Volume Iii Part 20 (2/2)

21.

[573] Herod. 2, 112, 154; Diod. 1, 67.

[574] Herod. 2, 30.

[575] Diod. 1, 67; Strabo, p. 770, 786. Plin. ”Hist. Nat.,” 6, 35. Vol.

I. p. 14. The statement of Diodorus repeated in the text--that the Greeks had the right wing--might seem to have been borrowed from Greek customs, if Herodotus did not tell us that the emigrants were called Asmach (2, 30), which means standing on the left side of the king. The monuments show that the Egyptians denoted the order of precedence, according to the right and left side of the king; we find bearers of the fan on the right side and on the left of the king. According to Brugsch, Asmach really means what is found on the left side. Kloder (”Das Stromsystem des oberen Nil,” s. 36 ff. 86) a.s.sumes that the settlement of the emigrant warriors is to be sought at Axum.

[576] Herod. 2, 105, 163. Diod. 1, 68.

[577] Brugsch ”Hist. of Egypt,” 2, 286. That the Egyptians counted the reign of Psammetichus from the end of Tirhaka's, _i.e._ from 664 B.C., is proved above, p. 71 _n._

[578] Herod. 2, 159.

[579] Lepsius, ”aegypt. Chronologie,” s. 351.

[580] The Chronicles (2, x.x.xv. 20 ff) represent Josiah as dying in Jerusalem, but they can hardly be correct. In order to explain the unhappy death of the pious king, who had introduced the Book of the Law, and destroyed the wors.h.i.+p of idols, by a transgression, they represent Josiah as not hearkening to the words of Necho ”out of the mouth of G.o.d,” and making an attack on the Egyptians, who were not at war with them. But though the Chronicles represent Necho as declaring that he was hastening to the Euphrates, it is, on the other hand, clear that he did not march to the Euphrates till four years after the battle of Megiddo.

The Magdolus of Herodotus is, no doubt, the Megiddo of the Hebrews.

Josephus (”Antiq.” 10, 5, 1) names Mende as the place of the battle.

Whether the camp of the Jews was really pitched at Hadad Rimmon, to the south-east of Megiddo, is not clear.

[581] On the sons of Josiah, Johanan, Jehoiakim, Shallum (by Zebudah), Jehoahaz, and Zedekiah (by Hamutal), cf. 1 Chron. iii. 15, 16.

[582] Jerem. xlvii. 1. Cadytis in Herodotus 2, 159 is Gaza. The name is formed after the Egyptian ”Kazatu.”

[583] Jerem. xxii. 10-19.

[584] Jerem. xxvi. 12-14; 20-23.

[585] The opinion that Necho marched to the Euphrates to the relief of Nineveh seems to me quite untenable. Setting aside the fact that for this object Necho must have been at the Euphrates earlier,--which he could well have done,--what interest had Necho in a.s.syria, from whose power his father had liberated Egypt? Nor can I adopt the opinion of M.

Niebuhr that Necho marched to a.s.syria merely to defend Syria. Josephus (”Antiq.” 10, 5, 1) tells us, ”that Necho marched to the Euphrates in order to make war upon the Medes and Babylonians, who had destroyed the a.s.syrian power.” This idea of offensive warfare is confirmed by the words in Jeremiah: ”I will go up and destroy their cities.” Syria was easier of defence when he had the desert before him, than when it lay behind him.

[586] Berosi Frag. 14 ed. Muller. That in Berosus the satrap of Syria has taken the place of Necho, may be explained by the supposition that Nabopola.s.sar had laid claim to Syria as an appurtenance of the part of the a.s.syrian kingdom which had fallen to him, and perhaps announced to Necho that he was prepared to give him Syria as a dependency of Babylon--an offer which Necho did not accept. But the ”satrap” is also sufficiently explained by the point of view of the historian of Babylon, who sees the period of Nebuchadnezzar in the most brilliant light.

[587] Jerem. xlvi. 1-13, 15, 16, 17.

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 a.s.syrian 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 a.s.signs 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 a.s.syria, 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 princ.i.p.ality of a va.s.sal, a satrapy of Media without payment of tribute. As a fact it must have been Nabopola.s.sar who gave the impulse to a decisive attack upon the remnant of the a.s.syrian kingdom, and took the leading part in the decisive struggle. This position of Nabopola.s.sar 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 a.s.syria, Nabopola.s.sar 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 a.s.syria.

The share which Nabopola.s.sar receives in the prize of victory when the goal has been won corresponds to his share in the decisive struggle. The land of a.s.syria, so Herodotus tells us, fell to Media, ”as far as the Babylonian portion.” From this it is clear that Cyaxares received the a.s.syrian 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 Nabopola.s.sar. 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 Bireds.h.i.+k, but the Babylonians, the army of Nabopola.s.sar.

Whether it was Nabopola.s.sar's intention to extend his power to the west beyond the Euphrates, and enter upon the inheritance of a.s.syria 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 Nabopola.s.sar, 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 a.s.syria and Egypt. If the dominion of Egypt had been recently imposed upon them in the place of the dominion of a.s.syria, 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.

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