place it holds is not sufficiently marked to satisfy the scruples of a rigid sceptic. The era of Sheshonk is the first fixed point for the establishment of chronological data; and we have been enabled, by reckoning backwards to the Exodus, and from inscriptions on the monuments, to fix the probable duration and date of each reign. From the accession of Thothmes III., about 1495 B. C., to the year 1068, twenty-three kings succeeded to the throne of Egypt, which gives about eighteen years to each reign; and the ninety years intervening at the end of the 21st Dynasty, may readily be accounted for by assigning them to sovereigns whose names are lost. A very favourable argument in support of the dates I have given, is derived from the astronomical subject on the ceiling of the Memnonium at Thebes, erected by Remeses the Great: where the heliacal rising of Sothis is found to coincide with the beginning of Thoth, which could only have happened in the year 1322 B. C.; and this falls, according to my table, in the middle of his reign. But whatever I offer on such intricate questions is given with much deference, and I shall willingly yield to the sounder judgment of the scientific reader. The aggressions of the Egyptian monarch in Judæa do not appear to have been repeated; and the Jewish Chronicles show that previous to the battle with Zerah, king of Ethiopia, the land of This indefinite name, Ethiopia, the country of burnt or black faces, always perplexes. Zerah could not have come from Ethiopia to * Judah was free from foreign invasion, "and had no war in those years," which gave Asa an opportunity of repairing and building fortified towns, for the protection of his country. Nor do we find the successors of Sheshonk undertaking any important military expedition; and little remains on the monuments, relating to the other kings of the 22d and 23d Dynasties, except some tablets and religious subjects in the temple of Karnak. Bocchoris and his father Tnephachthus have been already mentioned; and if we are unable to decide whether this last should be introduced into the 23d or 24th Dynasties, the same difficulty exists in the position of Asychis and Anysis. the south of the Cataracts while Sheshonk or Osorkon ruled Egypt. In the Arabic version he is styled King of India, and his name in the Septuagint is written Zare. In 2 Chron. xvi. 8. mention is made of the Ethiopians with the Lubims (Lybians). The oval, supposed by Mr. Salt of Zerah, is of a much more ancient king. * 2 Chron. xiv. 1. 6, 7. The reign of Sabaco has also been noticed; and Herodotus, as we have seen, supposes Anysis to have been restored to the throne after the secession of the invader, and to have been succeeded by Sethos (Se-pthah), a priest of Pthah or Vulcan, who was cotemporary with Sennacherib and Tirhakah. Manetho, on the contrary, states that Sabaco usurped the throne of Bocchoris, and Diodorus introduces other monarchs between this last and the Ethiopian. That he was not the Sabaco who put Neco to death is evident, from a comparison of the eras of Psamaticus and the Ethiopian monarch; nor could the flight of Psamaticus have taken place during his reign; and, unless we suppose the son of Neco to have lived to the age of more than 120 years, he could not have fled even from the second of that name, or Shebek, the predecessor of Tirhakah. Sabaco is generally supposed to be the So* of Scripture, who made a treaty with Hosea king of Israelt; an event which led to the taking of Samaria, and to the captivity of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and this I believe to have happened a few years before the close of his reign. Of Shebek, or Sabaco II., the name occurs only on the monuments of Thebes, and in the catalogue of Manetho. By some he has been considered the Sethos of Herodotus; but this name, which is properly Se-pthah (or the "Son of Pthah"), bears so strong a stamp of Memphitic origin that *So, Soa, or Sua; the Enyop of the Septuagint. we cannot feel disposed to assign it to the Ethiopian monarch. With Tirhakah we are acquainted, both from sacred and profane records; and his successful opposition to the power of Assyria is noticed in the Bible*, may be traced in Herodotust, and is recorded on the walls of a Theban temple. It is possible that in the early part of his reign Sethos shared the kingdom with him, and ruled in Lower Egypt, while the Ethiopian monarch possessed the dominion of the upper country; and this would account for the absence of the name of Sethos on the monuments of Thebes. Whether Tirhakah and Sabaco's claims to the throne of Egypt were derived from any right acquired by intermarriage with the royal family of that country, and whether their dominion was at first confined to the Thebaïd, it is difficult to determine; but the respect paid by their Egyptian successors to the monuments § they erected argues the probability of their having succeeded to the throne by right, rather than by usurpation, or the force of arms. During the reign of Tirhakah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, threatened an incursion into Lower Egypt; and owing to the disaffection of the troops of *2 Kings, xix. 9. "And when he (Sennacherib) heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, behold he is come out to fight against thee." Isaiah, xxxvii. 9. El Berkel (formerly Napata) was his Ethiopian capital, where his name and monuments are found. + Herod. ii. 141. At Medéenet Háboo are the figure and name of this king, and the captives he took. § Sabaco's name is found at Abydus. Sethos, Memphis and all that part of the country was in danger of falling a prey to the invader. Sethos, who had been a priest of Pthah, was more solicitous, even after his elevation to the throne, for the observance of religious ceremonies than the welfare of the state; and induced by fanaticism to consider the services of the soldier unnecessary for the security of a country entrusted to the protection of the gods, "he treated that class with extreme contempt, and, among other indignities, deprived them of their aruræ, or fields, which, by way of reward, his predecessors had allowed to each soldier. They therefore refused to march against the Assyrians; and in this dilemma the priest-king retired to the shrine of the god, before which he lamented his danger and misfortunes. He there sunk into a profound sleep; and the deity, appearing to him in a dream, promised that if he marched to meet the enemy he should experience no injury, for that he would furnish him with assistance. Inspired with confidence from this vision, he put himself at the head of his adherents, and advanced to Pelusium, the entrance of Egypt, unaccompanied by a single soldier, his army being entirely composed of tradesmen and artisans." Nor was it long before this assistance arrived. Tirhakah, having heard of the approach of Sennacherib, marched with a numerous army from the Thebaïd, and entering Palestine, defeated the Assyrians; thus delivering Lower Egypt as well as Judæa from the arms of this powerful *Herodot. ii. 141. It might be supposed that the sections 164— 168. of the same book were intended to have been introduced here. |