13. In connection with this discussion, a passage of Demetrius Judseus (supra, sec. 5) has been deemed important (v. Guinpach, u. s. 90, 18o). He seems to have put forth a chronological account of the biblical history, from which Eusebius, Prop. Ev., ix. 21, 29, gives—quoting it from the Poly histor—what relates to the patriarchs and Moses : another passage, preserved by Clem. Alex. Strom. i., sec. 141, is a summary of the period elapsed from the captivity of the Ten Tribes to his own times. Its substance is as follows :—From Sen nacherib's invasion of Judah to the last deportation from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 128 years 6 months. From the captivity of the Ten Tribes to Ptolemy IV. (Philopator), 473 years 9 months (so we must read for 573); from Nebuchadnezzar's depor tation from Jerusalem, 338 years 3 months. As the epoch of Ptolemy IV. in the Canon is B.c. 222 (24th October), this gives for Nebuchadnezzar's last deportation' 56o B.C. (July); for Sennacherib's in vasion, 688 B.C. (Jan.); and for the captivity of Samaria, 695 B.C. (Jan.) But unless we are pre pared to set aside the Astronomical Canon, at least its dates for Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-mero dach, the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, whe ther it be that in his i9th year (1 ith Zedekiah), or ' the last' in his 23d year, Jer. lii. 30, cannot fall so low as 560 B.C. That the final deportation is meant, is plain from the exact correspondence of the sum with the biblical items—Hezekiah, /5 ; Manasseh, 55 ; Amon, 2 ; Josiah, 31 ; Jehoiakim, 3 ; Nebuchadnezzar, 22 = 128 years. The 6 months over are perhaps derived from the 3 of Jehoahaz, and 3 of Jeconiah. M. v. Niebuhr, ze. s., p. 102, ff., sets himself to solve the difficulty; but the writer of this article is satisfied that the whole matter is to be explained by an error in the ordinal of the Ptolemy. Set the goal at Ptolemy III. (Euergetes) = 247 u.c., Oct. ; then we have for the captivity of the Ten Tribes 720 (Jan.) ; for Sennacherib in Judrea, 713 (Jan.) ; for the depor tation in 23 Nebuchadnezzar, 585, July ; and conse quently 589 for the destruction of the Temple— very nearly in accordance with the date for the last assigned by Clement of Alexandria, 588 B. C., Strom. i. sec. 127. In fact, the chronological state ments in this portion of the Stromata swarm with numerical errors, and a careless scribe might easily misread TETAPTOT for TOTTPITOT. Be that as it may, it is a great mistake to suppose that Deme trius or any other Jew of his or of later times, can be competent to rule a question of this kind for us. He may have been, as M. v. Niebuhr thinks, ' a sen sible writer' (though others, judging from the frag ments preserved by Eusebius, may fairly think otherwise) ; that ' he may have handed down good materials' is just possible ; the probability is, that he gives us the results of his own inquiries, con fined to the text of the sacred books, except that he gathered from the Astronomical Canon the year corresponding to 23 Nebuchadnezzar, the last recorded in the sacred books.
14. A farther synchronism with 14 Hezekiah is furnished by the mention, 2 Kings xix. 9, of Tir haka, undoubtedly the Tarkos, Tarakos of Manetho's 25th dynasty, in which, according to the uncor rected numbers, his reign begins 1701 (Afr.), 183 or 188 (Ens. Gr.), 185, 187, or 193 (Eus. Armen.) before Cambyses, 525 B.C.: the extremes therefore are 695 and 718 B.C. for his epoch. But we are not dependent on the lists for the time of this king Taharka. The chronology of the 26th dynasty had already been partially cleared up by funerary inscriptions (now in the museums of Florence and Lcyden), which by recording that the deceased, born on a given day, month, and year of Neko II., lived so many years, months, and days, and died in a given year, month, and day of Amosis, enabled us to measure the precise number of years (41) from the epoch of the one king to the epoch of the other (Beckh, Manetho 729, ff.) : and now it is placed
beyond further question by Mariette's discovery of a number of inscriptions, in each of which the birth, death, day of funeral, and age of an Apis are re corded in just the same way (see Mariette's own account, Renseignement sur les 64 Apis, Irouves danslessonterrains du SWrapZunz—Bulletin Archecol. de l'Ath,n. Francais, Oct. 1855 ; and the selection from these by Lepsius On the 22d dynasty, trans lated by W. Bell, 1858). There remains only a slight doubt as to the epoch of Cambyses : whether with the canon this is to be referred to 525 B.C. (the usual date), or with De Rouge to 527, for which v. Gumpach also contends, or 528 with Dr. Hincks On the age of the 26th dynasty, or even 529 I3ockli, Manetho, 739, ff. The main result is, that Psametik I. began to reign 13S years before the epoch of Cambyses, therefore 663 B.C. (or at most 3 years earlier). Now Marlette, No. 2037, records that an Apis born 26 Taharka, died 20 Psametik I., 12th month, 20th day ; its age is not given. As the Apis was not usually allowed to live more than 25 years, though some of the inscriptions record an age of 26 years, on this, as an extreme supposition, the interval from i Taharka to 1 Psametik will be at most 31 years, and the highest possible epoch for Tirhaka, 697 B.C. This result, in itself, is not necessarily opposed to the biblical date for 14 Hezekiah : for in the narrative itself, while a • Pharaoh, King of Egypt' is mentioned, xviii. 21, this Tirhaka is styled ' King of Ethiopia,' and he seems to appear on the scene as an unexpected enemy of Sennacherib (M. v. Nicbuhr ze.s. 72, ff., 173, 458); he may have reigned in Ethiopia long before he became king of Egypt : though, on the other hand, it is clear that this originally Ethiopian dynasty was contemporaneous in its lower part with the 26th, a Saite dynasty of Lower Egypt, and pro bably in its upper part with the preceding Saite dynasty, as Lepsius makes it. The real difficulty, however, consists in this, that the ' So (We), King of Egypt,' whose alliance against Assyria was sought by Hoshea in his 5th or 6th year (2 Kings xvii. 4), can be no other than one of the two predecessors of Tirhaka, Sebek I. or II., to the first of whom Manetho gives 8, to the other 14 years of reign. Thus, at the earliest, the former would begin to reign 719 B.C., which is at least 5 years too low frr the biblical date. As a conjectural remedy for this ' desperate state of things,' v. Niebuhr, p. 459, suggests that the 50 years of the 25th dynasty were possibly not continuous; failing this, either an error must be assumed in the canon somewhere between its 28th and its 123d year, both of which are astro nomically attested, or else the reign of Manasseh must be reduced. On the whole, it seems best to wait for further light from the monuments. At present, these attest the 12th year of Sebek II., but give no dates of his predecessor ; the genealogical connec tion of the two, and of Taharka, is unknown ; of Bocchoris, the only occupant of the preceding dynasty, no monument has been discovered, and but scanty and precarious traces of the Tanite kings of the 23d dynasty, the last of whom, Zet, may even be the Sethos whom Herodotus, ii. 141, makes the hero of the miraculous defeat of Sennacherib's army. And, indeed, Is. xix. I I; xxx. 4, both seem to imply that `Loan (Tanis) was at that time the residence of the Pharaoh of Lower Egypt. Here is ample scope for conjecture, and also for dis coveries which may supersede all necessity for con jecture.