th the great kingdoms of the
neighboring continent. With rare and brief exceptions, Egypt has from
the time of Sargon succumbed to the superior might of whatever power has
been dominant in Western Asia, owning it for lord, and submitting, with
a good or bad grace, to a position involving a greater or less degree of
dependence. Tributary to the later Assyrian princes, and again,
probably, to Nebuchadnezzar, she had scarcely recovered her independence
when she fell under the dominion of Persia. Never successful,
notwithstanding all her struggles, in thoroughly shaking off this hated
yoke, she did but exchange her Persian for Greek masters, when the
empire of Cyrus perished. Since then, Greeks, Romans, Saracens, and
Turks have, each in their turn, been masters of the Egyptian race, which
has paid the usual penalty of precocity in the early exhaustion of its
powers.

After the victories of Aroer and Raphia, the Assyrian monarch appears to
have been engaged for some years in wars of comparatively slight
interest towards the north and the north-east. It was not till B.C. 715,
five years after his first fight with the Egyptians, that he again made
an expedition towards the south-west, and so came once more into contact
with nations to whose fortunes we are not wholly indifferent. His chief
efforts on this occasion were directed against the peninsula of Arabia.
The wandering tribes of the desert, tempted by the weak condition to
which the Assyrian conquest had reduced Samaria, made raids, it appears,
into the territory at their pleasure, and carried off plunder. Sargon
determined to chastise these predatory bands, and made an expedition
into the interior, where "he subdued the uncultivated plains of the
remote Arabia, which had never before given tribute to Assyria," and
brought under subjection the Thamudites, and several other Arab tribes,
carrying off a certain number and settling them in Samaria itself, which
thenceforth contained an Arab element in its population. Such an effect
was produced on the surrounding nations by the success of this inroad,
that their princes hastened to propitiate Sargon's favor by sending
embassies, and excepting the position of Assyrian tributaries. The
reigning Pharaoh, whoever he may have been, It-hamar, king of the
Sabaeans, and Tsamsi, queen of the Arabs, thus humbled themselves,
sending presents, and probably entering into engagements which bound
them for the future.

Four years later (B.