He attempted to join the Nile to the Red-Sea, by cutting a canal from one to the other. The distance which separates them is at least a thousand stadia.[461] After a hundred and twenty thousand workmen had lost their lives in this attempt, Nechao was obliged to desist; the oracle which had been consulted by him, having answered, that this new canal would open a passage to the Barbarians (for so the Egyptians called all other nations) to invade Egypt.
Nechao was more successful in another enterprise.[462] Skilful Phœnician mariners, whom he had taken into his service, having sailed from the Red-Sea in order to discover the coasts of Africa, went successfully round it; and the third year after their setting out, returned to Egypt through the Straits of Gibraltar. This was a very extraordinary voyage, in an age when the compass was not known. It was made twenty-one centuries before Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, (by discovering the Cape of Good Hope, in the year 1497,) found out the very same way to sail to the Indies, by which these Phœnicians had come from thence into the Mediterranean.
The Babylonians and Medes, having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the empire of the Assyrians, were thereby become so formidable, that they drew upon themselves the jealousy of all their neighbours.[463] Nechao, alarmed at the danger, advanced to the Euphrates, at the head of a powerful army, in order to check their progress. Josiah, king of Judah, so famous for his uncommon piety, observing that he took his route through Judea, resolved to oppose his passage. With this view, he raised all the forces of his kingdom, and posted himself in the valley of Megiddo, (a city on this side Jordan, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, and called Magdolus by Herodotus.) Nechao informed him, by a herald, that his enterprise was not designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had undertaken this war in the name of God, who was with him; that for this reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war, for fear lest it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not moved by [pg 080] these reasons: he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful an army through Judea, would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that the victor, after the defeat of the Babylonians, would fall upon him, and dispossess him of part of his dominions. He therefore marched to engage Nechao; and was not only overthrown by him, but unfortunately received a wound, of which he died at Jerusalem, whither he had ordered himself to be carried.
Nechao, animated by this victory, continued his march, and advanced towards the Euphrates. He defeated the Babylonians; took Carchemish, a large city in that country; and securing to himself the possession of it by a strong garrison, returned to his own kingdom, after having been absent from it three months.
Being informed in his march homeward, that Jehoahaz had caused himself to be proclaimed king at Jerusalem, without first asking his consent, he commanded him to meet him at Riblah in Syria.[464] The unhappy prince was no sooner arrived there, than he was put in chains by Nechao's order, and sent prisoner to Egypt, where he died. From thence, pursuing his march, he came to Jerusalem, where he placed Eliakim, (called by him Jehoiakim,) another of Josiah's sons, upon the throne, in the room of his brother: and imposed an annual tribute on the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and one talent of gold.[465] This being done, he returned in triumph to Egypt.
Herodotus, mentioning this king's expedition,[466] and the victory gained by him at Magdolus,[467] (as he calls it,) says, that he afterwards took the city Cadytis, which he represents as situated in the mountains of Palestine, and equal in extent to Sardis, the capital at that time not only of Lydia, but of all Asia Minor: this description can suit only Jerusalem, which was situated in the manner above described, and was then the only city in those parts that could be compared to Sardis. It [pg 081] appears besides from Scripture, that Nechao, after his victory, made himself master of this capital of Judea; for he was there in person, when he gave the crown to Jehoiakim. The very name Cadytis, which in Hebrew signifies the Holy, clearly denotes the city of Jerusalem, as is proved by the learned Dean Prideaux.[468]
A.M. 3397. Ant. J.C. 607.
Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, observing that, since the taking of Carchemish by Nechao, all Syria and Palestine had shaken off their allegiance to him, and that his years and infirmities would not permit him to march against the rebels in person, he therefore associated his son Nabuchodonosor, or Nebuchadnezzar, with him in the empire, and sent him at the head of an army into those countries. This young prince vanquished the army of Nechao near the river Euphrates, recovered Carchemish, and reduced the revolted provinces to their allegiance, as Jeremiah had foretold.[469] Thus he dispossessed the Egyptians of all that belonged to them,[470] from the little river[471][472] of Egypt to the Euphrates, which comprehended all Syria and Palestine.
Nechao dying after he had reigned sixteen years, left the kingdom to his son.
A.M. 3404. Ant. J.C. 600.