IV. THE RESTORATION
[XVIIITH DYNASTY: ca. 1635-1365 B.C.]
Walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, goodly races of horse, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like--all this is but a sheep in a lion’s skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike.--BACON.
It has just been shown that the leading dynasties of the Theban kingdom, before the invasion of the Hyksos, had essentially a pacific character. Their epoch was a period of social, literary and artistic activity, such as usually comes to a nation only at the apex of its career, or as it is passing into its decline. It was so here. Egypt as a nation was soon overthrown; an outside people invaded the sacred precincts, so jealously guarded hitherto from even peaceful intrusion, usurped the power, and for some centuries dominated the original inhabitants. These invaders, as we have seen, were of a more primitive type of civilisation than the Egyptians. Their reign was a time of apparently retrograde evolution, marked to after generations by no lasting monuments such as made earlier generations famous.
Yet it may be questioned whether, on the whole, the influence of these semi-barbarians upon the cultured but somewhat degenerate stock of the ancient civilisation, may not have been in the highest degree beneficial.
Everywhere in history we shall see that the virile stock is the stock which is not weakened by too many generations of that luxury which seems to be the necessary associate of higher culture. We shall see also that a mixed race is always at a premium. A nation which shuts itself off from contact with other nations is in the condition of a finely inbred race of domesticated animals. The racial peculiarities may be greatly developed, certain finer traits of mind and body may be highly intensified. But in the full rounding out of aggregate powers of mind and body, there is a deviation that amounts to degeneration. And when this weakened stock comes into competition with some cruder but sturdier race, the issue is not in doubt; the fate awaits it that befel the Egyptians at the hands of the “barbaric” Hyksos invaders.
But a degenerate or perverted stock often shows marvellous powers of recuperation under influence of changed conditions, and an infusion of fresh blood grafted on such a stock can work wonders. It is said that the highly developed greyhound was useless as a hunting dog till crossed with a strain of bulldog--an infusion of blood which, while not marring the distinctive physical peculiarities of the hound, yet quite sufficed to supply the lacking stamina and courage. It may be questioned whether precisely such a vitalising influence as this may not have come to the Egyptians through the Hyksos invasion. It is hardly to be supposed that the invaders remained for centuries in Egypt in sufficient numbers to maintain absolute political control without having some ethnic influence; and if this be admitted, it is hardly in doubt, physiologically speaking, that such influence, in this closely inbred race, would be beneficial. It might graft the bulldog spirit of the Hyksos upon the greyhound-spirited Egyptian nation. But whether or not this be the explanation of the change that now came over the national spirit, it was surely a bulldog nation that now emerged from the Hyksos thraldom and started out upon a world-conquest. In tracing the course of events in this new epoch we see Egypt approaching the apex of its power.
THE HYKSOS EXPULSION: AAHMES AND HIS SUCCESSORS
[Sidenote: [ca. 1635-1610 B.C.]]
Aahmes must have been between twenty-five and thirty years of age when, as survivor of his elder brothers, he came to the throne. He had married Nefert-ari, his sister or half-sister, as the case may be, who may previously have been an inmate of his brothers’ harems as well; and her own royal rights, joined to his own, established a legal claim for Aahmes to the kingdom such as few Pharaohs have possessed.
His mummy shows him to have been of medium height, with well-developed neck and chest. The head is small, the forehead low and narrow, the cheek bones project, and the hair is thick and wavy. He was undoubtedly a strong, active, warlike man, which qualities won him success in his wars.
From what we know now of the condition of the struggle against the Hyksos, at the time of the accession of Aahmes,--that their rule had been limited to the district around Avaris,--no doubt the credit due to this king for finally expelling them has been greatly exaggerated. Yet, concentrated and strongly intrenched as they were in the fortress of Ha-Uar, they were by no means insignificant adversaries. From their position, made the more inaccessible by the marsh-lands and rivers of the Delta, and by the neighbouring desert, there was always danger of an attempt upon Memphis, and Aahmes is the one who removed this last menace to the re-established kingdom, and made his dominion over the whole country secure. Therefore the official chroniclers had every reason to begin a new dynasty with the accession of this great king.
For the actual expulsion of the Hyksos we have two accounts: that of Manetho transcribed by Josephus and quoted in the preceding chapter, and that of the doughty namesake of the king, Aahmes-si-Abana (son of Abana), as recorded on his tomb at El-Kab.
The Manetho version runs that Aahmes (Alisphragmuthosis) shut the Shepherds up in Avaris, whence they were finally ejected and driven into Syria by his grandson, Tehutimes I. This, however, is a mistake, and the Egyptian historian has undoubtedly confused the taking of Avaris with the Syrian wars of Tehutimes. Aahmes-si-Abana makes no mention of Tehutimes taking Avaris.[a]
His account, therefore, is the more accurate and complete. This is the tale on his tomb:
“The dead Admiral Aahmes, son of Abana. He speaks thus: ‘I say to you, all men; and I make known to you the rewards and honours that have fallen to my lot. I was presented with golden gifts eight times before the whole land, and with many slaves, male and female; likewise I was given much land. The title of “the Brave” which I gained shall never perish in this land.’
“He speaks further: ‘I saw the light in the city of Nekheb [El-Kab]. My father was a captain of King Seqenen-Ra; Baba son of Roant was his name. Then I took his place on the ship called The Calf, in the days of King Neb-pehthet-Ra [Aahmes]. I was young and had no wife and I wore the semt cloth and the shennu [garments of youth]. But as soon as I had taken a house, I was placed on the ship The North because of my valour, and I had to attend the sovereign--life, health, strength be his--on foot when he rode forth in his chariot.
“‘The town of Ha-Uar [Avaris] was besieged, and I showed my worth in the presence of his Majesty. I was promoted to the ship Kha-em-men-nefer [Accession in Memphis]. They fought in the Pazekthu canal, near Avaris. I fought hand to hand, and I carried off a hand. The king’s herald saw this, and the golden collar of bravery was given me. They fought a second time at this place and again I captured a hand; a second golden gift was given me.
“‘They fought at Ta-kemt, south of the city. There I took a living prisoner. I plunged into the water--I led him through the water so as to keep away from the road to the town. This was made known to the herald of the king; I received the golden gift once more.
“‘They took Ha-Uar; I carried away from thence one man and three women; his Majesty gave them to me as slaves.’”[b]
In the time of the Ptolemies, tradition had it that King Aahmes appeared before Avaris with an army of four hundred and eighty thousand men, that there was a long siege, which was finally ended by the king treating with the besieged and permitting them to depart peacefully, with their wives, children, and possessions, into Syria. But the truth is, that Aahmes had a well organised and equipped army of fifteen to twenty thousand men, and that the town was taken on the second attack. The enemy left their last strongholds in haste and retreated into the bordering provinces of Syria. For some reason--they may have threatened him from some new vantage point, or he may have wished to deal a final crushing blow--Aahmes determined to cross the frontier, which he did in the fifth year of his reign. It was the first time in centuries that the king of Egypt had set foot in Asia, and even now he barely crossed the threshold.[a]
Admiral Aahmes continues his narrative:
“They besieged the town of Sharhana [Sherohan], in the year V, and his Majesty took it. I carried off from thence two women and one hand, and the golden collar of valour was given me. And my captives were given me for slaves.”
After the capture of Sherohan, Aahmes went on to the border provinces of Zahi (Phœnicia) and then turned back. The fall of the Palestine town crushed the Hyksos’ last hope of recovering their Egyptian domain. The majority of their race had not fled with the army, but had remained with other tribes that had followed them into Egypt--the Israelites among them--to accept whatever lot was meted out by the new conquerors. The yoke was not imposed equally throughout the land. Those living in the Delta regions were reduced to slavery, and all that part of the country was well fortified to resist the Bedouin.
Aahmes returned to Africa only to find his presence needed in the South. The land of Nubia, tributary to the lords of Thebes, had been somewhat neglected during the long struggle which the Pharaoh had just successfully terminated. The southern races had failed to assimilate the gift of culture and civilisation thrust upon them by the rulers of the XIIth and XIIIth Dynasties, and kept to their own customs while the temples erected by Usertsen and Amenemhat crumbled and vanished. From out this disordered state developed a serious invasion from the Sudan. Hostile tribes--which ones, we know not--descended the Nile, outraging the people and desecrating the sanctuaries. Aahmes hastened to meet them.
“His Majesty went south,” runs the record of Aahmes the admiral, “to Khent-en-nefer to destroy the Anu Khenti, and his Majesty made great havoc among them. I captured two live men and three hands; once more I was given the gold of valour, and my two captives were given to me for slaves. Then his Majesty came down the river; his heart swelled with his brave and victorious deeds; he had conquered the people of the South and of the North.”
The triumph of the return was dimmed by disquieting news from the North. The remains of the Hyksos race had taken advantage of Aahmes’ absence in the South to break out in rebellion. There seem to have been two outbursts. One by the Aata, probably a branch of the Hyksos, which marched southward and was destroyed by Aahmes at Tentoa, the other by a powerful faction under a certain Teta-an. Aahmes-si-Abana tells of his fate:
“Then came that enemy named Teta-an; he had brought wicked rebels together. But his Majesty slaughtered him and his slaves even to extinction.”[b]
Thus was stamped out the last spark of Asiatic resistance. There are no more records of expeditions undertaken in this Pharaoh’s reign--at least none in which he took part.
From the crushing of Teta-an, about the sixth year, to the twenty-second, the monuments are silent; and when again they speak we find a peaceful and not a warlike monarch. It is a law of human progress that an age of military success is followed by a revival of art and building activity. At the end of Aahmes’ reign--he ruled about twenty-five years--this condition prevailed throughout the kingdom. The principal temples of the land were restored or rebuilt. The reward of the gods for their divine aid in the deliverance of Egypt was thus bestowed. A tenth of all the booty of victory was devoted to the needs of the religious cult. Sculptors and painters, for whom there had been centuries of little or no employment, recovered their skill in the revived demand for their services, and, indeed, a new school, with new ideas and methods, came into existence under the great impetus to culture. In the twenty-second year the quarries of Turah were reopened that building stone might be obtained for the temples of Ptah at Memphis and Amen at Thebes, although nothing was done to the latter until a later reign.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1610-1590 B.C.]]
Aahmes died when he was between fifty and sixty. They buried the great Pharaoh in a modest place he had prepared for himself in the necropolis of Drah-abu’l-Neggah. His worship continued for nearly a thousand years, and of him--and still more of Queen Nefert-ari--there exist more instances of adoration than of any other ruler.
Aahmes left a numerous progeny, and six or seven of his children had Nefert-ari for mother. The eldest seems to have been named Sapair, but he died when young, and it is probable that a Se-Amen was the second son and that he too never reached maturity. But whether Amenhotep I was the second or third of Aahmes’ male issue, the kingship devolved upon him. As he was still in his minority, the queen mother assumed the reins of government. Nefert-ari had been no idle inmate of her husband’s harem, and she now asserted her many titles to authority, some of which had precedence over those of her husband and son. There is nothing known of her joint rule with Amenhotep, but it was undoubtedly a prosperous one. She was worshipped after death as a divinity, on a plane, indeed, with the great Theban triad, Amen, Khonsu, and Mut, for all the rights of the royal line descended through her. Her sons, Sapair and Amenhotep, her daughters, Set-amen, Set-kames, and Merit-amen, also shared in the worship.
Amenhotep does not seem to have been ambitious for foreign conquest. His campaigns were confined to Africa. The chief chronicle of his reign is again that tomb at El-Kab whereon Aahmes, son of Abana, recorded his exploits. The brave admiral was now nearly fifty years of age.
“It fell to me,” he relates, “to carry King Zeser-ka-Ra [Amenhotep I] on his voyage to Cush, where he went to extend the frontiers of Egypt. His majesty smote these Anu Khenti [Nubians] from the midst of his troops.
“Behold, I led our soldiers and I fought with all my strength. The king saw my bravery, as I captured two hands and brought them to his Majesty. In two days I bore his Majesty back to Egypt from the upper land. And I was given the golden gift and two female slaves, and I was raised to the dignity of ‘Warrior of the King.’”
The Nubian campaign was a short and unimportant one. A more important one was directed against the Amukehaka, who apparently were a portion of the Libyan race of the Tuhennu. These people had for centuries been restless and given trouble to the Pharaohs, but the strength of the New Kingdom was now entirely able to cope with them. Notwithstanding these few campaigns, the reign of Amenhotep I is to be characterised as one of peace and internal prosperity. He merely attained in the South and West that security his father had brought about in the North. Commerce, agriculture, and town life flourished, and indeed he well deserved the veneration which for centuries was accorded him in the Theban capital and where he is represented as Osiris. The coffin and mummy of this king were among Professor Maspero’s wonderful find at Deir-el-Bahari. He thus tells of it: “Long garlands of faded flowers deck the mummy from head to foot. A wasp attracted by their scent must have settled upon them at the moment of burial, and become imprisoned by the lid; the insect has been completely preserved from corruption by the balsams of the embalmer, and its gauzy wings have passed uncrumpled through the long centuries.”
[Sidenote: [ca. 1590-1565 B.C.]]
Amenhotep married his own sister, Aah-hotep II, and among their children was a princess, Aahmes. The Pharaoh had also, by a concubine, Sensenb, a son, Tehutimes, who was married to his half-sister Aahmes. Tehutimes was probably a little younger than his wife. Aahmes, from her pure royal descent, had far more claim to the throne than her husband and brother, but for some reason she yielded her rights, and Tehutimes was crowned at Thebes the 21st of Phamenoth, the third month. If he had been co-regent with his father, it must have been for a short time only. The new king was a tall, broad-shouldered, well-knit man, possessed of great powers of endurance. His full round face is marked with a long nose and square chin, and his thick lips wear a smiling but firm expression.
The beginnings of a new spirit, which was destined to break up the isolation of the kingdoms of antiquity, were stirring in this monarch’s soul. With his own country in practical subjection, there came that inevitable desire to intrude into other lands. We have seen how the Pharaohs had always shown a certain timidity about passing the Isthmus of Suez, and how Aahmes, well equipped for foreign conquest as he was, had hastened home after he had once driven the fleeing Hyksos across the border. His was no spirit of world conquest; but with Tehutimes the case was different, although certain domestic troubles kept him for the time at home. The neighbouring land of Syria, with its large and wealthy towns, growing richer every day through a well-organised commerce on land and sea, had previously been invaded by the Chaldeans and was now under their undisputed sway; and when this same spirit was once aroused in the fresh and vigorous kingdom of the restoration, what was more natural than that its cupidity should turn in this same direction? But some difficulties at home for the time being prevented, Tehutimes I had to repress outbreaks in the vicinity of the Second and Third Cataracts.
The story of Aahmes, now nearly seventy years of age, relates:
“It fell to me to carry the king Aa-kheper-ka-Ra [Tehutimes I] on his voyage to Khent-en-nefer for the purpose of punishing the rebels among the tribes and of quelling the marauders from the hills. On his ships I showed valour, and I was raised to be an admiral of the marines. Their people were carried off alive and captives. His Majesty returned down the river; all the lands were now under his rule. That vile king of the Anu of Khenti was held head down when the king landed at Thebes.”
It would be valuable and interesting to know what impression the strange land of Syria, with its wide, irregular plains, its high, snow-topped mountains, its walled towns perched in difficult positions in inaccessible places, its people different in customs and with a civilisation not below their own, made upon the Theban legions when at last they found themselves in Palestine. But of what they thought and felt, they have left no word. The lines with which Aahmes of El-Kab closes the record of this long life--he must have been over ninety when he died--goes no more into detail than the rest of his account.
“After this, his Majesty--life, health, and strength be his--went to Ruthen to take satisfaction upon the countries. His Majesty arrived at Naharain [Upper Mesopotamia]; he found the enemy that conspired against him. His Majesty made great destruction among them; an immense number of live captives was carried off from the victories.
