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We know nothing of any deeds of Bocchoris in war. We only find that he looked inactively on the great change which took place in Syria in the last decade of his reign. When Assyria planted her foot ever more firmly in Syria (p. 38), the eyes of Israel were directed to Egypt. When Gaza, the most southern fortress of Palestine, fell into the hands of the Egyptians, and the prince sought protection in Egypt (p. 48), we hear nothing of any arrangements of Bocchoris. No doubt he found himself threatened by a neighbour nearer and more dangerous. There are no monuments of Bocchoris in existence, with the exception of the sarcophagus of an Apis, which stood in the same chamber in which was placed the Apis which died in the thirty-seventh year of Ssheshonk IV. The name of the king is here Bokenranef.161 This burial of the sacred bull of Memphis in the traditional manner contradicts the narratives of the Western writers, that Bocchoris did not observe the prescripts of religion, and caused the sacred white bull of Ra at Heliopolis to fight against a wild bull, a proceeding which caused a rebellion among the Egyptians.162 Statements of this kind, like the stories of portents, which happened in his time, – that a goat spoke, that a lamb was born with eight feet, two tails, two heads, and two horns, and spoke,163– are intended no doubt to supply a motive for and prepare the blow which fell upon Egypt and Bocchoris, and which the king's wisdom and justice could not prevent.
What Pianchi was unable to carry out was accomplished by his second successor, Sabakon.164 From the books of Manetho nothing has been preserved beyond the observation, that Sabakon the Ethiopian took Bocchoris prisoner in war, and caused him to be burnt alive; Herodotus tells us that Sabakon, the king of the Ethiopians, marched through Egypt with a mighty army of his people, and the king of Egypt (Herodotus calls him Anysis) fled into the marshes. Sabakon was a mild ruler, and did not punish any Egyptian with death. Those who had committed an offence, he condemned to raise the dams which Sesostris had caused to be thrown up round the cities, according to the measure of the offence, and thus the cities of Egypt became far higher; "and highest of all, in my opinion," Herodotus adds, "was the city of Bubastis."165 "Though by birth an Ethiopian," says Diodorus of Sabakon, "he surpassed his predecessors in piety and gentleness. Of this it is sufficient proof that he did away with the severest penalty, the penalty of death, and caused those who were condemned to death to perform task-work in chains in the cities, since he was of opinion that the reduction of the punishment would not only be an advantage to the condemned persons, but also bring great advantage to the cities." By these task-labourers he caused many dams to be raised, and many needful canals to be cut.166 With the gentleness of Sabakon, thus praised by Herodotus and Diodorus, the statement of Manetho, that he burnt Bocchoris alive, and the statement of Herodotus, that he put to death Necho of Sais, do not very well agree.
The last Bubastites, Petubastis and Osorkon, had not been able to maintain the power of the crown against the lords of the districts, and the brave and skilful attempt to restore the power of the Pharaohs made by Tnephachtus and Bocchoris was wrecked. After Bocchoris succumbed to the Ethiopians in the year 730 B.C.167 Egypt obeyed a foreign ruler. The king of Napata was also the Pharaoh of Egypt; Egypt and Meroe were united. The chief importance of the change thus accomplished lay in the fact that the valley of the Nile, from the mouths as far as Dongola, was united into one state; that the warlike power of Egypt, which had become extinct under the later Ramessids, and then was replaced by Libyan mercenaries to the ruin of Egypt, was now replaced by the unspent vigour of the Ethiopians; and the combination of the latter with the rich means and resources of Egypt availed to strengthen the country considerably, and restore her to her previous position. For the internal condition of Egypt the new sovereignty brought hardly any other change than this, that the rulers now found a strong point of support in their own land. The dynasties which, so far as we can see, Tnephachtus and Bocchoris overcame or removed, we find again at the head of their districts under the Ethiopians. It is possible that oppressed or expelled families among these invited or supported Sabakon's invasion of Egypt, just as in the preceding generation the princes of Upper Egypt summoned Pianchi to support them against the father of Bocchoris. That sovereigns and hereditary lords were at the head of the districts of Egypt under Sabaka and his successors of Meroe is beyond a doubt. Thus the rule of Sabakon and his Ethiopian successors might appear as a restoration of the old state of affairs in contrast to the innovations of Tnephachtus and Bocchoris, and the more so, as these rulers jealously adopted the national worship. We saw how earnest Pianchi was in visiting the temples of Egypt; how he offered sacrifice to his father Thot, his father Ptah, his father Ra, and saw the last in his shrine at Heliopolis; the memorial stone even assures us that of the princes who submitted to him he allowed those only to come into his presence at that time who had eaten no fish, i. e. who strictly observed the rules of purification. It was the reverence of the priests, the participation in the worship, the correct behaviour, in which Sabakon and his Ethiopian successors come forward as genuine followers of the Pharaohs, which appear to have won for Sabakon – who is to the Greeks the representative of the Ethiopian dynasty – that reputation for gentleness and justice which Herodotus and Diodorus repeat from the tradition of the Egyptians. At the temples at Memphis,168 at Luxor, and Karnak, Sabakon undertook works of restoration. His name and title here are Raneferka Shabaka. On the pillars of the main gateway at Karnak the goddess Hathor embraces him; the inscription on this gate describes him as "the good god, the giver of life for ever, like the sun," and declares that he has received the tribute of the negroes, and the tribute of the Chalu, i. e. the inhabitants of Palestine. How the latter statement is to be explained will become clear afterwards; we shall see that Sabakon had much better reason to be silent about the events in Syria than to boast of them.
