[698] Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 2, 6. "Inst. Cyr." 7, 5, 7, 21.
[699] Diod. 2, 7. Cp. Arrian, "Anab." 7, 17, 6. Pseudo-Callisthenes ascribes to Babylon a diameter of no more than 12 stades and 220 or 206 feet: he ascribes to the city of Alexandria in Egypt a diameter of 16-1/2 stades; 1, 31.
[702] So the Ephemerides in Arrian, "Anab." 7, 25, and in Plut. "Alex." c. 75.
[714] It is the less doubtful that the bridge is the work of Nebuchadnezzar, since the basin of Sepharvaim is vouched for as his work by Berosus.
[719] W. A. Inscript. 1, 52. No. 6 in Ménant, "Babylone," p. 215.
[724] Ménant, "Babylone," p. 200 ff. Rodwell, "Records of the Past," 5, 113 ff. Two private documents of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar are in existence, one from the first part of his reign, 604 B.C.; the second from the twentieth, 584 B.C. Oppert et Ménant, "Doc. Juridiq." p. 257 ff.
[732] Oppert, "Exped." 2, 324, cf. 1, 181.
[734] Berosi fragm. 14, ed. Müller. That Evilmerodach ascended the throne in 561 B.C. is established, not only by the astronomical canon, but also by the statement of the Hebrews that Evilmerodach liberated Jechoniah in the thirty-seventh year of his imprisonment, 2 Kings xxv. 27. Jerem. lii. 31. Between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonetus the astronomical canon only mentions Evilmerodach and Neriglissar, with six years between them. Josephus supplements this by the dates of the years in Berosus ("c. Apion." 1, 20), which in the result agree with the canon. Cf. Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 50, ed. Schöne. "Præp. Evang." 9, 40. The accession of Nabonetus in the year 555 B.C. is also fixed by the document in Oppert et Ménant "Doc. Jurid." p. 262. The statements of Josephus ("Antiq." 10, 11, 2) are entirely false and untenable. The name of the last king Nabonetus is established against the Labynetus of Herodotus (1, 77) by the inscriptions.
[738] Vol. I. 289; II. 33. Ménant, _loc. cit._, pp. 253, 255.
[739] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 262, 263. Schrader, "Keilinschr. und A. T." s. 280.
[740] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 20, 21. Above, p. 354, _n._ In the fourteenth year of the reign of this Hiram Cyrus conquered Babylon; he must, therefore, have been placed on the throne in 551 B.C.
Necho's views for subjugating Syria to his dominion, and renewing the campaigns of the ancient Pharaohs to the Euphrates, were wrecked after some successes. The day of Karchemish, which he lost to the Babylonians, carried with it the loss of the conquests in Syria, with perhaps the exception of Gaza and one or two other places of the Philistines. Necho might count himself fortunate that Nebuchadnezzar remained within Syria. His attempt to support the rebellion of Judah against Babylon, which king Jehoiakim ventured upon in the year 597 B.C., miscarried, as we saw above (p. 331). Nebuchadnezzar now took all as far as the brook of Egypt. Necho's son, Psammetichus II., who succeeded his father in the year 595 B.C., took no steps to hinder the fall of the Phenician cities, which were subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 593 B.C. Of Psammetichus' short reign--it lasted only six years--Herodotus merely tells us that he undertook a campaign against the Ethiopians, and died immediately after it. From this statement we must conclude that since the time of Psammetichus I. and the emigration of a part of the warrior caste, Egypt had been in strained relations with the kingdom of Napata, and the successors of Urdamane. From the words of Herodotus it would seem that Psammetichus made an unprovoked attack on Ethiopia; but of the success of the undertaking we know nothing. From some words which Greek mercenaries of Pharaoh have left behind them, and the place where they were written, it would seem to have been the intention of Psammetichus to win back for Egypt lower Nubia, which, as we have seen, had for centuries been a province of Egypt.