“Behold, I was at the head of our soldiers. His Majesty saw my bravery as I captured a chariot, its horses and those who were in it. I took them to his Majesty and was once more given the collar of gold for valour. I have grown up and reached old age; my honours are many. I shall rest in my tomb which I myself have made.”
Tehutimes in his first campaign went far beyond his grandfather, and his route--Gaza to Megiddo, to Kadesh, to Carchemish--became in later times that followed by the Egyptians whenever they descended upon the Euphrates. Of the fortunes of his progress we have not the slightest information, except as Aahmes tells us, he met the enemy in Naharain. The opposing army was under the command of the king of Mitanni, or perhaps one of the captains of the Kossæan king of Babylon, and all the petty princes of the northern provinces served in it with their troops to repel the new invader. But the victory was Tehutimes’. No doubt his army was superior to that of his opponents. Its organisation and training had steadily improved since the days of Aahmes, for it was constantly called into service against the tribes of Ethiopia and Libya. The Syrians were wanting neither in efficiency nor bravery, but their country was much disorganised and their number of fighting men by no means so great as their enemy’s. Therefore they could not command such a force as the Egyptians mustered against them.
Tehutimes erected a stele on the Euphrates to mark the limits of his dominion, and then turned back, richly laden, to Thebes. The later Pharaohs, whenever they invaded Asia, pursued similar methods--a sudden advance diagonally to the northeast, routing and dispersing any opposing force, spreading destruction on every hand, then a quick return to the fatherland, before the approaching winter would put an end to all action.
But Tehutimes’ success in his first expedition was so decisive, so overwhelming, that he never found it necessary again to cross the Isthmus. Southern Syria made no murmur against the burden laid upon it, although the North, it is true, soon slipped from the Pharaoh’s grasp, if indeed he ever had his grip upon it. A strong garrison was left at Gaza, and the king returned to his still rebellious subjects in Ethiopia and Nubia. Two or three rebellions were easily silenced. On these expeditions Tehutimes passed through the old canal built by Usertsen III, and on the rocks that border it have been found many interesting inscriptions relating to the trip. One at Assuan reads, “Year III, Pakhons 20, his Majesty passed this canal in force and power in his campaign to crush Ethiopia, the vile”; on another there is cut, “His Majesty came to Cush to crush the vile”; and on a third, “His Majesty commanded to clear this canal, after he found it filled with stones so that no boat could pass up it. He passed up it, his heart filled with joy.” The king now placed the affairs of his southern lands in the hands of a viceroy, who is called “Royal Son of Cush,” and must, therefore, have had the blood of Ra in his veins. Likewise the king made extensive provisions for fortifications. He restored the fortresses of Semneh and Kummeh to the efficiency they possessed in the great days of the XIIth Dynasty, and he built a brickwork citadel to command the Nile on the island of Tombos, near the Third Cataract. All these precautions enabled Tehutimes I to live out the remainder of a reign of about twenty-five years in complete peace. The strange circumstance of his later years and the problems of his successor are well recounted in Maspero’s monumental work on “The Struggle of the Nations” and his history of the ancient oriental peoples.[a]
The position of Tehutimes I was, indeed, a curious one; although de facto absolute in power, his children by Queen Aahmes took precedence of him, for by her mother’s descent she had a better right to the crown than her husband, and legally the king should have retired in favour of his sons as soon as they were old enough to reign. [According to Petrie, these two were children of Amenhotep I by Queen Aah-hotep and consequently brothers of Queen Aahmes.] The eldest of them, Uazmes, died early. The second, Amenmes, lived at least to attain adolescence: he was allowed to share the crown with his father from the fourth year of the latter’s reign, and he also held a military command in the Delta, but before long he also died, and Tehutimes I was left with only one son--a Tehutimes like himself--to succeed him. The mother of this prince was a certain Mut-nefert, half-sister to the king on his father’s side, who enjoyed such a high rank in the royal family that her husband allowed her to be portrayed in royal dress; her pedigree on the mother’s side, however, was not so distinguished, and precluded her son from being recognised as heir-apparent; hence the occupation of the “seat of Horus” reverted once more to a woman, Hatshepsitu, the eldest daughter of Aahmes.
TEHUTIMES II; QUEEN HATSHEPSU
[Sidenote: [ca. 1565-1530 B.C.]]
Hatshepsitu herself was not, however, of purely divine descent. Her paternal ancestor, Sensenb, had not been a scion of the royal house, and this flaw in her pedigree threatened to mar, in her case, the sanctity of the solar blood. According to Egyptian belief, this defect of birth could be remedied only by a miracle, and the ancestral god, becoming incarnate in the earthly father at the moment of conception had to condescend to infuse fresh virtue into his race in this manner. The inscriptions with which Hatshepsitu decorated her chapel relate how, on that fateful night, Amen descended upon Aahmes in a flood of perfume and light. The queen received him favourably, and the divine spouse on leaving her announced to her the approaching birth of a daughter, in whom his valour and strength should be manifested once more here below.
The sequel of the story is displayed in a series of pictures. The protecting divinities who preside over the birth of children conduct the queen to her couch, and the sorrowful resignation depicted on her face, together with the languid grace of her whole figure, display in this portrait of her a finished work of art. The child enters the world amid shouts of joy, and the propitious genii who nourish both her and her double, constitute themselves her nurses. At the appointed time, her earthly father summons the great nobles to a solemn festival, and presents to them his daughter, who is to reign with him over Egypt and the world.
From henceforth Hatshepsitu adopts every possible device to conceal her sex. She changes the termination of her name, and calls herself Hatshepsu, the “Chief of the Nobles,” in lieu of Hatshepsitu, the “Chief of the Favourites.” She becomes the King Maat-ka-Ra, and on the occasion of all public ceremonies she appears in male costume.
We see her represented on Theban monuments with uncovered shoulders, devoid of breasts, wearing the short loin-cloth and the keffieh, while the diadem rests on her closely cut hair, and the false beard depends from her chin. She retained, however, the feminine pronoun in speaking of herself, and also an epithet, inserted in her cartouche, which declared her to be the betrothed of Amen--Khnem Amen. Her father united her while still young to her brother Tehutimes, who appears to have been her junior, and this fact doubtless explains the very subordinate part which he plays beside the queen. When Tehutimes I died, Egyptian etiquette demanded that a man should be at the head of affairs, and this youth succeeded his father in office: but Hatshepsu, while relinquishing the semblance of power and the externals of pomp to her husband, kept the direction of the state entirely in her own hands. The portraits of her which have been preserved represent her as having refined features, with a proud and energetic expression. The oval of the face is elongated, the cheeks a little hollow, and the eyes deep set under the arch of the brow, while the lips are thin and tightly closed. She governed with so firm a hand that neither Egypt nor its foreign vassals dared to make any serious attempt to withdraw themselves from her authority. One raid, in which several prisoners were taken, punished a rising of the Shasu in central Syria, while the usual expeditions maintained order among the peoples of Ethiopia, and quenched any attempt which they might make to revolt. When in the second year of his reign the news was brought to Tehutimes II that the inhabitants of the Upper Nile had ceased to observe the conditions which his father had imposed upon them, he “became furious as a panther,” and assembling his troops, set out for war without further delay. The presence of the king with the army filled the rebels with dismay, and a campaign of a few weeks put an end to their attempt at rebelling. Tehutimes II carried on the works begun by his father, but did not long survive him. The mask on his coffin represents him with a smiling and amiable countenance, and with the fine pathetic eyes which show his descent from the Pharaohs of the XIIth Dynasty. By his marriage with Hatshepsu, Tehutimes left daughters only, but he had one son, also a Tehutimes,[3] by a woman of low birth, perhaps merely a slave, whose name was Aset. Hatshepsu proclaimed this child her successor, for his youth and humble parentage could not excite her jealousy. She betrothed him to her one surviving daughter, Hatshepsitu II, and having thus settled the succession in the main line, she continued to rule alone in the name of her nephew who was still a minor, as she had done formerly in the case of her half-brother.
Her reign was a prosperous one, but whether the flourishing condition of things was owing to the ability of her political administration or to her fortunate choice of ministers, we are unable to tell. She pressed forward the work of building with great activity, under the direction of her architect Senmut, not only at Deir-el-Bahari, but at Karnak, and indeed everywhere in Thebes. The plans of the building had been arranged under Tehutimes I, and their execution had been carried out so quickly that in many cases the queen had merely to see to the sculptural ornamentation on the all-but-completed walls. This work, however, afforded her sufficient excuse, according to Egyptian custom, to attribute the whole structure to herself, and the opinion she had of her own powers is exhibited with great naïveté in her inscriptions. [A famous incident of her reign was the sending out of an expedition across the Red Sea in quest of incense.]
[Sidenote: [ca. 1530-1520 B.C.]]
When Tehutimes III approached manhood, his aunt, the queen, instead of abdicating in his favour, associated him with herself more frequently in the external acts of government. She was forced to yield him precedence in those religious ceremonies which could be performed by a man only, such as the dedication of one of the city gates of Ombos, and the foundation and marking out of a temple at Medinet Habu; but for the most part she obliged him to remain in the background and take a secondary place beside her. We are unable to determine the precise moment when this dual sovereignty came to an end. It was still existent in the XVIth year of the reign, but it had ceased before the XXIInd year. Death alone could take the sceptre from the hands that held it, and Tehutimes had to curb his impatience for many a long day before becoming the real master of Egypt. He was about twenty-five years of age[4] when this event took place, and he immediately revenged himself for the long repression he had undergone, by endeavouring to destroy the very remembrance of her whom he regarded as a usurper. Every portrait of her that he could deface without exposing himself to being accused of sacrilege, was cut away, and he substituted for her name either that of Tehutimes I or of Tehutimes II. A complete political change was effected both at home and abroad from the first day of his accession to power. Hatshepsu had been averse to war. During the whole of her reign there had not been a single campaign undertaken beyond the Isthmus of Suez, and by the end of her life she had lost nearly all that her father had gained in Syria; the people of Kharu [Phœnicia] had shaken off the yoke, probably at the instigation of the king of the Amorites, and nothing remained to Egypt of the Asiatic province but Gaza, Sharhana, and the neighbouring villages.[c]
One of the first acts of Tehutimes III as sole king, was to lead an expedition against Syria, where the constant revolts had weakened the power of Egypt. He arrived at Gaza on the 3rd (or 4th) of the month of Pakhons. There he celebrated the anniversary of his coronation, and the twenty-third year of his reign. He then proceeded by gentle marches to Ihem, twenty miles to the north of Gaza, where he learned from his envoys, that the king of Kadesh had intrenched himself at Megiddo, with a contingent of the rebels.
TRIUMPHS OF TEHUTIMES III; HIS SUCCESSORS
Fear of the danger of the mountain defiles near Aluna made some of the officers wish to turn back and go by the Ziftha road. But Tehutimes indignantly rejected their counsel, saying:
“By my life, by the love that Ra has for me, by the favour bestowed on me by my father Amen, my Majesty will take this road of Aluna, whether it please you to take any of the other routes suggested, or whether it please you to follow me. For would not these vile enemies, detested by Ra, say: ‘If Pharaoh is going by another route, he is going for fear of us’?”
Then the Pharaoh’s generals replied: “Thy father Amen protects thee; we will follow whithersoever thou leadest, as servants follow their lord.”
Three days’ rapid march brought the army, without any mishap, to the town of Aluna, close to a torrent called the Qina, a little to the south of Megiddo, and there it encamped for the night in the face of the enemy with the watchwords:
“Keep a good heart: courage! watch well! Be alert in the camp!”
Dawn found the Egyptian army ranged for battle; the right wing was directed towards the River Qina, while the left extended into the plain towards the northwest of Megiddo. After a sharp encounter, the Syrians were seized by a panic, and abandoning their horses and chariots on the battle-field, they fled back to Megiddo; but fear of the enemy kept the gates closed, and among those drawn up to the ramparts, by ropes let down by the townspeople, was the lord of Kadesh himself.
“If it had pleased God not to let the soldiers of his Majesty be employed in carrying off the spoils of his vile enemies, they could then have taken Megiddo,”--it says in the account of the campaign. The cupidity of the conquerors saved the lives of the vanquished, for, although they took possession on the field of battle of 2132 horses, 994 chariots, and all the booty left behind by the Asiatics, they took only 140 prisoners and killed only 83.
In the evening, when the victorious army marched by Tehutimes III with the spoils, the king exclaimed:
“Had you taken Megiddo, it would have been a very great favour granted me by my father this day; for as all the chiefs of the country are within the walls, it would be like taking a thousand cities to take Megiddo.”
However, the place, being soon besieged, capitulated in a few days. With its fall, the campaign ended; and the chiefs of Syria and Mesopotamia hastened to take the oath of allegiance and to pay tribute to Egypt.
Three successive campaigns, from the year XXIV to the year XXVIII of this reign, completed the subjugation of Syria and southern Phœnicia.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1520-1503 B.C.]]
In the year XXIX, Tehutimes proceeded to Naharain, the territory between the rivers Orontes and Euphrates, and the districts on the west of Khilibu were sacked to the glory of the god of Thebes, whose coffers were soon filled with the gold, silver, and treasures of the Hittite princes.
As the king was returning to Egypt with “a joyful heart,” he suddenly bethought him that the Zahi, rich in wine, oil and corn, and beyond the line of military routes, would be a wealthy and easy prey. So he turned to the east, and made a raid on the district of Aradus, which the Egyptians robbed of cattle and produce.
The following year the Thebans returned again, and the towns of Kadesh, Semyra, Aradus, and Arathu, on the shores of Lake Nisrana, fell one after the other. The sons of their chiefs were kept as hostages. The campaign lasted till XXXI; and the king celebrated his victory by putting up two steles near Carchemish, one on the east of the river, and the other near the stele erected by his father, or grandfather, Tehutimes I, nearly half a century before.
Then he conquered Ni[5] and received tribute from its prince. The sojourn of Tehutimes III in this town was signalised by the performance of the royal duty of killing wild beasts; and the king is reported to have hunted and killed more than one hundred and twenty elephants.
All the tribes of Syria had to submit to the powerful yoke of the Egyptians, and the chiefs of the Libanu, the Kheta [Hittites] and the king of Singara took the oath of allegiance.
Nevertheless there was a revolt under the king of Naharain in XXXVII, which was quelled by a great battle not far from Aluna. In XLI the seat of war was in Cœle-Syria; and the king of Kadesh refusing to do homage to Pharaoh, a deadly struggle took place under the ramparts of the city. The besieged tried the ruse of letting a mare loose among the chariots of Tehutimes; but Amenemheb, an officer of the guard, leaped to the ground, disembowelled the animal with a thrust of his sword, and cutting off its tail, presented it to the king; and the same brave officer, at the head of a picked body of men, succeeded in making a breach and forcing an entrance into the town.
Hardly a year passed without a skirmish with the Uauatu in Ethiopia. But the tribes, having trembled so long before the Pharaohs, fled at the first sign of attack. The Egyptians had only to take possession of the flocks and herds, or any booty left in the deserted villages, and the campaign of the commander was a series of easy victories, which were celebrated with triumph on their return home.
The success of Tehutimes III in his campaigns increased the size and wealth of the kingdom and gave ground for his being accorded the name of “the Great”; and it is not surprising to see that his deeds formed the subject of poetic panegyrics of the period, inscribed on the Temple of Karnak:
“I am come,” said the god Amen to him, “to permit thee to crush the princes of Zahi; I cast them at thy feet in their districts; I make them see thy Majesty as a lord of light, when thou shinest before them in my likeness.
“I am come to let thee crush the barbarians of Asia, to take captive the chiefs of Ruthen. I will make them see thy Majesty decked with warlike apparel, when thou wieldest thy arms upon the chariot.
“I am come to let thee crush the land of the East; Kefa (Phœnicia) and Asebi (Cyprus) are in fear of thee; I make them see thy Majesty like a young bull, firm of heart and irresistible with thy horns.
“I am come to let thee crush the people who reside in their ports. And the regions of Mathen tremble before thee. I make them see thy Majesty like the hippopotamus, lord of terror and unapproachable upon the waters.
