Egyptian frontier was crossed on the 3rd of
Tammuz (June), and Tirhaka, at the head of the Egyptian forces, was driven
to Memphis after fifteen days of continuous fighting, during which the
Egyptians were thrice defeated with heavy loss and Tirhaka himself was
wounded. On the 22nd of the month Memphis was entered by the victorious
army and Tirhaka fled to the south. A stele, commemorating the victory and
representing Tirhaka with the features of a negro, was set up at Sinjirli
(north of the Gulf of Antioch) and is now in the Berlin Museum. Two years
later (668 B.C.) Egypt revolted, and while on the march to reduce it,
Esar-haddon fell ill and died (on the 10th of Marchesvan or October).
[Sidenote: Assur-bani-pal.] Assur-bani-pal succeeded him as king of Assyria
and its empire, while his brother, Samas-sum-yukin, was made viceroy of
Babylonia. The arrangement was evidently intended to flatter the
Babylonians by giving them once more the semblance of independence. But it
failed to work. Samas-sum-yukin became more Babylonian than his subjects;
the viceroy claimed to be the successor of the monarchs whose empire had
once stretched to the Mediterranean; even the Sumerian language was revived
as the official tongue, and a revolt broke out which shook the Assyrian
empire to its foundations. After several years of struggle, during which
Egypt recovered its independence, Babylon was starved into surrender, and
the rebel viceroy and his supporters were put to death.

Egypt had already recovered its independence (660 B.C.) with the help of
mercenaries sent by Gyges of Lydia, who had vainly solicited aid from
Assyria against his Cimmerian enemies. Next followed the contest with Elam,
in spite of the efforts of Assur-bani-pal to ward it off. Assyria, however,
was aided by civil war in Elam itself; the country was wasted with fire and
sword, and its capital Susa or Shushan levelled with the ground. But the
long struggle left Assyria maimed and exhausted. It had been drained of
both wealth and fighting population; the devastated provinces of Elam and
Babylonia could yield nothing with which to supply the needs of the
imperial exchequer, and it was difficult to find sufficient troops even to
garrison the conquered populations. Assyria, therefore, was ill prepared to
face the hordes of Scythians--or Manda, as they were called by the
Babylonians--who now began to harass the frontiers. A Scythian power had
grown up in the old kingdom of E