Shishak had no need of Israelitish alliances.  On the contrary, Solomon was connected by marriage with the dethroned dynasty, and the power of Israel, if unchecked, was a menace to his own kingdom.  But while Solomon lived he was afraid to move.  He kept at his court, however, an Israelitish rebel, who might prove useful when the time came.  Hardly was Solomon dead when Jeroboam returned to his native country, and the kingdom of David was sundered in twain.  Shishak seized the opportunity of striking a blow at what remained of it.  With contemptuous impartiality he overran the territories of both Judah and the revolted tribes, but it was Judah which suffered the most.  The unfinished fortifications of Jerusalem were stormed, the treasures accumulated by Solomon carried to the Nile, and the King of Judah compelled to acknowledge himself the vassal of Shishak.  Judah never recovered from the blow:  had it not been for the Egyptian invasion, and the consequent loss of its hoarded wealth, it might have been able to suppress the rebellion of Jeroboam, and to reduce all the tribes of Israel once more under one sceptre.  The names of the captured cities of Palestine are still to be read on the walls of the temple of Karnak.

Shishak’s successors of the Twenty-second dynasty did not inherit his military vigour and skill.  The central authority grew gradually weaker, and Egypt again fell back into the condition from which he had rescued it.  The tribes of the Sudan could no longer be hindered from attacking the enfeebled land, and Ethiopian princes made their way to Memphis, carrying back with them to their capital of Napata the spoil and tribute of a defeated and disunited people.  At last the Ethiopian raids changed into permanent conquest, and a negro dynasty—­the Twenty-fifth—­sat on the throne of Menes.

But the kings who belonged to it, Shabaka and Taharka, were vigorous, and for a short while there was peace in the valley of the Nile.  Assyria, however, had already arisen in its strength, and was claiming the empire over western Asia which had belonged to Babylon in the dawn of history.  The states of Palestine endeavoured in vain to play off Assyria against Egypt.  Again and again the Egyptian armies were defeated on the borders of Canaan, and Taharka was saved from invasion only by the disaster which befell Sennacherib during his siege of Jerusalem.  But the respite was only momentary.  Asia at last submitted to the dominion of Nineveh, the King of Judah became an Assyrian vassal, and Esar-haddon, the successor of Sennacherib, was now ready to march against the land of the Nile.  In B.C. 674 he entered the Delta and scattered the forces of the Ethiopians.  But two more campaigns were needed before the country was thoroughly subdued.  At last, in June B.C. 670, he drove the Egyptian forces before him in fifteen days from the frontier to Memphis, twice defeating them with heavy loss and wounding Taharka himself.  Three days later Memphis opened its gates, and Taharka fled to Egypt, leaving Egypt in the hands of the Assyrian.  It was divided among twenty satraps, most of whom were Egyptians by birth.