Sabakon died in the year 717 B.C.,169 and left the empire over Napata and Egypt to his own son Sebichus, as Manetho calls him; Shabataka as the name is given on monuments at Memphis.170 His successor was Tirhaka, the Taharka of the monuments. The list of Manetho describes him as not being the son of his predecessor. We do not know in what way he came to the throne of Egypt; it appears that he got the crown by force; we can only establish the fact that he obtained the sovereign power in the year 703 B.C.171 Considerable relics of his buildings remain in his native land at Napata. Among them are especially prominent the ruins of a great temple, just as all the buildings there are wholly in Egyptian style.172 In Egypt Tirhaka's name occurs frequently on the walls of Karnak. On the portals of the temple of Medinet Habu, we see him before the face of Ammon brandishing his war-club over ten bearded forms. The inscription tells us that he overcame the black land (Kemi, Egypt), and the red land; on a memorial stone of Dongola the names of the regions and tribes are given, which he subjugated there in the distant south; names quite unknown and inexplicable to us.173 With Megasthenes it is the Ethiopian Tearkon (Tirhaka), a mighty warrior, who subjugated Libya, advanced as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and even crossed into Europe.174 We shall see that as soon as he ascended the throne his attention was occupied in the East, and that he fought with success in Syria at this time. What he may have afterwards accomplished against the negroes, and perhaps against tribes of Libya, in almost thirty years we cannot ascertain accurately. The severest struggles awaited him in the last decade of his reign, in which a mighty opponent rose up against him, with whom he wrestled stubbornly but without success.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST COLLISION OF ASSYRIA AND EGYPT
When Tiglath Pilesar ascended the throne of Assyria, he first compelled Babylonia to recognise his supremacy; after that he advanced into the table land of Iran, as far as Arachosia, and there at the least maintained his supremacy far and wide over the Medes. To the North he fought against Nairi and Urarti, against Kummukh and Tubal (743 B.C.); even the union into which the distressed princes of that region entered against him did not protect them; after a second subjugation the Tubal, i. e. the Tibarenes, received a prince from the hand of Tiglath Pilesar (735 B.C.). Meanwhile he had already overthrown Arpad in the West, which had resisted his predecessors so vigorously in a struggle which continued for three years; received tribute from Karchemish, Damascus, and Tyre; and placed the region of Amanus, Lebanon, Hadrach, and several districts of Hamath under Assyrian viceroys (742-740 B.C.). Two years afterwards the princes of Cilicia, of Hamath, of Byblus, Menahem king of Israel, and Zabibieh, the queen of the Arabs, submitted (738 B.C.). The appeal of Ahaz for help brought him again into Syria; after a struggle of three years Damascus was overthrown, Israel deprived of a portion of her population, and given to another prince, the cities of the Philistines conquered, the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites overthrown, and at length Samsieh, the queen of the Arabs, was defeated (734-732 B.C.). This complete subjugation of Syria was followed by new conflicts on the lower Euphrates. Nabu-sabzi and Kinziru were overpowered; Kinziru became a vassal of Babylon, and when Merodach Baladan paid homage at Sapiya, the dominion of Tiglath Pilesar extended to the shore of the Persian Gulf (731 B.C.). He now called himself king of Asshur and Babel, and in the last years of his reign received the tribute of tribes from the south of Arabia. After an eventful reign of 18 years which gained for Assyria the supremacy over Media, Syria, and Babylonia, Tiglath Pilesar died in the year 727 B.C.
