The Essential Works of George Rawlinson: Egypt, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Phoenicia, Parthia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Babylon, Persia, Sasanian Empire & Herodotus' Histories. George Rawlinson
capital, Memphis, which was doubtless held in force by the Assyrians, to whom the princes of Lower Egypt were still faithful. A battle, accordingly, was fought before the walls, and in this Mi-Ammon-Nut was victorious; the Egyptians probably did not fight with much zeal, and the Assyrians, distrusting their subject allies, may well have been dispirited. After the victory, Memphis opened her gates, and soon afterwards the princes of the Delta thought it best to make their submission—the Assyrians, we must suppose, retired—Mi-Ammon-Nut's authority was acknowledged, and the princes, having transferred their allegiance to him, were allowed to retain their governments.
The consequences of this last Ethiopian invasion of Egypt appear to have been transient. Mi-Ammon-Nut did not live very long to enjoy his conquest, and in Egypt he had no successor. He was not even recognized by the Egyptians among their legitimate kings. Egypt at his death reverted to her previous position of dependence upon Assyria, feeling herself still too weak to stand alone, and perhaps not greatly caring, so that she had peace, which of the two great powers she acknowledged as her suzerain. She had now (about B.C. 650) for above twenty years been fought over by the two chief kingdoms of the earth—each of them had traversed with huge armies, as many as five or six times, the Nile valley from one extremity to the other; the cities had been half ruined, harvest after harvest destroyed, trees cut down, temples rifled, homesteads burnt, villas plundered. Thebes, the Hundred-gated, probably for many ages quite the most magnificent city in the world, had become a by-word for desolation (Nahum iii. 8, 9); Memphis, Heliopolis, Tanis, Saïs, Mendes, Bubastis, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis; Crocodilopolis, had been taken and retaken repeatedly; the old buildings and monuments had been allowed to fall into decay; no king had been firmly enough established on his throne to undertake the erection of any but insignificant new ones. Egypt was "fallen, fallen, fallen—fallen from her high estate;" an apathy, not unlike the stillness of death, brooded over her; literature was silent, art extinct; hope of recovery can scarcely have lingered in many bosoms. As events proved, the vital spark was not actually fled; but the keenest observer would scarcely have ventured to predict, at any time between B.C. 750 and B.C. 650, such a revival as marked the period between B.C. 650 and B.C. 530.
XXII.
The Corpse Comes to Life Again—Psamatik I. and His Son Neco.
When a country has sunk so gradually, so persistently, and for so long a series of years as Egypt had now been sinking, if there is a revival, it must almost necessarily come from without. The corpse cannot rise without assistance—the expiring patient cannot cure himself. All the vital powers being sapped, all the energies having departed, the Valley of the Shadow of Death having been entered, nothing can arrest dissolution but some foreign stock, some blood not yet vitiated, some "saviour" sent by Divine providence from outside the nation (Isa. xix. 20), to recall the expiring life, to revivify the paralyzed frame, to infuse fresh energy into it, and to make it once more live, breathe, act, think, assert itself. Yet the saviour must not be altogether from without. He must not be a conqueror, for conquest necessarily weakens and depresses; he must not be too remote in blood, or he will lack the power fully to understand and sympathize with the nation which he is to restore, and without true understanding and true sympathy he can effect nothing; he must not be a stranger to the nation's recent history, or he will make mistakes that will be irremediable. What is wanted is a scion of a foreign stock, connected by marriage and otherwise with the nation that he is to regenerate, and well acquainted with its circumstances, character, position, history, virtues, weaknesses. No entirely new man can answer to these requirements; he must be found, if he is to be found at all, among the principal men of the time, whose lot has for some considerable period been cast in with the State which is to be renovated.
