by a rebellious subject. Perhaps we may best harmonize the
conflicting statements on the subject by supposing that Josephus has
confounded two distinct invasions of Egypt, one made by Nebuchadnezzar
in his twenty-third year, B.C. 581, which had no very important
consequences, and the other eleven years later, B.C. 570, which
terminated in the deposition of Uaphris, and the establishment on
the throne of a new king, Amasis, who received a nominal royalty from
Chaldaean monarch.

Such--as far as they are known--were the military exploits of this great
king. He defeated Neco, recovered Syria, crushed rebellion in Judaea,
took Tyre, and humiliated Egypt. According to some writers his successes
did not stop here. Megasthenes made him subdue most of Africa, and
thence pass over into Spain and conquer the Iberians. He even went
further, and declared that, on his return from these regions, he settled
his Iberian captives on the shores of the Euxine in the country between
Armenia and the Caucasus! Thus Nebuchadnezzar was made to reign over an
empire extending from the Atlantic to the Caspian, and from the Caucasus
to the Great Sahara.

The victories of Nebuchadnezzar were not without an effect on his home
administration and on the construction of the vast works with which his
name is inseparably associated. It was through them that he obtained
that enormous command of "naked human strength" which enabled him,
without undue oppression of his own people, to carry out on the grandest
scale his schemes for at once beautifying and benefiting his kingdom.
From the time when he first took the field at the head of an army
he adopted the Assyrian system of forcibly removing almost the whole
population of a conquered country, and planting it in a distant part
of his dominions. Crowds of captives--the produce of his various
wars--Jews, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Syrians, Ammonites, Moabites, were
settled in various parts of Mesopotamia, more especially about Babylon.
From these unfortunates forced labor was as a matter of course required;
and it seems to have been chiefly, if not solely, by their exertions
that the magnificent series of great works was accomplished, which
formed the special glory of the Fourth Monarchy.

The chief works expressly ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar by the ancient
writers are the following: He built the great wall of Babylon, which,
according to the lowest estimate, must have contained more than
500,000,000 square f