they to his Majesty, "They are come to serve the great lord, our governor." The king said: "My governor is that glorious god, the Theban Amon on the holy mountain. The great god is gracious to him who confesses his name; he watches (30) over him who loves him; he grants strength to him who does his will, and transgresses not his bidding. He who walks according to his commandments will not stagger, for he leads him and guides him. It is he that speaks to me in the night (31) of that which I shall see in the day." 'His Majesty said: "What they wish cannot be transacted at this hour." They spake before the king: "They are without, they stand near the king's house."

When his Majesty had gone forth (32) out of his [palace], then he beheld these princes, who learned to know the god Ra on the horizon. He found them lying prostrate, in order to supplicate before his face. The king speaks: "Since that is the truth, which Amon decrees, (33) I will act according to the [command that he shall reveal to me]. Lo! to know what will happen means this-what God ordains, that shall come to pass. I swear, as truly as the Sun-god Ra loves me, as truly as I hallow Amon in his house, I will [enquire of] this glorious god (34) of Noph on the holy mountain whether he stands against me. Whatever he shall say to me, to that let effect be given by all means and in every way. Good for naught is the saying: 'O that I had waited with my resolution till the next morning which shall arise !' (35) I am as a servant [mindful of his master's] interest, and every workman must know what tends to the interest of his Majesty. [Say not, Why] should I wait for the morning, which comes later? Had I only thy power!"

'Then they answered him and spake thus: "May this glorious god (36) be thy guide and leader! May he give what is good into thy hand! Turn thyself not away from that which shall come out of his mouth, O great king, our lord!"

'When Pi-qe-ro-ro, the hereditary lord and prince of the city Pi-saptu, had stood up to speak as follows: (37) "Kill whom thou wilt; let live whom thou wilt; there shall be no reproach against our lord on account of that which is just; "-then they responded to him all together, speaking thus: "Grant us the breath of life, for none can live without (38) it. We will serve him (i.e. Amon) as his dependents, just as thou hast said from the beginning, from the day when thou wast made king."

'Then was the heart of his Majesty glad, when he had heard these words. He entertained (39) them with food and drink and all good things.

'After many days had passed in this manner, and he had imparted to them all good things, notwithstanding their great number, then they said: "Shall we stay longer? Is such the will of the great lord, our governor ?" Then spake (40) his Majesty, saying thus: "Why?" They speak before his Majesty: "We would return home to our cities; we would care for our inhabitants and our servants according to the need of the city." Then his Majesty let them depart thence (41) (each) to his city, and they remained in life.

'Then the inhabitants of the South sailed down the river, and those of the North up the river, to the place where his Majesty resided, and brought all the good things of Upper Egypt and all the riches (42) of Lower Egypt, to propitiate the heart of his Majesty. May the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Bi-ka-ra, the son of the Sun, Miamun Nut-to him be health, prosperity, life!--sit enthroned upon the seat of Horus for ever!'

What gives an especial value to this inscription, is the mention of the prince of the city of Pi-saptu (the capital of the later nome of Arabia) Pi-qe-ro-ro, who here comes forward as spokesman in the name of the petty kings of the low country, and treats direct with the Ethiopian. For his name appears again in the celebrated Assyrian account of the campaign of king Assur-ban-habal, the son of Assur-ah-idin, against the Ethiopian king Tarquu, the king Taharaqa of the

monuments.

King Nut also (like Pi-ankhi) was not permitted to

6 Asshur-bani-pal, the son of Esar-haddon, are the forms of the names more familiar to English readers. See the late lamented Mr. George Smith's History of Assur-bani-pal, and his translation of the Annals of Assurbanipal in Records of the Past, vols. i and ix.-ED.

enjoy long the double-serpent-crown of Lower Egypt. As in Egypt a perpetual struggle and dispute for the sceptre at last partitioned the country and played into the hands of foreign potentates, so likewise in Ethiopia a schism appears to have broken out in the reigning family, which could only be decided by arms. The statement, in the list of titles of king Nut-that he had gained possession of this land (Ethiopia) without fighting' alludes clearly enough to some such circumstances. It even seems as if a division had been made from the original beginning of the empire, inasmuch as three different regions formed thenceforth the three chief parts of the divided Ethiopian state: namely, Patoris, with the capital Thebes; Takhont (Nubia, the land of Meluḥḥa of the cuneiform inscriptions), with the capital Kipkip; and Kush, with the old Ethiopian royal city of Napata.

