Wed., 2/19

Read:

Ch. 55 (p. 410) to p. 413, ¶ 3.

HW—Exercise 32D—Model answer:

After the Cimmerians destroyed Phrygia at Gordium in 676 B.C., Esarhaddon defeated the Cimmerians in Cilicia. After unsuccessfully defeating Nubian-led forces in Ashkelon in 673 B.C., Esarhaddon returned two years later to conquer Egypt and took many noble families back to Assyria. When Esarhaddon died his son, Ashurbanipal, took the throne and returned the statue of Marduk to Babylon. One of the hostage Egyptian aristocrats, Psammetichus, the son of Necho I of Sais, helped the Assyrians, now under Ashurbanipal, beat back the Dynasty 25 Nubians twice, sacking Thebes in 663 B.C., and was rewarded with vassalhood over Egypt. However, with some support from the Lydian king, Gyges, Psammetichus successfully rebelled against Assyria in 653 B.C. and claimed, as a Dynasty 26 pharaoh, the title Uniter of the Two Lands.