Nebuchad lects the Scythians SECT. neighbouring provinces had recently been invaded, as we III. have seen, from Scythia, whose roving hordes still lay in nezzar eol- Watch, as it were, to renew their ravages in southern Asia. Master of the spoils of Nineveh, Nebuchadnezzar was possessed of a magnet calculated to attract greater swarms than ever from this vast northern hive. They were divided into many different tribes often hostile to each other, but the name Why called of Chaldæans was bestowed on all those whom the valour generally Chaldæans. and generosity of Nebuchadnezzar drew into his service, who had fledthither. whether because great part of them really descended from that region of Taurus called Chaldæa, whose natives the Chalybeans stood in the same relation as armourers 219 to the Scythians, that the Turks are known afterwards to have borne to the Tartars 220, or because a colony of those Chalybeans or Chaldæans about a century before this period, was established in the south-western district of Babylonia, and thereby induced to betake themselves to a settled agricultural life 221. It might naturally be expected that the great body of the nation would be called by that name already most familiar in southern Asia, and which must have prevailed from the earliest antiquity, since the sacerdotal cast in Babylon, priests of Belus, men of polished manners and high attainments 222, were connected, at least in name, with the rude mountaineers between the Euxine and Caspian, a nation more stubborn than the iron which they forged 223. That branches of mankind so dissimilar in manners and character, really proceeded from the same stock, history does not warrant us to assert; but there is the surest testimony that the conquering Chaldees, of whom Nebuchadnezzar became general and king, were a northern people, Scythians 224 by blood and country, in their manners, habits, and merciless fury. With this instrument of victory we shall see him establish at Babylon an empire 219 Xenoph. Anabas, 1. v. p. 354. and Strabo, 1. xii. p. 549. 220 See above, p. 42. Conf. Abulghazi Khan Histor. Geneolog. des Tatars, p. ii. c. 5. 221 Isaiah, c. xxiii. p. 13. Conf. Jeremiah, c. i. v. 13. 222 Diodorus, l. ii. c. 29. & seq. 223 Xenoph. and Strabo, ibid. 224 Jeremiah, e. i. v. 13. and c. XV. v. 12. SECT. nearly commensurate in the west and south with what was to be the future extension of Saracen power. The Medes, after the destruction of Nineveh, reigned without a rival in the East; and as their incursions reached the Greek colonies on Why Nebuchadnezthe Euxine, the name of the Medes chiefly is conspicuous zar little in Greek history, while the contemporary renown of Nebu- Greek hischadnezzar was far more terrible among the Jews, the Pho- tory. nicians, and other inhabitant of Syria. noticed in nezzar Circesium. With Cyaxares, or the Medes, through whose coopera- Nebuchadtions his father had obtained independent sovereignty, Ne- marches to buchadnezzar it should seem, during his reign of forty-five His army. years, had never any hostile collision. His first undertaking B. C. 605, was the recovery of Circesium from the Egyptians, an enterprise for which, as Necos had strongly fortified the place, the style of Scythian war might appear to be very imperfectly adapted. But Nebuchadnezzar, besides being aided in the siege by his more skilful Babylonians, was one of those extraordinary men, who, like some Tartar conquerors in modern times, have rendered their barbarous followers not less persevering in industry than they are naturally prompt in action: who taught them to build walls and bridges, to construct engines of war, in a word, to perform all those laborious tasks 225, independently of which mere prowess in battle never made a great conqueror. Necos, however, had time to come to the assistance of Circesium with the united strength of his allies; Libyans and Ethiopians, cavalry and chariots, archers and spearmen, all the incongruous assemblage 226 of party coloured Africa. In the two armies respectively, the fierce The battle Nomades were preeminent, Ethiopians and Scythians, hardened offspring of burning sands, and bleak deserts, prepared tween Neto join in a merciless conflict of which the incidents are rather zar and indicated than described, but indicated by such picturesque B. C. 605. symbols, as surpass in power and effect the most ample narrative. The overflowing numbers of the Egyptians are 225 See Cherefedden's Life of 226 Tamerlane, throughout. Jeremiah, c. xxv. v. 9 of Circesi um be. buchadnez Necos. III. SECT. represented by the inundation of their river 227. But Nebuchadnezzar stays their impetuous tide, towering like mount Tabor 228 above the adjacent plain, or Carmel resisting the sea, and bidding defiance to its raging waves 229. The great