for an extraordinary facrifice, and a high festival for the entertainment of his victorious army %. In the mean time the negligence and riot in the impe- They attack the imperial camp was reported to Arbaces, who, in confequence rial camp thereof, fell fuddenly on them in the night, made his by furprize. way into the camp, and drove out Sardanapalus, and all his army with great flaughter, which continued almost to the gates of the city. The king thus vanquifhed, committed the care and conduct of his army to Salemenus, his brother-in-law, undertaking to defend the city in perfon. His forces were twice defeated, once at fome diftance, and afterwards under the walls of the city, when Sa-. lemenus fell, and almost all his army was cut off, or forced into the river, which was tinctured with the blood of the flain. They befiege Sardana palus in Nineveh. Sardanapalus being now closely befieged; many other nations, eager for liberty, revolted to the confederates. The king, perceiving things at fo defperate a pafs, fent away his three fons and two daughters, with a very great treafure, into Paphlagonia, where one Cotta, a particular friend of his, was governor (A), iffuing out orders at the same time, for all his fubjects to haften to his affistance. But though his fituation appears to have been quite deplorable, he, it seems, did not defpond, fully poffeffed with notions of a prophecy," that Nineveh could never be taken, till the river became her enemy;" which, according to his conclufion, amounting to an impoffibility, he looked upon himself as fecure, how great and imminent foever the dangers might be that threatened his person h. While Sardanapalus pleafed himfelf with this imagi- They take nation, the confederates, elated with their late fuccefs, the city, confidered their work as completed, though, in those days, they could make no impreffion on fuch walls, ignorant as they were of the engines afterwards invented. Sardanapalus having taken care to be well ftored with what was neceffary to enable him to hold out a long time, the confederates fat two years before the city, without any visible effect: but in the third year the river, fwelled by unusual rains, came up to the city, and overflowed a great length, no less than twenty ftadia of the wall. The unfortunate Sardanapalus was now fenfible of the com g Apud eofd. ibid. (A) Where this Paphlagonia should have been fituated, and who this Cotta, a more mo h Ibid. dern name, fhould have been, A a 3 pletion pletion of what had been foretold of the river's enmity to the city. Having no farther room for hope, and dreading to fall into the hands of the enemy, he retired into his palace, in a court of which he caufed a vaft pile of wood to be raised, heaping upon it all his gold and filver, and royal apparel, and at the fame time inclofing his eunuchs and concubines in an apartment within the pile, he fet fire to it, and fo deftroyed himself and the reft; a cataftrophe which the rebels no fooner learned, than they entered the city by the breach, and became masters of the place. The inhabitants were treated with great humanity, though the great and mighty city of Nineveh itfelf was laid level with the ground. And thus ended the Affyrian empire, subverted by the Medes and Babylonians, after it had, according to our author Ctefias, subsisted no less than one thoufand four hundred years. SECT. V. The Hiftory of Affyria, according to Scripture, and the WE now come to what is fuppofed to be the true and i 2 Kings xv. 10. (B) He is alfo called Phul, and by the LXX. Phua, an inacuracy in the transcription, owing to the very near refemblance of the Greek A lambda, and A alpha; fo that it is no great wonder this name fhould, in the Greek character, have k Ibid. ver. 19. been written OTA, Phua, inftead of pora, Phul. He was the first king of Affyria, mentioned in Scripture, from the time that land was planted by Afhur, and not to be confounded with the kings of the Medes and the Babylonians. But the 1601. Ante Chr. 747. But from hence we may venture to infer, that he either conquered, or received voluntary homage from Syria, and the other nations in his march, as he did now from Ifrael, and that he became the founder of a very great empire. Tiglath-Pilefer fucceeded him on the throne of Affy- Yr. of Fl. ria (C), and is fuppofed to have been his fon (D). Upon what particular motive we know not, he fell upon kingdom of Ifrael, and took Ijon, and Abel-Beth-Maachah, and Janoah, and Kedefh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and TiglathGalilee, and all the land of Naphtali, and carried the in- Pilefer. habitants captive to Affyria', thereby, as we may fuppofe, the better to fecure thofe diftant parts of the empire in their allegiance. For fuch a captivity must naturally have weakened them, and was rightly calculated to deter the remainder from incurring fo hard a fate; and, on the other hand, it may have contributed to the increase of his power, by peopling fome tract more immediately under his eye. The fame expedient he practifed with refpect to other nations. Receiving an embaffy from Ahaz, king of Judah, with a tender from him of homage, and a prefent of all he had, to deliver him from the hands of Rezin, king of Damafcus, and Pekah, king of Ifrael, who were in confederacy against him; Tiglath-Pilefer, induced by this fubmiffion and present, marched against Damafcus, took that city, transplanted the people of it to Kir, flew Rezin, and so put an end to that ancient kingdom ". 