Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/346

 330 HISTORY OF GREECE. Median king Kyaxares and possessed themselves of Upper Asia, advanced to invade Egypt, an undertaking which Psammeti- chus, by large presents, induced them to abandon. 1 There were, however, more powerful enemies than the Scyth- ians, against whom he and his son Nckos who succeeded him, seemingly about 604 B. c. 2 had to contend in Syria and the lands adjoining. It is just at this period, during the reigns of 1 Herodot. i, 105; ii, 157. given in some points differently by Herodotus .and by Manctha : According to Herodotus, Psammetichus reigned 54 years. Nekos... " 16 " Psammis .... " 6 " Apries " 25 " Amasis " 44 " According to Manetho ap. African. Psammetichus reigned 54 years. Nechao II " 6 " Psammathis. " G " Uaphris " 19 " Amosis " 44 " Diodorus gives 22 years for Apries and 55 years for Amasis (i, 68). Now the end of the reign of Amasis stands fixed for 526 B. c., and, there- fore, the beginning of his reign (according to both Herodotus and Manetho) to 570 B. c. or 569 B. c. According to the chronology of the Old Testa- ment, the battles of Megiddo and Carchemisch, fought by Nekos, fall from 609-605 B. c., and this coincides with the reign of Nekos as dated by Herodotus, but not as dated by Manetho. On the other hand, it appears from the evidence of certain Egyptian inscriptions recently discovered, that the real interval from the beginning of Nechao to the end of Uaphris is only forty years, and not forty -seven years, as the dates of Herodotus would make it (Boeckh, Manetho und die Hundstern-Periode, pp. 341-348), which would place the accession of Nekos in 610 or 609 B. c. Boeckh discusses at some length this discrepancy of dates, and inclines to the supposition that Nekos reigned nine or ten years jointly with his father, and that Herodotus has counted these nine or ten years twice, once in the reign of Psammetichus, once in that of Nekos. Certainly, Psammetichus can hardly have been very young when his reign began, and if he reigned fifty-four years, he must have reached an extreme old age, and may have been prominently aided by his son. Adopting the suppositions, therefore, that the last ten years of the reign of Psammetichus maybe reckoned both for him and for Nekos, that for Nekos separately only six years are to be reckoned, and that the num- ber of years from the beginning of Nekos's separate reign to the end of Uaphris is forty, Boeckh places the beginning of Psammetichus in 654 B. c., and not in 670 B. c., as the data of Herodotus would make it (ib, pp. 342-350). Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. B. c. 616, follows Herodotus.
 * The chronology of the Egyptian kings from Psarumetichus to Amasis is