to Sargon even as a sphere of influence. The marshes of its south-west,
the tropical plains of the centre and the mountains on the east, made it
a difficult land for the northern Semites to conquer and hold. Sargon
had been wise enough to let it be. Neither so prudent nor so fortunate
would be his son and successors.


SECTION 3. THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT

Such was the empire inherited by Sargon's son, Sennacherib. Not content,
he would go farther afield to make a conquest which has never remained
long in the hands of an Asiatic power. It was not only lust of loot,
however, which now urged Assyria towards Egypt. The Great Kings had long
found their influence counteracted in southern Syria by that of the
Pharaohs. Princes of both Hebrew states, of the Phoenician and the
Philistine cities and even of Damascus, had all relied at one time or
another on Egypt, and behind their combinations for defence and their
individual revolts Assyria had felt the power on the Nile. The latter
generally did no more in the event to save its friends than it had done
for Israel when Shalmaneser IV beleaguered, and Sargon took and
garrisoned, Samaria; but even ignorant hopes and empty promises of help
cause constant unrest. Therefore Sennacherib, after drastic chastisement
of the southern states in 701 (both Tyre and Jerusalem, however, kept
him outside their walls), and a long tussle with Chaldaean Babylon, was
impelled to set out in the last year, or last but one, of his reign for
Egypt. In southern Palestine he was as successful as before, but,
thereafter, some signal disaster befell him. Probably an epidemic
pestilence overtook his army when not far across the frontier, and he
returned to Assyria only to be murdered.