Lower Nubia had now been dominated by the Egyptians for over eighteen hundred years, while the country above the second cataract to the region of the fourth cataract had for the most part been under Egyptian control for something like a thousand years. We have seen the country gradually being Egyptianized until there was an imposing Egyptian temple in every larger town of Lower Nubia, and since Ramses II's time the Egyptian gods were everywhere worshipped.

While the native language still remained the speech of the people, Egyptian was the language of administration and government and of the Egyptian immigrants who had settled in the country. The fertile and productive lands of Upper Nubia, the rich mines in the mountains east of Lower Nubia, which compensated in some measure for its agricultural poverty, and the active trade from the Sudan which was constantly passing through the country, made it a land of resources and possibilities, which the Egyptianized Nubians, slowly awakening to their birth-right, were now beginning to realize. Nor could the occasional raids of the hostile tribes of the eastern desert, or the negroes of the Sudan, which still continued, essentially interfere with the development of the country.

Sheshonk I had still held Nubia, and the High Priest of Amon at Thebes, in the second half of Takelot II's reign, was able to offer to the god the gold of Nubia, which to be sure may possibly have been obtained in trade. It is probable, however, that the cataract country was still a dependency of Egypt until the middle of the Twenty Second Dynasty, about 850 BC. It will be recalled that Nubia had for some centuries been very closely connected with Thebes and the temple of Amon. There was a ''gold country of Amon'' there with its own governor as far back as the close of the Nineteenth Dynasty; the High Priest of Amon became viceroy of Nubia at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty; while in the Twenty First Dynasty the sacerdotal princesses of Thebes held the same office. Thus after the Theban hierarchy had been maintaining a strong hold upon Nubia for over a hundred years from the end of the thirteenth century, their control had strengthened into full possession for two hundred and fifty years more.

When we recollect that the Tanites of the Twenty First Dynasty had banished to one of the oases the turbulent families of Thebes, who had opposed their suzerainty; and that they were later obliged to recall the exiles; when we remember the long and dangerous revolt of Thebes under Takelot II, and the pardon of the rebellious city by oracle of Amon, it will be evident that under such conditions the priestly families at Thebes may easily have been obliged on some occasion to flee from the vengeance of the northern dynasty and seek safety among the remote Nubian cataracts, which would effectually cut off pursuit. Such a flight would not be likely to find record, and hence we have no direct documentary evidence that it took place; but by the middle of the eighth century BC a fully developed Nubian kingdom emerges upon our view, with its seat of government at Napata, just below the fourth cataract.

Napata had been an Egyptian frontier station from the days of Amenhotep II, seven hundred years earlier; and long before it was held by Egypt, it had doubtless been an important trading station on the route between Egypt and the Sudan. It was, moreover, the remotest point in Egyptian Nubia, and hence safest from attack from the North.

The state which arose here was, in accordance with our explanation of its origin, a reproduction of the Amonite theocracy at Thebes. The state god was Amon, and he continually intervened directly in the affairs of government by specific oracles. The control of the god was even more absolute than at Thebes, and eventually even the king was obliged to abdicate at the god's demand, who then installed another ruler. This last condition of things was, however, the outcome of a gradual development, and did not obtain at first.

In Greek times the priests in Egypt were wont to depict the Ethiopian theocracy as the ideal state, and closely connected with this conception of it was the false notion that Ethiopia was the source of Egyptian civilization, a belief commonly held by the Greeks. The king bore all the Pharaonic titles, calling himself Lord of the Two Lands, as if he governed all Egypt. In the beginning he might be known by an Egyptian name, although this soon disappeared and was replaced by a personal name of pure Nubian origin, the throne-name and other state designations still remaining Egyptian for a long time. He built temples of Egyptian architecture, decorated with Egyptian reliefs and bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions and dedications of the traditional Egyptian form. The ritual depicted on the walls was that in use at Thebes. Of the Egyptian origin of this state there is no doubt; nor can there be any doubt of its Theban character, although there may be some difference of opinion as to how this last fact is to be accounted for.

As we gain our first glimpse of this new kingdom of the upper Nile, just before the middle of the eighth century BC, it is ruled by a king Kashta. We are unable to trace the extent of his power northward, nor do we know anything of his reign. His son, Piankhi, who succeeded him about 741 BC probably began the absorption of Egypt. In any case, by 721 or 722 BC, he was already in possession of Upper Egypt as far north as Heracleopolis, just south of the Fayum, with Nubian garrisons in the more important towns. At this time the Twenty Third Dynasty, represented by Osorkon III at Bubastis, no longer actually ruling more than the district of Bubastis and surrounded by rivals in every important town of the Delta, was confronted by an aggressive and powerful opponent in Tefnakhte, the dynast of Sais, in the western Delta.

In Piankhi's twenty first year his commanders in Upper Egypt reported to him that Tefnakhte had defeated the dynasts of the entire western Delta, and of both shores of the Nile above the Delta, almost as far south as the vicinity of Benihasan. Besides these he had also gained control of all the eastern and middle Delta lords, so that he was practically king of all Lower Egypt, as well as the lower portion of Upper Egypt. Only Heracleopolis, which we have already seen as a powerful principality, was holding out against him, and was suffering a siege at his hands; while all his vassal lords of the Delta were lending him aid against it, and personally assisting in the investment.