“I am come to let thee crush the people who reside in their islands. Those who live on the bosom of the sea are within reach of thy roaring. I make them see thy Majesty as an avenger on the back of his victim.
“I am come to let thee crush the Tuhennu. The isles of the Uthent are at thy disposal. I make them see thy Majesty like that of a furious lion, that strews the valley with corpses.
“I am come to let thee crush the maritime countries, so that the girdle of the oceans is in thy hand. I make them see that thy Majesty, as the king of birds, sees everything with one glance.
“I am come to let thee crush the lords of the sands who live in the lagunes; to let thee lead the dwellers upon the sand into captivity. I make them see thy Majesty like a jackal of the South, a king of runners, a scourer of the two regions.
“I am come to let thee crush the barbarians of Nubia. As far as the land of Shat, all is in thy hand. I make them see thy Majesty like unto thy two brothers, Hor and Set, whose arms I have united to secure thy power.”
So much success appealed to the imagination of the people, and Tehutimes III was soon regarded as a hero of romance, as were Khufu and Usertsen I. Only one of the legends circulated for centuries after his death is still extant.
The prince of Joppa revolted and took the field against the Egyptians. The Pharaoh, unable at that time to leave his country, sent Thutii, one of his bravest generals, to quell the insurrection. The town was soon taken.
Tehutimes died on the last day of Phamenoth in the year LIV of his reign, and was buried at Thebes.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1503-1455 B.C.]]
Amenhotep II succeeded his father Tehutimes III.
The Syrians thought that the coming of a new king of Egypt meant a time for casting off the yoke of the Pharaohs. But they soon saw their mistake. Amenhotep laid waste the districts of the upper Jordan, and “like a terrible lion which puts a country to flight,” on Tybi 26th he crossed the Arseth to reconnoitre the passes of Anato. When “some Asiatics appeared on horseback to bar his approach, he seized their weapons of war, and his prowess equalled the mysterious power of Set, for the barbarians fled the glance.”
On the 10th Epiphi he took Ni without striking a blow. The inhabitants, men and women, were on the walls to do honour to his Majesty. Other places, like Akerith, underwent long siege, before surrendering. But the insurrection was entirely quelled by the year III, and in the course of the campaign the Pharaoh captured seven chiefs of the country of Thakhis. Six of them were solemnly sacrificed to Amen, their hands and heads being exposed on the walls of the temple of Karnak. The seventh was treated in the same way at Napata, as an example to the Ethiopian princes and to make them respect the authority of Pharaoh.
An insurrection of the tribes in the desert, and the oases on the east of Egypt, was quelled by Amenemheb, who had the same post under Amenhotep as he had under Tehutimes III.
Tehutimes IV, son of Amenhotep, was the next king of Egypt, and his successful campaigns confirmed his power in Syria and Ethiopia.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1455-1400 B.C.]]
Under Amenhotep III, who succeeded Tehutimes IV, the boundaries of Egyptian domination were fixed at the Euphrates on the north, and on the south by the land of the Gallas.
The Syrians were now completely under the Egyptian yoke, and willingly sent their daughters to the royal harem; the old-time wars had developed into occasional raids for the acquisition of slaves or workmen for the building operations in the valley of the Nile.
The last kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty were distinguished by the name of “heretic kings,” for as they resented the increasing sacerdotal power of the cult of Amen they established opposition cults. Tehutimes IV discarded the Great Sphinx and restored the old cult of Horemkhu (“The Sun in the Two Horizons”). Amenhotep III brought to Thebes the religion of Aten, the solar disk, and in the year X of his reign inaugurated a festival at Karnak in honour of the new religion. And Amenhotep IV, to free himself from the power of the high priest at Thebes, determined to have a new capital for his kingdom, in which Aten should be the supreme god. The religion of Aten was probably the most ancient form of the religions of Ra. The disk, before which protestations were made, was not only the shining and visible form of the divinity, it was the god himself.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1420-1365 B.C.]]
Amenhotep III married a wife of foreign origin and religion, Thi. He had by her a son who succeeded him under the name of Amenhotep IV. The figure of Amenhotep IV, as made known to us by the monuments, exhibits those peculiar and strange characteristics which mutilation impresses upon the face, chest, and abdomen of eunuchs. On the other hand, we know that at an early age he married Queen Nefert-Thi and had by her seven daughters. It is therefore probable that if he really did experience the misfortune of which his features seem to bear the evidence, it happened during the wars of Amenhotep III and among the black people of the South. The custom of mutilating prisoners and wounded is, among these people, as old as the world. Amenhotep IV doubtless imbibed religious ideas from his mother, for he manifested a great horror of the cult of Amen and gave his homage to the solar divinities, chiefly to the disk itself.
But the fear of arousing his subjects to revolt restrained him at first from too openly avowing his heresy. He contented himself with changing his name, which contained that of Amen, for that of Khun-aten, “Splendour of the Sun’s disk,” and continued to worship his father Amenhotep and the god Amen himself. Later, his religious fanaticism got the better of his prudence. The cult of Amen was forbidden and his name erased wherever it could be reached. The pure-blooded Egyptians came under suspicion on account of their religion and disappeared from the king’s entourage, giving place to Asiatic personages who resembled Pharaoh and were deprived like him of their virility.
Thebes, so full of monuments consecrated to the fallen god, lost its rank of capital.
Khun-aten built a new capital at a place in Middle Egypt which to-day bears the name of Tel-el-Amarna, and which he called Khut-aten, where there was nothing to recall the old religion.
The sun was the principal god of the old religion; all the ancient solar divinities, Ra-Horemkhu, Hor, were recognised and respected. Monuments show us the god in the form of a disk whose rays descend toward the earth, each ray terminating in a hand holding the ansated cross--the emblem of life. The disk is called Aten. Wherever the king goes, the solar disk accompanies him and sheds its benediction upon him.
But with all the attention he paid to religion, Khun-aten was, like his ancestors, a great builder and conqueror. Ethiopia, Thebes, and Memphis were fields of his activity, and he continued to exercise sovereign authority in Syria as well as in Africa.
At his death the crown passed to Prince Ai, his foster-brother, and husband of his eldest daughter Tai. The new king, without renouncing the religion of sun-worship, suspended the persecutions which had the cult of Amen for their object and restored the religion of the ancient national divinities. For successors he had his brothers-in-law Tut-ankh-Amen, and later Saa-nekht, whose reign, although short, seems to have been prosperous. Tut-ankh-Amen, at least, is represented as an all-powerful Pharaoh, to whom foreign peoples give trembling homage. [According to Brugsch and Wiedemann and Petrie the order of these kings is Saa-nekht, Tut-ankh-Amen, and Ai--the reverse of the order here given.]
But after them civil and religious wars desolated Egypt; the throne was occupied by ephemeral kings whose names even are unknown to us. [The kings formerly reputed to belong to the end of this dynasty are now, as Professor Petrie remarks, “not of historical substance, but only linguistic questions.” It has been well established that the names in question are either errors or “Ptolemaic bungles,” and they are now assigned to monarchs of this and other dynasties.]
King Hor-em-heb re-established peace, suppressed the solar religion, destroyed Khun-aten’s monuments, and everywhere restored the ancient cult. Outside the country he reconquered Ethiopia, which for the time being had been lost, and made the land of Punt tributary, but risked no expeditions into Syria. The conquests of the Tehutimes and the Amenhoteps, so dearly obtained in this direction, had been lost during the religious wars. The petty local princes had ceased to pay tribute: and to reduce them anew, a whole generation of conquerors was necessary.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[3] [Whether Tehutimes I or Tehutimes II was the father of Tehutimes III is still in doubt, but Maspero and Petrie incline to the belief that it was Tehutimes II.]
[4] [Petrie says he was about thirty-one years old.]
[5] [A town in the land of Naharain that sometimes has been confounded with Nineveh.]
V. THE XIXTH DYNASTY
[ca. 1365-1225 B.C.]
Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king! I go, and I return not. But the will Of the great Gods is plain: and ye must bring Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise, The praise of Gods, rich boon! and length of days.--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
We come now to the period when Egypt reached the apex of its power; when a series of great conquering monarchs made the name of Egypt known and feared far beyond the confines of the Nile. Of these great monarchs the name of one in particular was stamped upon the traditions of Asiatic peoples and has passed into popular knowledge. This was Ramses II, known to the Hebrews, and through them to the western world, as the Pharaoh of the Oppression. Great as this monarch was, little was known of him beyond the prejudiced recitals of the Hebrews, until our own time, when the decipherment of the monuments has brought to light the record of many of his warlike deeds. These records, like all such narratives, are highly coloured and told from the standpoint of the conqueror himself; but, with due allowance for exaggeration, they may no doubt be accepted as accounts of actual events.
A peculiar interest attaches to the name of Ramses II in addition to the never failing fascination of the great conqueror. We shall therefore have occasion to review his deeds in detail as told by the poet laureate of the day, and to consider various authoritative estimates, both ancient and modern, that have been passed upon this greatest hero of Egyptian history.[a] First Maspero:
Hor-em-heb, whose origin is unknown [there seems no reason to deny that he was the famous general whose tomb has been discovered at Saqqarah], nullified the efforts of Amenhotep and the other heretic kings to lessen the power of Thebes and its god, for he re-established the cult of Amen in all its splendour, had the temple of Aten pulled down, and the materials used to erect one of the triumphal entries, leading into the sanctuary of Karnak; the names of the heretic kings were effaced, and their monuments utterly destroyed. The new king had much to do to repair the disasters of the preceding years; at home all the governmental machinery was out of order, and abroad, the countries under the Egyptian yoke had ceased to pay tribute. Hor-em-heb put down brigandage, he punished untrustworthy employers by death, and he restored to the temples the properties which had been taken from them. He imposed a tribute on the distant country of Punt, he made raids on the tribes of the Upper Nile, and boasted of having subjugated the same countries as Tehutimes III. We have no exact account of his conquests except from his monuments, but they were numerous, and his reign seems to have been glorious, prosperous, and long.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1365-1355 B.C.]]
It is not known when the sceptre passed into the hand of Ramses I nor how he was related to his predecessor. [Whether he were the son, son-in-law, or brother of Hor-em-heb, has never been determined.] He had, however, been in the service of Ai, one of the last of the heretic kings, and also of Hor-em-heb, so it was at a somewhat advanced age that he ascended the throne of the Pharaohs. An expedition in the year II against Ethiopia, a short campaign against the Kheta [Hittites], were the chief events of his reign. He died six or seven years after his accession and left his son Seti (the Sethosis of Greek tradition), as his successor.
KING SETI
[Sidenote: [ca. 1355-1345 B.C.]]
Seti at once announced himself abroad as a conqueror in the following words:
“His Majesty has just heard that the vile tribes of Shasu have rebelled. The chiefs of their tribes, assembled at one spot, have been filled with blindness of heart and violence so that each one destroys his neighbour.”
Seti pushed right away toward the East across the desert, watered here and there with ponds or springs, each protected by a fortress or at least a tower--“The fortress of the Lion,” “The tower of Seti I,” “The well of Seti I,” etc. Wherever the enemy appeared he was easily routed, his trees destroyed; his harvests pitilessly cut. Going on from station to station, the Egyptians arrived at the two forts of Ribatha [the Rehoboth of the Bible] and Canaan. The latter, favourably situated by a little lake upon one of the last of the Amorite hills, commanded the entrance of one of the richest ports of southern Syria. It submitted at the first onslaught, so the whole of the rich valley was pillaged by the Egyptians.
This first success entailed greater ones; and Seti, going northward, arrived at the port of Lebanon, where he obliged the people to cut down their trees and send them to Egypt for the buildings he had commenced in honour of Amen. From thence he repaired to the valley of the Orontes, there to attack the Kheta [Hittites]; and a victory gained over these traditional enemies of Egypt, formed a happy conclusion to the campaign.[6]
The Pharaoh’s return was one perpetual triumph from the time he appeared on the frontier, where he was welcomed by the priests, until he arrived at Thebes and offered his prisoners to Amen. And Egypt thought that the great days of Tehutimes and Amenhotep had returned.
Unfortunately, however, these triumphs were not so real as they appeared. Southern Syria, crushed by the passage of armies, had abandoned all ideas of any native resistance and surrendered almost without a blow. The Phœnicians considered that a voluntary tribute was less expensive than a war against the Pharaohs, and they amply consoled themselves for the diminution of their liberty by getting hold of the maritime commerce of the Delta.
But on the north the Kheta [Hittites] were more formidable than ever. Free, during the time of the heretic kings, from the perpetual fear of an Egyptian invasion, they not only extended their supremacy over the whole of Naharain, from Carchemish to Kadesh, but they crossed the Taurus, and penetrated into Asia Minor. It is not known how far they carried their dominion, but it seems it did not extend beyond the plain of Cilicia and Catania. Anyhow they entered into direct relations with the people of the southern and eastern parts of the peninsula, the Lycians, the Masu, the Dardanians, and the dwellers of Ilion and Pidasa. Supported by such allies, and sometimes aided by companies of their soldiers, the Kheta were a military power, quite equal to withstanding the Egyptians and waging war against them. Seti saw the position of affairs as soon as he attacked them, and although doubtless he took Kadesh, and the greater number of the Amorite towns on the Orontes without much trouble, the tenacity of the Kheta, always ready to fly to arms in spite of defeats, finally exhausted his patience.
Tired of war, he concluded an alliance with King Maro-sar, son of Shapalul, which lasted until his death. The dominion of the Pharaohs did not extend beyond the Orontes. So, being limited to southern Syria and Phœnicia, it gained in solidarity what it lost in extent. It seems that Seti I instead of simply exacting a tribute, imposed Egyptian governors on some of the conquered peoples, and in some places, like Gaza and Megiddo, stationed permanent garrisons.
The reign of Seti I undeniably marked a brilliant epoch in the history of Egypt. The treasure looted in Syria contributed to some of the most perfect Egyptian monuments, such as the mausoleum at Abydos and the hypostyle hall at Karnak, the tomb of the king. Seti was assisted in these works by his son Ramses. During his father’s lifetime Seti had married the princess Tui of the old royal family, probably the daughter of Hor-em-heb, and granddaughter of Amenhotep III, so that his son Ramses was, from the hour of his birth, considered by the loyalist Egyptians as the only legitimate king. His father, therefore, to prevent a rebellion, was obliged to make him co-regent when he was quite a little boy, although he was not at first taken much into account by either Seti or his ministers.
At ten years of age Ramses is said to have made war in Syria, and, according to Greek tradition, in Arabia. And it was on his return from these campaigns, that, ripened by age and experience, he began to take an active part in the internal government of the kingdom and to claim his royal prerogative. And henceforth we see his increasing personal valour transform him from an obscure prince into a king, a “master of the two worlds.”
Seti, now old, and worn out with the exploits of his youth, gradually conceded all power to his son, and lived in retirement in his palace for the rest of his days, the object of divine honours.
Certain pictures of the temple of Abydos show him seated on a throne amid the gods. He holds the club in one hand and in the other a complex sceptre, combining the different symbols of life and death. Isis is at his side, and the lesser gods sit behind the all-powerful couple, to whom Ramses addresses his prayer. It is a premature apotheosis of which the conception does honour to the regent, but it leaves no doubt of the real state of the kings in their old age. They were worshipped as gods, but they did not reign. Seti was no exception to this common rule; he was worshipped, but he did not reign.
Peace was threatened by an unforeseen danger. The people of Asia Minor had hitherto been beyond the sphere of action of Egypt; but now several races, such as the Shardana and Tyrseni, whose names were new to the ears of the Egyptians, landed on the coast of Africa, and joined with the Libyans. Ramses II defeated them, and the prisoners that he took were incorporated in the Royal Guard; and the others returned to Asia Minor, with such a recollection of their defeat, that Egypt was secure from their invasion for nearly a century. Peace assured in the North, Ramses repaired to Ethiopia, where he spent the last years of his father’s reign in making raids on the nomadic tribes on the banks of the Upper Nile.
