on the southern slopes of the Masios. * _Inscrip. of the Cylinder of Nabonidus_ mentions the pillage of Harran as having taken place fifty-four years before the date of its restoration by Nabonidus. This was begun, as we know, in the third year of that king, possibly in 554-3. The date of the destruction is, therefore, 608-7, that is to say, a few months before the destruction of Nineveh. ** The passage in the _Cylinder of Nabonidus_ shows that the barbarians remained in possession of the town. Having brought these preliminary operations to a successful issue, Nabopolassar, considering himself protected on the north and north-east by his friendship with Cyaxares, no longer hesitated to make an effort to recover the regions dominated by Egyptian influence, and, if the occasion presented itself, to reduce to submission the Pharaoh who was in his eyes merely a rebellious satrap. Nebuchadrezzar again placed himself at the head of his troops; Necho, warned of his projects, hastened to meet him with all the forces at his disposal, and, owing probably to the resistance offered by the garrisons which he possessed in the Hittite fortresses, he had time to continue his march as far as the Euphrates. The two armies encountered each other at Carchemish; the Egyptians were completely defeated in spite of their bravery and the skilful tactics of their Greek auxiliaries, and the Asiatic nations, who had once more begun to rely on Egypt, were obliged to acknowledge that they were as unequal to the task of overcoming Chaldaea as they had been of sustaining a struggle with Assyria.* * Jer. xlvi. 2; cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 7, where the editor, without mentioning the battle of Carchemish, recalls in passing that "the King of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the King of Egypt."