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According to these notices, it would appear that Esar-haddon, having entered Egypt with a large army, probably in B.C. 670, gained a great battle over the forces of Tirhakah in the lower country, and took Memphis, the city where the Ethiopian held his court, after which he proceeded southwards, and conquered the whole of the Nile valley as far as the southern boundary of the Theban district.
Even Ctesias could scarcely have ventured to depict to his countrymen the great Asshur-bani-pal, the vanquisher of Tirhakah, the subduer of the tribes beyond the Taurus, the powerful and warlike monarch whose friendship was courted by the rich and prosperous Gyges, king of Lydia, as a mere voluptuary, who never put his foot outside the palace gates, but dwelt in the seraglio, doing woman's work, and often dressed as a woman.
Thereupon Asshur-bani-pal, having forgiven Neco, sent him, accompanied by a strong force, into Egypt; and Tirhakah was again compelled to quit the lower country and retire to Upper Egypt, where he soon after died. His crown fell to his step-son, Urdamane, who is perhaps the Rud-Amun of the Hieroglyphics. This prince was at first very successful.
In his second expedition he reached Memphis itself, carried it by assault, and drove the Cushite Tirhakah past Thebes to the Cataracts.
What then must have been his disgust and rage at finding that, at the critical moment, Tyre had gone over to the enemy? Notwithstanding the favours heaped on him by his suzerain, "Baal, king of Tyre, to Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, his country entrusted, and the yoke of Asshur threw off and made defiance."
Asshur-bani-pal, shortly after his accession, collected his forces, and marched through Syria into Egypt, where he defeated the army sent against him by Tirhakah in a great battle near the city of Kar-banit.
Accordingly, on the report that Tirhakah, the great King of Ethiopia, was coming to the aid of the Egyptians, he hurried on to reinforce the army he had sent against him, intending to take Jerusalem on his way back.
It was important to crush an Egyptian army which had been collected against him by a certain Sethos, one of the many native princes who at this time ruled in the Lower country before the great Ethiopian monarch Tehrak or Tirhakah, who was known to be on his march, should effect a junction with the troops of this minor potentate.
Besides, he thought God's miracles would become known to the world without action on his part, in such ways as these: After the destruction of the Assyrian army, when the Jews searched the abandoned camps, they found Pharaoh the king of Egypt and the Ethiopian king Tirhakah.
Esarhaddon had effected the conquest of Egypt in about the year B.C. 670, and had divided the country into twenty petty principalities; but within a year his yoke had been thrown off, his petty princes expelled, and Tirhakah reinstated as sole monarch over the "Two Regions."
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