The beginning of the 26th dynasty was a time of disaster to Egypt. Tirhakah was either dead or had retired to Ethiopia, and Egypt fell into the hands of several petty princes, probably the Dodecarchs of Herodotus, whose rule precedes, and perhaps overlaps, that of Psammetichus I., who is said to have been at first a Dodecarch. In this time Esarhaddon twice invaded and con quered the country, but after his second invasion Psammetichus seems to have entirely thrown off the Assyrian yoke and restored Egypt to some what of its ancient power. There are several passages in Scripture which probably refer to these invasions, and certainly skew the relation of Ethiopia to Egypt at this time. The pro phet Nahum, warning Nineveh, describes the fall of Thebes, ' Art thou better than No Amon, that was situate among the rivers, [that had] the waters round about it, whose rampart [was] the sea, [and] her wall from the sea ? Cush and Mizraim [were her] strength, and [it was] infinite ; Put and Lubim were in thy help' (iii. 8, 9). The sack and captivity of the city are then related. The exact period of Nahum is not known, but there can be little doubt that he lived after the time of that campaign of Sennacherib in which Hezekiah became a tribu tary of the king of Assyria (i. t t, 12). He there fore appears to refer either to one of the conquests of Egypt by Esarhaddon, or to a previous one by Sennacherib. The close alliance of Cush and Mizraim seems to point to the period of the Ethio pian rule, or that immediately after it, when the states, if separate, would have united against a common enemy. Three chapters of Isaiah relate to the future of Ethiopia and Egypt, and it is probable that they contain what is virtually one connected subject, although divided into a pro phecy against Ethiopia, the burden of Egypt, and the record of an event shewn to prefigure the fall of both countries, these divisions having been fol lowed by those who separated the book into chap ters. The prophecy against Ethiopia is extremely obscure. It appears to foretell the calamity of Ethiopia to its furthest people, to whom messengers should be sent in vessels of papyrus, by the sea, here the Nile, as in the description of Thebes by the prophet Nahum (Z. c.), bearing, probably, that news which is related in the next chapter. In the end the Ethiopians would send a present to the LORD at Zion (xviii.) Then follows the burden of Egypt,' apparently foretelling the discord and strife of the Dodecarchy, the delivering of the people into the hand of a cruel lord, probably the Assyrian con queror, the failure of the waters of Egypt and of its chief sources of revenue, and the partial conver sion of the Egyptians, and, as it seems, their ulti mate admission to the church (xix.) We then read how a Tartan, or general, of Sargon, the king of Assyria, took Ashdod, no doubt with a garrison from the Egyptian army. At this time, Isaiah was commanded to walk naked and barefoot,' probably without an outer garment, three years, probably three days, a day for a year, as a sign to spew how the Egyptians and Ethiopians, as no doubt had been the case with the garrison of Ash dod, probably of both nations, should be led cap tive by the king of Assyria. This captivity was to be witnessed by the Jews who trusted in Ethiopia and Egypt to be delivered from the king of Assyria, and the invasions of Egypt by Esarhad don are therefore probably foretold (xx.) In the books of later prophets, Ethiopia does not take this prominent place : no longer a great power, it only appears as furnishing part of the Egyp tian forces or sharing the calamities of Egypt, as in the history of Egypt we find Ethiopia occu pying a position of little or no political importance, the successors of Tirhakah in that country being perhaps tributaries of the kings of the 26th dynasty. In the description by Jeremiah of Pharaoh-necho's army, the Ethiopians (Cush) are first spoken of among the foreign warriors mentioned as serv ing in it (xlvi. 9). Ezekiel prophecies the fear of Ethiopia at the overthrow of Egypt by Nebu chadnezzar (xxx. 4-9), and though the helpers of Egypt were to fall, it does not seem that the inva sion of their lands is necessarily to be understood. One passage illustrates the difficult iSth chapter of Isaiah : In that clay shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make [` secure' or] careless Ethiopia afraid, and great pain shall come upon them as in the day of Egypt' (Ezek. xxx. 9). Zephaniah, somewhat earlier, mentions the Ethiopians alone, predicting their overthrow (ii. t2). It is probable that the defeat of the Egyptian army at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar is referred to, or else the same king's invasion of Egypt. The kings of Egypt do not appear to have