His successor was Shalmanesar IV. No inscriptions have been preserved from the short reign of this king. The astronomical canon represents a change in the succession of Babylon at the death of Tiglath Pilesar; in the place of the joint reign of Chinzirus and Polus, in which we believed that we might recognise the supremacy of Tiglath Pilesar, obscurely given in Babylonian tradition under the name Polus (Phul), and the vassal-reign of Kinziru (p. 9), comes the reign of Elulæus in the year 726 B.C. That Chinzirus and Polus died in the same year, that Kinziru died in the same year as Tiglath Pilesar, would be remarkable, but by no means impossible. It is more probable that Shalmanesar found it advisable to make a change in the vassal king at Babylon, and that after his accession he placed Elulæus (Illuhillu) there as a vassal. Shalmanesar's attention was soon occupied in another direction.
Saved by the arms of Assyria from the overpowering advance of the Damascenes and Israelites, the Philistines and Edomites, Ahaz, king of Judah, had paid homage to Tiglath Pilesar at Damascus. "When Ahaz saw the altar which was at Damascus," so we are told by the Books of Kings, "he sent a pattern of it to Uriah the priest, and Uriah built the altar after this pattern, and when Ahaz came from Damascus he sacrificed on this altar, and offered burnt offerings and meat offerings, and poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his thank offering on the altar. The iron altar, which stood before Jehovah, he removed, and the iron sea he took from the oxen and placed it on the pavement (II. 184). And Ahaz bade Uriah offer the burnt offering in the morning, and the meat offering in the evening, and the burnt and meat offering of the king, and all the sacrifices of the whole people of the land, on the new altar, and the king's entry he turned to the house of Jehovah for the king of Assyria."175 According to this Ahaz, in order to prove his submission to his sovereign, altered the altar and arrangements of the temple at Jerusalem after the pattern of an altar on which he had seen Tiglath Pilesar sacrifice to his gods at Damascus, and the ritual there observed.176 The high priest Uriah submitted. He not only allowed the king to sacrifice in person, against which the priesthood had contended in the case of Uzziah, but he altered the service of the temple according to the wishes of the king.
Judah was laid waste through her length and breadth. The Damascenes and the Israelites, the Philistines and the Edomites, had got the whole land into their power as far as the metropolis. Even from this heavy blow Judah would learn nothing. Instead of turning thankfully to Jehovah for rescue from such distress, the altars of the temples were altered after an Assyrian pattern. Isaiah saw this movement with the deepest indignation. "Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. Had not Jehovah left to us a small remnant, we had been as Sodom and Gomorrah. From the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness in us, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up, nor mollified with ointment. Why should ye be stricken any more, and revolt any more? They are replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and agree with the children of strangers. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel knows him not."177
Israel suffered still more than Judah by the carrying away of the population of the northern and eastern districts, the land of Nephtali, and the land of Gilead. Hoshea reigned over the remainder from the year 734 (p. 48). According to the Books of Kings he set on foot a conspiracy, slew Pekah, and became king in his place; according to the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar, Tiglath made him king over Israel. These statements are not contradictory. Pekah had been in league with Rezin of Damascus, the opponent of Assyria and Judah: why should not Tiglath Pilesar recognise and establish as king of Israel the man who had removed the opponent of Assyria?178 Hoshea sent his tribute yearly to the king of Assyria.179 But when the dreaded warrior prince of Asshur – when Tiglath Pilesar died, there awoke in the Philistines, the Phenicians, and above all in Eulæus, king of Tyre, and Hoshea, king of Israel, the hope of withdrawing themselves from the yoke of Assyria. If Hoshea had risen as a partisan of Assyria, he determined now that he was in possession of the throne to break loose from that empire. The hope of liberation rested not only on the fact that Tiglath Pilesar was no more; it received a still stronger point of support in the change which had taken place in Egypt in the last years of Tiglath Pilesar. Menahem of Israel had already thought of securing the assistance of Egypt before he sent his tribute to Assyria (p. 38), and the same thought must have occurred to Uzziah in his last years. Hanno of Gaza had taken refuge in Egypt