Egypt was conquered by the Ethiopians under Sabacon, about the beginning of the Æra of Nabonassar, or perhaps three or four years before, that is, about three hundred years before Herodotus wrote his history; and about eighty years after that conquest, it was conquered again by the Assyrians under Asserhadon: and the history of Egypt set down by Herodotus from the time of this last conquest, is right both as to the number, and order, and names of the Kings, and as to the length of their Reigns: and therein he is now followed by historians, being the only author who hath given us so good a history of Egypt, for that interval of time. If his history of the earlier times be less accurate, it was because the archives of Egypt had suffered much during the Reign of the Ethiopians and Assyrians: and it is not likely that the Priests of Egypt, who lived two or three hundred years after the days of Herodotus, could mend the matter: on the contrary, after Cambyses had carried away the records of Egypt, the Priests were daily feigning new Kings, to make their Gods and nation look ancient; as is manifest by comparing Herodotus with Diodorus Siculus, and both of them with what Plato relates out of the Poem of Solon: which Poem makes the wars of the great Gods of Egypt against the Greeks, to have been in the days of Cecrops, Erechtheus and Erichthonius, and a little before those of Theseus; these Gods at that time instituting Temples and Sacred Rites to themselves. I have therefore chosen to rely upon the stories related to Herodotus by the Priests of Egypt in those days, and corrected by the Poem of Solon, so as to make these Gods of Egypt no older than Cecrops and Erechtheus, and their successor Menes no older than Theseus and Memnon, and the Temple of Vulcan not above 280 years in building: rather than to correct Herodotus by Manetho, Eratosthenes, Diodorus, and others, who lived after the Priests of Egypt had corrupted their Antiquities much more than they had done in the days of Herodotus.
CHAP. III.
Of the ASSYRIAN Empire.
As the Gods or ancient Deified Kings and Princes of Greece, Egypt, and Syria of Damascus, have been made much ancienter than the truth, so have those of Chaldæa and Assyria: for Diodorus [[344]] tells us, that when Alexander the great was in Asia, the Chaldæans reckoned 473000 years since they first began to observe the Stars; and Ctesias, and the ancient Greek and Latin writers who copy from him, have made the Assyrian Empire as old as Noah's flood within 60 or 70 years, and tell us the names of all the Kings of Assyria downwards, from Belus and his feigned son Ninus, to Sardanapalus the last King of that Monarchy: but the names of his Kings, except two or three, have no affinity with the names of the Assyrians mentioned in Scripture; for the Assyrians were usually named after their Gods, Bel or Pul; Chaddon, Hadon, Adon, or Adonis; Melech or Moloch; Atsur or Assur; Nebo; Nergal; Merodach: as in these names, Pul, Tiglath-Pul-Assur, Salman-Assur, Adra-Melech, Shar-Assur, Assur-Hadon, Sardanapalus or Assur-Hadon-Pul, Nabonassar or Nebo-Adon-Assur, Bel Adon, Chiniladon or Chen-El-Adon, Nebo-Pul-Assur, Nebo-Chaddon-Assur, Nebuzaradon or Nebo-Assur-Adon, Nergal-Assur, Nergal-Shar-Assur, Labo-Assur-dach, Sheseb-Assur, Beltes-Assur, Evil-Merodach, Shamgar-Nebo, Rabsaris or Rab-Assur, Nebo-Shashban, Mardocempad or Merodach-Empad. Such were the Assyrian names; but those in Ctesias are of another sort, except Sardanapalus, whose name he had met with in Herodotus. He makes Semiramis as old as the first Belus; but Herodotus tells us, that she was but five Generations older than the mother of Labynetus: he represents that the city Ninus was founded by a man of the same name, and Babylon by Semiramis; whereas either Nimrod or Assur founded those and other cities, without giving his own name to any of them: he makes the Assyrian Empire continue about 1360 years, whereas Herodotus tells us that it lasted only 500 years, and the numbers of Herodotus concerning those ancient times are all of them too long: he makes Nineveh destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians, three hundred years before the Reign of Astibares and Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed it, and sets down the names of seven or eight feigned Kings of Media, between the destruction of Nineveh and the Reigns of Astibares and Nebuchadnezzar, as if the Empire of the Medes, erected upon the ruins of the Assyrian Empire, had lasted 300 years, whereas it lasted but 72: and the true Empire of the Assyrians described in Scripture, whose Kings were Pul, Tiglath-pilesar, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, Asserhadon, &c. he mentions not, tho' much nearer to his own times; which shews that he was ignorant of the antiquities of the Assyrians. Yet something of truth there is in the bottom of some of his stories, as there uses to be in Romances; as, that Nineveh was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians; that Sardanapalus was the last King of the Assyrian Empire; and that Astibares and Astyages were Kings of the Medes: but he has made all things too ancient, and out of vainglory taken too great a liberty in feigning names and stories to please his reader.
