may have feared was too well defended, but he again pressed forward
across the sands of the desert, and in the first days of Tammuz reached
the cultivated land of the Delta by way of the Wady Tumilat. The
frontier garrisons, defeated on the 3rd of Tammuz near Ishkhupri,**
retreated in good order.

* The defaced name of the country in which this Aphek was
situated was read as Samirina and translated "Samaria" by
the first editor. This interpretation has been adopted by
most historians, who have seen in Aphek the town of this
name belonging to the western portion of Manasseh. Budge
read it Samina, and this reading, verified by Craig, gave
Winckler the idea of identifying Samina or Simina with the
tribe of Simeon, and Aphek with the Aphckah (Josh. xv. 53)
in the mountains of Judah.

** The text on the stele at Zinjirli gives a total of
fifteen days' march from Ishkhupri to Memphis, while
Pinches' Babyl. Chron. indicates three battles as having
been fought on the 3rd, 16th, and 18th of Tammuz, and the
taking of Memphis as occurring on the 22nd of the same
month. If fifteen days is precisely accurate for the length
of march, Esarhaddon would have reached Ishkhupri about the
27th of Sivan.

Taharqa, hastening to their succour, disputed the ground inch by inch,
and engaged the invaders in several conflicts, two at least of which,
fought on the 16th and 18th of Tammuz, were regular pitched battles,
but in every case the Assyrian tactics triumphed in spite of the dashing
onslaught of the Egyptians; Memphis succumbed on the 22nd, after an
assault lasting merely a few hours, and was mercilessly sacked. The
Ethiopian king, with his army decimated and exhausted, gave up the
struggle, and beat a hasty retreat southwards. The attack had been made
with such rapidity that he had had no time to remove his court from the
"palace of the White Wall" to the Said; the queen, therefore, together
with other women of less exalted rank, fell into the hands of the
conqueror, besides the crown-prince, Ushana-horu, several younger sons
and daughters, and such of the children of Sabaco and Shabitoku as
resided at court. But the victory had cost the Assyrians dearly, and
the enemy still appeared to them so formidable that Esarhaddon prudently
abstained from pursuing him up the Nile Valley. He favourably received
those feudal lords and petty kings who presented th