The wily Piankhi, perceiving that the balance of power in the North was now destroyed, and desirous of drawing his enemy further southward, away from the safety of the impenetrable Delta swamps, quietly awaited developments. A second appeal from his northern commanders then informed him that Namlot, king of Hermopolis, had submitted to Tefnakhte. Thereupon Piankhi sent his commanders in Egypt northward to check Tefnakhte's further southern advance and to besiege Hermopolis.

This they did while Piankhi was at the same time dispatching from Nubia a second army for their support. Having left Thebes, this second Nubian force met Tefnakhte's fleet coming up and defeated it, capturing many ships and prisoners. Continuing northward, in all probability down the Bahr Yusuf, they struck Tefnakhte's forces engaged in the investment of Heracleopolis, and put it to flight both by land and water. The northerners fled to the west side of the Bahr Yusuf, whither they were pursued the next morning by the Nubians, again discomfited and forced to retreat toward the Delta. Namlot, king of Hermopolis, who had fought among Tefnakhte's vassals, escaped from the disaster and returned to protect his own city of Hermopolis against the Nubians. Hearing of this, the Nubian commanders returned up the Bahr Yusuf to Hermopoliss which they then closely beset.

On receiving reports of these operations, Piankhi was incensed that the northern army had been allowed to escape into the Delta. It was now late in the calendar year, and Piankhi determined, after the celebration of the New Year's feast at home, to proceed to Thebes to celebrate there the great feast of Opet in the third month, and then to lead the campaign against the North in person. Meanwhile his commanders in Egypt captured the towns below and in the vicinity of Hermopolis, including the important Oxyrhyncus, but Hermopolis itself still held out against them. In accordance with his plan, Piankhi then proceeded northward early in the calendar year, celebrated the feast of Opet at Thebes as anticipated, in the third month, and went on to assume charge of the investment of Hermopolis, which had now been going on for certainly four and probably five months.

Piankhi vigourously pushed the siege; from embankments and high towers the doomed city was daily showered with arrows and stones; foul odours arose from the masses of dead, and not long after Piankhi 's arrival the place was ripe for surrender. Namlot, its king, finding that gifts, even when his own royal crown was cast down among them, availed nothing with Piankhi, sent out his queen to plead with the women of the Nubian that they might intercede with him on Namlot's behalf. This device was successful, and assured at last of his life, Namlot surrendered and turned over the city and all his wealth to Piankhi, who immediately took possession of the place. After an inspection of Namlot's palace and treasury, Piankhi entered the stables of the Hermopolitan: "His majesty proceeded to the stable of the horses", so say his annals, "and the quarters of the foals. When he saw that they had suffered hunger, he said: 'I swear as Re loves me ... it is more grievous in my heart that my horses have suffered hunger than any evil deed that you have done in the prosecution of your desire'."

Namlot's wealth was then assigned to the royal treasury of Piankhi and the sacred fortune of Amon.

Heracleopolis being already exhausted after its investment at the hands of Tefnakhte, its king, Pefnefdibast, now came to greet Piankhi and praise him for his deliverance. The advance to the Delta, sailing down the Bahr Yusuf, was then begun, and all the chief towns of the west side surrendered one after another on seeing Piankhi's force except Crocodilopolis in the Fayum, which would have carried him too far from his course past Illahun at the mouth of the Fayum.

On the other hand, he did not touch Aphroditopolis, which lay on the east side of the river, equally far removed from his route past Medum and Ithtowe to Memphis. The Nubian king offered sacrifice to the gods in all the cities which he passed, and took possession of all the available property for his own treasury and the estate of Amon.

On reaching Memphis it was found to have been very strongly fortified by Tefnakhte, who now counted the city as part of his kingdom. He had long held possession of it and was priest of Ptah, its great god. Hence in answer to Piankhi's demand to surrender, the Memphites closed the gates and made a sortie, which was evidently not very effective.

Under cover of night Tefnakhte succeeded in entering the city and exhorted the garrison to rely on their strong walls, their plentiful supplies and the high water, which protected the east side from attack, urging them to hold out while he rode away northward for reinforcements. Having landed on the north of the city, Piankhi was surprised at the strength of the place. Some of his people favored a siege, others desired to storm the walls upon embankments and causeways to be raised for the purpose. Piankhi himself decided to assault, but rejecting labourious works, which besides being too slow would give the enemy exact indication of the place of attack, he devised a shrewd plan of assault, which speaks highly for his skill as a strategist. The high walls on the west of the city had been recently raised still higher, and it was evident that the east side, protected by waters perhaps artificially raised, was being neglected. Here was the harbor, where the ships now floated so high that their bow ropes were fastened among the houses of the city. Piankhi sent his fleet against the harbor and quickly captured all the shipping. Then taking command in person, he rapidly ranged the captured craft together with his own fleet along the eastern walls, thus furnishing footing for his assaulting lines, which he immediately sent over the ramparts
and captured the city before its eastern defenses could be strengthened against him. A great slaughter now ensued, but all sanctuaries were respected and protected, and Ptah of course repudiated Tefnakhte and recognized Piankhi as king.

