We saw that the real course of affairs differed widely from the accounts given by the Egyptians, from which come the narratives of Herodotus and Diodorus. Manetho's list, at any rate, does not conceal the fact that after king Bocchoris had succumbed to the incursion of the Ethiopians, three kings of Ethiopia ruled over Egypt in succession. The Hebrew Scriptures and the tablets of the Assyrians then informed us how Israel, trusting in the help of Sabakon, refused payment of tribute to Nineveh, and what misfortunes punished this rebellion in the year 722 B.C.—how Sabakon was defeated two years afterwards at Raphia, in the neighbourhood of Gaza, by Sargon. Afterwards Sargon could boast of receiving tribute from the successor of Sabakon, Sevechus, in the year 716 B.C., and later still could demand and obtain the surrender of a fugitive opponent (711 B.C.). But Tirhaka, the successor of Sevechus, fought with success at Eltekeh in the year 701 against Sennacherib of Assyria, and forced him to raise the siege of Jerusalem. Thirty years afterwards the situation was entirely changed. In order to take from Sidon, Tyre, Judah, and the Syrian States their hopes in Napata and Egypt, which caused their resistance to be constantly bursting into fresh flame, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, invaded Egypt in the year 672 B.C., and drove Tirhaka back to his native land. Tirhaka's repeated attempts to win Egypt from this position were wrecked like those of his successor, Urdamane: they only brought about the sack and devastation of Thebes and its sanctuaries (663 B.C.).
Hence it was not of their own free will that the Ethiopians retired to their home; the dominion over Egypt which the Ethiopians of Napata, who had long acquired the manners and civilisation of Egypt, had exercised for sixty years, was replaced by another and far heavier foreign dominion—the rule of the kings on the Tigris. The Egyptians did not set up twelve kings after the Ethiopians, who pledged themselves to equality and friendship, as Herodotus supposes, nor did the twelve leading princes make themselves kings as Herodotus supposes. Still less did they rule Egypt in common; least of all could they erect the structure on Lake Mœris, the temple of Amenemha III., for it had already been in existence fifteen centuries (I. 109). It is the twenty vassal princes, whom Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal set up over Egypt—among whom must have been represented some of the dynastic families which rose under the Pharaohs of Bubastis and Tanis—out of whom the Egyptians have constructed the twelve kings.
Among these princes, by means of the Assyrians, Necho and his son Psammetichus rose into power. It was Esarhaddon who entrusted to Necho the government of Memphis and Sais. If Herodotus states that Sabakon put Necho, the father of Psammetichus, to death, the inscriptions of Assurbanipal prove the contrary. It must, therefore, have been the grandfather of Psammetichus, the Nechepsus of Manetho, who suffered this fate, and he must have suffered at the hands of Tirhaka, and not at the hands of Sabakon.[566] The flight of Psammetichus before Sabakon into Syria, which Herodotus relates, cannot have taken place till Tirhaka's time. In the account given by Herodotus only so much can be regarded as certain as is also clear from Manetho's list—i. e. that Necho and Psammetichus belonged to the district of Sais. Though raised by Esarhaddon, Necho began, after the death of that prince and the first campaign of Assurbanipal to Egypt, to join in a conspiracy with Tirhaka in connection with two of his fellow-vassals. He was taken prisoner and carried to Nineveh, but received pardon, and was, at any rate, again placed over Sais. His son, who had assumed the Assyrian name of Neboshezban, received the canton of Athribis. Necho died towards the year 664 B.C.; his son succeeded him in the administration of the district of Sais. Ten or twelve years afterwards (653 B.C.[567]), apparently availing himself of the dissension which broke out in the royal house of Assyria, the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin against his brother, he undertook to liberate Egypt from the dominion of the Medes, and at the same time to make himself master of Egypt. As to the manner in which this was done, and the means of doing it, we have no information beyond very scanty facts, suppositions, and conclusions. We saw above, from the inscriptions of Assurbanipal, that Psammetichus acted in concert with Gyges of Lydia, that "Gyges sent his power to aid him in breaking off the yoke of the Assyrians" (p. 170). The Ionians and Carians in brazen armour, in Herodotus, who come up from the sea, were thus the soldiers whom Gyges sent over the sea. He could only send his auxiliaries or Ionian vessels; and that he was in close combination with Carians will be made clear below. This fact does not make it at all impossible that Psammetichus before he revolted did not on his part gain the favour of the Ionians and Phenicians by opening the harbours of his canton, and favouring their trade, as Diodorus states (p. 298). This would give the harbour cities of the Greeks in Asia Minor sufficient reason to support strongly the rising of Psammetichus. For the independent support of Psammetichus by the Ionian cities of Asia Minor we have evidence in a statement of Strabo, according to which thirty ships from Miletus were active in the cause of Psammetichus, and also the position afterwards assigned to the Ionians in Egypt under the reign of Psammetichus. The ships of the Milesians are said to have conquered Inarus, i. e. no doubt one of the princes who opposed the rising of Psammetichus, in a naval engagement on the Nile.[568]
