Anysis.[442] He was blind, and under his reign Sabachus, king of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of it. He reigned with great clemency and justice. Instead of putting to death such criminals as had been sentenced to die by the judges, he made them repair the causeys, on which the respective cities to which they belonged were situated. He built several magnificent temples, and among the rest, one in the city of Bubastus, of which Herodotus gives a long and elegant description. After a reign of fifty years, which was the time appointed by the oracle, he retired voluntarily to his old kingdom of Ethiopia, and left the throne of Egypt to Anysis, who, during this time, had concealed himself in the fens.
A.M. 3279. Ant. J.C. 725.
It is believed that this Sabachus was the same with So, whose aid was implored by Hoshea, king of Israel, against Shalmanezer, king of Assyria.[443]
Sethon. He reigned fourteen years.
A.M. 3285. Ant. J.C. 719.
He is the same with Sevechus, the son of Sabacon, or So, the Ethiopian, who reigned so long over Egypt. This prince, so far from discharging the functions of a king, was ambitious of those of a priest; causing himself to be consecrated high-priest of Vulcan. Abandoning himself entirely to superstition, he neglected to defend his kingdom by force of arms; paying no regard to military men, from a firm persuasion that he should never have occasion for their assistance; he, therefore, was so far from endeavouring to gain their affections, that he deprived them of their privileges, and even dispossessed them of their revenues of such lands as his predecessors had given them.
He was soon made sensible of their resentment in a war that broke out suddenly, and from which he delivered himself solely by a miraculous protection, if Herodotus may be credited, who intermixes his account of this war with a great many fabulous particulars. Sanacharib (so Herodotus calls this prince) king of the Arabians and Assyrians, having entered Egypt with a numerous army, the Egyptian officers and soldiers refused to [pg 073] march against him. The high priest of Vulcan, being thus reduced to the greatest extremity, had recourse to his god, who bid him not despond, but march courageously against the enemy with the few soldiers he could raise. Sethon obeyed. A small number of merchants, artificers, and others who were the dregs of the populace, joined him; and with this handful of men, he marched to Pelusium, where Sanacharib had pitched his camp. The night following, a prodigious multitude of rats entered the camp of the Assyrians, and gnawing to pieces all their bowstrings, and the thongs of their shields, rendered them incapable of making the least defence. Being disarmed in this manner, they were obliged to fly; and they retreated with the loss of a great part of their forces. Sethon, when he returned home, ordered a statue of himself to be set up in the temple of Vulcan, holding in his right hand a rat, and these words to be inscribed thereon:—Let the man who beholds me learn to reverence the gods.[444]
It is very obvious that this story, as related here from Herodotus, is an alteration of that which is told in the second book of Kings. We there see,[445] that Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, having subdued all the neighbouring nations, and made himself master of all the other cities of Judah, resolved to besiege Hezekiah in Jerusalem, his capital city. The ministers of this holy king, in spite of his opposition, and the remonstrances of the prophet Isaiah, who promised them, in God's name, a sure and certain protection, provided they would trust in him only, sent secretly to the Egyptians and Ethiopians for succour. Their armies, being united, marched to the relief of Jerusalem at the time appointed, and were met and vanquished by the Assyrian in a pitched battle. He pursued them into Egypt and entirely laid waste the country. At his return from thence, the very night before he was to have given a general assault to Jerusalem, which then seemed lost to all hopes, the destroying angel made dreadful havoc in the camp of the Assyrians; destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand men by fire and sword; and proved evidently, that they had great reason to rely, as Hezekiah had done, on the promise of the God of Israel.
This is the real fact. But as it was no ways honourable to the Egyptians, they endeavoured to turn it to their own advantage, by disguising and corrupting the circumstances of it. Nevertheless, the footsteps of this history, though so much defaced, ought yet to be highly valued, as coming from an historian of so great antiquity and authority as Herodotus.
The prophet Isaiah had foretold, at several times, that this expedition of the Egyptians, which had been concerted, seemingly, with such prudence, conducted with the greatest skill, and in which the forces of two powerful empires were united, in order to relieve the Jews, would not only be of no service to Jerusalem, but even destructive to Egypt itself, whose strongest cities would be taken, its territories plundered, and its inhabitants of all ages and sexes led into captivity. See the 18th, 19th, 20th, 30th, 31st, &c. chapters of his prophecy.