LACIIISH, SIEGE OF.) After the battle of Aitaku and the retreat of the Egyptians, whom he was not prepared to fol low, he captured Ekron and Timnath; hut the army which he sent to assault the city of Jerusa lem was smitten with a fatal pestilence. In his own annals he, of course, omits all mention of the pestilence and the escape of the small remnant of his army, and makes the campaign look as much like success as possible. He is careful to tell pos terity that he forced the king of Jerusalem to pay tribute, but this was not paid at the end of the campaign. as he would apparently like to have us believe, but at Lachish; that is, before the at tempted assault upon Jerusalem, and even before the battle of Aitaku. The Biblical account agrees well with the Assyrian, when properly understood, and gives some important additional details. The Biblical account of the murder of Sennacherib is also confirmed by the Babylonian chronicle. which was discovered a few years ago by Mr. Pinches among the great mass of tablets in the British Museum, and we have a new confirmation of it in the letter from Nabonidus, which is quoted above.
In a letter to The Academy Prof. Sayce has pointed out that the stele of Nabonidus does not necessarily allude to the final overthrow of Nine veh, but more probably refers to a previous cap ture of the city by a horde of Scythians, who came as far as Syria and threatened Jerusalem. It was a similar horde, which, more than a thousand years before, had overrun the same territory and captured both Babylon and Nineveh; had crossed the Syrian hills, conquered Palestine, taken pos session of Egypt and set up the line of Shepherd kings.
(3) Fall of Nineveh. The end of Nineveh's glory, however, was at hand. It was in Decem
ber, 68t B. C., that Sennachcrib was slain by his sons. Then the Chaldeans and Elamites attempted to seize Babylon. From the North and Northwest came the hordes of Scythians, and the Persians, under Median rule, began to develop that wonder ful power which was destined to control all of the West. Thus, while apparently at the very height of his prosperity, the empire was fast slipping away from Assur-bani-pal.
The Prophet Nahum asks of Nineveh, "Art thou better than No-Amon, that was situated among the rivers"? and No-Amon, or Thebes, had already fallen (Jer. xlvi:25). In 652 B. C. a rebel lion broke out, which involved Babylonia, Egypt, Palestine. and Arabia; and when Assyria finally emerged from the struggle. Egypt was lost for ever, and Babylonia was only half subdued. And although apparently victorious, Assur-bani-pal had aroused the deepest hatred by those terrible cruel ties described by Nahum, when he utters, "Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and rob bery." The princes of Kedar and Arabia were exposed in chains and in iron cages to the view of the people. The head of King Teumman was brought in a wagon to Nineveh and tied around the neck of a captured Gambulian prince; then it was placed on a pole by the city gate, and the prince was flayed alive by the Assyrian king. This, was only one specimen of Assyrian brutality. What wonder that it was denounced by the prophet? (See Nahum. chapters i, ii and iii.) It is true that Assur-bani-pal had made his cap ital the treasure house of art and literature (see