from Tiglath Pilesar (p. 48). The prudent Bocchoris had left, or been compelled to leave, Syria untouched. But since his reign Sabakon had united the forces of Dongola, Nubia, and Egypt into a strong power. When Tiglath Pilesar had extended the dominion of Assyria as far as Gaza and Elath, and a victorious aggressive power of great strength stood on the borders of Egypt, the attack of Assyria might be expected there. A far-seeing ruler of Egypt, secure of his military power, must endeavour to anticipate this attack; he must prevent it by uniting the elements of resistance existing in Syria. If the issue were favourable, the dominion of Assyria over Syria would thus be removed; in any case Egypt would have allies in Syria for the war against Assyria. "Hoshea sent messengers to Seveh (Sabakon) king of Egypt," so the Hebrews tell us, "and brought the king of Assyria no present more as formerly." It is this attempt to gain assistance, and probably the presents which accompanied it – perhaps also gifts from Hanno at Gaza, the princes of Tyre, Zemar, and Hamath (see below) – which Sabakon, on the walls of Karnak, describes as tribute received from the inhabitants of Palestine (p. 73).
Isaiah foresaw very plainly what would be the issue of this undertaking which to him appeared madness and intoxication. He announced destruction and ruin to the Philistines, the kingdom of Israel, and the Phenicians. The carrying away into captivity already sent by Jehovah upon Israel, in punishment of her offences, and the war against Judah had brought about no improvement, no reformation; the severe lesson teaching them to remain at rest, which the sons of Israel had then received, is disregarded; they are calling down upon themselves a still heavier judgment. Isaiah spoke the more strongly as he was desirous to prevent Judah also, where Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, ascended the throne in 728 B.C., from joining in this attempt. In reference to the death of Tiglath Pilesar he cries to the cities of the Philistines: "Rejoice not, whole Philistia, because the rod is broken which smote thee. For out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit is a flying serpent. From the north cometh a smoke."180 To the cities of Tyre and Sidon, he cries: "Howl, ye ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste: there is no house more, no entering in. Be still, ye inhabitants of the coast, which the merchants of Sidon that pass over the sea replenished. By distant waters the seed of the Nile, the harvest of the river, was their revenue, and she was the mart of nations. Be thou ashamed, Sidon, for the sea hath spoken; the strength of the sea thus: I travailed not, and brought not forth; I brought up no young men and maidens. Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the coast! Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? Her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn. Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth? Jehovah the Lord of Hosts hath purposed it. Jehovah gave command over Canaan to destroy her fortresses, and said: Thou shalt no more rejoice, thou oppressed virgin, daughter of Sidon! Pass over to Chittim (the Cyprians, II. 53). There also thou shalt have no rest. When the report comes to Egypt, they shall be sorely pained at the report of Tyre."181
Isaiah directs his most severe warning to those of his own race, the kingdom of Israel. "Woe to the proud crown of the drunken Ephraim, the faded flower on the head of the fat valley of those possessed by wine," he cries. "Priests and prophets have erred through strong drink, and are overcome with wine. Jehovah will speak to this people with an alien tongue, to whom he said: Give ye rest to the weary; this is the way of salvation. But they would not listen. To whom shall he teach knowledge? whom shall he make to understand doctrine? – them that are weaned from the milk, and removed from the mother's breast? Behold, a stronger and mightier shall come from the Lord, as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm; as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, he shall cast them with violence to the earth. He will trample it under foot, the proud crown of the drunken Ephraim; the faded flower on the head of the fat valley will disappear like early fruit before the gathering."182