When the Jews were newly returned from the Babylonian captivity, they confessed their Sins in this manner, Now therefore our God, —— let not all the trouble seem little before thee that hath come upon us, on our Kings, on our Princes, and on our Priests, and on our Prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the Kings of Assyria, unto this day; Nehem. ix. 32. that is, since the time of the Kingdom of Assyria, or since the rise of that Empire; and therefore the Assyrian Empire arose when the Kings of Assyria began to afflict the inhabitants of Palestine; which was in the days of Pul: he and his successors afflicted Israel, and conquered the nations round about them; and upon the ruin of many small and ancient Kingdoms erected their Empire, conquering the Medes as well as other nations: but of these conquests Ctesias knew not a word, no not so much as the names of the conquerors, or that there was an Assyrian Empire then standing; for he supposes that the Medes Reigned at that time, and that the Assyrian Empire was at an end above 250 years before it began.
However we must allow that Nimrod founded a Kingdom at Babylon, and perhaps extended it into Assyria: but this Kingdom was but of small extent, if compared with the Empires which rose up afterwards; being only within the fertile plains of Chaldæa, Chalonitis and Assyria, watered by the Tigris and Euphrates: and if it had been greater, yet it was but of short continuance, it being the custom in those early ages for every father to divide his territories amongst his sons. So Noah was King of all the world, and Cham was King of all Afric, and Japhet of all Europe and Asia minor; but they left no standing Kingdoms. After the days of Nimrod, we hear no more of an Assyrian Empire 'till the days of Pul. The four Kings who in the days of Abraham invaded the southern coast of Canaan came from the countries where Nimrod had Reigned, and perhaps were some of his posterity who had shared his conquests. In the time of the Judges of Israel, Mesopotamia was under its own King, Judg. iii. 8. and the King of Zobah Reigned on both sides of the River Euphrates 'till David conquered him, 2 Sam. viii, and x. The Kingdoms of Israel, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Philistia, Zidon, Damascus, and Hamath the great, continued subject to other Lords than the Assyrians 'till the days of Pul and his successors; and so did the house of Eden, Amos i. 5. 2 Kings xix. 12. and Haran or Carrhæ, Gen. xii. 2 Kings xix. 12. and Sepharvaim in Mesopotamia, and Calneh near Bagdad, Gen. x. 10, Isa. x. 9, 2 Kings xvii. 31. Sesac and Memnon were great conquerors, and Reigned over Chaldæa, Assyria, and Persia, but in their histories there is not a word of any opposition made to them by an Assyrian Empire then standing: on the contrary, Susiana, Media, Persia, Bactria, Armenia, Cappadocia, &c. were conquered by them, and continued subject to the Kings of Egypt 'till after the long Reign of Ramesses the son of Memnon, as above.
Homer mentions Bacchus and Memnon Kings of Egypt and Persia, but knew nothing of an Assyrian Empire. Jonah prophesied when Israel was in affliction under the King of Syria, and this was in the latter part of the Reign of Jehoahaz, and first part of the Reign of Joash, Kings of Israel, and I think in the Reign of Mœris the successor of Ramesses King of Egypt, and about sixty years before the Reign of Pul; and Nineveh was then a city of large extent, but full of pastures for cattle, so that it contained but about 120000 persons. It was not yet grown so great and potent as not to be terrified at the preaching of Jonah, and to fear being invaded by its neighbours and ruined within forty days: it had some time before got free from the dominion of Egypt, and had got a King of its own; but its King was not yet called King of Assyria, but only King of Nineveh, Jonah iii. 6, 7. and his proclamation for a fast was not published in several nations, nor in all Assyria, but only in Nineveh, and perhaps in the villages thereof; but soon after, when the dominion of Nineveh was established at home, and exalted over all Assyria properly so called, and this Kingdom began to make war upon the neighbouring nations, its Kings were no longer called Kings of Nineveh but began to be called Kings of Assyria.
Amos prophesied in the Reign of Jeroboam the Son of Joash King of Israel, soon after Jeroboam had subdued the Kingdoms of Damascus and Hamath, that is, about ten or twenty years before the Reign of Pul: and he [[345]] thus reproves Israel for being lifted up by those conquests; Ye which rejoyce in a thing of nought, which say, have we not taken to us horns by our strength? But behold I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the Lord the God of Hosts, and they shall afflict you from the entring in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness. God here threatens to raise up a nation against Israel; but what nation he names not; that he conceals 'till the Assyrians should appear and discover it. In the prophesies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah and Zechariah, which were written after the Monarchy grew up, it is openly named upon all occasions; but in this of Amos not once, tho' the captivity of Israel and Syria be the subject of the prophesy, and that of Israel be often threatned: he only saith in general that Syria should go into captivity unto Kir, and that Israel, notwithstanding her present greatness, should go into captivity beyond Damascus; and that God would raise up a nation to afflict them: meaning that he would raise up above them from a lower condition, a nation whom they yet feared not: for so the Hebrew word