While Sennacherib was besieging Jerusalem, the king of Egypt appeared in the field in the south with aid for Hezekiah. This caused Sennacherib to draw off his forces from the siege to meet the new enemy; but near the frontiers of Egypt the Assyrian host, according to the Hebrew account, was smitten by "the angel of the Lord," [Footnote: This expression is a Hebraism, meaning often any physical cause of destruction, as a plague or storm. In the present case, the destroying agency was probably a pestilence. ] and the king returned with a shattered army and without glory to his capital, Nineveh. Sennacherib employed the closing years of his reign in the digging of canals, and in the erection of a splendid palace at Nineveh. He was finally murdered by his own sons. [Illustration: SIEGE OF A CITY, SHOWING USE OF BATTERING-RAM. (From Nimrud.)] ASSHUR-BANI-PAL (668-626? B.C.).--This king, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, is distinguished for his magnificent patronage of art and literature. During his reign Assyria enjoyed her Augustan age. But Asshur-bani-pal was also possessed of a warlike spirit. He broke to pieces, with terrible energy, in swift campaigns, the enemies of his empire. All the scenes of his sieges and battles he caused to be sculptured on the walls of his palace at Nineveh. These pictured panels are now in the British Museum. They are a perfect Iliad in stone. SARACUS OR ESARHADDON II. (?-606 B.C.).--Saracus was the last of the long line of Assyrian kings. His reign was filled with misfortunes for himself and his kingdom. For nearly or quite seven centuries the Ninevite kings had lorded it over the East. There was scarcely a state in all Western Asia that had not, during this time, felt the weight of their conquering arms; scarcely a people that had not suffered their cruel punishments, or tasted the bitterness of their servitude. But now swift misfortunes were bearing down upon the oppressor from every quarter. The Scythian hordes, breaking through the mountain gates on the north, spread a new terror throughout the upper Assyrian provinces; from the mountain defiles on the east issued the armies of the recent-grown empire of the Aryan Medes, led by the renowned Cyaxares; from the southern lowlands, anxious to aid in the overthrow of the hated oppressor, the Babylonians, led by the youthful Nebuchadnezzar, the son of the traitor viceroy Nabopolassar, joined, it appears, the Medes as allies, and together they laid close siege to the Assyrian capital.