The entire region of Memphis then submitted, whereupon the Delta dynasts also appeared in numbers with gifts for Piankhi and signified their submission. After dividing the wealth of Memphis between the treasuries of Amon and Ptah, Piankhi crossed the river, worshipped in the ancient sanctuary of Khereha-Babylon, and followed the old sacred road thence to Heliopolis, where he camped by the harbor.

His annals narrate at length how he entered the holy of holies of the sun-god here, that he might be recognized as his son and heir to the throne of Egypt, according to custom usual since the remote days of the Fifth Dynasty. Here king Osorkon III of the Twenty Third Dynasty at Bubastis, now but a petty dynast like the rest, visited Piankhi and recognized the Nubian's suzerainty. Having then moved his camp to a point just east of Athribis, by a town called Keheni, Piankhi there received the submission of the Delta lords. Of these there were fifteen : being two kings, the said Osorkon III, who was still with him, and king Yewepet of Tentremu in the eastern Delta, who had once shared Thebem with Pedibast, Osorkon III's predecessor; nine princes, who governed Mendes, Sebennytos, Saft el-Henneh, Busiris, Hesebka (the eleventh nome), Phagroriopolis, Khereba-Babylon, and other towns of the Delta and vicinity which cannot be identified with certainty; and finally a mercenary commander in Hermopolis Parva, son of the prince of Mendes, besides a priest of Horus who had founded a sacerdotal principality at Letopolis, like that of the priests at Heracleopolis, from whom the Twenty Second Dynasty sprang.

Among all these, Pediese, prince of Athribis, showed himself especially loyal to Piankhi and invited him thither, placing all his wealth at the Nubian's disposal. Thereupon Piankhi proceeded to Athribis, received the gifts of Pediese, and that he might choose for himself the best steeds, even entered Pediese's stables, which the shrewd Athribite, observing his love for horses, had particularly invited him to do. The fifteen Delta lords, except of course Pediese, were here dismissed at their own request, that they might go back to their cities and return to Piankhi with further gifts, in emulation of Pediese.

Meantime the desperate Tefnakhte had garrisoned Mesed, a town of uncertain location, but probably somewhere on his Saite frontier. Rather than have them captured by Piankhi he burned the ships and supplies which he could not save. Piankhi then sent a body of troops against Mesed, and they slew the garrison. Tefnakhte had meanwhile taken refuge on one of the remote islands in the western mouths of the Nile. Many miles of vast Delta morass and a network of irrigation canals separated Piankhi from the fugitive. It would have been a hazardous undertaking to dispatch an army into such a region. When, therefore, Tefnakhte sent gifts and an humble message of submission requesting that Piankhi send to him a messenger with whom he might go to a neighbouring temple and take the oath of allegiance to his Nubian suzerain, Piankhi was very glad to accept the proposal. In this less humiliating, not to say much less dangerous manner, Tefnakhte then accepted the suzerainty of Piankhi. When, therefore, the two kings of the Fayum and Aphroditopolis whom, as we have seen, he had not molested on his way northward, appeared with their gifts a Nubian Pharaoh had obtained complete recognition, had supplanted the Libyans and was lord of all Egypt.

When his Delta vassals had paid Piankhi a last visit he loaded his ships with the wealth of the North and sailed away for his southern capital amid the acclamations of the people.

If we have devoted an apparently disproportionate amount of space to the campaign which was now concluded it is because it displays to us more clearly than ever before or after, the conditions which always arose in Egypt whenever any weakening of the central power betrayed to the local dynasts that they might without danger assume their independence or even gradually usurp the crown of the Pharaoh. Arrived at Napata, Piankhi erected in the temple of Amon a magnificent granite stela, inscribed on all four sides, recording in detail the entire campaign, in which he, the son of Amon, had humiliated the rivals of that god in the North. With the possible exception of the Annals of Thutmose III and the documents of Ramses II on the battle of Kadesh, this remarkable literary monument is the clearest and most rational account of a military expedition which has survived from ancient Egypt. It displays literary skill and an appreciation of dramatic situations which is notable, while the vivacious touches found here and there quite relieve it of the arid tone usual in such hieroglyphic documents.

The imagination endues the personages appearing here more easily with life than those of any other similar historical narrative of Egypt; and the humane Piankhi especially, the lover of horses, remains a man far removed from the conventional companion and equal of the gods who inevitably occupies the exalted throne of the Pharaohs in all other such records. It is this document of course which has enabled us to follow Piankhi in his conquest of the North.

Tefnakhte, while he had nominally submitted to Piankhi, only awaited the withdrawal of the Ethiopian to resume his designs. He eventually succeeded in establishing a kingdom of Lower Egypt, assumed the Pharaonic titles and ruled at least eight years over a feudal state like that of the Twenty Second Dynasty. His reign is parallel with the last years of the Twenty Third Dynasty, which seems to have struggled on at Bubastis as vassal princes under him. It is evident that Tefnakhte was of a type far superior to the ordinary Delta dynast; he must have greatly increased the power and prestige of Sais, for his son Bocchoris, on succeeding to his father's throne, was later regarded as the founder of the Twenty Fourth Dynasty.