"Shalmanesar the king of Assyria," so the Books of Kings tell us, "discovered a conspiracy in Hoshea, that he had sent messengers to Seveh (So), the king of Egypt, and brought him no more a present as before. He went up against Hoshea, seized him, and put him in chains in prison, and marched over the whole land, and against Samaria, and besieged the city three years." Josephus tells us: "It was told Shalmanesar that Hoshea had secretly invited Egypt to a combined struggle. In his anger he marched out against Samaria, besieged the city for three years, and took Hoshea prisoner." "But the king of Assyria fought against the whole of Syria and Phœnicia. He marched against Tyre while Elulæus reigned there. Menander, who has drawn up the annals and translated the archives of the Tyrians into the Greek language, vouches for this when he says: Elulaeus reigned 36 years; when the Citians revolted, he sailed thither and again reduced them to subjection. The king of Assyria sent an expedition against these, overran all Phœnicia with war, made peace with them all, and returned. Sidon, and Acco, and old Tyre, and many other cities revolted from the Tyrians; but as the Tyrians themselves did not submit, the king turned again upon them, and the Phenicians manned 60 ships for him, and placed upon them 8000 rowers.183 Against these the Tyrians set sail with 12 ships; destroyed the vessels of the enemy, and made about 500 prisoners. But the king of Assyria placed guards on the river, and on the conduits, to prevent the Tyrians from drawing water, and returned home. The Tyrians endured this for five years, during which they drank water from wells that they had dug. This is what is stated in the records of the Tyrians about Shalmanesar, the king of the Assyrians."184
According to these indications and statements we may assume the course of affairs to have been something of the following kind. The cities of the Phenicians, and of the Philistines, and the kingdom of Israel hope for the assistance of the king of Meroe and Egypt, of Sabakon, whom the Hebrews call Seveh, and the inscriptions of the Assyrians, Sabhi. Shalmanesar overruns Syria, before the assistance from Egypt has arrived there (726 B.C.).185 Hoshea is either taken by surprise and overcome, or in his terror attempts to appease the king of Asshur by submission. He is carried away to prison, and Shalmanesar turns towards the coast. The cities of the Phenicians submit; only the island city of Tyre resists (II. 265). The cities, which had submitted, were now compelled to furnish ships to Shalmanesar for the conquest of Cyprus, and the blockade of the island city, which was carried on from the mainland also, since old Tyre was garrisoned there, and the inhabitants of the island city were prevented from drawing water on the coast. It is remarkable that the Tyrians are said to have met the 60 ships of the blockade with 12 ships only. Yet this is no doubt no more than a mere sally of the besieged. The ships of the inhabitants of the mainland may not have taken a vigorous part in the fighting; and the blockade may not have been carried on very strictly. Tyre may very well have been able to endure a somewhat lax investment for five years. The resistance of the Tyrians appears to have inspired courage in the Israelites and the metropolis of Israel, so that they defied the arms of the Assyrians even after the carrying away of Hoshea. In the year 724 B.C. Shalmanesar turned from the coast, against Samaria. The Israelites defended their city most stubbornly. Damascus had resisted Tiglath Pilesar two years; Samaria, like Arpad, held out for three years. "The king of Assyria took Samaria," so we are briefly told in the Books of Kings, "and carried Israel to Assyria, and gave them dwellings in Chalah and Chabor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."
The monuments of Assyria inform us that Shalmanesar IV. did not live to see the fall of Samaria. He died in the course of the last year of the siege (722 B.C.). Sargon, his successor, boasts of this achievement of his arms. "In the beginning of my reign," so we are told in the annals of Sargon, "I besieged the city of Samaria (Samarina), and took it with the help of the god Samas, who gives me victory over my enemies. I took 27,280 prisoners. I took 50 chariots as my royal portion. I brought them to Assyria, and in their place I put people whom my hand had reduced. I placed my officers and viceroys over them, and imposed tribute upon them as on the Assyrians."186 This statement is repeated in the inscription which gives the more important acts of Sargon (the so called fasti), with this difference at the close: "My officers I placed over them; I imposed on them the tribute of the previous kings."187 The inscription of the bulls says quite briefly: "He (Sargon) overthrew Samaria, and all the house of Omri."188 The inscription on the cylinder says: "I have subjugated the great land of Bit Omri."189 The annals recapitulate: "I have laid waste the region of Samaria, and the land of Bit Omri." After informing us that the king of Israel was carried away to the East, the Books of Kings tell us, like the annals of Sargon, that other inhabitants were settled in Israel: "He caused people to come from Babel and from Kutha, from Sepharvaim, Ava, and Hamath," and placed them in the cities of Samaria in the room of the children of Israel.190 Sargon's own account confirms this statement; his inscriptions show us further to what stock these settlers belonged. In the year 721 B.C., very soon after the capture of Samaria, he transplanted people from Babylonia to the land of the Chatti, i. e. to Syria.191 We are also told that people were removed from the four districts of Armenia to Syria, to the coast;192 and finally, that people of Arabian descent, "of Thammud, Marsiman, Chayapa, and the land of Bari," were settled in the city of Samaria. The strengthening of the alien element in Samaria was caused by the fact that the Israelites, in spite of the severe punishment which they had undergone, had nevertheless attempted to rebel once more against Assyria.193
