(), a priest of Hephaestus, is said by Herodotus to
have made himself master of Egypt after the expulsion of Sabacon, king of the Ethiopians, and
to have been succeeded by the Dodecarchia, or government of the twelve chiefs, which ended in
the sole sovereignty of Psammitichus. Herodotus further relates that in his reign
Sanacharibus, king of the Arabians and Assyrians, advanced against Egypt. at which Sethon was
in great alarm, as he had insulted the warrior class, and deprived them of their lands, and
they now refused to follow him to the war. In his perplexity he shut himself up in the temple
of Hephaestus, where the god comforted him by a vision. Relying, therefore, on the assistance
of the good, he collected an army of retail-dealers and artizans, and marched out boldly to
Pelusium to meet the enemy. The god did not forget his promised aid ; for while the two armies
were encamped there, the field-mice in the night gnawed to pieces the bow-strings, the
quivers, and the shield-handles of the Assyrians, who fled on the following day with great
loss. The recollection of this miracle was perpetuated by a statue of the king in the temple
of Hephaestus, holding a mouse in his hand, and saying " Let every one look at me and be
pious" (Sennacherib, which is the form familiar to us from the
English version, comes from the Septuagint (Sancherib (
Herodotus speaks as if Sethon were king of all Egypt at this time; but we have shown in the
article SABACON, that Upper Egypt at least was governed by the
Ethiopian Taracus or Tirhakah, who, as we learn from Isaiah, was ready to march against
Sennacherib. The name of Sethon does not occur in Manetho, and it is probable that he only
reigned over a part of Lower Egypt.