rusalem fell; Zedekiah was
made a prisoner and cruelly deprived of sight; the Temple and city were
burnt, and the bulk of the people carried into captivity. Babylon
rounded off her dominion in this quarter by the absorption of the last
state upon her south-western border that had maintained the shadow of
independence: and the two great powers of these parts, hitherto
prevented from coming into contact by the intervention of a sort of
political "buffer," became conterminous, and were thus brought into a
position in which it was not possible that a collision should for any
considerable time be avoided.

Recognizing the certainty of the impending collision, Apries sought to
strengthen his power for resistance by attaching to his own empire the
Phoenician towns of the Syrian coast, whose adhesion to his side would
secure him, at any rate, the maritime superiority. He made an expedition
against Tyre and Sidon both by land and sea, defeated the combined fleet
of Phoenicia and Cyprus in a great engagement, besieged Sidon, and after
a time compelled it to surrender. He then endeavoured further to
strengthen himself on the land side by bringing under subjection the
Greek city of Cyrene, which had now become a flourishing community; but
here his good fortune forsook him; the Cyrenaean forces defeated the army
which he sent against them, with great slaughter; and the event brought
Apries into disfavour with his subjects, who imagined that he had, of
malice prepense, sent his troops into the jaws of destruction. According
to Herodotus, the immediate result was a revolt, which cost Apries his
throne, and, within a short time, his life; but the entire narrative of
Herodotus is in the highest degree improbable, and some recent
discoveries suggest a wholly different termination to the reign of this
remarkable king.

It is certain that in B.C. 568 Nebuchadnezzar made an expedition into
Egypt According to all accounts this date fell into the lifetime of
Apries. Amasis, however, the successor of Apries, appears to have been
Nebuchadnezzar's direct antagonist, and to have resisted him in the
field, while Apries remained in the palace at Sais. The two were joint
kings from B.C. 571 to B.C. 565. Nebuchadnezzar, at first, neglected
Sais, and proceeded, by way of Heliopolis and Bubastis (Ezek. xxx. 17),
against the old capitals, Memphis and Thebes. Having taken these, and
"destroyed the idols and made the images to cease," he advanced up the