dragon of the Nile darts forth with his rattling serpents; but the Chaldæans hew down their wood 230, bare their lurking places, and thus render those wily and envenomed monsters a bloody prey to the parting steel. Nebuchad nezzar. Victory of In this figurative language we discern the ruinous defeat of Necos. Circesium was recovered; the Egyptians were pursued through Syria; their countrymen were expelled from the strong-holds which they had occupied there: and, with the illustrious exceptions of Jerusalem and Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar gained the whole of Syria from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt; à magnificent name for the shallow torrent of Sihor 231, forming the common boundary of Egypt, Paleseine, and the stony Arabia. 227 Jeremiah, c. xxvi. v. 8. 229 Ezekiel, c. xxix. v. 3. 231 Genesis, c. xv. v. 10. Joshua, c. xv. v. 4. Conf. Hieronym, in Amos, c. vi. 1 Kings, c. viii. v. 65. PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF ALEXANDER'S CONQUESTS. SECTION IV. Nebuchadnezzar's extensive Conquests in Africa. His invasion of Syria. Description and History of that Country. Babylonish Captivity. Importance of the Jews in Macedonian History. The two Tyres. Commercial Connexions of the Phoenicians. Tartessus. The Cassiterides. Ophir. Saba. Political State of the Phoenicians. Their Manufactures and Inventions. Destruction of the great Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. His Invasion of Egypt. History of the East between the Reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander. Babylon. Magnitude, Populousness, Manufactures, Commerce, and Manners. IV. Nebuchad conquests FROM the era of Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Necos at SECT. . Circesium, his reign of nearly half a century consisted chiefly of a long series of distant invasions, fierce encounters, labo- nezzar's rious campaigns, and persevering sieges. Emulous of Tarako extensive the Ethiopian, he spread his dominion over both sides of the in Africa. Red Sea; rendered Egypt tributary; and pervaded the broad extent of Africa to the pillars of Hercules 1. In these perpetuual expeditions, many a rich temple, the seat of traffic and superstition, fell a prey to his rapacious followers, and to his own unprincipled purpose of decking the new capital of Assyria with the spoils of every strong-hold whose opulence provoked his enmity. But we are informed of the event only, without learning the incidents in this remote and comparatively bar 1 Strabo, 1. xvi. p. 637. Conf. Ezekiel, c. xxx. and xxxix. SECT. IV. His invasin of Sy that coun try. barous, warfare. A deeper interest is excited by his invasion of Syria. He is the first prince who reduced into subjection all the various divisions of that country, destined collectively, as we shall see hereafter, to form a powerful Greek kingdom under the dynasty of the Seleucidæ, descendents of Seleucus Nicator, the most fortunate of Alexander's captains. Long preceding this new dynasty on the banks of the ria-Prior Orontes, the native Syrians had cultivated arts, and attained history of opulence. They were tributaries to the warlike David, king of Israel; and after the misfortunes of the house of David, they submitted to the kings of Nineveh. The interval between these calamitous eras formed that period of Syrian splendour; in which, Hadad and Hazael successive "kings of Syria at Damascus," having obtained a paramount jurisdiction over neighbouring cities, were occasionally employed against them as instruments of divine chastisement 3. During the space of an hundred years, the names of Hadad and Hazael so terrible to the Hebrews, were proportionally revered by the Syrians, who finally enrolled them among their gods, and continued as such to worship them even down to the reign of the Roman emperor Vespasian. With those brilliant reigns, the glory of Damascus set: the Syrians sunk in superstition and softness, ceased for ever to be the hunters, and continued thenceforward the unresisting prey; but the Phenicians long established on their coasts, and the Jews possessing part of the inland country, will demand attention in the immediately following, and in many subsequent parts of this work; besides that the peculiarities and prerogatives of Jerusalem give to it a real and permanent interest surpassing the transient glory of the greatest monarchies. It is 2 Comp. 1 Kings, c. xv. v. 20. and c. xxi. v. 1. 32 Kings, c. xiii. v. 3. 4 Μέχρι νυν αυτος τε ὁ Αδαδος και Αζαήλος ὡς θέοι τιμώνται. Josephus Antiq. 1. ix c. 14. p. 404. Mr. Gibbon, therefore, is mistaken when in speaking of deification, he says "the successors of Alexander were the first objects of this impious and and servile mode of adulation." Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. c. 3 |