On the news of the death of his father, Ramses left Ethiopia and entered on his duties as sole king at Thebes. He was then at the height of his fortune, and had several sons old enough to fight under his banner. The first years of his reign were not disturbed by any war of importance: in the year II there was a short expedition against the Amorites, and in the year IV there was one to the banks of the Nahr-el-Kelb near Beyrut. The Kheta [Hittites], faithful to the alliance made with Seti, did not try to excite a rebellion; and the people of Canaan, kept in check by the Egyptian garrisons, remained quiet.
RAMSES II, THE GREAT
[Sidenote: [ca. 1340 B.C.]]
So all went well till the year IV, when a terrible rebellion broke out. The king of the Kheta (Mau-than-ar, son of Maro-sar) was assassinated and succeeded by his brother, Kheta-sar, who convoked his vassals and allies, and broke with Egypt. Naharain, and its capital Carchemish, Arathu and southern Phœnicia, Kadesh and the country of Amaour, Kati and the Lycians, joined the coalition, and the hope of pillaging the Egyptian provinces of Syria, if not Egypt herself, made Ilion, Pidasa, Kerkesh, the Masu, and Dardanians also join the Kheta against Sesostris [Ramses].
Trojan bands crossed the whole length of the peninsula and encamped in the valley of the Orontes, three hundred miles from their country. The army brought into the field by Ramses shows how easily nations were displaced at that time, for it was composed of Libyans, Mashauasha of Libya, Masu and Shardana, the fruit of the victorious repulsion of the invasion a few years before.
The Pharaoh established the basis of his operations on the frontier of Egypt and the Arabian Desert in the town he had recently founded under the name of Pa-Ramessu-Anekhtu (“the city of Ramses, the Conqueror”). He traversed Canaan, still under his sway, and quickly bore down upon the southern countries, only stopping at Shabatun, a Syrian village, rather to the southwest of Kadesh, and in view of the town. During a halt of some days he surveyed the district, and tried to discover the position of the enemy, having only vague ideas on the subject. But the allies, on the contrary, fully informed by their scouts, who mostly belonged to the nomadic tribes of Shasu, were conversant with all their movements; and the king of the Kheta, their chief, conceived and carried out a clever manœuvre, which would have completely destroyed the Egyptian army, had it not been for the personal bravery of the Pharaoh.
One day when Ramses had advanced a little to the south of Shabatun, two Bedouins came and said to him:
“Our brothers who are the chiefs of the tribes, allied with the vile chief of the Kheta, send us to tell your Majesty that we wish to serve your Majesty; we are leaving the vile chief of the Kheta, and know that he is in the district of Khilibu at the north of the town of Tunep, where he has retreated from fear of the Pharaoh.”
The king was deceived by this report, which bore the trace of truth, and feeling safe from a surprise by the supposed distance of the enemy (Khilibu being forty miles to the north of Kadesh), he advanced without misgiving, at the head of his household chariotry, whilst the bulk of the army, including the legions of Amen, Ra, Ptah, and Sutekh, followed him from a distance.
Whilst he was thus dividing his forces, the allies, represented by the traitors as far off, were secretly assembling on the northeast of Kadesh and preparing to attack the flank of the Egyptian army on its march to Khilibu. Their number was considerable to judge from the fact that, on the day of the battle, the king of Khilibu alone commanded eighteen thousand picked men; and, besides a well-trained infantry, they had two thousand five hundred chariots, each carrying three men.
During these operations the scouts brought into the general’s camp two other spies they had taken; and the king seems then to have had his suspicions aroused, for he ordered them to be well beaten, so as to make them confess. They then confessed that they had been sent to watch the manœuvres of the Egyptian army, and stated that the allies, assembled at Kadesh, were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to appear. Ramses then called a council of war, and explained their critical position. The officers excused themselves on the plea of the imprudence of the governors of the provinces, who had neglected to reconnoitre every day the position of the enemy, and they despatched an express messenger to bring up the body of the army to the aid of its chief.
Whilst the council was still sitting, the enemy approached, and when the king of the Kheta brought his forces to the south of Kadesh, he attacked the Ra legion, and so cut the Egyptian army in two.
The Pharaoh then in person charged at the head of his household chariotry, and eight times he broke the ranks of the encircling army, rallied his troops, and sustained the shock the rest of the day. Toward evening the Kheta, losing the advantage they had gained in the morning, beat a retreat before the Egyptian army, now in line; and at the approach of night the battle was suspended until the following day, when the allies were completely routed.
The equerry of the Kheta prince, Garbatusa, the general of his infantry and chariots, the chief of the eunuchs, and Khalupsaru, the writer of the annals of the sovereign for posterity, perished on the battle-field. Many corps of the Syrian army cast themselves into the Orontes to try to swim across it. Mazraima, the brother of the (Khetan) king, succeeded in reaching the other bank, but the lord of the country of Nison was drowned. The king of Khilibu was dragged half dead from the water; and pictures of the battle represent him being held head downward to disgorge the water he had swallowed. The conquered army would no doubt have been utterly destroyed, had not a sortie of the garrison of Kadesh arrested the progress of the Egyptians and allowed the fugitives to return to the town. The following day the Khetan king asked for and obtained peace.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1340-1324 B.C.]]
But all hopes that this brilliant victory would terminate the war were disappointed. For the country of Canaan and the neighbouring provinces attacked the rear-guard of the victorious army, and the king of the Kheta, profiting by this diversion, broke the peace. The whole of Syria, from the banks of the Euphrates to the Nile, rose in arms. And although there were no more great battles, the next fifteen years were filled with a series of sieges and attacks; and hostilities broke out in one place as fast as peace was concluded in another.
The year VIII saw the Egyptian army in Galilee, under the walls of Merom. In the year XI Askalon was taken in spite of the heroic resistance of the Canaanites. In another campaign the king penetrated as far north as the environs of Tunep, and took two towns of the Kheta. So the war went on from year to year, until the enemies of Ramses were quite exhausted with their useless efforts, and the king of the Kheta once more prayed for peace from the Egyptian sovereign, and it was granted and sealed in the year XXI.
The treaty was originally drawn up in the language of the Kheta, and it was engraved on a sheet of silver which was solemnly offered to the Pharaoh in his city. The articles of the treaty were essentially the same as those drawn up between the kings of Kheta and Ramses I and Seti I. It was stipulated that the peace between the two countries was to be eternal:
“If an enemy march into the countries under the sway of the great king of Egypt and if he send to the king of the Kheta, saying: ‘Come, take arms against them,’ the great king of Kheta will do as he is asked by the great king of Egypt: the great king of Kheta will destroy his enemies. And if the great king of Kheta does not wish to come himself, he will send the archers and chariots of the country of Kheta to the great king of Egypt to destroy his enemies.”
And an analogous clause also assures the king of Kheta of the support of the Egyptian arms. Then come special articles to protect the commerce and industry of the united nations and to render surer the course of justice. Every criminal trying to evade these laws by taking refuge in the neighbouring country will be handed over to the officers of his nation: every fugitive not a criminal, every subject taken away by force, every workman who removes from one territory to another to there take up his abode, will be sent back to his country, without his expatriation being regarded as a crime. He who is thus expelled is not to be punished by the destruction of his house, wife, or children, he is not to be struck in the eyes or on the mouth, or on the feet, as there is no criminal accusation against him.
Equality and perfect reciprocity between the two countries, extradition of criminals and refugees, are the principal conditions of this treaty, which can be considered the most ancient monument of diplomatic science.
The wars of Ramses II terminate with this alliance, but Greek historians have made the Pharaoh, under the name of Sesostris, penetrate and subdue the countries of Media, Persia, Bactriana, and India, as far as the ocean, and even say he penetrated Europe as far as Thrace, where his course was only checked by want of supplies.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1307-1285 B.C.]]
From the year XXI to that of Ramses’ death the peace of the country was not disturbed. The conditions were loyally observed, and the alliance between the two sovereigns was soon cemented by a family bond, as Ramses married the eldest daughter of the king of Kheta, and a few years later invited his father-in-law to visit the valley of the Nile. The lord of Kheta acquaints the king of Kati with this approaching journey in these words:
“Be prepared for we are going to Egypt, the word of the king has been spoken; let us obey Sesostris [Ramses]. He gives the breath of life to those he loves, so all the world loves him, and Kheta is in future one with him.”
In the year XXXIII the Syrian prince visited the city of Ramses, probably Thebes; and he is represented on a stele, engraven for the occasion, with his daughter and son-in-law.
So Egypt at last found her most bitter enemies transformed into faithful allies, and “the people of Kamit were henceforth one in heart with those of Kheta, which had not been the case since the time of the god Ra.”
As this alliance was concluded, the king could now devote himself to building monuments. According to the Greek historians, “he had a temple built in each town to the principal god of the place.”
Ramses was indeed a king of builders. During his long sixty-seven years’ reign, he had time to complete the work of several generations, and one can safely say that there is not a ruin in Egypt or Nubia which does not bear his name. The great “speos” [cave-temple] of Isambul perpetuated the memory of his campaigns against the negroes and Syrians, and four colossal monoliths, twenty metres high, adorn the entrance. At Thebes there was added to the temple of Amenhotep (Luxor) a court with two pylons and two obelisks of granite, the finest of which is on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The temple of Gurnah, founded by Seti in honour of Ramses I, was finished and consecrated. The Ramesseum, known to the ancients by the name of Tomb of Osymandias, gives a sculptured account of the campaign of the year V; and the hand of Ramses II is seen in the necropolis of Abydos, as well as at Memphis and Bubastis and in the quarries of Silsilis, as well as in the mines of Sinai.
The temple of Tanis, neglected by the sovereigns of the XVIIIth Dynasty, was restored and enlarged; and the town which was in ruins, was rebuilt. In many places the architects effaced on the statues and temples the names of their royal builders, and substituted the cartouches of Ramses II. The decoration of the hypostyle hall of Karnak is certainly due to this king: Ramses I conceived the plan, Seti commenced it, and Ramses II decorated it entirely. From the year III, Ramses was also greatly interested in the working of the gold mines in Nubia, and established a line of stations with cisterns and wells along the road leading from the Nile to Gebel Ollaqi. Then he had the network of canals, which water Lower Egypt, cleared, including the one between the Nile and the Red Sea on the borders of the desert. He repaired the walls and fortifications which protected Egypt from the Bedouins; and as political necessity led him to reside on the west of the Delta, he founded several towns on the frontier, the most important of which was Ramses Anekhtu.
The poets of the period have left us pompous descriptions of this city: “It is situated,” they say, “between Syria and Egypt; it is full of delicious provisions; it is like unto Hermonthis. Its length is that of Memphis, the sun rises and sets there. All men leave their towns and settle on its territory; the rivers of the sea pay homage in eels and fish, and bring the fruit of their tides. The dwellers in the town are in holiday attire every day; perfumed oil anoints their heads on new wigs. They stand at their doors, their hands filled with bouquets, with green boughs from the town of Pa-Hathor, with garlands from Pahir, at the entrance gate of Pharaoh. Joy increases and dwells there without end.”
Poetry, we see, flourished at the time of Ramses, and the manuscripts of the works have been preserved, but the names of the authors were not added.
THE WAR-POEM OF PENTAUR
[Sidenote: [ca. 1340 B.C.]]
The most often quoted and the best-inspired poem is the Poem of Pentaur, which describes the exploits of Ramses in the year V at the battle of Kadesh. [Pentaur, or rather Pentauirit, is not the author, but merely the transcriber of the copy now in the British Museum. The author is not known.] We know the subject of the poem: the king, surprised by the prince of the Kheta, is obliged to lead the charge at the head of his household troops:
“His Majesty now rises like his father Mentu. He seizes his arms, and buckles on his cuirass like Baal in his time. Great horses bear on his Majesty--‘Victory to Thebes’ was their name as they left the stables of King Ramses, beloved of Amen. The king, having started, broke the ranks of the vile Kheta. He was alone, nobody with him. Having advanced in sight of those behind him, he was surrounded by two thousand five hundred chariots; cut off from retreat by all the warriors of the vile Kheta and by the numerous people with him from Arathu, Masa, and Pidasa. Each of their chariots carried three men, and they were all massed together. “‘No prince with me, no general, no officer of the archers, no archers, or chariots. My soldiers have forsaken me, my horsemen have fled, and not one remains to fight with me.’ Then his Majesty said:
“‘Where art thou, my father Amen? Does a father forget his son? Have I done anything without thee? Have I not marched and halted according to thy word? I have in no way disobeyed thy orders. He is very great, the lord of Egypt who overthrows the barbarians on his way! What are these Asiatics to thee? Amen enervates the impious. Have I not presented thee with numberless gifts? I have filled thy sacred dwelling with prisoners; I have built thee a temple which will last a million years; I have given all my goods for thy stores; I have offered thee the entire world to enrich thy domains. Truly a miserable fate is reserved to those who oppose thy designs, and happiness to him who knows thee, for thy acts come from a heart full of love. I invoke thee, my father Amen! Here I am in the midst of a great and strange company, all the nations are leagued against me, and I am alone, with no other but thee. My numerous soldiers have abandoned me, none of my horsemen regarded me when I called to them, they did not hearken to my voice. But I believe that Amen is more to me than a million horsemen, than a myriad brothers, or young sons all assembled together. The work of men is naught. Amen will overrule them. I have accomplished these things by the counsel of thy mouth, O Amen! and I have not transgressed thy counsels: here I have given glory to thee to the ends of the earth.’”
The king is here represented alone, surrounded by the enemy and in great danger, but his first impulse is to God; and before rushing into the mêlée, he makes this long address to Amen, and help came to him:
“The voice resounded to Hermonthis. Amen answers my cry; he gives me his hand, I utter a cry of joy, he speaks behind me:
“‘I hasten to thee, to thee Ramses Meri-Amen, I am with thee. It is I, thy father; my hand is with thee and I am of more avail than hundreds of thousands. I am the lord of strength, a lover of courage, I have recognised a courageous heart and am satisfied my will will be done.’
“Like Mentu, I then cast my arrows to the right, I overthrew my enemies. I am like Baal before them. The two thousand five hundred chariots which surround me are dashed to pieces by my horsemen. Not one of them has a hand to fight with, their hearts fail them, and fear enfeebles their members. They cannot draw their arrows, nor have they strength to wield their lances. I precipitate them into the water as you would a crocodile, they are cast down on the top of each other. I do not wish one to look behind nor to turn back. He who falls will never regain his feet.”
The effect produced by this outburst about God was very great, especially on the Kheta, who seemed arrested by an invisible power when on the point of victory, and hesitated in terror. Then they commanded the chiefs in their cars, and the men versed in war to advance, so that the company of the kings of Arathu, of Ilion, of Lycia, Dardania, Carchemish, Kerkesh, Khilibu, numbering three thousand chariots, proceed forward.
“But all their efforts are useless. I dashed on them like Mentu, my hands destroyed them in the space of an instant, I cut and I killed amongst them, so that they said one to another:
“‘This is not a man amongst us, it is Sutekh, the great warrior. It is Baal in person. These are not the actions of a man that he does. Alone, all alone, he repulses hundreds of thousands without chiefs, and without soldiers. Let us hasten to fly before him, let us save our lives, let us breathe again.’
“All who came to fight found their hands weakened, they could no longer hold bows, or lance. Seeing that he had arrived at cross-roads the king pursued them like a griffin.”
It was only when the enemy is in retreat that he summons his soldiers, not so much for their aid as to let them witness his valour:
“Be firm, keep up your heart, O my soldiers! You see my victory and I was alone. It is Amen who gave me strength; his hand is with me.”
He encourages his shield-bearer Menna who is full of fear at the number of the enemy, and rushes into the mêlée.
“Six times I charged the enemy!”
At last his army arrives toward evening and helps him. He assembles his generals and overwhelms them with reproaches.
