the prudent and crafty leader of the Babylonians obtains the satrapy of his home as the price of his co-operation – co-operation which mainly consists in imparting advice on the ground of his knowledge of astronomy. Afterwards he shows himself faithless and thievish, and for this is condemned to death. But the magnanimity of the Median prince not only grants his life, but even assigns to him the satrapy of Babylonia, which, according to other songs in those poems, remains in the hands of the descendants of the dependant. The poems of the Medes could not leave altogether out of sight the co-operation of the Babylonians in the overthrow of Assyria, but they kept it in the back-ground, and gave their leader a contemptible character. They could not deny that after the fall of Nineveh Babylonia stood beside Media, but they could change this independent kingdom into the principality of a vassal, a satrapy of Media without payment of tribute. As a fact it must have been Nabopolassar who gave the impulse to a decisive attack upon the remnant of the Assyrian kingdom, and took the leading part in the decisive struggle. This position of Nabopolassar breaks out even in the Median poem, inasmuch as he is the first to rouse the Mede, and sustains the courage of the confederates.588

Sprung from a priestly tribe in Babylonia, as the Median poems tell us – and other evidence confirms the statement – and in the confidence of the king of Assyria, Nabopolassar was nominated to be the viceroy of Babylonia. For some years he holds this office, and then resolves on a revolt; it is he who sets on foot and accomplishes the union of Media and Babylonia, and establishes it by the alliance of his own house with that of the Median king. It is he who relieves Media from the Lydian war, and establishes peace and a marriage between Media and Lydia, so that Media can turn with all her power against the remnant of Assyria. The share which Nabopolassar receives in the prize of victory when the goal has been won corresponds to his share in the decisive struggle. The land of Assyria, so Herodotus tells us, fell to Media, "as far as the Babylonian portion." From this it is clear that Cyaxares received the Assyrian land as far as the Tigris. Had not this region been under the supremacy of the Medes before the Persian dominion, the ruins of Nineveh and Chalah could not have been pointed out to Xenophon as the ruins of Median cities. The land to the west of the Tigris, Mesopotamia, as far as the foot of the Armenian mountains, fell to the share of Nabopolassar. We are definitely told by the Hebrews that the region of the Chaboras belonged to the new kingdom of Babylon,589 and, as we saw, it was not the Median army which Necho met at Biredshik, but the Babylonians, the army of Nabopolassar.

Whether it was Nabopolassar's intention to extend his power to the west beyond the Euphrates, and enter upon the inheritance of Assyria as the sovereign over Syria, or whether it was the advance of Necho into Syria, and his march to the Euphrates, which first called forth this intention, we cannot decide. In no case was he likely to suffer Egypt to establish herself in Syria. Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, after his victory at Karchemish, followed the retreating army of Egypt. The Syrian lands once more looked forward to becoming the scene and seat of the war between Babylonia and Egypt, as in previous times they had witnessed the war between Assyria and Egypt. If the dominion of Egypt had been recently imposed upon them in the place of the dominion of Assyria, it depended on the approaching struggle of arms, whether they were to become the subjects of a new master, of the new crown of Babylon.

Thus the defeat of Necho and the retreat of the Egyptian army aroused no feelings of delight in Jerusalem at the blow which had there fallen upon the lord of the Nile. There was a fear of the approach of the Babylonians. We saw with what vigour the prophet Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah of Anathoth, had opposed the careless frivolity of Jehoiakim, the king whom Necho had placed over the Jews (p. 317). After the disastrous day at Megiddo, the fall of Josiah, and carrying away of Jehoahaz to Egypt, the eye of the prophet had been directed to the dangerous position of the kingdom. Necho's army was then in Syria; one city after another succumbed to his arms. To the melancholy mind of Isaiah the fall of the kingdom seemed unavoidable. This conviction he expressed; he foretold to Jehoiakim the most disgraceful fall. In energy and power of thought Jeremiah cannot be compared with Isaiah, but in the boldness and incisiveness of his opposition to the king and nation he surpasses him. Isaiah had firmly held to the preservation and maintenance of the city of Jerusalem and the temple, even in the judgment of Jehovah on Israel and Judah. The conception that Jehovah's temple, and his habitation in the holy of holies of the temple, was a pledge for the security of the city, that Jehovah could not abandon and destroy his temple and shrine, was a fixed idea among most of the prophets and among the people; it was confirmed by the fortunate preservation from the army of Sennacherib, and the hordes of the Sacæ; and the Jews had confidence in the impregnable nature and lasting security of their temple and city. In this confidence Jeremiah detected a grave evil. The people trusted to the impregnable nature of the shrine and city; the Jews believed that in spite of their errors and sins they would be secure of Jerusalem owing to the temple. Therefore he set himself energetically to combat this belief. He is filled with the conception of the approaching judgment, which will be brought on by the defection of past times, "when Israel like a swift young dromedary went after every stranger;"590 and by her unrighteous conversation in the present time. His conception, which in depth of religious feeling is raised above the views of the earlier prophets, is that all external customs and symbols must fall to the ground, not sacrifices only and fasts, but the temple and the ark of the covenant. Not till a radical destruction has taken place will the restoration of the people follow, by means of a small remnant of the righteous, and a shoot from the stock of David. In Jeremiah's view the people cannot be saved without the stroke of annihilation, "for the Ethiop cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots."591 But after this judgment Jehovah will "make a new covenant" with his people, "which is not like that which he made with their fathers, when he led them out of Egypt." "I will put my law in your inward parts," saith Jehovah, "and write it in your hearts."592 "In those days they will no more speak of the ark of Jehovah; it will not come into the mind of any: none will miss it; nor will another be made." Then will Jehovah set up shepherds after his own heart of the branch of David,593 who will pasture Israel with wisdom and prudence; and all nations will gather together to the name of Jehovah, and will not walk after the hardness of their evil heart.

Filled with these conceptions, Jeremiah cried aloud to the people assembled in the court of the temple: "Amend your hearts, and listen to the voice of Jehovah, your God. If ye will not walk in his law, which he has set before you, and hearken to the words of the prophets, Jehovah will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.594 Trust not in lying words: this is the temple of Jehovah. Ye steal, murder, and commit adultery; ye offer incense to Baal, and knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven,595 and come into this house, which is called by the name of Jehovah, and say: We are delivered to do all these abominations. Go ye now unto my dwelling-place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. So will I do to this house in which ye trust, as I did to Shiloh, and will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out your brethren, the seed of Ephraim."596 At these words the priests seized Jeremiah, and the people rose in anger to put him to death, because he had announced the fall of the temple. Then certain of the elders came forward, and reminded the people that in Hezekiah's time the prophet Micah had announced: "Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones,"597 and neither the king nor the people had put him to death. Jeremiah himself said to the enraged multitude: "Behold, I am in your hands; do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you; but know ye for certain that ye will bring innocent blood upon this city; for of a truth Jehovah hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears." The people retired from him.