interrupted, the safety of the numerous Assyrian
officers and garrisons would be seriously jeopardised, all of whom must
be maintained there if the country was to be permanently retained. The
inclination to meddle in the affairs of Syria always displayed by the
Pharaohs, and their obsolete claims to rule the whole country as far as
the Euphrates, did not allow of their autonomy being restored to them at
the risk of the immediate renewal of their intrigues with Tyre or Judah,
and the fomenting of serious rebellions among the vassal princes of
Palestine. On the other hand, Egypt was by its natural position so
detached from the rest of the empire that it was certain to escape
from the influence of Nineveh as soon as the pressure of circumstances
obliged the suzerain to relax his efforts to keep it in subjection.
Besides this, Ethiopia lay behind Egypt, almost inaccessible in the
fabled realms of the south, always ready to provoke conspiracies or
renew hostilities when the occasion offered. Montumihait had already
returned to Thebes on the retreat of the Assyrian battalions, and though
Taharqa, rendered inactive, as it was said, by a dream which bade him
remain at Napata,* had not reappeared north of the cataract, he had sent
Tanuatamanu, the son of his wife by Sabaco, to administer the province
in his name.** Taharqa died shortly after (666 B.C.), and his stepson
was preparing to leave Thebes in order to be solemnly crowned at Gebel
Barkal, when he saw one night in a dream two serpents, one on his right
hand, the other on his left. The soothsayers whom he consulted on the
matter prognosticated for him a successful career: "Thou holdest the
south countries; seize thou those of the north, and let the crowns of
the two regions gleam upon thy brow!" He proceeded at once to present
himself before his divine father Amon of Napata, and, encountering no
opposition from the Ethiopian priests or nobles, he was able to fulfil
the prediction almost immediately after his coronation.***

* The legend quoted by Herodotus relates that Sabaco, having
slain Necho I., the father of Psammetichus, evacuated Egypt
which he had conquered, and retired to Ethiopia in obedience
to a dream. The name of Sabaco was very probably substituted
for that of Taharqa in the tradition preserved in Sais and
Memphis, echoes of which reached the Greek historian in the
middle of the fifth century B.C.

** It appears, from