The priests of Memphis, or the interpreter, gave the following account of the meeting of Sennacherib and the Egyptians to Herodotus: Sethos, a priest of Hephæstus (of Ptah of Memphis), ruled over Egypt, when Sanacheribus, the king of the Arabs and Assyrians, led a great army against Egypt. Of the warriors in Egypt none would go against him, for Sethos had despised them, as though he had no need of them, treated them badly, and taken away the plots of land which they had possessed under former kings. In despair Sethos lamented in the temple before the image of the god, and the god appeared to him in a dream, and bade him be of good courage; he would suffer no harm if he marched out against the enemies; the god would himself send him helpers. So Sethos marched out with those who would follow of their own will—none of the warriors followed—and pitched his camp near Pelusium. Then field-mice spread over the camp of the enemies, and gnawed to pieces their quivers, their bows, and shield-handles; and when on the next morning they fled away without arms, many of them were slain. "And now this king," so Herodotus concludes his narrative, "stands in stone in the temple of Hephæstus (of Ptah), with a mouse in his hand, and says by his inscription—'Look on me, and be pious.'"[313] Neither the list of Manetho nor the monuments mention or know a priest Sethos of Memphis, who ruled over Egypt in the days of Sennacherib. The opponent of Sennacherib from the Nile, whose name is passed over in his inscriptions, was Tirhaka, the king of Napata and Egypt, as the Hebrews tell us, and the statement has been already confirmed by the monuments of Egypt.
FOOTNOTES:
[270] 2 Kings xx. 12.
[271] Merodach Baladan was, as has been shown (p. 113), driven out of Babylon in the year 703 B.C.; it is certain that he was ruler there in 704 B.C. If the Books of the Kings do not mention his embassy to Hezekiah till after the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, they show by the announcement of Isaiah to Hezekiah, which they put after the embassy of Merodach Baladan thus: "He will be saved out of the hand of the Assyrians" (2, xx. 6), that the embassy was at Jerusalem before the campaign of Sennacherib; cf. Isa. xxxix.
[272] Isa. xxii. 2; 2 Chron. xxxii. 4, 5.
[273] Isa. xxx. 2, 3, 6.
[274] Isa. xxxi. 1-3.
[275] Isa. xxx. 9, 10.
[276] Isa. xxviii. 12.
[277] Isa. xxviii. 15. The deceit is no doubt to be explained by the secrecy of the negotiations with Egypt.