regained the absolute rule of Ethiopia, or to have displaced the native kings, though it is probable that they made them tribu tary. Under Psammetichus I. a revolt occurred in the Egyptian army, and a large body of rebels fled tc Ethiopia, and there established themselves. A Greek inscription on one of the colossi of the great temple of Aboo-Simbil, not far below the Second Cataract, records the passage of Greek mercenaries on their return from an expedition up the river, king Psamatichus' having, as it seems, not gone beyond Elephantine. This expedition was proba bly that which Herodotus mentions Psammetichus to have made in order to bring back the rebels (ii. 3o), and, in any case, the inscription is valuable as the only record of the 26th dynasty which has been found above the First Cataract. It does not prove, more especially as the king remained at Ele phantine, that he governed any part of Ethiopia. The next event of Ethiopian history is the disastrous expedition of Cambyses, defeated by the desert march, and not by any valour of the invaded nation. From this time the country seems to have enjoyed tranquillity until the earlier Ptolemies acquired part of Lower Nubia that was again lost to them in the decline of their dynasty. When Egypt became a Roman province, Syene was its frontier-town to the south, but when, under Augustus, the garrison of that town had been overwhelmed by the Ethi opians, the Prefect Petronius invaded Ethiopia, and took Napata, said to have been the capital of Queen Candace. The extensive territory sub dued was not held, and though the names of some of the Ccesars are found in the temples of Lower Nubia, in Strabo's time Syene marked the frontier. This part of Ethiopia must have been so unpro ductive, even before the falling of the level of the Nile, which Sir Gardner Wilkinson supposes to have happened between the early part of the 13th dynasty and the beginning of the 18th, that it may well have been regarded as a kind of neutral ground.
The chronology of the kings of Ethiopia after Tir hakah cannot yet be attempted. Professor Lepsius arranges all the Ethiopians under four periods :— Ist, The 25th dynasty, first and second kings. 2d, Kings of Napata, beginning with Tirhakah, who, in his opinion, retired from Egypt, and made this his capital : of these kings, one, named NASTES SES, or NASTES-NEN, has left a tablet at Dongolah, recording the taking in his wars of enormous booty ln cattle and gold (Lepsius, De/dandier, v. 1.6; Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr.i. pp. 163, 164). 3d, Older kings of Meroe, among whom is a queen KENTA HEE, in whom a Candace is immediately recog nized, and also MEE-AMEN ASRU and ARKAMEN, the latter Ergamenes, the contemporary of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had, according to Diodorus Siculus, received a Greek training, and changed the customs of Ethiopia (iii. 6). Some of these princes had an extensive dominion. The shame of Ergamenes is formed from Lower Nubia to Meroe. 4th, Later kings of Merod, some, at least, of whom ruled both Meroe and Napata, though the former seems to have been the favourite capital in the later period (Konigsbuch, taf. lxxi., lxxii., lxxiii.) The importance of queens is remarkably characteristic of an African people.
The spread of Christianity in Ethiopia is a re markable event in the history of the country, and one in which the truth of the sure word of pro phecy' has been especially evident. In this case, as in others, the Law may have been the prede cessor of the Gospel. The pious eunuch, Ebed melech the Ethiopian,' who befriended Jeremiah (xxxviii. 7-13 ; xxxix. r5-18), may have been one of many converts from paganism, but it is scarcely likely that any of these returned to their native land. The Abyssinian Jews, being probably a colony of those of Arabia, were perhaps of later origin than the time of the introduction of Christi anity. But in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, who had charge of all the treasure of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, and who, on his return from worshipping at Jerusalem, was baptized by Philip the deacon, we see evidence of the spread of the old dispensation in Ethiopia, and of the recep tion there of the new (Acts viii. 27-39). In Psalm lxviii. (3r), in Isaiah (xlv. 14), and probably in Zephaniah (iii. to), the calling of Ethiopia to God's service is foretold. Whether conversion to the Law or to Christianity, or indeed to both, is intended, it is remarkable, that though long deprived of its actual geographical contact with the Coptic church, of which it is a branch, by the falling away of Nubia. the Abyssinian church yet remains, and the empire and the kingdom of Shoa are the only Christian sovereignties in the whole of Africa.
