The collision came in B.C. 720.  In that year Sargon, the founder of the last and greatest of the Assyrian dynasties, who had succeeded Shalmaneser IV. in B.C. 722, having arranged matters in Samaria and taken Hamath, pressed on against Philistia, the last inhabited country on the route which led to Egypt.  Shabak, having made alliance with Hanun, king of Gaza, marched to his aid.  The opposing hosts met at Ropeh, the Raphia of the Greeks, on the very borders of the desert.  Sargon commanded in person on the one side, Shabak and Hanun on the other.  A great battle was fought, which was for a long time stoutly contested; but the strong forms, the superior arms, and the better discipline of the Assyrians, prevailed.  Asia proved herself, as she has generally done, stronger than Africa; the Egyptians and Philistines fled away in disorder; Hanun was made a prisoner; Shabak with difficulty escaped.  Negotiations appear to have followed, and a convention to have been drawn up, to which the Ethiopian and Assyrian monarchs attached their seals.  The lump of clay which received the impressions was found by Sir A. Layard at Nineveh, and is now in the British Museum.

Shortly afterwards, about B.C. 712, Shabak died, and was succeeded in Egypt by his son Shabatok, in Ethiopia by a certain Tehrak, who appears to have been his nephew, Tehrak exercised the paramount authority over the whole realm, but resided at Napata, while Shabatok held his court at Memphis and ruled Lower Egypt as Tehrak’s representative, Assyrian aggression still continued.  In B.C. 711 Sargon took Ashdod, and threatened an invasion of Egypt, which Shabatok averted by sending a submissive embassy with presents.

[Illustration:  SEAL OF SHABAK.]

Six years afterwards Sargon died, and his son, Sennacherib, mounted the Assyrian throne.  At once south-western Asia was in a ferment.  The Phoenician and Philistine kings recently subjected by Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon, broke out in open revolt.  Hezekiah, king of Judah, joined the malcontents.  The aid of Egypt was implored, and certain promises of support and assistance received, in part from Tehrak, in part from Shabatok and other native rulers of nomes and cities.  Sennacherib, in B.C. 701, led his army into Syria to suppress the rebellion, reduced Phoenicia, received the submission of Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and Edom; took Ascalon, Hazor, and Joppa, and was proceeding against Ekron, when for the first time he encountered an armed force in the field.  A large Egyptian and Ethiopian contingent had at last reached Philistia, and, having united itself with the Ekronites, stood prepared to give the Assyrians battle near Eltekeh.  The force consisted of chariots, horsemen, and footmen, and was so numerous that Sennacherib calls it “a multitude that no man could number.”  Once more, however, Africa had to succumb.  Sennacherib at Eltekeh defeated the combined forces of Egypt and Ethiopia with as much ease and completeness as Sargon at Raphia; the multitudinous host was entirely routed, and fled from the field, leaving in the hands of the victors the greater portion of their war-chariots and several sons of one of their kings.