NOTICES IN THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS.
183
The exact year of the fall of Assyria is indeed un* but all authorities agree that it had taken place before the date of Necho's expedition, which was in B. c. G08. By " king of Assyria," in ver. 29, we must therefore xlvi. 2).
certain
;
understand king of Babylon, just as in Ezra vi. 22 we must " understand by " king of Assyria The king of Persia. monarch, Nabopolassar, had taken a share in the Babylonian great war by which the empire of the Assyrians was brought to an end,f and had succeeded to Assyria's right in Western He was probably Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. regarded by Josiah as his suzerain, and therefore entitled to such help as he could render him. While these changes had taken place in Asia, in Africa also the condition of affairs was very much altered. The Ethiopian dynasty, after its long struggle against Assyria, had been forced to yield, had given up the contest, and retired from Egypt altogether.! Assyria had for a time held Egypt under her sway, and acting in the spirit of the
" maxim, Divide et impera," had split up the country among no fewer than twenty, princes. Of these some had been
A
Necho (Xeku), Assyrians, but the greater part natives. the grandfather of the antagonist of Josiah, had held the first place among the twenty, being assigned the governments of Memphis and Sais, together with almost the whole of the Western Delta. He had been succeeded after a time by his son Psamatik, the Psammetichus of the Greeks, who had taken advantage of the growing weakness of Assyria during the later half of the seventh century to raise the standard of revolt, and had succeeded, by the assistance of Gyges, king of Lydia, and of numerous Greek and Carian mercenaries, in establishing his Egypt under his sway.
then set in. a brave and
own independence and
A period
uniting
all
of great prosperity had Psamatik I., a prudent, and at the same time warlike, prince, raised Egypt from a state of
extreme depression to a height which she had only previously reached under the Osirtasens, the Thothmeses, and the Kamessides. During the rapid decline and decay of Assyrian followed upon the death of Asshur-bani-pal which power Phoe(B. c. 626), he extended his sway over Philistia and nicia, thus resuming the policy of aggression upon Asia * The opinion of scholars varies between B. c. 625 and B. c. 610. t Ancient Monarchies," vol. i. pp. 499, 500. 37& J Leuorniant, "Manuel d'Histoire Aucienne," vol. ii., pp. 377, '