In Upper Egypt Piankhi's rule continued for a brief period. He controlled
Thebes long enough to do some slight building in the temple of Mut, where he left a relief representing a festal voyage of his ships, perhaps his return from the North; for among the vessels appears the state barge of Sais, captured from Tefnakhte's fleet in the northern war. Piankhi was then still in control as far north as Heracleopolis, whose commandant appears in the relief as admiral of the Nubian fleet. In order to gain control of the fortune of Amon with an appearance of legitimacy, Piankhi caused his sister-wife, Amenardis, to be adopted by Shepnupet, the daughter of Osorkon III, who was sacerdotal princess of Thebes. The device was probably not new. But as Piankhi withdrew the decadent Twenty Third Dynasty put forth its last expiring effort and established an ephemeral authority in Thebes, where Osorkon III seems to have ruled for a short time as coregent with an otherwise unknown Takelot, the third of the name.

Piankhi 's invasion of Egypt and entire reign there seem therefore to have fallen within the reign of Osorkon III. But the rising power of Sais soon
overwhelmed the failing Bubastites, and, as we have noted, Bocchoris, son of Tefnakhte of Sais, gained the throne of Lower Egypt probably about 718 BC to be later known as the founder, and in so far as we know, the sole king of the Twenty Fourth Dynasty. We know nothing from the Egyptian monuments regarding his brief reign; the only contemporary monument bearing his name is an inscription dating the burial of an Apis bull in the Memphite Serapeum in his sixth year.

A doubtless reliable tradition of Greek times makes him a wise lawgiver who revised the laws of the land and himself rendered the legal decisions of the most remarkable shrewdness. We may easily believe that the agitated times through which the country had passed made such new legislation necessary. A remarkable Demotic papyrus dated in the thirty fourth year of the Roman Emperor Augustus narrates the prophecies of a lamb uttered in the sixth year of Bocchoris, in which the imminent invasion of Egypt and its conquest by the Assyrians are foretold seemingly accompanied by the assurance that the misfortunes of the unhappy country should continue nine hundred years. It is the last example of that school of prophetic literature of which Ipuwer of the Middle Kingdom was the earliest representative known to us.

Manetho characteristically narrates this marvellous tale as an important
occurrence of Bocchoris's reign. Egypt had now been under the divided authority of numerous local dynasts for probably over a century and a half. The total disintegration of centralized power had unavoidably involved the sacrifice of economic prosperity. Egypt's foreign commerce inevitably dwindled to the vanishing point; agriculture and industry were at the lowest ebb and the resources of the country, at the mercy of irresponsible lords and princes, were necessarily being rapidly drained. With its vast works of irrigation slowly going to ruin, its roads unprotected, intercourse between cities unsafe and the larger communities suffering from constant turmoil and agitation, the productive capacity of the country was steadily waning. While these conclusions are not based upon contemporary documents,—for such conditions in such an age are rarely even indirectly the subject of record,—yet they may be safely inferred from the known results of similar political conditions in later times. The hopeless state of the country was clearly understood by the sagacious Isaiah, who declared to his people:

"Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud and cometh unto Egypt; and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it. And I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians; and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city and kingdom against kingdom ... And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts ... The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the counsel of the wisest counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish. .. The princes of Zoan [Tanis] are become fools, the princes of Noph [Napatal] are deceived; they have caused Egypt to go astray that are the corner stone of her tribes. The Lord hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; they have caused Egypt to go astray in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggering in his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, may do."

No truer picture could possibly be portrayed. In spite of these unfavorable conditions, one important element of culture in Egypt was inspired with new life. As in the turbulent age of the Medicis, Italy, and especially Florence, enjoyed an artistic transformation, in which works of the highest genius were produced with an amazing fecundity; as in Cairo under the constant revolutions, assassinations, usurpations and incessant oppression of the Mamlukes, while the land was economically going to ruin, the mosque form was developed, perfected and the noblest monuments of Saracen architecture were erected; so now under similar seemingly adverse influences the sculptors of Egypt were slowly ushering in a new era in the history of art and feeling impulses which we shall find attaining their highest fruition in the Restoration which was to follow after another half century of foreign aggression and political decay.

Naturally little of such work has survived, but a modest chapel, erected under Osorkon III at Thebes, contains reliefs showing clearly the new capacity which needed only social, political and economic opportunity to produce the greatest works of oriental art.

Meantime those profound political changes, fraught with the greatest danger to Egypt, which the reader has foreseen, were taking place in Asia. The powerful military state on the Tigris had for centuries been seeking to establish itself as the dominant power in western Asia. As far back as 1100 B.C Nesubenebded, the first of the Tanites, had sent a gift to Tiglath Pileser I on his appearance in the west; and two hundred and fifty years later the Pharaoh had contributed a quota to the western alliance which had hoped to break the power of Shalmaneser II at Qarqar in 854 BC.

