A.C. 670.

As the siege of Azoth, although the longest recorded in history, affords but little matter for relation, we will indulge our young readers with a few of the circumstances which preceded it.

After the death of Tharaca, the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were great disorders among them. At last, twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together, seized upon the kingdom, and divided it among themselves into as many parts. It was agreed by them that each should govern his own district with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this agreement, and to bind it with the most solemn oaths, to elude the prediction of an oracle, which had foretold that he among them who should offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned together fifteen years in the utmost harmony: and, to leave a lasting monument of their concord to posterity, they jointly, and at a common expense, built the famous labyrinth, which was a pile of building consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many edifices underground as appeared above it.

One day, as the twelve kings were assisting at a solemn and periodical sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priest having to present each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting. Upon this Psammetichus, without any design, supplied the place of this bowl with his brazen helmet, of which each wore one, and with it performed the ceremony of the libation. This accident struck the rest of the kings, and recalled to their memory the prediction of the oracle above-mentioned. They thought it therefore necessary to secure themselves against his attempts, and, with one consent, banished him into the fenny parts of Egypt.

After Psammetichus had passed several years there, awaiting a favourable opportunity to revenge himself for this affront, a messenger brought him advice that brazen men were landed in Egypt. These were Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon the coast of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets, cuirasses, and other arms of brass. Psammetichus immediately called to mind an oracle which had answered him, that he should be succoured by brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt that the prediction was now fulfilled. He made a league with these strangers; engaged them by great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces, and put these Greeks at their head. Giving battle to the eleven kings, he defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.

As this prince owed his success to the Ionians and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, from which all foreigners had been excluded; and by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native country. By his order Egyptian children were put under their care, to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks; and from that era the Egyptian history, which till then had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifices of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord, as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and SeleucidÆ. They were eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government, thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Assyrians, his neighbours, whose power increased daily. For this purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war an incident related by Diodorus, that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself, in preference to them, quitted his service to the number of upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with a good settlement.

Be this as it may, Psammetichus entered Palestine, where his career was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty-nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in history. This was anciently one of the five capital cities of the Philistines. The Egyptians having seized it some time before, had fortified it with such care that it was their strongest bulwark on that side. Nor could Sennacherib enter Egypt till he had made himself master of this city, which was taken by Tartan, one of his generals. The Assyrians had possessed it hitherto, and it was not till after the long siege just now mentioned that the Egyptians recovered it.

The extraordinary length of this siege ceases to surprise us, when we consider that a siege was nothing but a badly-guarded blockade, where that was expected from lassitude and famine which could not be obtained by either bodily strength, which necessarily failed against stone walls, or by military art, which had not yet learnt how to overthrow them, or even to scale them.