“What will the whole world say, when it learns that you left me quite alone? That not a charioteer nor any archers joined with me? I have fought, I have repulsed millions of people alone. ‘Victory of Thebes,’ and ‘Mut is satisfied’ were my glorious horses. It was with them that I was alone amid terrifying enemies. I will see them fed myself every day, when I am in my palace, for I had them when I was in the midst of my enemies with the chief Menna, my shield bearer, and with the officers of my horse who accompanied me, and are witnesses of the battle; they were with me. I have returned after a victorious battle and I have struck the assembled multitudes with my blade.”
The skirmish of the first day was only the preliminary to a more important engagement, and with what success to the Egyptians, and what loss to the Asiatics, has already been told. The poet does not give any details of this second affair. He describes it in a few lines dedicated entirely to praise of the king. The subject, in fact, is not the victory at Kadesh and the defeat of the Syrian armies, important as these may be to the historian; but the poet sings the indomitable courage of Ramses, his faith in the aid of the gods, the irresistible strength of his arm. He wished to portray him surprised, abandoned, and compensating for the faults of the generals by his bravery. All the facts which could lessen the general impression or diminish the glory of the royal bravery are put in the background. The household troops are mentioned only once; of the second day of the battle there is but an insufficient description. The king of the Kheta implores peace, Ramses grants it, and returns in triumph to Thebes.
“Come, our beloved son, O Ramses Meri-Amen! The gods have given him infinite periods of eternity upon the double throne of his father Tmu, and all the nations are put under his feet.”[b]
THE KINGDOM OF THE KHETA AND THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY
[Sidenote: [ca. 1345-1285 B.C.]]
After the preceding eulogy by Maspero, it is well to read Eduard Meyer’s more cynical account of the reign of the great Ramses. It will enable us the better to preserve a mental balance. It should not, however, lead us to forget that we are in the presence of one of the great epochs of civilisation; for all such great epochs have had their iconoclasts as well as their adulators.[a]
Ramses II exaggerated his own praises in inscriptions, saying that, already in the womb, he had been acknowledged king and that his father had handed him over the government when he was yet a child. This is correct in so far as he was solemnly proclaimed successor to the throne in his early youth, and probably raised to be co-regent by Seti toward the end of his reign; as crown-prince he accompanied his father in the wars against the Libyans.
In the fifth year the king directed his second campaign against the Kheta. The king of Kheta had summoned all his allies and tribes dependent on him, and a formidable army was gathered together in the neighbourhood of Kadesh. He almost succeeded in destroying, in an ambush, the advance-guard, in which Ramses was present. The mass of the army which had been called together in haste did not reach the battle-field in time, and it was only the personal courage of the king, who boasts of having fought against thousands alone when all deserted him, that gained the victory for the Egyptians. The enemy were driven into the Orontes, and suffered heavy losses; the king of Khilibu was almost drowned. Ramses II boasts again and again of this victory; he had the fight represented and poetically extolled in Luxor, in Karnak, in the Ramesseum built in the west town for the worship of the dead, and in Nubia in the temple of Abu Simbel. Nevertheless, it was only a brave personal feat and no great military success.
We hear nothing of the conquest of Kadesh, and when Ramses asserts “that the king of Kheta turned his hands to worship him,” this refers to passing negotiations or to an armistice, for we see that the war continued uninterruptedly.
We have only very incomplete information concerning the continuance of the war. Only once more do we find the king penetrating far toward the north: in the province of Tunep in the land of Naharain he personally fought against the Kheta. How he arrived so far north, we do not know.
It is clear that the Egyptians were being more and more driven back, and finally completely lamed. Doubtless the king of Kheta could boast of numerous victories. On the other hand, it was only boasting when Ramses gave long lists of conquered people and towns in his temple inscriptions, in which, so as to equal Tehutimes III, he had to include the names of Asshur and Sangara, Mannus and Karak (Cilicia), with which the king scarcely came into contact. It can at once be seen that it is no historical document.
When and on what conditions peace was concluded is not known, and tradition does not relate what part of Syria the Egyptians maintained. At any rate Palestine remained essentially Egyptian. It would appear that it was agreed that South Syria should be relinquished to Egypt, and that the Kheta should retain a free hand in the North.
By this agreement, there was maintained between the two states a lasting peace which soon ripened into a close union. In the twenty-first year of Ramses II King Kheta-sar proposed one of those everlasting treaties to the Pharaoh, in which both states guaranteed their own integrity, formed an alliance for protection against every outside enemy, and mutually bound themselves to watch over all exiles who might seek refuge with them, and to surrender all deserters and emigrants. The treaty held good for a long time; thirteen years later Kheta-sar visited the ruler of Egypt and gave him his daughter to wife. Then took place what, as the god Ptah says to Ramses, “was unheard of even from the days of Ra until thine own.” It is evident that under such circumstances the relations of culture between Egypt and Syria must have been active and manifold.
The powerful influence which Egypt had exercised over the East has already been depicted in connection with this; and, for example, when we find that the characteristics of an Egyptian legend recorded under the successor of Ramses are taken up by the Hebrews and transferred to the hero of their race, Joseph, this is only one feature more added to the many we know.
But in Egypt we also find the worship of Syrian divinities spreading more and more--at the same time Set-Sutekh, the powerful patron god of the stranger who gave the enemy victory, was greatly respected.
Syrian names are considerably met with, and, above all, the language is most strikingly influenced by the Canaanite. In many documents Semitic words were almost used to the same extent as French in German literature of the eighteenth century.
After having concluded the treaty with Kheta-sar, Ramses II ruled over Egypt for forty-six years more in peace.
This epoch, the time of Seti I and Ramses II, has rightly been called the prime of the New Theban Kingdom. The martial successes in its first half, the peaceful and well-ordered relations of the ensuing time, made the universal development of the land’s resources feasible to the government, and assured the subjects a comfortable enjoyment of life, such as the Egyptians of old loved.
Of no other period of Egypt do we possess so many monuments--temples, tombs, dedications, and inscriptions concerning victories--and so many literary remains. But nowhere does the typical character which adheres to the new Egyptian appear more prominently than here.
The type is supreme over all, and there is no question of individuality anywhere. It is in vain that we seek for a new thought or an original turn in the temple inscriptions, in the hymns on the king written on the face of the rocks or on papyrus, and in the appeals to the divinities. Frequently all tangible import is wanting. Everything is a copy and is carefully worked out from a fixed model; it has often been remarked how greatly the historical value of the reports has suffered through this. In value they are far below those of the time of Tehutimes III.
The administration of the land in the new kingdom does not differ much from that of the former one. The king appears to us surrounded by the entire fulness of divine glory; in the official reports his counsellors are only assembled so as to marvel at his superhuman wisdom, or else to be reproached for their want of foresight.
The further we advance into the history of Egypt, the more does the self-conceit and absurdity of the glorification of the king increase; under the reign of Ramses II one often gets the impression that he considered himself a superhuman being standing in direct communication with the gods. Like Amenhotep III, we often find him in the Nubian temples too, worshipping his own person, which is seated between Amen and Mut, or Khnem and Anuqat. The intention may have been to raise the reigning king--as formerly Usertsen III--to be territorial god of the subjected Cushites.
The residence of Ramses II was generally at Tanis, which he had newly constructed and adorned with numerous monuments, and which now received the name of “the town of Ramses.” The writers of the time are never tired of praising the glories of this city, which was a seaport as well as an important emporium. On account of its numerous relations with Syria, it is only natural that the centre of gravity of the kingdom should have been transferred here, and that many new foundations should have originated on the eastern frontier of Egypt. The frontier defences of Egypt proper against the tribes of the desert, were always kept up and sharply watched. As formerly, Thebes remained the real capital of the land; next to it, Memphis asserted its long-inherited right as the oldest residence and as dwelling-place of Ptah, the Father of the Divinities. The numerous private monuments bear witness to the well-being of the land more than the buildings, as also, to a certain degree, do the rhetorical descriptions of the writers.
Numerous admirable experiments in sculpture have come down to us, above all the likeness of Ramses II preserved in Turin. The marvellous and careful work of the relief in the temple of Seti I at Abydos has already been mentioned; a certain grandeur must not be denied to the composition of the great war picture which represents the events of the Kheta war in the year V of Ramses II,--the mustering of the troops, the life in camp, the advance of the enemy, and the battle of Kadesh. The king had the picture carried out in coloured relief three times, in the Ramesseum, in Luxor, and in Abu Simbel. Besides these, there are also numerous examples of every kind of art-work, even to the simplest steles, often very roughly worked.
Some things have come to us of the literature of the times; chiefly the poem which Ramses II had composed and written on the walls of the temples to commemorate his battle with the Kheta. It is a work which, in spite of its official character, is not wanting in life and poetry.
There are also many narratives, such as the celebrated tale of the two brothers, written under Meneptah. Above all, there are the numerous epistles, rhetorical studies, descriptions of the power of the king and his works, the praise of learning, hymns, moral exhortations, also unmeaning letters which evidently served as models for real letters and reports. Besides these collections, we have also many authentic letters, reports, acts, etc., which give us much information concerning the life and doings of the Egyptians in the thirteenth century B.C.
If we cast an eye on the religious life, we clearly recognise that we are here dealing with an epoch in which heretic endeavours are completely suppressed, and orthodoxy asserts its unconditional sway. The religious literature of the time became characterised fairly early. At every turn we meet with the formulas of the victorious esoteric doctrine. The numerous temples show the increase of the power of the priests. All natural relations were restrained and stifled by religion. War was carried on by order, and in the name of, Amen, so as to increase his subjects and to bring him in rich booty. The inscriptions relate very little concerning the actions of the kings, but a great deal concerning the conversations which they had with the deities, and how they “cast all lands at their feet.” The eldest son of Ramses II, Khamuas, became high priest of Ptah in Memphis, and carefully looked after the worship of the sacred Apis: he caused the celebrated tombs of Apis, the Serapeum of Memphis, to be built. By those who came after, he was looked on as a great philosopher and magician.
It is known to us that, as a long established custom, the officials as a rule held one or more priesthoods besides their state office; naturally, higher education and, above all, instruction in writing and learning, were entirely in the hands of the priests. We meet with the enervating effects of these conditions throughout the whole course of Egyptian history.
When the intellectual life becomes torpid, physical strength also disappears. Since everything that constitutes nationality is converted into outer forms, a nation loses even the vitality and power necessary to maintain an independent existence.[c]
DEATH OF RAMSES II
Thus, somewhat frigidly, Eduard Meyer has summed up the achievements of the great Ramses. The words of Brugsch make a good epilogue.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1285 B.C.]]
Ramses II enjoyed a long reign. The monuments expressly testify to a reign of sixty-seven years’ duration, of which, apparently, more than half should be reckoned to his rule conjointly with his father. The jubilee celebration of his thirtieth year as (sole?) Pharaoh gave occasion for great festivities throughout the country, of which the inscriptions in Silsilis, El-Kab, Biggeh, Sehel, and even on several scarabs, make frequent mention. The prince and high priest of Memphis, Khamuas, journeyed through the chief cities of the country in this connection, that he might have the great and joyful festival in honour of his father prepared in a worthy fashion by the different governors. The anniversary of the festival was calculated according to a fixed cycle, and apparently fell when the lunar and solar years coincided at short intervals of three or four years. It was observed as a solemn feast.
Great in the field, active in works of peace, Ramses appears to have also tasted heaven’s richest blessings in his family life. The outer surface of the front of the temple of Abydos reveals to us the portraits and the names, now only partially preserved, of 119 children (59 sons and 60 daughters), which besides the lawful consorts known to us, the favourite wife Isinefer, mother of Khamaus, the queens Nefert-ari, Meri-mut, and the daughter of the king of Kheta, implies a large number of inferior wives.
It is scarcely probable that the great Ramses departed this life leaving his earthly kingdom in a peaceful condition. Already in his old age a numerous progeny of sons and grandsons were disputing over their father’s inheritance. The seed of periods of storm and unrest was laid. According to historical tradition these bearings were confirmed in the most striking manner by subsequent events.
The body of Pharaoh was consigned to its death chamber in the rocky valley of Biban-el-Moluk. In spite of the large number of his children, Seti’s grateful son had left no offspring behind him who would have prepared a tomb for his father worthy of his deeds and of his name; a tomb which might if only in some degree have approached the dignity of Seti’s noble funeral vaults. The tomb of Ramses is an insignificant, rather tasteless erection, seldom visited by travellers to the Nile Valley, who probably scarcely suspect that the great Sesostris of Greek story has found his last resting-place in this modest place. This Pharaoh might have repeated of himself at his death, as formerly in his struggle against the Kheta he said, “I stood alone; none other was with me.”[d]
FOOTNOTES
[6] [The Hittites, now identified with the Kheta, are treated more fully in a special chapter in Vol. II.]
VI. THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES
Nothing in modern discovery has more vividly and suddenly brought the ancient world home to the world of to-day than the finding of the actual bodies, the very flesh and blood of the Pharaohs marvellously preserved to us by the embalmer’s venerable art. The discovery has bridged the chasm between the Ancient and the New as a midnight flash of lightning from the clouds to the earth.
As so often happens, what had foiled the eager search of the patient scholar, had not eluded the cupidity of the thief. The appearance of royal mummies and priceless manuscripts on the open market filled the explorers with both chagrin and zeal. M. Maspero tells of the various wiles by which influential politicians of the Orient concealed their rich treasure-sources, and of the almost endless difficulties overcome by the European explorers before the thieves could be first deprived of their influence with the authorities, and then of their discoveries. These latter the scholars wished to examine and study where found, and then distribute them among museums for the benefit of other scholars and for public enlightenment. The real discoverers, the Arabs, were after loot alone, and mingled ruthlessness, lies, misrepresentations, and all manner of duplicity with their thrift. It is not here fitting to tell the story of the fight between scholarship and commerce; but the account of the revelation of the treasure-chamber itself is as appropriate as it is thrilling.[a]
On Wednesday, the 6th of July, 1879, Messrs. Emil Brugsch and Ahmad Effendi Kamal were conducted by Muhammed Ahmed Abd-er-Rassul to the entrance of the funeral vault itself.
The Egyptian engineer who long ago hollowed out the secret chamber had made his arrangements in the most ingenious fashion. Never was secret chamber better disguised. The chain of hills which at the spot divides the Biban-el-Moluk from the Theban plain, forms, between the Assassif and the Valley of the Queens, a series of natural amphitheatres, of which the best known was, up to the present, that on which stands the monument of Deir-el-Bahari. In the wall of rocks which separates Deir-el-Bahari from the succeeding amphitheatres, just behind the knoll of Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah, about two hundred feet above the level of the cultivated lands, a pit was dug forty feet in depth by six in breadth. At the bottom of the pit, in the western side, was cut the entrance of a corridor four and a half feet wide by nearly three in height. After running a length of about twenty-five feet, it turns abruptly to the north, and extends to a distance of two hundred feet, not always keeping to the same dimensions; in certain parts it is about six and a half feet wide, in others little more than four. Near the centre five or six roughly hewn steps indicate a sensible change in the level, and on the right hand a sort of unfinished niche shows that there had been an idea of once more changing the direction of the gallery. The latter at last emerges into a kind of irregular, oblong chamber, about twenty-five feet in length.
The first object which struck the eye of Herr Brugsch, when he reached the bottom of the pit, was a white and yellow coffin, with the name of Nesi-Khonsu. It was in the corridor, about two feet from the entrance; a little further was a coffin whose form recalled the style of the XVIIth Dynasty; then Queen TiuHathor Hont-tui, then Seti I. Alongside the coffins and strewing the ground, were boxes of funeral statuettes, canopic vases,[7] bronze libation vases, and right at the back, in the angle formed by the corridor as it turns north, the funeral canopy of Queen Isiem-kheb, folded and crumpled like a worthless object which some priest in a hurry to get away had thrown carelessly in a corner. All along the great corridor was the same confusion and disorder; it was necessary to crawl along without knowing where hands and knees were being placed.