Rousing Assyria from a period of temporary decadence, Tiglath-pileser III had brought her full power to bear upon the West, and in 734 to 732 BC had ravaged Syria-Palestine to the very borders of Egypt. The Aramaean kingdom of Damascus fell and the whole west was organized as dependencies of Assyria. In the short reign of Shalmaneser IV, who followed Tiglath Pileser III, Israel with others was encouraged to revolt by Sewa or So, who was either an otherwise unknown Delta dynast or ruler of Musri, a kingdom of North Arabia, the name of which is so like that of Egypt as to cause confusion in our understanding of the documents of the time, a confusion which perhaps already existed in the minds of the cuneiform scribes. Before the Assyrian invasion which resulted, Samaria held out for some years; but under Shalmaneser IV's great successor, Sargon II, it fell in 722 BC. The chief families of Israel were deported and the nation as such was annihilated. Unable to oppose the formidable armies of Assyria, the petty kinglets of Egypt constantly fomented discontent and revolt among the Syro-Palestinian states in order if possible to create a fringe of buffer states between them and the Assyrian.

In 720 BC Sargon again appeared in the west to suppress a revolt in which Egypt doubtless had a hand. Completely victorious in the north, he marched southward to Raphia, where he totally defeated the allies of the south, among whom Egypt had a levy of troops under a commander named Sibi. The Assyrian hosts had now twice swept down to the very borders of Egypt and the dynasts must by this time have been fully aware of their danger. Probably nothing but the traditional reputation of Egypt, the memory of the old days when she had been supreme in Asia, and Ninevite kings had sought her friendship with gifts, kept Tiglath Pileser III and Sargon from invading her frontier and discovering how lamentably weak she was. The situation was now reversed; in 715 BC Sargon's records report the reception of gifts from Piru (Pharaoh) of Egypt, who will probably have been Bocchoris.

Such was the threatening situation of Egypt when, probably about 711 BC, after an interval of some ten years since the retirement of Piankhi, the Nubian kings again appeared in the North. Piankhi had now been succeeded
by his brother, Shabaka, with whom the uninterrupted series of pure Ethiopian royal names begins. He had married Piankhi's daughter and of course based his claim to the throne, as in Egypt, not only upon his own birth, but also upon this alliance. We possess no native records of his conquest of the country, but Manetho states that he burned Bocchoris alive. Lower Egypt was completely subdued, Ethiopian supremacy acknowledged and Shabaka entrenched himself so firmly that he became the founder of the Twenty Fifth or Ethiopian Dynasty, as reported by Manetho. Appreciating the serious danger of the presence of so formidable a state as Assyria on his very borders, Shabaka immediately sent his agents among the Syro-Palestinian states to excite them to revolt. In Philistia, Judah, Moab and Edom, he promised the vassals of Assyria support in rebellion against their Ninevite suzerain. Remembering the ancient supremacy of Egypt, failing to understand the state of decadent impotence into which she had fallen, and anxious to shake off the oppressive Assyrian yoke, they lent a ready ear to the emissaries of Shabaka. Only in Judah did the prophet-statesman Isaiah foresee the futility of depending upon Egypt, and the final catastrophe which should overtake her at the hands of Assyria. The vigilant Assyrian, however, hearing of the projected alliance, acted so quickly that the conspirators were glad to drop their designs and protest fidelity. In spite of difficulties in Babylon and rebellions in the north, the able and aggressive Sargon pushed the consolidation of his power with brilliant success and left to his son Sennacherib in 705 BC the first stable and firmly compacted empire ever founded by a Semitic power.

Sennacherib was embarrassed in his earlier years with the usual complications in Babylon. Marduk-baladdan, an able and active claimant of the Babylonian throne, who had already caused Sennacherib's father much trouble, now sent his emissaries to stir up defection and create a diversion in his favor in the west. As a result Luli, the energetic king of Tyre, Hezekiah of Judah, the dynasts of Edom, Moab and Ammon, with the chiefs of their Beduin neighbours, in fact, all the southern half of the Assyrian conquests in the west besides Egypt were finally organized in a great alliance against Nineveh. Before the allies could act in concert, Sennacherib suddenly appeared in the west, marched down the Phoenician coast, capturing all its strongholds save Tyre; and pressed on southward to the revolting Philistine cities. Here having punished Askalon, he advanced to Altaqu, where he came upon the motley army gathered by the tardy Shabaka among his northern vassals, whom Sennacherib calls "the kings of Musri" (Egypt). We know nothing of the strength of this force, although Sennacherib claims that they were ''without number''; but it is safe to conclude that it was not a formidable army.

With the dissolution of the central government in Egypt the standing army, even made up chiefly of mercenaries as it was, had disappeared and the illy organized aggregation of levies from the domains of the local Delta princes was little fitted to meet the compact and finely organized armies which the Assyrian kings had gradually developed, till they had become the dread and terror of the west. Although small Egyptian contingents had before served as auxiliaries against the Assyrians, the armies of the two empires on the Nile and the Tigris had never before faced each other.

Sennacherib led his own power in person while the Egyptian army was entrusted by Shabaka to his nephew, a son of Piankhi, named Taharka, who some thirteen or fourteen years afterward became king of Ethiopia, a fact which led the Hebrew annalist to give him that title already at the time of this campaign. There was but one possible issue for the battle; Sennacherib disposed of Taharka's army without difficulty, having meanwhile beleaguered Jerusalem and devastated Judah far and wide. He had effectually stamped out the disaffection in the west and completely discomfited the allies, but before he could take Jerusalem the plague-infected winds from the malarial shores of the eastem Delta had scattered death among his troops. This overwhelming catastrophe, together with disquieting news from Babylon, forced him hastily to retire to Nineveh, thus bringing to Jerusalem the deliverance promised by Isaiah, an event in which pious tradition afterward saw the destroying angel of the Lord. This deliverance was perhaps as fortunate for Egypt as for Jerusalem. For the third time the invincible Assyrian army had stood on the very threshold of Egypt, while favoring circumstances had each time caused its withdrawal and saved the decrepit nation on the Nile for a little time from the inevitable humiliation which was now so near. The Syro-Palestinian princes, however, were so thoroughly cowed that the inglorious Ethiopians were thenceforth unable to seduce them to rebellion. Like the Hebrews, they at last recognized the truth, as mockingly stated by the officers of Sennacherib to the unhappy ambassadors of Jerusalem:

''Now behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce it; so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.''