Beyond this we have no further information about the course of the struggle, and its duration. Beside Inarus we have the name of one other opponent of Psammetichus, Tementhes.[569] We do not know whether all the vassals of Assyria ranged themselves against Psammetichus, or whether some of these princes followed his leadership against Assyria and the dependants of Assyria. We do not know whether he had merely to contend against his own fellow-princes or against Assyrian garrisons also, and Assyrian forces. According to Polyænus the decisive battle took place in the neighbourhood of Memphis, five stadia from the city, near the temple of Isis; Diodorus puts the battle-field at Momemphis in the western Delta, between the Canopic arm of the Nile and the Mareotic Lake. It is remarkable that the decisive battle should have been fought so far to the west, near the border of Libya, but it is not impossible. But we must not overlook the fact, that according to Herodotus, a later decisive battle took place at Momemphis—and from the circumstances it is clear that this battle must have been fought there—so that a confusion between the two is not impossible.
We do not know what claim Psammetichus could make to the sovereignty of Egypt besides the summons to the liberation from Assyria, and the accomplishment of this liberation. His family belonged to the canton of Sais, from which, in previous times, Tnephachtus and Bocchoris had sprung. It would be possible that the house of Necho was in some connection with these princes, that Necho and Psammetichus were successors or descendants of Tnephactus. From this we may explain the story that the blind king, who fled before Sabakon into the marshes, recovered the throne after the retirement of the Ethiopians, and also the persecution which Necho and Psammetichus had to undergo from the Ethiopians. From such a connection we could also explain the fact that Necho took the part of Assyria against Tirhaka in the campaign of Esarhaddon, and received in reward from Esarhaddon the government of Memphis and Sais. The subsequent conspiracy of Necho with Tirhaka, when the latter had been driven back to Napata, would then show that Necho had attempted first to drive out the Ethiopians by the Assyrians, and then the Assyrians by the Ethiopians, and liberate Egypt by using one against the other. However this may be, Psammetichus, when liberating Egypt from Assyria, succeeded also in removing and destroying the dynastic families, which had risen up since the times of the Pharaohs of Bubastis and Tanis, and had maintained themselves under the Ethiopians and Assyrians, though in diminished importance and with a change in the position of their families. Thus Psammetichus accomplished the work which Tnephachtus began and Bocchoris was unable to carry on and maintain. According to the indications of an Egyptian inscription, Psammetichus strengthened his royal position by taking to wife Shabanatep, the heiress of a dynasty of Thebes. She was, apparently, the daughter of a prince Pianchi, who must have governed the canton of Thebes under Sabakon, and of Ameniritis, the sister of Sabakon, whom he gave to Pianchi to wife.[570]
The independence of Egypt was won. After a foreign rule of nearly 80 years (on the lowest calculation the Ethiopians had ruled for 58 years, and the Assyrians nearly 20), Egypt was again her own mistress, and obeyed a king taken from her midst. But every one must have made up his mind to see new armies marching from the Tigris to the Nile, as soon as the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin was crushed, and Assurbanipal's hands were free. The question was, whether Egypt's power was equal to such a struggle. Psammetichus was not put to this trial. After the capture of Babylon, Assurbanipal turned the full weight of his arms to the subjugation and destruction of Elam. The new conflict must have appeared unavoidable when Assurbanipal, about the year 643 B.C., punished the Arabian tribes on the borders of the Ammonites and Moabites. If he still omitted the attack on Egypt he must have regarded his forces as insufficient for the purpose, or they must have been seriously occupied in another direction. We may assume with tolerable certainty that it was the union of the Median