The ancient monuments of Ethiopia may be separated into two great classes, the Egyptian and the Egypto-Ethiopian. In Lower Nubia the Egyp tian are almost universal ; at Napata we find Egypto-Ethiopian, as well as higher up in the island of Meroe. In the monuments north of Napata, of which the chief lie between the First and Second Cataracts, we perceive no difference from those of Egypt save in the occurrence of the names of two Ethiopian kings—ARKAMEN or Er gamenes, and ATSIIERAN1EN. The remains attest the wealth of the kings of Egypt, rather than that of the country in which they are found ; their abun dance is partly owing to the scanty modern popu lation's not having required the ancient masonry for building-materials. The nearness of the mountains on either side to the river, and the value of the little tracts of alluvial soil, have rendered wholly or partly rock-hewn temples numerous here. Tombs are few and unimportant. Above the Second Cataract there are some similar remains, until the traveller reaches Gebel Berkel, the sacred mountain beneath which stood Napata, where, besides the remains of temples, he is struck with the sight of many pyramids. Other pyramids are seen in the neighbourhood. They are peculiar in construction, the proportion of the height to the base being much greater than in the pyramids of Egypt. The temples are of Egyptian character, and one of them is wholly, and another partly, of the reign of Tirhakah. The pyramids are later and are tho roughly Ethiopian. Yet higher up the river are the monuments of Meroe and neighbouring places. They are pyramids, like those of Napata, and temples, with other buildings, of a more Ethiopian style than the temples of the other capital. The size and importance of these monuments prove that the sovereigns who ruled at Meroe must have been very rich if not warlike. The furthest vestiges of ancient civilization that have been found are remains of an Egyptian character at Sobah, on the Blue Nile, not far south of the junction of the two rivers. The name suggests the Biblical Seba, which, as a kingdom, may correspond to that of Meroe ; but such resemblances are dangerous. The tendency of Ethiopian art was to imitate the earliest Egyptian forms of building, and even subjects of sculpture. This is plain in the adoption of pyramids. The same feeling is strongly evident in Egypt under the 26th dynasty, when there was a renaissance of the style of the pyramid-period, though-no pyramids seem to have been built. This renaissance appears to have begun under, or immediately after, the later part of the 25th dynasty, and is seen in the subjects of sculpture and the use of titles. The monuments of Ethiopian princes, at first as good as those of Egypt at the same time, become rapidly inferior, and at last are extremely barbarous, more so than any of Egypt. The use of hieroglyphics continues to the last for royal names, but the language seems, after the earlier period, to have been little under stood. An Ethiopian Demotic character has been found of the later period, which succeeded the hieroglyphic for common use and even for some inscriptions. We do not offer any opinion on the language of this character. The sub ject requires full investigation. The early Abys sinian remains, as the obelisk at Axum, do not seem to have any connection with those of more northern Ethiopia : they are of later times, and probably are of Arab origin. Throughout Ethi opia we find no traces of an original art or civi lization, all the ancient monuments, save those of Abyssinia, which can scarcely be called ancient, sheaving that the country was thoroughly Egyp tianized.
Lepsius has published the Ethiopian monuments in his Denkinaler (Abth. v. ; Bl. 1-75), as well as the inscriptions in Ethiopian Demotic (Abth. vi. ; Bl. : see also, 12, 13).-R. S. P.