Shabaka apparently ruled his vassal Egyptian states for the remainder of his reign in peace. The fragments of a clay tablet bearing the seal of Shabaka and a king of Assyria, found at Kuyunjik, may indicate some agreement between the two nations. Shabaka showed great partiality to the priesthoods and favored the temples. His restoration of an ancient religious text of great importance in the temple of Ptah rescued and enabled us to employ in this work one of the most remarkable documents surviving from ancient Egypt. At Thebes he reinstated Amenardis, his sister, who must have been temporarily expelled by Osorkon III. Together with her, he built a chapel at Karnak, and his building operations necessitated an expedition to the distant quarries of Hammamat. We also find records of his temple restorations at Thebes, and it is evident that he governed Egypt at least in his relations with the temples, precisely as a native Pharaoh would have done. His sister, Amenardis, seems to have actually ruled Thebes with a large degree of independence, and in spite of his partiality to the priests, it was probably Shabaka who broke the power of the High Priest of Amon, of whose impotence we shall see further evidence as we proceed.

About 700 BC, having reigned probably twelve years in Egypt, although he may have ruled over Nubia for some years before his advent in Egypt, Shabaka was succeeded by Shabataka, another Ethiopian, whose connection with the reigning Ethiopian or Nubian family is a little uncertain, although Manetho, who calls him Sebichos, makes him a son of Shabaka.

As the western vassals remained quiet and Sennacherib was now absorbed in his operations at the other extremity of his empire, Shabataka was unmolested by the Assyrian. His name is rare in Egypt, but it is evident from the conditions which survived him that he was entirely unable to exterminate the local dynasts and consolidate the power of Egypt for the supreme struggle which was before her. It was indeed now patent that the Ethiopians were quite unfitted for the imperial task before them. The southern strain with which their blood was tinctured began to appear as the reign of Shabataka drew to a close about 688 BC.

It is at this juncture that we can trace the rising fortunes of prince Taharka, a son of Piankhi, who had gone north from Napata as a youth of only twenty years with a king whose name is unfortunately lost, who nevertheless must have been Shabaka. He was the son of a Nubian woman and his features, as preserved in contemporary sculptures, show unmistakable negroid characteristics. A son of the great Piankhi, he played a prominent role, and as we have seen, he was entrusted with the command of the army in the campaign against Sennacherib. We know nothing of the circumstances which brought about his advent to the throne, but Manetho states, that leading an army from Ethiopia he slew Sebichos, who must be Shabataka, and seized the crown. Having thus disposed of the usurper, the contemporary monuments without intimation of these events, abruptly picture him in Tanis as king, summoning his mother, whom he has not seen for many years, from Napata to Tanis, that she may assume her proper station as queen-mother there.

In view of this fact and the trouble to be anticipated from Assyria, it is not improbable that the Ethiopians at this time maintained Tanis as their Egyptian residence. For some thirteen years Taharka ruled his kingdom without molestation from Asia. Meantime he was able to execute buildings of minor importance in Tanis and Memphis, and more considerable monuments in Thebes. But he evidently foresaw the coming struggle and duly made his preparations to meet it. The west had for twenty years seen nothing of Sennacherib, who was now assassinated by his sons, in 681 BC. As soon as his son, Esarhaddon, could arrange the affairs of the great empire to which he had succeeded, he determined to resort to the only possible remedy for the constant interference of Egypt with the authority of Assyria in Palestine, viz., the conquest of the Nile country and humiliation of the Pharaoh.

With farseeing thoroughness, he laid his plans for the execution of this purpose, and his army was knocking at the frontier fortresses of the eastern Delta in 674 BC. But Taharka, who was a man of far greater ability than his two predecessors on the throne, must have made a supreme effort to meet the crisis. The outcome of the battle (673 BC) was unfavorable for the Assyrian if, as the documents perhaps indicate, he did not suffer positive defeat. But Esarhaddon nevertheless quietly continued his preparations for the conquest of Egypt. Baal, king of Tyre, perhaps encouraged by the undecisive result of the first Assyrian invasion, then rebelled, making common cause with Taharka.

In 670 BC Esarhaddon was again in the West at the head of his forces. Having invested Tyre, he was aided in his march across the desert to the Delta by the native Beduin, whose camel-caravans furnished him with water. Taharka was now no longer equal to the persistent struggle maintained against him by the obdurate Esarhaddon, and the Egyptian army was defeated and scattered. As the Ethiopian fell back upon Memphis, Esarhaddon pressed him closely, and besieged and captured the city, which fell a rich prey to the cruel and rapacious Ninevite army. Taharka fled southward, abandoning Lower Egypt, which was immediately organized by Esarhaddon into dependencies of Assyria. He records the names of twenty lords of the Delta, formerly Ethiopian vassals, who now took the oath of fealty to him. Among these names, written in cuneiform, a number may be recognized as those of the same men, or at least the same families, with whom Piankhi had to deal in the same region.

