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The canal from the Nile near Bubastis to the Bitter Lakes, which had been first made by Necho, had been either finished or a second time made by Philadelphus; and in this reign that great undertaking was again renewed. But the stream of the Nile was deserting the Bubastite branch, which was less navigable than formerly; and the engineers now changed the greater part of the canal's bed.
Nineveh was besieged by one of its former generals, Nabopolassar, now king of Babylon. The siege lasted two years, and the city fell in the year 606 B.C., when Jehoiakim had been about four years on the throne. The fall of this great capital enabled the son of the king of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar, to advance against Necho, the king of Egypt, who had taken Carchemish about three years before.
What's certain is that in 615 B.C. King Necho II was hard at work on a canal that was fed by Nile water and ran through the Egyptian plains opposite Arabia. This canal could be traveled in four days, and it was so wide, two triple-tiered galleys could pass through it abreast.
For Pharaoh Necho was an Idolator; yet his Words to the good King Josiah, in which he advised him by Messengers, not to oppose him in his march against Carchemish, are said to have proceeded from the mouth of God; and that Josiah not hearkning to them, was slain in the battle; as is to be read 2 Chron. 35. vers. 21,22,23.
In the meantime the triumphant Necho, after the defeat and dispersion of Josiah's army, pursued his way toward Damascus, which he at once overpowered. From thence he invaded Assyria, and stripped Nineveh of its most fertile provinces. The capital itself was besieged by Nabopolassar and Cyaxares the Mede, and Necho was left for a time in possession of his newly-acquired dominion.
Fijian, or Fijician, results, by a slight change of letters, from the word Phoenician; and there can be no doubt that the Fijians are descendants of those Phoenicians who, according to Herodotus, sailed, in the reign of the Egyptian King Necho, from the Persian Gulf round the Cape of Good Hope, and entered the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules.
In Egypt he had learnt much; among other things, the art of managing the exchequer of his kingdom wisely; for this reason he held the Egyptians in high esteem, and granted them many privileges, amongst others a canal to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, which was greatly to the advantage of their commerce. Under Necho they were recommenced, and possibly finished by Darius.
He defeated them in a bloody engagement, in which Josiah, King of Judah, was slain, and then continued his march to Carchemish, a stronghold built to defend one of the few fordable passes of the upper Euphrates. This important place having been taken after a bloody battle, Necho was master of all the strategic points north and west of Babylonia.
Near that ancient capital of the Hittites, on the banks of the Euphrates, one of the most important battles of antiquity was fought, and Necho, whose armies a few years before had so successfully invaded the Assyrian empire, was forced to retreat to Egypt.
From the time of Necho and Psammetichus, many of the Greeks who settled in Egypt intermarried with the natives, and very much laid aside their own habits; and sometimes their offspring, after a generation or two, became wholly Egyptian. By the Greek laws the children of these mixed marriages were declared to be barbarians; not Greeks but Egyptians, and were brought up accordingly.
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