Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/340

 324 HISTORY OF GREECE. the whole of Egypt, from Elephantine to Pelcsium and Kan&pus, is said to have always constituted one kingdom, from the earliest times which the native priests could conceive. We are to consider this kingdom as engaged, long before the time when Greeks were admitted into it, 1 in a standing caravan- commerce with Phenicia, Palestine, Arabia, and Assyria. An- cient Egypt having neither vines nor olives, imported both wine and oil, 2 while it also needed especially the frankincense and aromatic products peculiar to Arabia, for its elaborate religious ceremonies. Towards the last quarter of the eighth century B. c. (a little before the time when the dynasty of the Mermnadae in Lydia was commencing in the person of Gyges), we trace events tending to alter the relation which previously subsisted between these countries, by continued aggressions on the part of the Assyrian monarchs of Nineveh, Salmaneser and Sen- nacherib. The former having conquered and led into captivity the ten tribes of Israel, also attacked the Phenician towns on the adjoining coast : Sidon, Palae-Tyrus, and Ake yielded to him, but Tyre itself resisted, and having endured for five years the hard- ships of a blockade with partial obstruction of its continental aque- ducts, was enabled by means of its insular position to maintain independence. It was just at this period that the Grecian estab- lishments in Sicily were forming, and I have already remarked that the pressure of the Assyrians upon Phenicia, probably had some effect in determining that contraction of the Phenician oc- cupations in Sicily, which really took place (B. c. 730-720). Respecting Sennacherib, we are informed by the Old Testament, that he invaded Judaea, and by Herodotus (who calls him king of the Assyrians and Arabians), that he assailed the pious king Sethos in Egypt : in both cases his army experienced a miracu- lous repulse and destruction. After this, the Assyrians of Nine- 1 On this early trade between Egypt, Phenicia, and Palestine, anterior to any acquaintance with the Greeks, see Josephus cont. Apion. i, 12. from all Greece as well as from Phenicia, as well as the employment : tha earthen vessels in which it was brought for the transport of water, in the journeys across the desert (iii, 6). In later times, Alexandria was supplied with wine chiefly from Laodikeiaj in Syria, near the mputh of the Orontes (Strabo, xvi, p. 751 ).
 * Herodotus notices the large importation of wine into Egypt in his day,