out the consent of the people'54 Commerce has ever been favourable to the spirit of liberty, and the sense of equality. We accordingly find the Tyrians in their new city governed for a time, by suffetes or judges; a kind of magistrates that were also established at Carthage, as we shall have occasion to notice; and who probably, therefore, had subsisted at Tyre, under its former kings, as a check upon regal authority' 55.

The same prophet, who had turned the sword of Nebuchadnezzar against Tyre, pointed out to him the means of reimbursing himself, for his prodigious expenditure, and of requiting the hard and unprofitable service, which his troops had undergone, during the siege of that city :-Ezekiel directed him to the invasion of Egypt; which was then in a disordered state, and promised him the spoils of that rich country as a recompense "for his waste of labour156, and as 66 wages for his army." And the king of Babylon did not slight the words of the divine monitor; as he found they were dictated by sound policy as well as by the spirit of prophecy.

Apries, the grandson of Nechaoh, who still filled the Egyptian throne, was a proud and arrogant prince157. Having been successful in the beginning of his reign, in an expedition into lower Syria, and in a naval enterprise against the island of Cyprus 58, he thought nothing able to withstand his power, and seems to have projected the conquest of the whole

154. Gen. Joshua, Judges, passim.

155. I speak with diffidence on this subject, as the Tyrian records are utterly lost, and imperfect transcripts only remain in the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus.

156. Ezek. chap. xxix. ver. 18-21.

157. Herodot. lib. ii. Ezek. chap xxix. ver. 3.

158. Diod. Sicul, lib. i. Herodot. lib. i.

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country

PART I.

country from the Nile to the Euphrates'". But afterward finding his forces unable to make head against those of Nebuchadnezzar, he relinquished his ambitious views on that side, and turned them toward Lybia. And thither we must direct our observation.

In early times a Grecian colony, originating from Laconia, had been planted in the maritime parts of Lybia, on the eastern side of the greater Syrtican gulf, and had there founded the city of Cyrene. This city became soon the parent of several others, and the capital of an opulent and potent state, under a regal form of government. The prosperity of the Cyrenians, who were continually extending their territory, naturally excited the jealousy of their neighbours. And the number of Grecian adventurers, who poured in upon that part of the coast of Africa in quest of lands, during the reign of Battus, surnamed the Happy, king of Cyrenaica, induced the Lybians to apply for assistance to Apries, king of Egypt; and offer to put themselves under his protection, as they seemed in danger of being utterly expelled their country11

Glad of an opportunity of extending his sway to the west of the Nile, the Egyptian monarch sent a powerful army into Lybia. But that army, unable to resist the hardy valour, and bold courage of the rapacious Greeks, was almost wholly cut off in the first engagement. And this bloody defeat appeared so unaccountable to the proud and opinionated Egyptians, that the remainder of the forces of Apries revolted; believing that their companions had been devoted to certain destruction 162.

159. This is presumable from his negociations with Zedekiah, king of Judah, and other Syrian princes, whom he induced to throw off their allegiance to the king of Babylon. 160. Herodot. lib. iv.

161. Id. ibid.

162. Herodot. lib. ii.

'The

IX.

The despotic character of the king of Egypt made LETTER the same opinion gain ground among the people; who conjectured he had contrived the slaughter of his native troops, in order that he might govern more arbitrarily by means of his foreign mercenaries 163, and the tyrannical behaviour of Apries, after the revolt of his army, completed the defection of his subjects of every class.

He sent Amasis, one of his officers, to require the troops to return to their obedience. Amasis, however, finding the dissatisfaction incurable, accepted the title of king, with which he was saluted by a leader of the malecontents, and became their head. Enraged at hearing of this treachery, the indignant monarch ordered Patarbemis, an Egyptian nobleman of high reputation, and the only man of rank that adhered to him, to go to the rebellious camp, and bring Amasis to him alive. Patarbemis obeyed to the utmost of his power. But Amasis, when desired to pay his attendance at court, treated the mesage with disdain; and Apries, in the first transports of anger and disappointment, commanded the nose and the ears of Patarbemis to be cut off because he had returned without the rebel chief 64.