The carrying away of the inhabitants of Naphtali and Gilead, which Tiglath Pilesar had executed, the removal into a new environment, which Sargon now carried out twelve years after the former deportation, were blows from which the ten tribes could not again recover. Not that the existence of the people was annihilated; many, no doubt, perished in the conquest of the land and metropolis, yet it was by no means the whole remnant that was carried away. It was only a part of the population on whom that severe lot descended. Isaiah tells us Jehovah punished the people by measure, and allowed a remnant to remain.194 The number of those who remained was sufficient to gain the preponderance in a population so strongly mixed with foreign settlers.195 Yet this admixture sapped the national vigour at the core. In the inscriptions of the Assyrians we hear no more of the land of Omri, but only of Samaria; from them we see that kings remained at the head of the land; they mention a second Menahem and an Abibaal as kings of Samaria. The community over which the descendants of David ruled was, in the first place, only anxious for the preservation of the national life and faith. Judah remained obedient to Assyria. Hezekiah of Judah looked on at the long siege of Samaria, the death-struggle of Israel, and the carrying away of his kindred without moving. He must have paid his tribute regularly. An inscription of Sargon, belonging to the first years of his reign, enumerates the "distant Judah" among the subject lands.196
The subjugation of the Phenicians, the punishment of Israel for her defection, did not break the hopes which the Syrians reposed in Egypt. Two years after the fall of Samaria, Egypt may have been better prepared for war, for a march into Syria, than at the time of Shalmanesar's campaign against Hoshea and the Phenicians. Egypt's power appeared nearer at hand; Sargon had to advance from the Tigris. Hamath rebelled against Assyria. "Ilubid possessed himself of the crown of Hamath," so we are told in the inscriptions of Sargon; "he took the city of Karkar, and roused the cities of Arpad, Damascus, Zemar (Simyra), and Samaria against me. I besieged him and his warriors in the city of Karkar."197 The city of Karkar, near which, 130 years before, Benhadad of Damascus and Ahab of Israel had fought against Shalmanesar II., was taken; Ilubid was captured, and Sargon caused him to be flayed – a relief in the palace of Sargon exhibits the execution of this sentence.198 The memorial stone of Larnaka says: "Ilubid of Hamath rebelled; I fought against him, and covered the land of Hamath with ruins." Sixty-three thousand people were transplanted from Assyria into the land of Hamath.199
But Sargon succeeded in becoming master of a mightier opponent, in maintaining Syria against Egypt. Sabakon had marched through the desert with the forces of Ethiopia and Egypt; Hanno of Gaza, who once retired to Egypt before Tiglath Pilesar, joined him with his warriors. Sargon went to meet them. The armies met at Raphia (now Refah, between El Arish and Gaza, where at a later period Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt overcame Antiochus the Great). "Sabhi trusted in his forces," so the annals of Sargon tell us, "and came to meet me to offer me battle. I called upon the great god Asshur, my lord; I smote them. Sabhi fled with a shepherd, who kept the sheep, and escaped. Hanno I took prisoner. All that he possessed I carried away to Assyria. I laid waste and destroyed his cities, and burned them with fire. I carried away 9033 men with their possessions."200 The introduction to the annals and the inscription on the bulls say briefly: "The armies of the land of Muzur (Egypt) he (Sargon) defeated near the city of Raphia (Rapih). Hanno, the king of Gaza, he brought into slavery."201 The inscription of the cylinder says: "Near the city of Raphia I defeated the king of Muzur; the king of the land of Gaza I took prisoner and carried to Assyria." The Fasti of Sargon inform us: "Hanno, king of Gaza, marched with Sabhi, the sultan of Egypt (siltannu mussuri), to meet me near the city of Raphia, to offer me battle and conflict. I put them to flight. Sabhi was seized with fear of the might of my arms; he fled, and not a trace of him was seen. Hanno, the king of Gaza, I took captive with my own hand."202
