* The defaced name of the country in which this Aphek was situated was read as Samirina and translated “Samaria” by the first editor.  This interpretation has been adopted by most historians, who have seen in Aphek the town of this name belonging to the western portion of Manasseh.  Budge read it Samina, and this reading, verified by Craig, gave Winckler the idea of identifying Samina or Simina with the tribe of Simeon, and Aphek with the Aphckah (Josh. xv. 53) in the mountains of Judah.

** The text on the stele at Zinjirli gives a total of fifteen days’ march from Ishkhupri to Memphis, while Pinches’ Babyl.  Chron. indicates three battles as having been fought on the 3rd, 16th, and 18th of Tammuz, and the taking of Memphis as occurring on the 22nd of the same month.  If fifteen days is precisely accurate for the length of march, Esarhaddon would have reached Ishkhupri about the 27th of Sivan.

Taharqa, hastening to their succour, disputed the ground inch by inch, and engaged the invaders in several conflicts, two at least of which, fought on the 16th and 18th of Tammuz, were regular pitched battles, but in every case the Assyrian tactics triumphed in spite of the dashing onslaught of the Egyptians; Memphis succumbed on the 22nd, after an assault lasting merely a few hours, and was mercilessly sacked.  The Ethiopian king, with his army decimated and exhausted, gave up the struggle, and beat a hasty retreat southwards.  The attack had been made with such rapidity that he had had no time to remove his court from the “palace of the White Wall” to the Said; the queen, therefore, together with other women of less exalted rank, fell into the hands of the conqueror, besides the crown-prince, Ushana-horu, several younger sons and daughters, and such of the children of Sabaco and Shabitoku as resided at court.  But the victory had cost the Assyrians dearly, and the enemy still appeared to them so formidable that Esarhaddon prudently abstained from pursuing him up the Nile Valley.  He favourably received those feudal lords and petty kings who presented themselves to pay him homage, and confirmed them in possession of their fiefs, but he placed over them Assyrian governors and imposed new official names on their cities; thus Athribis was officially called Limir-pateshi-assur, and other cities received the names Assur-makan-tishkul, Bifc-marduk-sha-assur-taru, Shaimuk-assur.  He further imposed on them a heavy annual tribute of more than six talents of gold and six hundred talents of silver, besides robes and woven stuffs, wine, skins, horses, sheep, and asses; and having accomplished this, he retraced his steps towards the north-east with immense booty and innumerable convoys of prisoners.  The complete defeat of the Ethiopian power filled not only Esarhaddon himself but all Asia with astonishment.  His return to Nineveh was a triumphal progress; travelling through Syria by short stages, he paraded his captives and trophies before the peoples and princes who had so long relied on the invincible power of the Pharaoh.