673.  It was in this latter year that the Assyrian monarch resolved on an invasion of Egypt.  For fifty years the two countries had been watching each other, counteracting each other’s policy, lending support to each other’s enemies, coming into occasional collision the one with the other, not, however, as principals, but as partakers in other persons’ quarrels.  Now, at length there was to be an end of subterfuge and pretences.  Esarhaddon, about B.C. 673, resolved to attempt the conquest of Egypt.  He “set his face to go to the country of Magan and Milukha."[14165] He let his intention be generally known.  No doubt he called on his subject allies for contingents of men, if not for supplies of money.  To Tyre he must naturally have looked for no niggard or grudging support.  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."[14166] Esarhaddon was too strongly bent on his Egyptian expedition to be diverted from it by this defection; but in the year B.C. 672, as he marched through Syria and Palestine on his way to attack Tirhakah, he sent a detachment against Tyre, with orders to his officers to repeat the tactics of Shalmaneser, by occupying points of the coast opposite to the island Tyre, and “cutting off the supplies of food and water."[14167] Baal was by this means greatly distressed, and it would seem that within a year or two he made his submission, surrendering either to Esarhaddon or to his son Asshur-bani-pal, in about the year of the latter’s accession (B.C. 668).  It is surprising to find that he was not deposed from his throne; but as the circumstances seem to have been such as made it imperative on the Assyrian king to condone minor offences in order to accomplish a great enterprise—­the restoration of the Assyrian dominion over the Nile valley.  Esarhaddon had effected the conquest of Egypt in about the year B.C. 670, and had divided the country into twenty petty principalities;[14168] but within a year his yoke had been thrown off, his petty princes expelled, and Tirhakah reinstated as sole monarch over the “Two Regions."[14169] It was the determination of Asshur-bani-pal, on becoming king, to strain every nerve and devote his utmost energy to the re-conquest of the ancient kingdom, so lightly won and so lightly lost by his father.  Baal’s perfidy was thus forgiven or overlooked.  A great expedition was prepared.  The kings of Phoenicia, Palestine, and Cyprus were bidden once more to assemble, to bring their tribute, and pay homage to their suzerain as he passed on his way at the head of his forces towards the land of the Pharaohs.  Baal came, and again holds the post of honour;[14170] with him were the king of Judah—­doubtless Manasseh, but the name is lost—­the kings of Edom, Moab, Gaza, Askelon, Ekron, Gebal, Arvad, Paphos, Soli, Curium, Tamassus, Ammochosta, Lidini, and Aphrodisias, with probably those also of Ammon, Ashdod, Idalium, Citium, and Salamis.[14171] Each in turn prostrated himself at the foot of the Great Monarch, paid homage, and made profession of fidelity.  Asshur-bani-pal then proceeded on his way, and the kings returned to their several governments.