* Josephus, following Berosus, speaks of a war against the
Moabites and the Ammonites, followed by the conquest of
Egypt in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar. To this
must be added a Jewish revolt if we are to connect with
these events the mention of the third captivity, carried out
in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar by Nebuzaradan.
** Ezek. xxxiii. 23-27.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from an engraving in Mariette.
The first act of the revolution foreseen by the prophets was over; the day of the Lord, so persistently announced by them, had at length come, and it had seen not only the sack of Jerusalem, but the destruction of the earthly kingdom of Judah. Many of the survivors, refusing still to acknowledge the justice of the chastisement, persisted in throwing the blame of the disaster on the reformers of the old worship, and saw no hope of salvation except in their idolatrous practices. “As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”
There still remained to these misguided Jews one consolation which they shared in common with the prophets—the certainty of seeing the hereditary foes of Israel involved in the common overthrow: Ammon had been already severely chastised; Tyre, cut off from the neighbouring mainland, seemed on the point of succumbing, and the turn of Egypt must surely soon arrive in which she would have to expiate in bitter sufferings the wrongs her evil counsels had brought upon Jerusalem. Their anticipated joy, however, of witnessing such chastisements was not realised. Tyre defied for thirteen years the blockade of Nebuchadrezzar, and when the city at length decided to capitulate, it was on condition that its king, Ethbaal III., should continue to reign under the almost nominal suzerainty of the Chaldeans (574 B.C.).*
* The majority of Christian writers have imagined, contrary
to the testimony of the Phoenician annals, that the island
of Tyre was taken by Nebuchadrezzar; they say that the
Chaldæans united the island to the mainland by a causeway
similar to that constructed subsequently by Alexander. It is
worthy of notice that a local tradition, still existing in
the eleventh century of our era, asserted that the besiegers
were not successful in their enterprise.
Egypt continued not only to preserve her independence, but seemed to increase in prosperity in proportion to the intensity of the hatred which she had stirred up against her.
Apries set about repairing the monuments and embellishing the temples: he erected throughout the country stelæ, tables of offerings, statues and obelisks, some of which, though of small size, like that which adorns the Piazza della Minerva at Borne,* erected so incongruously on the back of a modern elephant, are unequalled for purity of form and delicacy of cutting. The high pitch of artistic excellence to which the schools of the reign of Psam-metichus II. had attained was maintained at the same exalted level. If the granite sphinxes** and bronze lions of this period lack somewhat in grace of form, it must be acknowledged that they display greater refinement and elegance in the technique of carving or moulding than had yet been attained.
* [One of the two obelisks of the Campus Martius, on which
site the Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva was built.—Tr.]
** Above the summary of the contents of the present chapter,
will be found one of these sphinxes which was discovered in
Rome.