Sabăcon
(
Σαβακῶν, Shabaka). A king of Aethiopia, who invaded Egypt
in the reign of the blind king Anysis, whom he dethroned and drove into the marshes. The
Aethiopian conqueror then reigned over Egypt for fifty years, but at length quitted the
country in consequence of a dream, whereupon Anysis regained his kingdom. This is the account
which Herodotus received from the priests (ii. 137- 140); but it appears from Manetho that
there were three Aethiopian kings who reigned over Egypt, named Sabacon, Sebichus, and
Taracus, whose collective reigns amount to forty or fifty years (B.C. 700-666), and who form
the twenty-fifth dynasty of that writer. The account of Manetho is to be preferred to that of
Herodotus.