Necho, doubtless a descendant of Tefnakhte, occupies the most prominent place among them as prince of Sais and Memphis. The list also includes a prince of Thebes, but Esarhaddon certainly possessed no more than a merely nominal authority in Upper Egypt at this time. As he returned to Nineveh, northward along the coast road, he hewed in the rocks at the Nahr el-Kelb, beside the triumphant stelae of Ramses II, a record of his great achievement; while in Samal (Senjirli), in north Syria, he erected a similar monument representing himself of heroic stature, leading two captives, of whom one is probably Baal of Tyre, and the other, as his negroid features indicate, is the unfortunate Taharka.

After the domination of Libyan and Nubian in turn, Egypt was now a prey to a third foreign conqueror, whose supremacy was however totally different from that of the aliens who had preceded. Both Libyan and Nubian were largely Egyptianized and, as we have seen, ruled as Egyptian Pharaohs; whereas the Delta was now subject to an overlord, who was the head of a great Asiatic empire, having not the slightest sympathy with Egyptian institutions or customs. The result was that the Delta kinglets, who had sworn allegiance to the Ninevite, immediately plotted with Taharka for the resumption of his rule in Lower Egypt, which he thereupon assumed without much delay on the withdrawal of the Assyrian army. Esarhaddon was thus forced to begin his work over again; but in 668 BC, while on the march to resume operations in Egypt, he died.

With but slight delay the campaign was continued by his son, Ashurbanipal, who placed one of his commanders in charge of the expedition. Between Memphis and the frontier of the eastern Delta, Taharka was again routed. Not attempting to hold Memphis, he fled southward, this time pursued by the enemy, and took refuge in Thebes; but the Assyrians, reinforced by native levies among their Delta vassals, made the forty days' march thither, determined to expel him from Egypt. They did force him to abandon Thebes, but he entrenched himself further up the river and the Assyrians did not push the pursuit against him. Whether the enemy actually captured Thebes at this time is somewhat doubtful.

In any case, Ashurbanipal was still unable to extend his authority to Upper Egypt. He had hardly restored his supremacy in the Delta when his vassals there again began communicating with Taharka, purposing his restoration as before. The ringleaders were Necho, whom Esarhaddon had established as king of Sais, Sharuludari of Tanis and Pakruru of Persepet (Saft el-Henneh); but their correspondence with Taharka was discovered by the Assyrian officials in Egypt, and they were sent to Nineveh in chains. There the wily Necho was able to win the confidence of Ashurbanipal, who pardoned him, loaded him with honors and restored him to his kingdom in Sais, while his son was appointed to rule Athribis. At the same time Ashurbanipal accompanied him with Assyrian officials, intended of course to be a check upon his conduct. This plan worked well and Taharka was unable to gain any further foothold among the Assyrian vassals in the Delta, although the priesthood of the Ptah temple secretly dated in his name the record of an Apis burial in one of the subterranean passages of the Serapeum
at Memphis in his twenty fourth year (664 BC).

Several years passed in this way; Upper Egypt continued under the actual authority of Taharka. At Thebes the High Priest of Amon was now a mere figure-head. The real authority was in the hands of one Mentemhet, who, as "prince of Thebes" and "governor of the South", also held the sacerdotal primacy of Egypt. His rank in the Theban priesthood, however, was only that of "fourth prophet." The Theban hierarchy as a political power had thus been dissolved; while the power and wealth of this prince of Thebes, who completed costly restorations in the temples, perhaps after destruction by the Assyrians, were considerable, even in these days of Egypt's poverty and disorganization. Taharka held the fortune of Amon at his disposal by causing his sister, Shepnupet, to be adopted by Amenardis the "Divine Votress", or sacerdotal princess of Thebes, who had been appointed by Piankhi in the same way. At Napata Taharka either built or enlarged two considerable temples, and the Ethiopian capital evidently became a worthy royal residence in his time.

Taharka had now been ruling twenty five years and he was growing old, when in 663 BC he accepted as coregent, perhaps not voluntarily, a son of Shabaka, named Tanutamon, whom he appointed over Upper Egypt. Tanutamon probably resided at Thebes, where Mentemhet, the prince of the Theban principality, was still in control, while Taharka himself, worn out with the unequal struggle against Assyria, had long before retired to Napata. There he survived the appointment of Tanutamon less than a year, dying in 663 BC, whereupon the latter hastened to Napata to assume the sole kingship.

Before these events, Tanutamon had been informed in a dream that he was to gain the sovereignty of both the North and the South, and in response to this vision, he now immediately invaded Lower Egypt (663 BC). All was repeated as in the days of Taharka. Upper Egypt of course received him with acclamation, and it was not until he arrived in the vicinity of Memphis that he met hostile opposition. The Assyrian garrison and doubtless some of the Delta lords, who now stood in great fear of their Ninevite suzerain, gave him battle; but he defeated them and succeeded in taking Memphis. Necho of Sais probably fell in the action, and according to Herodotus, his son Psamtik fled to Syria. Elated with his triumph, Tanutamon sent some of the spoil immediately to Napata with orders to erect new temple buildings there.