12 Kings xv. 29. (C) He is alfo called Tiglath-Pilnefar, Theglath-Phalafar, Theglath-Phellafor, Thilgamas, as fuppofed, and alfo Ninus Junior, according to Caftor. Prideaux, by an unaccountable inadvertency, takes him for Arbaces the Mede. (D) Some are fo far from thinking him to have been the fon of Pul, that they make him a ftranger to his line, a Mede. Rollin, mifled by that great and otherwife learned guide, archbishop Ufher, makes Pul to have been the father of Sardanapalus, by an extraordinary inattention in the archbishop, who thought it must have been fo, because in the m Ibid. xvi. 7, 8, 9. A a 4 He Yr. of Fl. 1620. Ante Chr. 728. Shalmanefer. He was fucceeded by Shalmanefer (E), who obliged, on what pretence we know not, Hofhea, king of Ifrael, to become his tributary ". Some years after Hofhea refolved to shake off the Affyrian yoke, and folicited, with that view, the alliance of So, then king of Egypt. But Shalmanefer, apprised of his design before he could put it in execution, entered, at the head of a powerful army, the land of Ifrael; and, having laid it wafte to the very gates of Samaria, clofely befieged that metropolis. The place held out almoft three years; but was, in the end, obliged, with the reft of the kingdom, to fubmit to the conqueror, who carried the king, and all his fubjects, into captivity, replacing them with ftrangers from Babylon, Cufhah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim (F). This n 2 Kings xvii. 3. (E) His name alfo is varioufly written, as Salmanefar, Salmanaffar; he is alfo called Enemaffar by Tobit; and is fuppofed to be the Salman or Shalman of Hofea. Moft chronologers confound him with Nabonaffar. (F) We are much in the dark concerning the true fituation of those countries to which the ten tribes were carried. Jofephus only fays, in general, that they were tranfplanted into Media and Perfia; fo that we must be content with the best conjectures which the learned have been able to give us of thofe provinces or cities. The first named in the text is that of Halah, or, as the Hebrew writes it, Chalah, which is, not without great probability, fuppofed to have been the metropolis of Chalacene, and to have given name to the whole province; and this was fituate on the north fide of Kurdistan, between Affyria and the Gordyæan mountains. Habor, or rather Chabor, by the Greeks Chaboras, and by • Ibid. xvii. 18—24. was Ezekiel, who dates his prophecies from thence, Chebar, feems to have been a long tract in Mefopotamia or Kurdistan, running along the banks of the river of its name, from which it was fo called, and which empties itself into the Euphrates on the eastern or farther fide. We know but little of its true fituation, ex.cept that it was between Ássyria and Media. We can give a better guess at the land of Gozan, which is mentioned by the facred historians as a country, or rather as one of thofe provinces which were conquered by the Affyrians, and was probably fo called from the river of its name. Accordingly Ptolemy places the province of Gauzanitis in Mefopotamia, and mentions. the city of Gauzania as the capital of it; and Pliny takes notice of a province, which he calls Elon Gozina, which fpread itfelf up quite to the head fpring of the Tigris. We likewife read of a tract named Gauzan, in Media, faid to was the fatal end of the kingdom of Ifrael, as we have related more at length in the History of the Jews. He afterwards invaded Phoenice; but a peace being foon concluded between him and the Phoenicians, he quitted their country and returned home with his army. Not long after the cities of Sidon, Ace, and Paletyrus, with several others, revolting from the Tyrians, to whom they were subject, fubmitted to him. This encouraged him to attempt the reduction of Tyre itfelf; but he mifcarried, as we have seen in the hiftory of that city. Shalmanefer was fucceeded by Sennacherib (G), who, Sennachefinding that Hezekiah, king of Judah, with-held the tribute rib. which both he and his predeceffor had paid to him, marched against him with a powerful army, and reduced have been fituate between the rivers Cyrus and Cambyfes; and this is all that we can meet with in ancient authors; from all which we may conclude, that Gozan, or Gauzania, lay near the Cafpian sea, if not upon it, and on the northern parts of Ghilan in Perfia, as Media did on the fouth and west coast of the fame fea. And thus far we may extend our conjectures concerning the countries into which the Ifraelitish tribes were transported. Rabshakeh, the Affyrian general, mentions the countries of Haran, Rezeph, Hamath, &c. in his threatening letter to king Hezekiah, as provinces lately conquered by the kings his masters, and immediately after that of Gozan. Now Haran, or, as the Hebrew hath it, Charan, and the Greeks Charres, was a famed city of Mefopotamia, feated between the Chabor and the Euphrates above mentioned. Rezeph, mentioned by the fame hiftorians, and by others called Re fiph, Refapha, Rizapha, and by Ptolemy, Rhadzapha, was a city of Syria, according to Peutinger and the Notitia Orientales, and is, by Ptolemy, placed in Palmyrene. Hamath. 1S reasonably fuppofed the fame with the ancient Emeffa on the Orontes. The other cities or countries of Ava, Sepharvaim, &c. out of all which the Affyrian monarchs fent their new colonies into the Samaritan kingdom, were all feated on the fame route; fo that thofe conquerors seem to have swept away all thofe countries, as they lay in their way to Palestine, and to have exchanged their captives from the one to the other; among which the Ifraelitish tribes were fent into the most remote parts from their own land (5). (G) His Hebrew name is Sanherib; and it is feldom or never, that we recollect, writ with any great variation, except that he may, by contrac tion, have been called Jareb. (5) Vid. Jof. Antiq. lib. ix. cap. ult. Ezek. i, 2 Kings xix. 12. Isaiah xxxvii. 12. 2 Kings xvii. 6. xviii. 11, a great |