"Mari" was most likely succeeded by his son "Tab-El," to whom the texts of the Torah refer as though he were the father of "Rezin,"

presenting him under the name "Tabeel." The events of his reign are of no great import; there is nothing in them that points to any clear forms of conflict. He was succeeded by "Rezin," whom we encounter in the year 738 BC, at the emergence of Tiglath-Pileser III, as one of the kings [?] who paid tribute to Assyria. But he soon rose in revolt and incited Samaria, which led to the fall of "Pekahiah son of Menahem," the pro-Assyrian ruler, and the enthronement of his associate "Pekah son of Remaliah." Following this, we see the two of them together in the year 735 BC before the gates of Jerusalem,

attempting to depose "Ahaz," who had sided with Assyria and hoped for its aid and support against Israel. In the following year Tiglath-Pileser appeared in Palestine and subdued "Philistia," defeated "Pekah" in Samaria in the year 733 BC, then besieged Damascus and seized it in the year 732 BC. "Rezin" lost his throne, and indeed paid with his life for defending his city.

Thus Damascus fell into the hands of the Assyrians and became an Assyrian province, and Syria consequently submitted to the authority of Assyria, since its strongest region had come under Assyrian rule. Soon afterward "Sargon" crushed the revolt of "Yau-bidi" in Hama. The Assyrians began to install Assyrian governors over the Syrian provinces [?], who submitted [?] directly to Assyria. This occurred at the stage when the kingdom [?] of Samaria collapsed and its people were carried off into captivity beyond the Euphrates.

A century later Assyria was in its death throes, and Egypt began to reclaim its authority over the East. "Necho II," in the first year of his accession to the throne, set out at the head of an army aiming to free Syria and Palestine from Assyrian rule. He seized Gaza and Ashkelon, then marched northward as far as the district [?] of Judah, clashed with the Israelites on the plain of Megiddo and inflicted defeat upon them, and Jerusalem was compelled to pay tribute. Necho then moved on to the Euphrates to make an end of the Assyrian state, but he feared—now that the distance between him and Egypt had grown great—that matters might turn against his wishes, and so he chose to return without attacking Nineveh, content with having brought Syria under Egyptian authority.

But this new Egyptian empire was not destined to endure long, for Babylon had begun to appear on the horizon. Two years after Necho's return, "Nabopolassar," king of Babylon, allied [?] himself with "Cyaxares," king of Media, and the two of them put an end to the Assyrian state and divided its possessions between themselves: the northern and northeastern provinces fell to "Cyaxares," while the southern and southwestern possessions fell to "Nabopolassar." Nabopolassar dispatched his son "Nebuchadnezzar" to seize Egypt and its holdings. He met the massed forces of the Egyptians at Carchemish, and Egypt was defeated. Necho retreated in haste to the Delta, pursued by "Nebuchadnezzar," who nearly took him by the scruff of the neck—had not word reached him of his father's death in the year 605 BC, whereupon he returned to Babylon. He then concluded a treaty with Egypt whose terms provided that Egypt cede its possessions in Asia to the king of Babylon.

But Necho again attempted to kindle the fires of rebellion in Syria and Palestine against Nebuchadnezzar, relying on the aid of the Israelite "Jehoiakim," whom he had installed on the throne. Jehoiakim resisted the army of "Nebuchadnezzar," but was in the end led away captive, and in his place was appointed another of the sons of Josiah, named "Mattaniah" (after his name had been changed to Zedekiah). When "Wah-ib-Re" ascended the throne of Egypt after "Psamtik II," succeeding "Necho II," Nebuchadnezzar had already finished subduing Judah and humbling it, and the Jews had moved to Egypt as emigrants and established Jewish communities in a few places, the most famous of which was "Elephantine." "Wah-ib-Re" set out in the spring of the year 587 BC, heading at the head of his army toward southern Palestine with the aim of lifting the siege laid around Jerusalem—

The events of the campaign are obscure, indeed contradictory. Herodotus records that "the army of Apries marched out to attack Sidon, and that he made war on the king of Tyre by sea," while other sources point to Canaan as the direction toward which the army was heading, whereas the fleet was heading toward the region of Sidon, where it anchored and stormed it, then turned to Tyre—whose people were loyal to Nebuchadnezzar—and they defied the Egyptians, who overcame them, so that they were forced to flee for fear of the Egyptians' fires. The Egyptian fleet then moved on to Cyprus, raided it, and destroyed the Phoenician stations there—

