Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/348

 332 HISTORY OF GREECE. ing into Syria, was met at Megiddo Herodotus says Magdolurn by Josiah king of Judah, who was himself slain and so com- pletely worsted, that Jerusalem fell into the power of the con- queror, and became tributary to Egypt. It deserves to be noted that Nekos sent the raiment which he had worn on the day of his victory, as an offering to the holy temple of Apollo at Branchidae near Miletus, 1 the first recorded instance of a do- nation from an Egyptian king to a Grecian temple, and a proof that Hellenic affinities were beginning to take effect upon him : probably we may conclude that a large proportion of his troops were Milesians. But the victorious career of Nekos was completely checked by the defeat which he experienced at Carchemisch, or Circesium, on the Euphrates, from Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, who not only drove him out of Judsea and Syria, but also took Jerusalem, and carried away the king and the principal Jews into captivity. 2 Nebuchadnezzar farther attacked the Phenician cities, and the siege of Tyre alone cost him severe toil for thirteen years. After this long and gallant resistance, the Tyrians were forced to submit, and underwent the same fate as the Jews : their princes and chiefs were dragged captive into the Babylonian ter- ritory, and the Phenician cities became numbered among the tributaries of Nebuchadnezzar. So they seemed to have remain- ed, until the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus : for we find among those extracts, unhappily, very brief, which Josephus has pre- 1 Herodot. ii, 159. Diodorus makes no mention of Nekos. The account of Herodotus coincides in the main with the history of the Old Testament about Pharaoh Nccho and Josiah. The great city of Syria which he calls Kudv-ie seems to be Jerusalem, though Wesseling (ad Herodot. iii, 5) and other able critics dispute the identity. See Volney, Recherchcs sur 1'Hist. Anc. vol. ii, ch. 13, p. 239 : " Les Arabes ont conserve 1'habitude d'appcler Jerusalem la Sainte par excellence, el Qpds. Sans doute les Chaldeens et les Syricns lui donnerent le memo nom, qui dans leur dialecte est Qadouta, dont He'rodote rend bien 1'orthographie quand il ecrit K (idvTif ." 'Jeremiah, xlvi, 2; 2il book of lungs, xxiii and xxiv; Josephus, Ant, J. x, 5, 1; x, 6, 1. About Nebuchadnezzar, see the Fragment of Berosus ap. Joseph, cont Apion. i, 19-20, and Antiqq. J. x, 11, 1, and Bcrosi Fragment, ed. Eitcher pp. 65-67.