tribes by Phraortes, the son of Deioces, and their combination with the Persians, which drew Assurbanipal back to the East, and kept him there. According to the statement of Herodotus, already considered, Psammetichus on his side advanced to the offensive beyond his own borders towards Syria. This war of Psammetichus in Syria, and the supposed long conflict for Ashdod, can only mean that Psammetichus attempted to bring the cities of the Philistines, and especially those of the desert, into his hands, in order to make the march through the desert, which must commence from this point, impossible, or at any rate difficult, for the Assyrians. Here also we are ignorant whether Psammetichus had to contend with the Philistines alone or with the Assyrian forces also: this only is clear, that he could not besiege Ashdod before Gaza and Ascalon were in his hands. If Psammetichus was really moved to this war by the object we impute to him, we must put the war in the period in which there was still danger to be apprehended from the Tigris: i. e. in the decade from 640 to 630 B.C. According to this, the impossible 29 years which Herodotus allows to the siege of Ashdod must be reduced to nine years, just as we had to cut down the 28 years which he gives for the dominion of the Scythians in Hither Asia to about ten years. But in the advance of these Scythians towards Egypt (in the year 625 B.C.), described by Herodotus, he does not tell us that Ashdod, Ascalon, or Gaza, were subject to Psammetichus; he represents the Scythians as passing beyond the cities of the Philistines to the borders of Egypt, where Psammetichus, by gifts and entreaties, induces them to desist from any further advance, and turn back to Syria. If the war of Psammetichus in Syria is placed after the incursion of the Scythians, i. e. in the last fifteen years of his reign, another event shortly to be mentioned will have also to be placed at the end of his reign,—an event which must certainly have belonged to a previous period. In no case did Psammetichus obtain success in Syria. If his successor had to conquer Gaza, i. e. the city nearest Egypt, it is obvious that Psammetichus maintained none of these border cities, though one or other may have been brought for a time into his power.
Egypt had been liberated and restored, but not by her own power. We saw that even from the times of the later Ramessids the military power of Egypt had been replaced by foreign mercenaries, especially by Libyans; that the house of the Pharaohs of Bubastis owed its rise to the command of these troops. We saw how under these Pharaohs, and those of the succeeding house of Tanis, the leaders of these troops became hereditary lords of the districts—how these dynasties summoned the Ethiopians against Tnephachtus and Bocchoris, and then others, including Necho and Psammetichus, joined Assyria against the Ethiopians. Before the reign of Sabakon it was chiefly Libyans on whom the power of the princes rested; under Sabakon, Sevechus, and Tirhaka it was the Ethiopians who supported the authority of the crown; and in the same way Psammetichus succeeded in breaking loose from Assyria, and establishing his authority in Egypt, and on the throne of the Pharaohs, mainly by strangers and mercenaries, by Ionians and Carians. Psammetichus could not do without them. In his internal administration they were required to keep down the overthrown dynastic families, and he needed them to protect his kingdom from without. His elevation, the foundation of his power, the restoration of Egypt, rested on the attempt to establish Egypt and his own crown, as against Ethiopia and Assyria, on a third external power, the mariners of the north. Psammetichus therefore was compelled to give preference to Ionians and Carians over the native soldiers, the warrior caste, who, under the dominion of the kings of Napata, must obviously have received a considerable addition of Ethiopians from the native land of the kings. In the Syrian war also, as Diodorus tells us, the Ionians and Carians received the place of honour on the right wing, in the order of battle. The Ionians and Carians were entrusted with the protection of the eastern border, the most important border of the kingdom. There they were placed in a standing camp, on the Pelusic arm of the Nile; on one bank was the camp of the Ionians, on the other the camp of the Carians.[571] These Ionians and Carians—their numbers under the successors of Psammetichus reached 30,000 men—received valuable allotments of land, and were so handsomely treated that the prophet Jeremiah compares them to "stall-fed oxen."[572] They had also to educate Egyptians in their language, their customs, and their mode of war: Psammetichus placed in their hands Egyptian boys for education and training, and caused even his own sons to be instructed in Greek.[573] The old warrior caste was limited to the protection of the southern and western borders against Napata and the Libyans, the border service at Elephantine and Marea.