It is only in this way that a satisfactory explanation can be found for the crowding of several Ethiopian royal names on one and the same line of the genealogy.7

With Taharaqa, king of Ethiopia (according to our view about 700 B.C.), begins the latest period of the history of the kingdom of the Pharaohs, in which the numbers obtain a more certain form, and the classical writers begin by degrees to contribute authentic data respecting the fortunes of the Egyptian kings, their contemporaries.

The Ethiopian king just mentioned bore the full names of

7 See the great Genealogical Table (IV.)

NOFER-TUM-KHU-RA TA-HA-RA-QA.

B.C. 693-666.

The length of his reign extended to more than twenty-six years, as it is obtained with full exactness from the data of the life of an Apis-bull. To him belonged the South country, Patoris, with its capital, Thebes, in which several monuments, mostly in the form of dedicatory inscriptions, are memorials of the dominion and presence of this Ethiopian king. His name was well known in antiquity, from the Bible down to the classic writers. While Holy Scripture introduces him under the name of Thirhaqah (Tirhakah,8 A.V.), his name appears in the Greek writers in the forms, Tearko, Etearchus, Tarakus, Tarkus. His renown as a great conqueror pervades the records of antiquity, although all other proof of this from the monuments is wanting. The Egyptian inscriptions know him simply as the lord of Kemi (i.e. Egypt), Tesher (i.e. the land of the Erythræans), and Kepkep (i.e. Nubia).

It is to the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions that

8 At 2 Kings xix. 9, and Isaiah xxxvii. 9, we read that while Sennacherib, in his great campaign against Judah (B.c. 700), was besieging Libnah, he received news that 'TIRHAKAH, king of Ethiopia,' had come out to fight against him. Shortly before this, as we learn from Sennacherib's own annals, he had signally defeated the united forces of the kings of Egypt and the king of Ethiopia, who had advanced to aid the rebel city of Migron (Ekron), at Altaku (Eltekeh: Joshua xix. 44; xxi. 23). It would seem, therefore, that the resistance of Hezekiah encouraged Tirhakah and his Egyptian allies to a new effort; and it was on his advance to meet them, probably near Pelusium, that Sennacherib's army was miraculously destroyed. At this time, it is to be observed, Tirhakah was only king of Ethiopia, not yet of Egypt.-ED.

historical science owes the most important elucidation of the reign of this king in Egypt, and of his wars against the great kings of Assyria. The French scholar, Jules Oppert, was the first who, with his usual penetration, deciphered the fragments relating to these wars, and brought out the connection of their contents with the events in Egypt. From his work, entitled 'Mémoire sur les rapports de l'Égypte et de l'Assyrie dans l'antiquité éclaircis par l'étude des textes cunéiformes' (Paris, 1869), we have borrowed the important text which is here placed before the reader. We have here and there amended some Egyptian proper names, from the necessary corrections furnished by the latest researches in this field.9

[Preliminary Note by the Editor.]

[We must be content to refer the reader to M. Oppert's own account of the various inscriptions and fragments which his ingenuity has pieced together, to make up this most momentous record of the Assyrian king (son of Esarhaddon and grandson of Sennacherib), whom he calls Asur-ban-habal or Sardanapalus IV., the warrior Sardanapalus' of Layard. M. Oppert prints (1) the Assyrian cuneiform text, (2) the same in Italic letters, and (3) a Latin version, all in parallel lines and words. These texts are accompanied by a most valuable Memoir,' on cuneiform interpretation, the history of the Assyrian kingdom, and other matters.

In translating Dr. Brugsch's German version, we have compared it, word by word, with the Latin of

9 The reader would do well to look at Haigh's remarks in the Aegyptische Zeitschrift, 1871, p. 112, and 1872, p. 125, and my own in the same journal, 1871, p. 29.