remained loyal to his Assyrian masters.  It is, however, asserted that he afterwards rebelled, though his reason for doing so is not explained, and that he was carried captive to Babylon as a punishment for this crime:  he succeeded, nevertheless, in regaining favour, and was reinstated at Jerusalem on condition of not repeating his offence.  If this statement is true, as I believe it to be, it was probably after the Egyptian campaign of 673 B.C.* that his conspiracy with Baal took place.

* The fact of Manasseh’s captivity is only known to us from the testimony of 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10-13, and most modern critics consider it apocryphal.  The moral development which accompanies the narrative, and the conversion which follows it, are certainly later additions, but the story may have some foundation in fact; we shall see later on that Necho I., King of Sais, was taken prisoner, led into captivity, and received again into favour in the same way as Manasseh is said to have been.  The exile to Babylon, which at one time appeared to demonstrate the unauthenticity of the passage, would be rather in favour of its authenticity.  Esarhaddon was King of Babylon during the whole of his reign, and the great works which he executed in that city obliged him, we know, to transport thither a large proportion of the prisoners whom he brought back from his wars.

The Assyrian governors of the neighbouring provinces easily crushed these attempts at independence, but, the islands of Tyre being secure from attack, they were obliged to be content with establishing a series of redoubts along the coast, and with prohibiting the Tyrians from having access to the mainland.

The promptitude of their action quenched the hopes of the Egyptian party and prevented the spread of the revolt.  Esarhaddon was, nevertheless, obliged to put off the fulfilment of his schemes longer than he desired:  complications arose on his northern frontiers, near the sources of the Tigris, which distracted his attention from the intrigues taking place on the banks of the Nile.  Urartu, hard pressed by the Cimmerians and Scythians, had lived for a quarter of a century in a condition of sullen peace with Assyria, and its kings avoided anything which could bring them into conflict with their hereditary rival.  Argistis II. had been succeeded by one of his sons, Eusas IL, and both of them had been more intent upon strengthening their kingdom than on extending its area; they had rebuilt their capital, Dhuspas, on a magnificent scale, and from the security of their rocky home they watched the course of events without taking any part in it, unless forced to do so by circumstances.  Andaria, chief of Lubdi, one of the remote mountain districts, so difficult of access that it always retained its independence in spite of frequent attacks, had seized Shupria, a province which had been from very early times subject to the sovereigns of Nineveh, and was the first to be colonised by them.  The inhabitants,