The coffins and mummies, hastily scanned by the light of a candle, bore historic names--Amenhotep I, Tehutimes II, in the niche near the staircase, Aahmes I, and his son Se-Amen, Seqenen-Ra, Queens Aah-hotep, Aahmes, Nefert-ari, and others. In the chamber at the end, the confusion was at its height, but the predominance of the style proper to the XXth Dynasty was recognised at a glance. The report of Muhammed Ahmad Abd-er-Rassul, which had at first appeared exaggerated, was scarcely more than the attenuated expression of the truth: where I had expected to come on one or two obscure, petty kings, the Arabs had unearthed a whole hypogee of Pharaohs.
And what Pharaohs! perhaps the most illustrious in the history of Egypt--Tehutimes III and Seti I, Aahmes the liberator and Ramses II the conqueror!
Two hours sufficed for this first examination, and then the work of removal began. Three hundred Arabs were speedily collected by the efforts of the mudir’s people, and set about the work. The museum’s boat, hastily summoned, had not yet arrived; but reis Muhammed, one of the pilots on whom reliance could be placed, was on the spot. He descended to the bottom of the pit and undertook to extract its contents. Messrs. Brugsch and Ahmad Effendi Kamal received the objects as they were brought above ground, carried them to the foot of the hill, and ranged them side by side without relaxing their vigilance for a moment. Forty-eight hours of energetic labour sufficed to exhume everything; but the task was only half finished.
The convoy had to be conducted across the plain of Thebes and beyond the river as far as Luxor; several of the coffins, raised with great difficulty by twelve or sixteen men, took seven or eight hours to go from the mountain to the bank, and it will be easily imagined what this journey must have been like in the dust and heat of July.
At last, on the evening of the 11th, mummies and coffins were all at Luxor, duly enveloped in mats and canvases. Three days after, the museum’s steamer arrived; it only remained to load it, and it immediately started again for Bulaq with its freight of kings.
Then a singular thing happened, for from Luxor to Kuft, along either bank of the Nile, the fellah women followed the boat with dishevelled hair and uttering loud cries, and the men fired rifle-shots as they do at funerals.
HOW CAME THESE MONARCHS HERE?
And now a question arises. The greater number of the kings and princes of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, had each his tomb, which exists to-day or whose site we learn from ancient documents; Amenhotep I at Drah-abu’l-Neggah, Seti I and Ramses II at the Biban-el-Moluk, and others elsewhere. How is it that their corpses were hidden away between Deir-el-Bahari and Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah, huddled together with the corpses of the high priests of Amen? The Egyptians themselves have taken pains to furnish us with the materials for the answer. Several of the mummies or coffins which we possess, bear, written in ink by the hand of contemporary scribes, the date, the circumstances, and sometimes the reason of the transfer. These are veritable official reports, whose testimony on the subject is unimpeachable.
The three mummies of the XIXth Dynasty had a common fate. The coffins of Seti I and Ramses II bear three inscriptions, which are identical, or nearly so, and which date from three different periods: what is left of the coffin of Ramses II bears the remains of a hieratic text[8] analogous to the second inscription of the text of Seti I.
The two most ancient of these inscriptions mention Her-Hor. The first is conceived in these terms: “The year VI, of the 2nd month of Shaït the VII, the day of the expedition made by Her-Hor the … of the first Prophet of Amen Ra, king of the gods, to restore the funeral pomp of King Men-maat-Ra L. H. S. [life, health, strength] Son of the Sun, Seti Meneptah, through the inspector,” a name which is not very legible, as is also the case with those of his companions. The inscription which had been placed on the coffin of Ramses II has been rubbed out, and then written over. As it now reads, it suffices to show that it, like the preceding, was of the year VI and of the 2nd month of the season of Shaït, the VII; that the expedition had been undertaken by order of Her-Hor, and that its object was to ascertain the condition of the body of Ramses II. This interpretation of the date does not fail, however, to involve some difficulties. The name of Her-Hor is not surrounded with the cartouche; and we may, if we choose, conclude from this fact that the mention of the year VI refers to the reign of the Ramesside whom Her-Hor succeeded on the throne. On the other hand, the comparison of this inscription with the following ones appears to me to prove that the date, year VI, should probably be placed to the count of the priest-king.
Indeed, no hesitation is possible in regard to the second inscription. It presents itself under two forms, of which one is found only on the coffin of Seti I, whilst the other is afforded us by the two coffins of Ramses I and Ramses II. The inscription of Seti I is conceived in these terms: “In the year XVI, of the 4th month of the season Pirt, the VII, under King Se-Amen, the day of the exhuming of the King Men-maat-Ra Seti Meri-en-Ptah L. H. S., from his tomb to bring him into the tomb of the lady An … of the great dwelling, by the prophet of Amen-Ra, king of the gods, the third prophet of Khonsumois Neferhotep, chief scribe of the monument of the temple of Amen-Ra, king of the gods, servant of the temple of Ramses II in the temple of Amen, Nesipkhashuti, son of Beken-Khonsu. The superior of the funeral hall had said in the presence (of the king) what was the condition (of the mummies) and that they had suffered no damage in being taken from the tomb where they were, and transported to the tomb of the lady An … of the great dwelling where King Amenhotep rests in peace.”
The inscription of Ramses II differs from the preceding only in the opening words: “In the year XVI, of the 4th month of Pirt, the VII, the day of the exhuming of King User-maat-Ra-sotep-en-Ra, the great god of the tomb of King Men-maat-Ra, Seti Miptah.” The rest is similar in every point to the text of Seti I.
The inscription of Ramses I is much mutilated; but what has been preserved permits us to restore a formula at the commencement, which is intermediary between the formula of Seti I and that of Ramses II. “(The year XVI, of the 4th month of Pirt, the VII, under) King Se-Amen, (day of) the exhuming of (the King Men-pehtet-Ra L. H. S.) from the (tomb of King Men-maat-Ra) Seti Miptah (to bring it into this tomb) of the lady An … of the (great) dwelling (where the King Amen) hotep (rests) in peace, etc.”
The three bodies, carried at different periods to Seti’s hypogee, were taken thence all three in one day. This identity in time explains why, in the second part of each inscription, the scribe has always made use of the plural number to express the condition of the mummy: he placed on each of the coffins the formula which applied to all three.
The other coffins of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties bear no inscriptions, but I have no doubt that at about the same time they were the object of frequent visits. One certain fact seems to me to result from the reports: by the close of the XXth Dynasty the bodies of Seti I, Ramses I, Ramses II, and Tehutimes I were no longer in their own tombs, and not yet in the hidden chamber where they were discovered: they were carried from place to place and their funerary appointments restored at fairly short intervals. What was the motive for so often taking the trouble to verify this condition?
The documents which have come down to us from the last kings of the XXth Dynasty give us some idea of an epoch of decadence. Egypt, exhausted by six centuries of conquest, no longer possessed the strength necessary to retain her dominion over the provinces in Syria, and was losing with them the best part of her revenue. The great towns of the Delta--Memphis, Tanis, Saïs--standing on the natural highway of Asiatic commerce, did not suffer greatly from this political diminution of the country; but Thebes, which was situated in the interior, at a distance from the great commercial routes, and had owed the prosperity she enjoyed to conquest alone, grew poorer and rapidly declined. Constructive works were for the most part suspended for want of supplies; and the labouring population, ill-paid from the royal treasure, began to feel the pangs of hunger. Hence proceeded strikes and daily disorders, which the overseers of the workshops recorded in their note-books; and then pillage and theft.
Bands were organised, in which civil employees, officers, workmen, even women, figure indiscriminately, and these set to work to exploit the necropolis. They forced the doors of the tombs, that they might carry off the objects of value, the jewels, furniture, and gorgeous arms which the piety of relatives had deposited with the corpses.
Soon, not content with attacking private individuals, they ventured to lay their hands upon the kings. The government of Ramses made vain attempts to stop their depredations. An inquiry, opened in the XVIth year of Ramses IX, informs us that the king’s commissioners found one royal tomb violated for every ten that they were authorised to visit. It is curious that one of the hypogees examined belonged to a prince whose mummy we found in the secret chamber of Deir-el-Bahari, namely Amenhotep I; it was still intact.
The report of the opening of the tomb of Sebekhotep [VI] tells us in what the booty of the thieves consisted: “We opened the coffins of the king and his wife, Queen Nubkhas, as well as the funeral caskets in which they lay. We found the august mummy of the king, and beside it his sword, as well as a considerable number of talismans, and ornaments of gold about his neck. The head was covered with gold, and gold was scattered all over the mummy: the coffins were plated with gold and silver within and without, and incrusted with all kinds of stones. We took the gold which we found on the mummy, as well as the talisman and the ornaments of the neck and the gold of the coffins. We likewise took all we could find on the royal spouse, then we burned their funeral caskets and we robbed them of their furniture, which consisted of vases of gold or silver and of bronze, and we divided them among us in eight portions.” One might fancy he was reading the description of that mummy of Queen Aah-hop, whose jewels now form an ornament of the museum at Bulaq.
Let us now examine the condition of the coffins and mummies found at Deir-el-Bahari. Seqenen-Ra, Aahmes and his son Se-Amen, Nefert-ari, and Aah-hotep are certainly in their original coffins, as is proved by the style and the absence of inscriptions indicating a restoration. Amenhotep I and Tehutimes II appear to have retained only the covers of their original coffins; the case is of wood, very roughly shaped, and in order to introduce the mummy of Tehutimes II, it has been found necessary to reduce the thickness of the sides at the level of the shoulders. The inscriptions assert that the wrappings have been renewed: this may have been as much because they were worn out in the natural course of things as because of the violence of human hands, and the restoration does not in itself prove that the mummy has suffered by thieves. But do not the two false mummies of Princess Meshent-themhu and the Princess Set-Amen furnish us with proof of a violation analogous to that to which King Sebekhotep and his wife Nubkhas were subjected?
The robbers, after breaking open Sebekhotep’s coffin, had dispersed the bones of the king, and the tomb was empty. Something similar must certainly have occurred in the case of the Princess Meshent-themhu. The coffin was broken open, and the inscription which it bore, inlaid with blue enamel, partly disappeared; for it was necessary, as I have shown above, to restore it roughly in ink. As for the bones, they had disappeared: probably the thieves, fearing they might be disturbed in their sacrilegious work, made haste to carry off the mummy with them; then abandoned it, once it had been despoiled, in some place where no one thought of looking for it. On the other hand, religion did not allow that the disembodied soul could enjoy a full existence in the other world if the body it had owned during its earthly life should completely disappear.
In default of the real body, the commissioners charged to inspect and restore the tombs adopted the plan of manufacturing the semblances of bodies for Seti and Meshent-themhu. A fragment of broken coffin simulated the bust of Meshent-themhu, a bundle of rags the head, another bundle of rags the feet, and the whole, duly encased in wrappings, was deposited in the coffin, which was more or less carefully restored. Was the soul satisfied at recognising the counterfeit body?
For my part I am very glad to have discovered, thanks to that pious fraud, the principal, if not the only, reason for the collection of so many royal mummies in one place.
It was to save the dead Pharaohs from thieves that it was decided to hide them away. It was hoped that a pit, thirty-eight yards deep, followed by a narrow corridor of two hundred and fifty feet, would protect them from profanation; and experience has proved that the reckoning was not so far out, since centuries rolled away from the day that they were deposited there, before that on which the Arabs of Sheikh Abd-el-Gurnah discovered the hiding-place.
Some Egyptologists will, at first sight, be amazed at the rude character of this supposed tomb, and will object that it is a far cry from a chamber without ornament and roughly hollowed out of the rock, to the magnificent hypogees of Biban-el-Moluk. I answer that the difference between the tombs is not greater than the difference between the kings. Amenhotep III, Ramses II, even Ramses V and Her-Hor, reigned over all Egypt, over Ethiopia, over at least a part of Syria, and had command of the men and money needful to hew out and decorate immense syringes.[9]
Painet´-em II and the people of his family possessed only the poorest region of Egypt and Nubia: it was as much as they could do to secure their mummies the same burial as that of the wealthier men of their time. No more special monuments for each of the dead, but one common vault for all; no more immense sarcophagi in hard stone, but mere coffins in polished wood, sometimes stolen from earlier kings or private persons. There is nothing which more clearly marks the decadence of Thebes than this increasing poverty of the last Theban kings.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[7] [Vases with tops of human forms or divinities, used to hold the entrails of embalmed bodies.]
[8] [Hieratic writing is a modified form of hieroglyphics.]
[9] [Syringes (plural of syrinx) are narrow and deep rock tunnel-tombs.]
VII. THE PERIOD OF DECAY
[XIXTH-XXVTH DYNASTIES: ca. 1285-655 B.C.]
And the Lord shall smite Egypt; he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.
In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.--Isaiah xix. 22, 23.
* * * * *
So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.--Isaiah xx. 4.
After the summit, the inevitable decline. The first of world powers under the Ramessides, Egypt again becomes degenerate, and, after some five hundred years of reanimation, passes into the power of the priests, who in turn are supplanted by invading hosts, this time from Ethiopia. Then the Assyrian conquerors, taking their turn at world-domination, invade Egypt along the route which Tehutimes and Ramses had followed of old in invading Assyria. Dismembered Egypt falls an easy prey to Esarhaddon. It revolts under Asshurbanapal again and again, and is as often reconquered. But a mixed population of Ethiopians and Assyrians again gives a certain measure of new vitality to the old body, and, the destruction of the Assyrian empire having rid the Egyptians of one of their enemies, they were presently able, under Psamthek I (Psammetichus), to overthrow the Ethiopian “usurpers,” and establish once more a “native” dynasty.
For about three-quarters of a century Egypt retained autonomy, and even struggled back to a shadow of its old-time power, illustrating once again the vitality that resides in an old stock. Then the final coup was given by Cambyses the Persian; and the last contest was over. Taken by themselves, these long-drawn-out struggles of a dying nation--extending over half a thousand years--are full of interest; but in the comparative scale they are unimportant. We have seen the great nation at its flood-tide of power, and we need not dwell at very great length upon the time of its ebbing fortunes; for other nations, off to the east, have now taken the place of Egypt as the world-centres, and are beckoning attention.[a]
MENEPTAH
[Sidenote: [ca. 1285-1250 B.C.]]
The disappearance of the old hero, Ramses II, did not produce many changes in the condition of affairs in Egypt. Meneptah from this time forth possessed as Pharaoh the power which he had previously wielded as regent. He was now no longer young. Born somewhere about the beginning of the reign of Ramses II, he was now sixty, possibly seventy, years old; thus an old man succeeded another old man at a moment when Egypt must have needed more than ever an active and vigorous ruler. The danger to the country did not on this occasion rise from the side of Asia, for the relations of the Pharaoh with his Kharu [Phœnician] subjects continued friendly, and, during a famine which desolated Syria, he sent wheat to his Hittite allies.
The nations, however, to the north and east, in Libya and in the Mediterranean islands, had for some time past been in a restless condition, which boded little good to the empires of the Old World. The Tamahu, some of them tributaries from the XIIth, and others from the first years of the XVIIIth Dynasty, had always been troublesome, but never really dangerous neighbours. From time to time it was necessary to send light troops against them, who, sailing along the coast or following the caravan routes, would enter their territory, force them from their retreats, destroy their palm groves, carry off their cattle, and place garrisons in the principal oases--even in Siwa itself. For more than a century, however, it would seem that more active and numerically stronger populations had entered upon the stage. A current of invasion, having its origin in the region of the Atlas, or possibly even in Europe, was setting toward the Nile, forcing before it the scattered tribes of the Sudan.
Who were these invaders? Were they connected with the race which had planted its dolmens over the plains of the Maghreb? Whatever the answer to this question may be, we know that a certain number of Berber tribes--the Libu and Mashauasha--who had occupied a middle position between Egypt and the people behind them, and who had only irregular communications with the Nile Valley, were now pushed to the front and forced to descend upon it.
The Libu might very well have gained the mastery over the other inhabitants of the desert at this period, who had become enfeebled by the frequent defeats which they had sustained at the hands of the Egyptians. At the moment when Meneptah ascended the throne, their king, Marajui, son of Did, ruled over immense territory.