Meanwhile the Delta vassals of Assyria dared not yield to the Ethiopian, in view of the inevitable consequences, and he therefore advanced against them, but was unable to draw them into battle or capture their towns. On his return to Memphis after this fruitless attempt a number of the Delta lords finally came to do him homage, but undoubtedly in such a form as to save their standing with their Assyrian over-lord.

Content with the appearance of unchallenged supremacy in Lower Egypt, Tanutamon settled himself in Memphis as Pharaoh of all Egypt, in fulfillment of his divine vision. Meanwhile, on the first news of his departure from Napata, the Assyrian officers in the Delta had sent with all haste to Nineveh to notify Ashurbanipal, and in 661 BC the great king's army drove the Ethiopian for the last time from Lower Egypt. The Assyrians pursued him to Thebes, and as he ingloriously withdrew southward, they sacked and plundered the magnificent capital of Egypt's days of splendor.

The rich cultus images, the gorgeous ritual furniture and implements, with which the pious Theban prince, Mentemhet, had equipped the temples, fell a prey to the fierce Assyrian soldiery, while "two enormous obelisks, wrought of bright silver, whose weight was 2,500 talents, the adornment of a temple-door," which they carried off to Nineveh, indicate the wealth still remaining in the temples of the long devastated nation.

The story of the ruin of Thebes spread to all the peoples around. When the prophet Nahum was denouncing the coming destruction of Nineveh, fifty years later, the desolation of Thebes was still fresh in his mind as he addressed the doomed city: "Art thou better than No-Amon [Thebes], that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers, Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed to pieces at the top of all the streets : and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains".

From this time the fortunes of the venerable city steadily declined and its splendors, such as no city of the early orient had ever displayed, gradually faded. It entered upon the long centuries of lingering decay which have left it at the present day still the mightiest ruin surviving from the ancient world.

The retirement of Tanutamon to Napata was the termination of Ethiopian supremacy in Egypt. His whole career was characteristic of the feeble and inglorious line from which he sprang. Emerging from the remote reaches of the upper Nile, the Ethiopians had attempted an imperial role and aspired to intervene in the international politics of western Asia. At a time when Assyria was dominating the East, without a worthy rival elsewhere to stay her hand, it was to be expected that the historic people of the Nile should confront her and dispute her progress on even terms.

To this great task the Ethiopians were appointed; but there was never a line of kings so ill suited to their high destiny. Unable to weld together the nation they had conquered into any effective weapon against the Assyrians, every attempt to stay the advance of their formidable enemy furnished only another example of feebleness and futility. Only once does Taharka seem to cope successfully with the internal difficulties of his situation and to check for a brief moment the triumphant progress of Esarhaddon; but the indomitable Assyrian quickly breaks the resistance of the Ethiopian, and Taharka seeks ignoble security on the upper Nile. In a word, Assyria was never dealing with a first class power in her conquest of Egypt, when the unhappy Nile-dwellers were without a strong ruler; and for such a ruler they
looked in vain during the supremacy of the inglorious Ethiopians.

Withdrawing to Napata, the Ethiopians never made an other attempt to subdue the kingdom of the lower river, but gave their attention to the development of Nubia. As the Egyptians resident in the country died out and were not replaced by others, the Egyptian gloss which the people had received began rapidly to disappear, and the land relapsed into a semi-barbaric condition. The theocratic character of the government became more and more pronounced until the king was but a puppet in the hands of the priests, at whose behest he was obliged even to take his own life and make way for another weakling whom the priests might choose. While the earlier kings had built up and beautified Napata, their successors were obliged to move the royal residence up the river.

The first impulse toward this change was doubtless due to the campaign of Psamtik II against lower Nubia early in the sixth century. In any case at this time the kingdom began to expand southward. The rich lands on the Blue Nile of which the most important district was known to the Arab geographers as Aloa, were added to the kingdom. Napata was separated from all this by the upper cataracts. As trade connections with the south were established and new acquisitions there developed more fully the royal residence was transferred above the cataracts, and by 560 BC the Nubian kings were occupying their new capital, known to the Greeks as Meroe. Apart from other considerations, the wisdom of thus placing the difficult cataract region between the capital and invaders from the north was shown by the discomfiture of Cambyses' expedition against Nubia at the hands of its king Nastesen in 525 BC.

As the nation shifted southward it was completely withdrawn from contact with the northern world; and Ethiopia gradually lost behind a mist of legend, became the wonderland celebrated in Greek story as the source of civilization. The Egyptian language and hieroglyphics, which the kings had hitherto used for their records, now slowly disappeared, and by the beginning of our era the native language was finally written in a script which as yet is undeciphered.

When a century or two after the Roman conquest the Ethiopian kingdom slowly collapsed and fell to pieces, its northern districts were absorbed by wild hordes of the Blemmyes who pushed in from the east; while in the south it was succeeded by the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, which rose at the sources of the Blue Nile in the fourth century A. D. and assumed the name of its ancient predecessor.