The truth is that these movements harmed Egypt more than it had imagined, for the misunderstanding by the people of Tyre of Egypt's position and aims drove its neighbors to band together with it against Egypt. Thus "Wah-ib-Re" found that "Nebuchadnezzar" had established himself at "Riblah" on the Orontes, which distressed him, and he realized that his road to the north had been blocked and that his hope of a swift victory had collapsed. As for Nebuchadnezzar, he adopted no particular plan of attack, but rather chose to wait and observe the Egyptian army from his base on the Orontes. But Nebuchadnezzar's subsequent advance drove "Wah-ib-Re" to leave his ally "Zedekiah" to receive the blows alone. Zedekiah made ready to resist, but the matter ended with his defeat and his being led away to Babylon, where his eyes were put out after he had witnessed the killing of his sons.

The Jews were distressed by the plunder and burning that befell their city after the invasion, and so they fled to Egypt. With the death [?] of "Nebuchadnezzar," troubles beset Babylon, and his successors contended over the throne. An outsider managed to reach it—namely "Nabonidus"—who summoned the garrisons of Syria and Phoenicia to make use of [?] them in building temples in the ancient capitals. Nabonidus moved about among the capitals of his realm, being at one time in Babylon and at another in "Tayma" or "Harran." With his death the Babylonian empire began to crumble, then fell in the end into the hands of "Cyrus" the Persian, who annexed the legacy of Babylon to Persia, including Syria—indeed he added Egypt to it as well in the reign of his successor "Cambyses."

The catastrophe struck Babylon in the year 539 BC, and Syria and Palestine subsequently fell under the authority of the Persians. The East was transformed into a Persian province extending from Egypt and the Ionian cities of Asia Minor to the Punjab in India.

What helped to bind together the far reaches of this vast empire was a unified currency, an organized network of roads, and then a single official language—Aramaic—which long remained the language of commercial correspondence and the official language of the western provinces on an equal footing with the Persian language; indeed, all decrees were translated into it.

The empire was divided into a set of "satrapies," each ruled by a "satrap," twenty-three in number. To "Susa" and "Babylon," the two royal residences, was added a third capital, "Persepolis." Each "satrap" enjoyed a kind of local autonomy and was bound to the central government by a share of the land tax or tribute rendered to the treasury. Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus together represented, within the empire, the fifth province, which was given the name "the satrapy of Beyond the River."

Its tribute was estimated at 350 talents. Damascus remained—as Strabo indicates—the principal city throughout Persian rule.

Matters continued in this manner for the span of two centuries, until "Alexander" of Macedon appeared. He advanced along the Phoenician coast and began seizing its petty states one after another—though he met some resistance—until he entered Egypt.

In the spring of 331 BC he returned to Syria, where he remained long enough to strike down the Samaritans who had assassinated his deputy there. He took his route across the Syrian Beqaa and the valley of the Orontes until he reached "Thapsacus" on the Euphrates. Thus the sovereignty of the East passed from Persia to Greece, and Syria submitted to what Egypt had submitted to, yielding to the new throne, the throne of Alexander, until he died and his state was torn apart after his death, his commanders racing to divide it among themselves.

As for Egypt, it fell to the lot of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and Syria to the lot of the Seleucids. It had not originally been in the possession of "Seleucus" at the partition of the empire, since it had been attached to Asia Minor; but Ptolemy I was able, in the year 312 BC, with the aid of Seleucus, against Antigonus at Gaza, to annex Palestine to Egypt (and it remained so for more than a century, save for intermittent periods).

In that same year "Seleucus" recovered Babylon, which he had lost, and after he had contributed to winning a fresh victory over Antigonus in the year 301 BC, he was able to become ruler over the entire eastern portion of Asia Minor, including Syria from the Euphrates to the sea. Antioch (which he built on the Orontes and named after his father) became the seat of his rule. Accordingly, the year 312 BC is regarded as the beginning of the Seleucid era, and with it begins the reign of the "Syrian kings" for the first time.

Ptolemy had extended the reach of his province to a line lying north of Arwad and south of Homs. This line receded as far as south of Beirut and Damascus around the year 250 BC, only to advance once more to the north of Arwad twenty-five years later. The bounds of the Syrian kingdom, in its early days, reached eastward as far as Persia, to the river Oxus in the north, and then to the Indus in the south—that is, it comprised the Asian portion of Alexander's empire, and thus became the greatest of the kingdoms that arose upon the ruins of Alexander's state.