Two great kingdoms rose simultaneously from her ruins.  Cyaxares claimed Assyria proper and its dependencies on the Upper Tigris, but he specially reserved for himself the yet unconquered lands on the northern and eastern frontiers, whose inhabitants had only recently taken part in the political life of the times.  Nabopolassar retained the suzerainty over the lowlands of Elam, the districts of Mesopotamia lying along the Euphrates, Syria, Palestine, and most of the countries which had hitherto played a part in history;* he claimed to exert his supremacy beyond the Isthmus, and the Chaldaean government looked upon the Egyptian kings as its feudatories because for some few years they had owned the suzerainty of Nineveh.**

* There was no actual division of the empire, as has been often asserted, but each of the allies kept the portion which fell into his power at the moment of their joint effort.  The two new states gradually increased in power by successive conquests, each annexing by degrees the ancient provinces of Assyria nearest to its own frontier.

** This seems to be implied by the terms in which Berosus speaks of Necho:  he considers him as a rebel satrap over the provinces of Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, and enumerates Egypt in conjunction with Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia among the dependencies of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar.  Just as the Egyptian state documents never mentioned the Lotanu or the Kharu without entitling them Children of Rebellion, so the Chaldaean government, the heir of Assyria, could only look upon the kings of Syria, Arabia, and Egypt as rebellious vassals.

[Illustration:  330.  MAP OF THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE TIME OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR]

The Pharaoh, however, did not long tolerate this pretension, and far from looking forward to bend the knee before a Chaldaean monarch, he believed himself strong enough to reassert his ancestral claims to the possession of Asia.  Egypt had experienced many changes since the day when Tanuatamanu, returning to Ethiopia, had abandoned her to the ambition of the petty dynasties of the Delta.  One of the romances current among the people of Sais in the fifth century B.C. related that at that time the whole land was divided between twelve princes.  They lived peaceably side by side in friendly relations with each other, until an oracle predicted that the whole valley would finally belong to that prince among them who should pour a libation to Phtah into a brazen cup, and thenceforward they jealously watched each other each time they assembled to officiate in the temple of Memphis.  One day, when they had met together in state, and the high priest presented to them the golden cups they were wont to use, he found he had mistaken their number, and had only prepared eleven.  Psammetichus was therefore left without one, and in order not to disarrange the ceremonial he took off his brazen helmet and used it to make his libation; when the rest perceived this,