In Egypt, at the time of which we are speaking, exactly this position was occupied by Psamatik, son of Neco. He was, according to all appearance, of Libyan origin; his stock was new; his name and his father's name are unheard of hitherto in Egyptian history; etymologically, they are non-Egyptian; and Psamatik has a non-Egyptian countenance. He was probably of the same family as "Inarus the Libyan," whose father was a Psamatik. He belonged thus to a Libyan stock, which had, however, been crossed, more than once, with the blood of the Egyptians. The family was one of those Libyan families which had long been domiciled at Saïs, and had intermarried with the older Saites, who were predominantly Egyptian. He had also for twenty years or more been an important unit in the Egyptian political system, having shared the vicissitudes of his father's fortunes from B.C. 672 to B.C. 667, and having then been placed at the head of one of the many principalities into which Egypt was divided. In the same, or the next, year he seems to have succeeded his father; and he had reigned at Saïs for sixteen or seventeen years before he felt himself called upon to take any step that was at all abnormal, or attempt in any way to change his position.
Familiar with the politics and institutions of Egypt, yet, as a semi-Libyan, devoid of Egyptian prejudices, and full of the ambition which naturally inspires young princes of a vigorous stock, Psamatik had at once the desire to shake off the yoke of Assyria, and reunite Egypt under his own sway, and also a willingness to adopt any means, however new and strange, by which such a result might be accomplished. He had probably long watched for a favourable moment at which to give his ambition vent, and found it at last in the circumstances that ushered in the second half of the seventh century. Assyria was, about B.C. 651, brought into a position of great difficulty, by the revolt of Babylon in alliance with Elam, and was thus quite unable to exercise a strict surveillance over the more distant parts of the Empire. The garrison by which she held Egypt had probably been weakened by the withdrawal of troops for the defence of Assyria Proper; at any rate, it could not be relieved or strengthened under the existing circumstances. At the same time a power had grown up in Asia Minor, which was jealous of Assyria, having lately been made to tremble for its independence. Gyges of Lydia had, in a moment of difficulty, been induced to acknowledge himself Assyria's subject; but he had emerged triumphant from the perils surrounding him, had reasserted his independent authority, and was anxious that the power of Assyria should be, as much as possible, diminished. Psamatik must have been aware of this. Casting his eyes around the political horizon in search of any ally at once able and willing to lend him aid, he fixed upon Lydia as likely to be his best auxiliary, and dispatched an embassy into Asia Minor. Gyges received his application favourably, and sent him a strong Asiatic contingent, chiefly composed of Ionians and Carians. Both races were at this time warlike, and wore armour of much greater weight and strength than any which the Egyptians were accustomed to carry. It was in reliance, mainly, on these foreigners, that Psamatik ventured to proclaim himself "King of the Two Countries," and to throw out a gage of defiance at once to his Assyrian suzerain and to his nineteen fellow-princes.
The gage was not taken up by Assyria. Immersed in her own difficulties, threatened in three quarters, on the south, on the south-east, and on the east by Babylonia, by Elam, and by Media, she had enough to do at home in guarding her own frontiers, and seeking to keep under her immediate neighbours, and was therefore in no condition to engage in distant expeditions, or even to care very much what became of a remote and troublesome dependency. Thus Assyria made no sign. But the petty princes took arms at once. To them the matter was one of life or death; they must either crush the usurper or be themselves swept out of existence. So they gathered together in full force. Pakrur from Pisabtu, and Petubastes from Tanis, and Sheshonk from Busiris, and Tafnekht from Prosopitis, and Bek-en-nefi from Athribis, and Nakh-he from Heracleopolis, and Pimai from Mendes, and Lamentu from Hermopolis, and Mentu-em-ankh from Thebes, and other princes from other cities, met and formed their several contingents into a single army, and stood at bay near Momemphis, the modern Menouf, in the western Delta, on the borders of the Libyan Desert. Here a great battle was fought, which was for some time doubtful; but the valour of the Greco-Carians, and the superiority of their equipment, prevailed. The victory rested with Psamatik; his adversaries were defeated and dispersed; following up his first success, he proceeded to attack city after city, forcing all to submit, and determined that he would nowhere tolerate even the shadow of a rival. Disintegration