The marked preference shown to the new troops as opposed to the old could not be without an effect on the latter. Jealousy and hatred were unavoidable. But they attempted no rebellion. Curiously enough, a considerable portion of the old warrior caste contented themselves with abandoning Egypt. Herodotus tells us: "The Egyptians who for years had kept guard at Elephantine were not relieved. They consulted together, and unanimously came to the conclusion to revolt from Psammetichus, and retire to Egypt, being in number 240,000. Psammetichus pursued them, and entreated them on many grounds not to desert their wives and children, and the gods of the land. Then one of the soldiers exposed himself, and said, that for men there would be no lack of wives and children. When they arrived in Ethiopia they put themselves at the service of the king, who bade them drive out the Ethiopians with whom he was at variance, and take their land." This was done, and the emigrants dwelt on the Nile, 112 days' journey to the south of Elephantine.[574] Diodorus tells us: "Displeased at the preference shown to the mercenaries, the Egyptians, more than 200,000 in number, revolted, and marched to Ethiopia with the intention of obtaining there a land for themselves. The king first sent some officers to prevent them: when these availed nothing he hastened after them on ship with his most trusted followers. The soldiers marched up the Nile, and had already crossed the borders of Egypt, when Psammetichus entreated them to alter their minds, and reminded them of their father-land, their wives and children. Then they struck their lances on their shields, and said that so long as they had these they would easily find a father-land, and raising their coats they said that they should have no lack of wives and children. Thus firmly despising what to most men seems of the greatest importance, they took the best part of Ethiopia for their dwelling, allotting large portions of land to each other." According to the evidence of Eratosthenes the land of the emigrants lay above the confluence of the Astaboras and the Nile, on an island south-east of the later Meroe.[575]
The number of the emigrants in this narrative, which is obviously part of the tradition of Egypt, is of course exaggerated. Manetho gives the same number (240,000) for the Hyksos who emigrated from Egypt, and for these emigrants. Even Diodorus found a difficulty in this number; he diminished it, and says, "more than 200,000." Moreover, in any case, a considerable number of the old military order must have remained in Egypt. The successors of Psammetichus, who favoured the Greek mercenaries as much as Psammetichus himself, certainly did not increase the native military order, still less did the Persians after their conquest of the land. Yet Herodotus tells us that about the middle of the fifth century, i. e. more than a century and a half after the emigration, the military order in Egypt numbered more than 400,000. If the number of the emigrants really reached 240,000 men, it is inexplicable why so strong a body did not prefer to make themselves masters of Egypt, rather than go in laborious search of uncertain conquests in distant lands. Herodotus' statement that it was the garrison at Elephantine which emigrated no doubt leads us in the direction of the actual occurrence. This garrison cannot have been 240,000 strong, as his narrative states; we cannot assume that it was stronger than the ordinary border garrison against Syria, i. e. from 30,000 to 40,000 men. It may have been a part of the army, of about this strength, encamped on the southern border, which deserted to the king of Napata, and preferred service with the Ethiopians to service with Psammetichus. To Psammetichus himself it could only appear a desirable thing, if the discontented elements of the old army left the country. But this desertion to the king of Napata added considerably to the fighting strength of the latter, and might entice him even into an attack on Egypt. The emigration could not be hindered by force; it was the garrison in charge of the border who were emigrating. To pursue the emigrants with a force was only to be too late, and kindle war with Napata. It entirely suits this situation that Psammetichus should send after the fugitives, and then go in person, in order to induce them to return by gracious promises. According as the Syrian war of Psammetichus is placed before or after the Scythian invasion, this emigration, which in Diodorus is a consequence of that war, must be placed after the year 630 B.C. or after the year 615 B.C.
The Greeks were not favoured in the army only. It was part of the political system of Psammetichus to open the mouths of the Nile to them and the Phenicians, to give them access to all the harbours, and allow them, the "unclean" in the view of the older Egyptians, to settle on Egyptian soil. The Greeks soon came in considerable numbers. The Milesians obtained permission to build a citadel on the Bolbitinic mouth, and higher up, at the separation of the Bolbitinic and Canopic arms, they built the city of Naucratis, the name of which was taken, no doubt, from the conflict on the Nile (p. 302). The Phenicians obtained a special quarter on the Nile, "the camp of the Tyrians," in which to erect a temple to the Syrian goddess.