The consequence of these tyrannical proceedings was a civil war; for which both parties prepared themselves with vigour. Apries assembled, in the plains of Momemphis, an army of thirty thousand Grecian mercenaries; while Amasis collected an immense body of Egyptian forces, and marched against his antagonist. The two armies joined battle, and fought Ant. Chr. with great fury. At length the troops of Apries, oppressed by numbers, were obliged to quit the field, æra 177 after a desperate struggle for victory, and the king

163. Id. ibid.

164. Herodot, ubi sup.

$70. Nabonass.

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was

PART I. was made prisoner165. The conqueror treated him with much humanity; but his offended subjects demanded his blood. He was delivered up to them; and his public execution, by strangling, confirmed Amasis in the government of Egypt, and the Egyptians in their rightsTM.

569. Nabonass.

During the troubles which preceded this revolution, it was that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt; extended his ravages to the frontiers of Ethiopia, and carried off a booty so vast, as proved a sufficient compensation for his disappointment in the plunder of Tyre, and "wages for his army" (to repeat the words of the prophet Ezekiel), every soldier being loaded with spoil 67.

Thus victorious on all sides, this great and warlike monarch returned in triumph to Babylon, which Ant. Chr. his munificence had raised to an astonishing pitch of grandeur. There, in the height of his pride and exara 178. ultation, as he was walking on the balcony of his superb palace, and surveying his magnificent capital, he was deprived of the use of his understanding, and remained in a state of insanity for seven years" Soon after

165. Id. ibid.

166. Herodot. lib. ii. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. 167. Ezek. chap. xxix. xxx. xxxi, xxxii. passim. It may seem extraordinary to certain severe thinkers, that I should, on this and other occasions, quote the effusions of the Jewish prophets as historical evidence. My answer, however, is ready. Such as believe the Jewish prophets to have been divinely inspired, will believe that they foretold nothing but what came to pass; while they, who think otherwise will admit that those prophets were well acquainted with the transactions of the neighbouring nations; and that what their political sagacity did not distinctly forsee, before the events they predicted took place (for they seldom died during the interval), their subsequent information enabled them to correct; and consequently to give to their written prophecies historical accuracy, which is the point in question.

168. Daniel, chap iv. ver. 30-36. The words of the prophet are

not

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after his recovery he died, and was succeeded by his LETTER son Evilmerodach 169.

From the accession of this prince, who is said to have been both weak and wicked, and who was dethroned and murdered, in the second year of his reign, by his sister's husband, Neriglissar170, the history of the Babylonian monarchy is involved in confusion and obscurity, until its final subversion by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus. I shall, therefore, my lord, hasten forward to that great event, the most memorable in the revolutions of ancient Asia, without attempting to dispel the cloud with which the intervening period is covered"". In the meantime we must take a retrospective view of the history of the Medes, and Persians, as an introduction to the reign of the illustrious Cyrus; the conqueror of so many kingdoms, and the founder of the Persian empire.

Cyaxares I. king of Media, who acted in conjunction with Nebuchadnezzar, as we have seen, in

not a little remarkable: "There fell a voice from heaven, saying, "O king Nebuchadnezzar! to thee it is spoken the kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make thee "to eat grass as oxen; seven times shall pass over, thee, until thou "know, that the Most High dwelleth in the kingdom of men, and "giveth it to whosoever he will. The same hour was the thing ful"filled on Nebuchadnezzar; and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen; and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till "his hairs were grown as eagles feathers, and his nails like bird's "claws." Id. ibid.

169. 2. Kings, cap. xxv. ver. 27. Beros. ap. Joseph. Cont. Appion. lib. i.

170. Beros. ubi sup. Joseph. Antiq. lib. x. Ptolem. Canon. Astronom. 171. Such an attempt had been made by the learned and laborious Prideaux; who has, with much ingenuity, endeavoured to reconcile the contradictions of ancient historians and chronologers (Connect. book ii.). An attempt of the same kind has also been made, with great learning and industry, by the candid and inquisitive Dupin, who pursues a different hypothesis. Univ. Lib. des Histor. tom. ii. accomplishing

IX.

Ant. Chr. 561.

Nabonass.

æra 186.