The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)Duncker, Max
History
The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)
Duncker, Max
History, Ancient
[167] I have already been able to fix the end of the Ramessids, the date
of the Tanites and Bubastites, by the date of the accession of Shishak
in the Hebrew reckoning; the length of the dynasty of the Tanites in
Manetho; and the length of the Bubastites as corrected by the monuments,
and the synchronism of the first Olympiad for Petubastis. For the period
from the end of the Bubastites to the accession of Sabakon, the
important points are the seventh Olympiad for Bocchoris, and the
sarcophagus of the Apis of Bokenranef. If Bocchoris came to the throne
in the year 753 B.C., Ssheshonk IV. died in the year 780 B.C.; if this
was the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth of his reign, the successor of
the Apis buried in the thirty-seventh year of Ssheshonk might certainly
live to the year 748, the sixth year of Bocchoris according to my
reckoning. It is decisive for Sabakon's accession in Egypt that Hoshea
of Israel undoubtedly ascended the throne in 734 B.C. (p. 16, note; 48).
Shalmanesar IV. of Assyria marched against Israel in the year 726 B.C.,
when he had discovered the conspiracy of Hoshea with Seveh (Sabakon, p.
69). Hoshea must, therefore, have negotiated with Seveh in 727 B.C. at
the latest, and probably earlier. Sabakon must have been previously
established on the throne of Egypt. He cannot, therefore, have conquered
Egypt later than 730 B.C. Bocchoris therefore reigned 23 years (753-730
B.C.); the time which Manetho allots to Bocchoris, six years, is too
short for the completion of his legislation and the attainment of that
fame as a legislator which he left behind him, according to the account
of the Greeks. That Tirhaka reigned over Meroe and Egypt in the year 702
at the latest, is proved by the battle of Eltekeh, which was fought in
701 B.C. (p. 125). If Seveh, who negotiated with Hoshea, is supposed to
be Sabataka, the conquest of Egypt by Sabakon must be put in the year
739. The Apis discovered in the twenty-sixth year of Tirhaka and buried
in the twentieth year of Psammetichus, shows that according to the
chronology of that period, Psammetichus was regarded as the immediate
successor of Tirhaka. According to the reign of 54 years allotted to him
by Herodotus and Manetho, Psammetichus begins in 664 B.C., since his
death is fixed with certainty in 610 B.C. If Tirhaka's reign over Egypt
began in the year 703 B.C., the year 678 would be the twenty-sixth of
his reign; the Apis lived down to the twentieth year of the reign of
Psammetichus, _i.e._ down to the year 645 B.C.--consequently 30 years,
an age (the number on the inscription is illegible), which even a less
carefully tended bull might attain. Tirhaka reigned from 703 to 664
B.C., _i.e._ 39 years. If the lists of Manetho, according to our
excerpts, allow him only 18 years (Syncellus gives 20), this is
obviously due to the fact that the reigns of Stephinates, Nechepsus, and
Necho, who ought to stand side by side with Tirhaka, with seven, six,
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