A great kingdom had risen capable of disturbing Egyptian control. The danger was serious. The Hittites, separated from the Nile by the broad breadth of Phœnicia, could not directly threaten any of the Egyptian cities: but the Libyans, lords of the desert, were in contact with the Delta, and could in a few days fall upon any point in the valley they chose. Meneptah, therefore, hastened to resist the assault of the Westerners, as his father had formerly done that of the Easterners; and, strange as it may seem, he found among the troops of his new enemies some of the adversaries with whom the Egyptians had fought under the walls of Kadesh sixty years before. The Shardana, Lycians, and others, having left the coasts of the Delta and the Phœnician seaports, owing to the vigilant watch kept by the Egyptians over their waters, had betaken themselves to the Libyan littoral, where they met with a favourable reception. Whether they had settled in some places, and formed there those colonies of which a Greek tradition of a more recent age speaks, we cannot say. They certainly followed the occupation of mercenary soldiers, and many of them hired out their services to the native princes, while others were enrolled among the troops of the king of Kheta or of the Pharaoh himself. Marajui brought with him Achæans, [Aqauasha], Shardana, Turisha, Shakalisha, and Lycians in considerable numbers when he resolved to begin the strife.
This was not one of those conventional little wars which aimed at nothing further than the imposition of the payment of a tribute upon the conquered, or the conquest of one of their provinces. Marajui had nothing less in view than the transport of his whole people into the Nile Valley, to settle permanently there as the Hyksos had done before him. He set out on his march toward the end of the fourth year of the Pharaoh’s reign, or the beginning of his fifth, surrounded by the élite of his troops, “the first choice from among all the soldiers and all the heroes in each land.” The announcement of their approach spread terror among the Egyptians. The peace which they enjoyed for fifty years had cooled their warlike ardour, and the machinery of their military organisation had become somewhat rusty. The standing army had almost melted away; the regiments of archers and charioteers were no longer effective, and the neglected fortresses were not strong enough to protect the frontier.
As a consequence, the oases of Farafrah and of the Natron lakes fell into the hands of the enemy at the first attack, and the western provinces of the Delta became the possession of the invader before any steps could be taken for their defence. Memphis, which realised the imminent danger, broke out into open murmurs against the negligent rulers who had given no heed to the country’s ramparts, and had allowed the garrisons of its fortresses to dwindle away. Fortunately Syria remained quiet. The Kheta, in return for the aid afforded them by Meneptah during the famine, observed a friendly attitude, and the Pharaoh was thus enabled to withdraw the troops from his Asiatic provinces. He could with perfect security take the necessary measures for insuring “Heliopolis, the city of Tmu,” against surprise, “for arming Memphis, the citadel of Ptah-Tanen, and for restoring all things which were in disorder; he fortified Pa-Bailos (Bilbeis), in the neighbourhood of the Shakana canal, on a branch of that of Heliopolis;” and he rapidly concentrated his forces behind these quickly organised lines. Marajui, however, continued to advance; in the early months of the summer he had crossed the Canopic branch of the Nile, and was now about to encamp not far from the town of Pa-Arshop (Proposis).
The Pharaoh did not stir from his position. Marajui had, in the meantime, arranged his attack for the 1st of Epiphi, at the rising of the sun: it did not take place however until the 3rd. “The archers of his Majesty made havoc of the barbarians for six hours; they were cut off by the edge of the sword.”
When Marajui saw the carnage, “his heart failed him; he betook himself to flight as fast as his feet could bear him to save his life, so successfully that his bow and arrows remained behind him in his precipitation, as well as everything else he had upon him.” His treasure, his arms, his wife, together with the cattle which he had brought with him for his use, became the prey of the conqueror; “he tore out the feathers from his head-dress, and took flight with such of those wretched Libyans as escaped the massacre, but the officers who had the care of his Majesty’s team of horses followed in their steps” and put most of them to the sword. Marajui succeeded, however, in escaping in the darkness, and regained his own country without water or provisions, and almost without escort. The conquering troops returned to the camp laden with booty, and driving before them asses carrying, as bloody tokens of victory, quantities of hands and phalli cut from the dead bodies of the slain. The bodies of six generals and of 6359 Libyan soldiers were found upon the field of battle, together with 222 Shakalisha, 724 Turisha, and some hundreds of Shardana and Aqauasha [Achæans]; several thousands of prisoners passed in procession before the Pharaoh, and were distributed among such of his soldiers as had distinguished themselves.
Meneptah lived for some time after this memorable year V, and the number of monuments which belong to this period shows that he reigned in peace. We can see that he carried out works in the same places as his father before him--at Tanis as well as Thebes, in Nubia as well as in the Delta. He worked the sandstone quarries for his building materials, and continued the custom of celebrating the feasts of the Inundation, at Silsilis. One at least of the steles which he set up on the occasion of these feasts is really a chapel, with its architraves and columns, and still excites the admiration of the traveller on account both of its form and of its picturesque appearance. The last years of his life were troubled by the intrigues of princes who aspired to the throne, and by the ambition of the ministers to whom he was obliged to delegate his authority. One of the latter, a man of Semite origin, named Ben-Azana, of Zor-bisana, who had assumed the appellation of his first patron Ramses-uparna-Ra, appears to have acted for him as regent. [Chronological reasons demand that we place the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in the reign of this Pharaoh.]
[Sidenote: [ca. 1250-1235 B.C.]]
Meneptah was succeeded, apparently, by one of his sons, called Seti, after his great-grandfather. Seti II had doubtless reached middle age at the time of his accession, but his portraits represent him, nevertheless, with the face and figure of a young man. The expression in these is gentle, refined, haughty, and somewhat melancholy. It is the type of Seti I and Ramses II, but enfeebled and, as it were, saddened. An inscription of his second year attributes to him victories in Asia, but others of the same period indicate the existence of disturbances similar to those which had troubled the last years of his father. Seti died, it would seem, without having time to finish his tomb. We do not know whether he left any legitimate children, but two sovereigns succeeded him who were not directly connected with him, but were probably the grandsons of the Amenmes and the Siptah, whom we meet with among the children of Ramses.
The first of these was also called Amenmes, and he held sway for several years over the whole of Egypt, and over its foreign possessions. The second, who was named Siptah-Meneptah, ascended “the throne of his father,” thanks to the devotion of his minister, Bi, but in a greater degree to his marriage with a certain princess called Ta-user. He maintained himself in this position for at least six years, during which he made an expedition into Ethiopia, and received in audience at Thebes messengers from all foreign nations. He kept up so zealously the appearance of universal dominion that to judge from his inscriptions he must have been the equal of the most powerful of his predecessors at Thebes. Egypt, nevertheless, was proceeding at a quick pace toward its downfall. No sooner had this monarch disappeared than it began to break up.
As in the case of the Egyptians of the Greek period, we can see only through a fog what took place after the deaths of Meneptah and Seti II. We know only for certain that the chiefs of the nomes were in perpetual strife with each other, and that a foreign power was dominant in the country as in the time of Apophis. The days of the kingdom would have been numbered if a deliverer had not promptly made his appearance. The direct line of Ramses II was extinct, but his innumerable sons by innumerable concubines had left a posterity out of which some at least might have the requisite ability and zeal, if not to save the empire, at least to lengthen its duration, and once more give to Thebes days of glorious prosperity.
Egypt had set out some five centuries before this for the conquest of the world, and fortune had at first smiled upon her enterprise. Tehutimes I, Tehutimes III, and the several Pharaohs bearing the name of Amenhotep, had marched with their armies from the upper waters of the Nile to the banks of the Euphrates, and no power had been able to withstand them. New nations, however, soon rose up to oppose her, and the Hittites in Asia and the Libyans of the Sudan together curbed her ambition. Neither the triumphs of Ramses II nor the victory of Meneptah had been able to restore her prestige, or the lands of which her rivals had robbed her beyond her ancient frontier. Now her own territory itself was threatened, and her own well-being was in question; she was compelled to consider, not how to rule other tribes, great or small, but how to keep her own possessions intact and independent; in short, her very existence was at stake.[b]
FROM SETNEKHT TO RAMSES VIII AND MERI-AMEN MERI-TMU
[Sidenote: [ca. 1230-1220 B.C.]]
In the midst of the unsettled state of affairs a new dynasty arose under the leadership of Setnekht, a descendant of Ramses II and governor of Thebes, who with some difficulty succeeded in quelling the rebels and subjugating the Syrian Arisu. “He was like the gods Kheper and Sutekh in his energy, repairing the state of disorder of the whole country, killing the barbarians who were in the Delta, and purifying the great realm of Egypt. He was regent of the two countries on the throne of Tmu (the chief god of Heliopolis) devoting himself so well to the reorganisation of what had been upset, that each one found a brother in every one of those from whom they had been so long separated; and re-establishing the temples and sacrifices so well that the traditional homage was rendered to the divine cycles.”
His son, Ramses III, who had been his co-regent, was the last of the great sovereigns of Egypt. His ambition during the thirty-two years of his reign was to follow in the steps of his namesake, Ramses the Great, in re-establishing the integrity of the empire abroad, and the prosperity of the country at home. But in spite of his father’s successful warfare, the Syrian provinces were lost, and the frontiers encroached upon. On the east, the Bedouins attacked the fortified ports of the Delta, and the mining colonies of Sinai; on the west, the nations of Libya had invaded the Nile. Led by their chiefs Did (probably the son of Marajui, the contemporary of Meneptah), Mashaknu, Zamar, and Zautmar, the Tuhennu, the Tamahu, the Kahaka, and their neighbours, left the sandy plains of the desert and conquered the Mareotic nome or district of the Saïd, at the mouth of the Nile, as far as the great arm of the river, in short all the western part of the Delta from the town of Karbria on the west to the outskirts of Memphis on the south.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1220-1195 B.C.]]
After repulsing the Bedouins, Ramses III turned his arms against the Libyans in the year V and completely conquered them. “They were as terrified as goats attacked by a bull, that tramples with his foot, strikes with his horns, and makes the mountains tremble in his rush upon those that approach him.” The raids of the barbarians had exasperated the Egyptians, they gave no quarter; the Libyans fled in disorder, and some of their tribes, lingering in the Delta, were taken off and incorporated in the auxiliary army.
Scarcely was this trouble over when Ramses attacked Syria. Whilst Egypt was being ruined with civil wars, her old enemy, the Kheta, made her lose the rest of her empire. The nations of Asia Minor, continually pushed forward by the arrival of new races, had left their homes and penetrated into the distant regions of Syria and Egypt, attracted by reports of the riches of those countries; the Danau, the Tyrians, the Shakalisha, the Teucrians, who had succeeded the Dardani in the hegemony of the Trojan nations, and the Lycians and the Philistines joined the confederation. Those on the ships attacked the coasts, and the others crossed Syria and laid siege to the fortresses of the isthmus. With forces increased by the people they subjugated on the way, they penetrated Cilicia, forced the Kati and Kheta [Hittites] to follow them, picked up the contingent of Carchemish, Arathu, and Kadesh, and after staying some time in the environs of this town in the country of the Amorites, pushed straight on to Egypt.
But prompt as this action had been, Ramses was quite prepared to meet it. After having armed the mouth of the Nile and the places of the Delta, he started to oppose the enemy. The encounter of the two armies and the two fleets took place in the year VIII between Raphia and Pelusium under the walls of the castle, called the Tower of Ramses III.
“The mouth of the river was like a mighty wall of ships and vessels of every kind, filled from prow to poop with brave armed men. The infantry soldiers, the picked men of the army of Egypt, were there like roaring lions on the mountains; the charioteers, chosen from the swiftest of heroes, were led by every kind of experienced officers; the horses trembled in every limb and longed to trample nations under foot.
“As for me,” says Ramses, “I was like Mentu, the warlike. I rose before them and they saw the work of my hands. I, the King Ramses, I have acted like a hero, who knows his valour and who stretches his arm over his people in the day of the struggle. Those who have violated frontiers will no longer cultivate the land, the time for their souls to pass into eternity is fixed. Those who were upon the shore were prostrated on the banks of the water, massacred as in a charnel house. I destroyed their vessels, and their goods were swallowed up by the waters.”
Prompt as this victory was, it did not conclude the wars of Ramses III. The Libyans, the old allies of the maritime races, would gladly have joined against Egypt in the year VIII; and if they did not do so, it was doubtless because they had not had time to repair their losses. As soon as they were ready, they reappeared upon the scene, and in the year XI the chief Kapur and his son Mashashal led the Mashauasha [Maxyes], the Sabita, the Kaikasha and other less important tribes, aided by the people of Tyre and Lycia, to the invasion of the Delta.
“For the second time their hearts told them that they would pass their lives in the nomes of Egypt, and that they would till the valleys and plains like their own land.”
But the attempt did not meet with success. “Death came upon them in Egypt for they had run with their own feet to the furnace, which consumes corruption, to the fire of the bravery of the king which descends like Baal from the heights of the skies! All his members are imbued with victorious strength. With his right hand he seizes multitudes; his left extends like arrows over those before him to destroy them; his sword-blade is as sharp as that of his father, Mentu. Kapur, who had come to demand homage, blinded by fear, cast his arms from him and his troops did likewise: he raised a supplicating cry to Heaven and his son supported his arms. But lo, there stood by him the god, who knew his most secret thoughts.
“His Majesty fell upon their heads like a mountain of granite, he crushed them and watered the earth with their blood, their army and their soldiers were massacred … they were taken, they were struck, their arms were tied, and like birds, imprisoned in the hold of a ship, they were in the power of his Majesty. The king was like Mentu, his victorious feet trampled on the heads of the enemy; the chiefs who opposed him were struck and held by the wrists.”
So the Libyans were careful henceforth not to disturb the peace of Egypt.
The victories of these twelve years healed the wounds of the preceding period. A voyage of the fleet along the coasts made the ancient Syrian provinces return to their allegiance and the allied nations of the Kheta [Hittites], of Carchemish and of the Kati, seeing the subjugation of the maritime people, soon followed suit. A second maritime expedition was directed against Arabia.
“I equipped vessels and galleys, armed with numerous sailors and workmen. The captains of the maritime auxiliary forces were there with overseers and managers to provision the ships with the countless products of Egypt. There were tens of thousands of every kind passing through the great sea of Kati. They arrived at the country of the Punt without any misadventure, and prepared to load the galleys and vessels with the products of Tonutir, with all the mysterious wonders of the country, and with considerable quantities of the perfumes of Punt. Their sons, the chiefs of the Tonutir came themselves to Egypt bringing tribute; they came safe and sound to the country of Coptos and landed in the country with their riches. They brought them in caravans of asses and men, and embarked them on the river at the port of Coptos.”
Other expeditions to the peninsula of Sinai restored the mining districts to the possession of Pharaoh. So the Egyptian empire was reconstituted as it was in the preceding century in the time of Ramses II. The Shardana, Tyrians, Lycians, and Trojans no longer landed en masse on the coasts of Africa.
The tide of Asiatic emigration now turned from the valley of the Nile, which had been its direction for the last one hundred and fifty years, towards the west, and inundated Italy, at the same time that the Phœnician colonists arrived there. The Tyrians took the land at the north of the mouth of the Tiber, the Shardana occupied the large island, which later was called Sardinia, and soon nothing remained of them in Egypt but the recollection of their raids and the legendary recital of their migrations from the shores of the Archipelago to the coasts of the western Mediterranean.
The Philistines were the only people of the confederation allowed to settle in Syria, and they took root along the southern coast between Joppa and the river of Egypt, in the districts hitherto peopled by the Canaanites, and there they primarily lived under the yoke of Pharaoh. On the other frontier of the Delta, a Libyan tribe, called Mashauasha, likewise obtained a concession of territory, and the Mashauasha soldiers raised in Libya, from that portion of the tribe encamped on the bank of the Nile, formed a picked corps, the Ma, the leaders of which played a great part in the internal history of Egypt.
Herodotus relates that on the return of Sesostris (the name given by that historian to Ramses II) he was nearly killed by treachery. His brother, to whom he had intrusted the government during his absence, invited him and his children to a great feast; then he surrounded the house with wood and gave orders for it to be set alight. The king, learning this, immediately consulted with his wife, who was with him, and she advised him to take two of their six children and lay them on the burning wood, so that they could use their bodies as a bridge by which to pass over. Sesostris did this, and thus burned two of his children, and the others were saved with the parents.
The monuments have proved that the Sesostris of this legend of Herodotus is not Ramses II but his namesake, Ramses III. One of the brothers of the king mentioned in official documents under the pseudonym of Pen-ta-ur conspired against him with a large number of courtiers and ladies of the harem, with the object of killing Pharaoh and putting his brother in his place. The plot was discovered, the conspirators cited before the tribunals and condemned, some to death and others to perpetual imprisonment.
The last years of the reign of Ramses III were passed in peace. He built at Thebes, in memory of his wars, the great palace of Medinet Habu; he enlarged Karnak and restored Luxor. The details of these pious works in the Delta have been preserved in a manuscript at the library of Heliopolis, the great Harris papyrus.
One sees by this document that Egypt not only regained her foreign empire, but her commercial and industrial activity. The prosperous days of Tehutimes III and Ramses II seemed to have returned.
Nevertheless, the decadence was at hand. Egypt, exhausted by four centuries of perpetual warfare, became more and more incapable of serious effort. The population decimated by recruiting, inefficiently replaced by the incessant introduction of foreign elements, had lost the patience and enthusiasm of early times. The upper classes, accustomed to comfort and riches, now only cared for the civil professions, and thought lightly of what was military.
THE SORROWS OF A SOLDIER
“Why do you say that an infantry officer is happier than a scribe?” asked a scribe of his pupil. “Let me describe to you the lot of an infantry officer, and the extent of his miseries. He is taken when quite a child and shut up in a barrack; a cutting sore forms on his stomach; a wearing pain is in his eye; an open wound is on his two eyebrows; his head is split and covered with matter. In short, he is beaten like a roll of papyrus, he is bruised by the pressure of arms. Come and let me tell you of his marches towards Syria and his campaigns in distant countries. His bread and his water are on his shoulder like an ass’s burden, and make the nape of his neck like that of an ass. The joints of his spine are broken; he drinks putrid water, then returns to his watch. If he reaches the enemy, he trembles like a goose, for he has no valour. If he end by returning to Egypt, he is like a tick consumed by the worm. If he be ill, what alleviation does he have? He is taken away on an ass; his clothes are carried off by robbers; his domestics flee from him. That is the foot-soldier, and the cavalry one is not much better treated. The scribe Amenonopit says to the scribe Penbisit: ‘When this written communication reaches thee, apply yourself to becoming a scribe, and you will rise in the world. Come, let me tell you of the fatiguing duties of a chariot officer:
“‘When he is placed at school by his father and mother, he has to give away two of his slaves. After he dons his uniform, he goes to choose his horses in the stable. In the presence of his Majesty, he takes the good steeds and with shouts of joy wishes to bring them to the town at a gallop. But the horses will not go without a stick. Then, as he does not know what fate awaits him, he bequeaths all his goods to his father and mother. He goes off then with a chariot, but its pole weighs more than twice the weight of the chariot. So when he wishes to gallop with this chariot, he is forced to get down and pull it. He does so, falls on to a reptile, slips into the brushwood, his legs are bitten by the reptile, his heel is pierced by the bite, his misery is extreme. He lies on the ground and receives a hundred blows.’”
And these lines were written in the reign of Ramses II to the sound of songs of triumph, when the populace were full of enthusiasm for victory, and followed the triumphal chariot of Pharaoh with acclamations of delight. The first intoxication over, the lower classes, exhausted by centuries of incessant warfare, crushed under the weight of tributes and taxes, lapsed into their normal depression, the literature turned the sufferings of the soldiers into ridicule. This weariness of success, this disgust for the bloody, dearly bought victories, explains some obscure points in the history of Egypt, and casts great light on the rapid fall of the edifice so laboriously raised by the princes of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties. The Egypt of Tehutimes III wished for war; the Egypt of Ramses III wished for peace at any price.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1195-945 B.C.]]
This was especially seen to be the case in the course of the XXth Dynasty. In the year XXXII, Ramses, tired of government, called his son Ramses IV to share it. He died two years later, and Ramses IV, after a reign of not more than three or four years, was followed by a distant relation who was Ramses V. Then came the four sons of Ramses III: Ramses VI, Ramses VII, Ramses VIII, and Meri-Amen Meri-Tmu, who succeeded each other rapidly on the throne. These Ramses made some expeditions here and there, but never great wars. They passed their days in peace abroad, and peace at home, and if it be true that people are happy who have no history, Egypt was very happy under their rule.
No more constant struggles, no more distant marches to the mountains of Cilicia and to the plains of the Upper Nile. Syria continued to pay tribute for some time; for if Egypt, exhausted by victory, had scarcely the strength to enforce obedience, Syria was exhausted with defeat, and had no more strength to revolt. But there was this difference between the two countries, the one bordered on old age and never revived, while the other soon rallied from its reverses. The kingdom of Egypt died of exhaustion in full prosperity.[c]
EGYPT UNDER THE DOMINION OF MERCENARIES
The first sign of weakness in an empire seems to be scented. Egypt, decaying within, attracted speedy attention from the ambitious, who turned greedy eyes towards her hoarded wealth.
After the death of Ramses III, Egypt had ceased to exercise any influence upon Syria. A time of increasing inaction and stagnation had set in for Egypt, which at last led to Her-Hor, the Theban high priest, being placed upon the throne. How long Her-Hor ruled over Egypt, we know not, but we see that his son Piankhi and his grandson Painet´em I did not have royal power but only succeeded their father as high priests, and, as such, had uncontrolled power in Thebes and its environs.
[Sidenote: [ca. 1000 B.C.]]
Another ruling house of foreign (Libyan) origin arose at this time in Tanis. King Se-Amen (according to Manetho, Smendes) was its chief. His name is seen on the walls of a temple at Tanis, and upon an obelisk of Heliopolis. He also reigned over Thebes. In the sixteenth year of his reign he had the mummies of Ramses I, Seti I, and Ramses II examined and put in another tomb. He evidently overthrew the dominion of the Theban high priests and forced them to recognise his power.
Thereupon Painet´em I added the title of provost (of Thebes) and commander-in-chief of the South and North, to his dignity of high priest, evidently taking, with the Tanitic kings, a position similar to that of Her-Hor with Ramses XII. Se-Amen’s son, Pasebkhanu (Greek, Psousennes), seems to have gone a step farther; he overcame the party of the Theban priests, and gave the office of chief priest to one of his sons, who, like the grandson of Her-Hor, had, or took, the name of Painet´em II. A few short reigns, among which were those of the Amenemapt, also recognised in Thebes, seem to have followed that of Pasebkhanu I; and then Painet´em ascended the throne.
As “high priest of Amen” at Thebes, and commander-in-chief, he invested his sons Masaherta and Men-kheper-Ra and then Painet´em (III), the son of the latter, with power; and Hor-Pasebkhanu II seems to have succeeded him in Tanis. The rule of the Tanites seems to have lasted about 120 years (from about 1060 to 943 B.C.).
The kingdom, or at all events the part of the country governed by the priests of Amen, was certainly not well organised, for we have several accounts of embezzlements of the properties of the temple of Amen by the stewards and scribes, of the robbing of graves, etc. The constant necessity of removing the mummies of the early kings in the west part of Thebes from their magnificent tombs into secret caves, shows the weakness of the government.
Moreover, the great state trials were conducted on a very simple system. The question Guilty or Not Guilty was put to the statue of Amen, which gave its verdict by the mouth of an oracle.
One sees how perfectly realised is the idea of God’s rule in practice. Doubtless the theory was at this time evolved in Thebes, later in Ethiopia, that the king was not only obliged to consult the oracle in all his acts, but also that he was appointed and could be deposed by the oracle.
The title of commander-in-chief borne by the Theban priests, seems to distinguish them as commanders of the soldiers taken from the Egyptian peasants in contradistinction to the mercenaries which, since Seti I, composed the chief part of the army. This force was partially furnished by those domiciled in the country, and partially by fresh supplies from Libya.
There was thus formed in the country an exclusive set similar to the Mamelukes, which held the fate of the country in its hand, and which bequeathed the martial profession from father to son.
These mercenaries were classed together under the name of Ma, derived from the contraction of the Libyan name Mashauasha. We soon see from the surnames of the warriors that the Libyans attained ascendance over them; and although the repeated attacks of the Libyans on Egypt were successfully repulsed, they were now in fact rulers of the country.
It is noteworthy that the corps of the Shardana, so often mentioned in more ancient times, is no more spoken of; it must have been absorbed in the mass of the other soldiers. But the name of Mashau has been retained, and in Coptic matoei is still a common name for soldier. One can easily understand that they had frequent opportunities of gaining wealth and land; and the kings granted them exemption from the land tax. At their head stood the “dukes of the Ma,” the grand-duke of the Ma having the chief command. But many of such generalissimi may have had equal rank.
[Sidenote: [ca. 945-800 B.C.]]
Buiu-uaua, a Libyan, came to Egypt about Her-Hor’s time. His family attained great importance; his fifth descendant, Naromath [Nimrod] was made “grand-duke of the Ma and Generalissimo” sometime under King Painet´em. After his death his son Shashanq succeeded him as commander of the army. An inscription at Abydos shows in what honour he was held, how the king looked after his father’s grave, questioned the oracle at Thebes on his behalf, and prayed God for the victory of the general. It is conceivable that Shashanq ended by trying to gain the crown for himself, 943 (?) B.C.
By peaceable or violent means he was the successor of Hor-Pasebkhanu II, the last Tanite, whose daughter Ka-Ra-maat he married to his son Uasarken, to give support to his dynasty. According to the ruling custom of the Tanites he made Auputh, another of his sons, high priest of Amen and commander-in-chief of all the military forces. By the inscriptions he seems to have been co-regent with his father.
Under the subsequent rulers it remained a custom for one of the king’s sons to be endowed with the highest priestly power in Thebes, and also the priesthood of Ptah at Memphis was given to a branch of the royal family, and the other princes were priests as well as generals.
Moreover, Shashanq seems to have brought forward the descendants of the Ramses, for we find a Ramses prince occupying a high military post under him.
The history of the Hebrews shows that the Pharaohs of the XXIst Dynasty were not in a condition to take part in Asiatic affairs. It was early in Solomon’s reign that the king of the period, probably Pasebkhanu II, entered into relations with the Israelitish state, took Gaza for Solomon and gave it to his daughter as a dowry, and also gave refuge to political fugitives like Jeroboam and Hadad of Edom to leave a loophole for intervention.
The separation of Judah from Israel and the subsequent long civil war offered an opportunity to renew the expeditions into Syria. So Shashanq repaired to Syria in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam. The scanty remains of the annals of the Hebrew kings only report that he carried off the treasures of the temple and palace at Jerusalem; that is, the golden shields which Solomon had hung up there. The long list of the conquered places upon a wall of the temple of Karnak shows that Israelitish strongholds were likewise conquered and plundered.
The Pharaoh hardly met with any great resistance anywhere. The inscription of his victory contains, according to the fashion of the time, only religious phrases instead of an account of the war. The expedition was nothing more than a predatory raid for booty; it had no political consequences, and it is quite a mistake to think it was undertaken in the interest of Jeroboam against the king of Judah.
The increase of the Egyptian power, consequent on the accession to the throne of the new dynasty, was of short duration. The successors of Shashanq I--Uasarken I, Takeleth I, Uasarken II, Shashanq II, Takeleth II--are only mentioned by name on the monuments. In Thebes they enlarged the entrance hall of the temple of Amen, begun by Shashanq I. We find further traces of them at Bubastis, the cradle of the dynasty, at Memphis, and elsewhere.
[Sidenote: [ca. 800-735 B.C.]]
The state gradually fell into complete decay under them. The chief generals of the Ma, perhaps partially belonging to the branch lines of the house, founded their own princedoms and shook off the Bubastites. Shashanq III, the successor of Takeleth II, is the last whose name we find in Thebes, where a long and very mutilated inscription of the twenty-ninth year of his reign speaks of gifts which he brought to Amen. Then it seems as if the southern portion of the country was taken by the Ethiopians.
Shashanq III reigned fifty-two years altogether. Then came his son Pamai, who reigned at least two years, and his grandson Shashanq IV, who reigned at least thirty-seven years, until about 735 B.C. We only know of these kings by their being mentioned on several of the monuments to the honour of the Apis bulls which died in their reigns. So their supremacy must at least have been recognised for a time in Memphis. But their dominion must have been limited to the province of Busiris. King Piankhi of Ethiopia mentions in his great inscription a grand-duke of the Ma, Shashanq of Busiris, and his successor Pamai, who, presumably, were identical with Shashanq III and Pamai. At the time of this conqueror, about 775 B.C., we find near them a king Nimrod of Hermopolis, a ruler Peftotbast of Heracleopolis Magna, who bore the king’s ring, a king Auputh of the Delta cities Tentremu and Ta-an, and a king Uasarken (III) of Bubastis. The latter probably belongs to the Manethan XXIIIrd Dynasty which came from Tanis, and, according to Africanus, ascended the throne about 823 B.C. Manetho mentions Petasebast as its founder, and he was succeeded by Uasarken, who is presumably the aforementioned Uasarken III. Manetho evidently did not regard the last rulers of the XXIInd Dynasty as legitimate, so, although they are mentioned, they are not included in the chronology.
By the side of these “kings” there are, moreover, numerous princes (Ur) of the Ma, designated in other cases as lords (rpa) or nomarchs (ha). Independent rulers in the few provinces of the Delta, in Athribis, Mendes, Sebennytus, Saïs, etc., and the provost of Letopolis bore the title of high priest.
These leading men came mostly from the leaders of the mercenaries, and their possessions and power constantly tottered. It is very possible that the single states formed a slack political confederation, and it is probable that the descendants of the old ruling house were recognised as the chief feudal lords, while those rulers who usurped the title of king laid claim to complete independence.
THE ETHIOPIAN CONQUEST
[Sidenote: [ca. 1000-775 B.C.]]
At the time when a great conquering kingdom was forming itself on the upper Tigris and began to lay hold on all sides around it, the power of the Pharaohs in the Nile Valley completely went down. The kingdom of Tehutimes III had been divided into a succession of small independent principalities and was ruled by dynasties which had arisen from the leaders of the mercenaries. On the other hand, in the upper valley of the Nile, in the lands first joined to Egypt in the time of Usertsen III and afterwards for five centuries by Tehutimes I, there arose the powerful kingdom of Cush (Greek Æthiopia, now Nubia). Its capital was Napata in the Gebel Barhal, “the sacred mountain,” at the foot of which Amenhotep III had already founded a great sanctuary to the Theban Amen. By its long connection with Egypt, Egyptian culture was completely naturalised in Ethiopia. Egyptian was the official language, the writing was in hieroglyphics, the styling of the kings was after that of the Pharaohs. Above all, the Egyptian, and especially the Theban, religion of Amen gained complete dominion in Cush. In the name of Amen the kings went to battle; they were fully dependent on his instructions and oracles; they carefully observed the laws on outer cleanliness and on the food forbidden by religion. What had remained theory in Egypt, became practice in Ethiopia; a long inscription describes to us how the god himself immediately elects the king through his oracle, and strikingly confirms the accounts of the Greeks. Whence it followed that the priests could command the king in the name of the god to put an end to his life, a prerogative which Ergamenes abolished in the third century B.C. By these circumstances it can be seen why the Egyptian priests described Ethiopia to the Greeks as the Promised Land. From these circumstances it can also be supposed that the rise of the kingdom of Napata was connected with the usurpation of the priests of the Theban Amen at the time of the XXIst Dynasty, an assumption which is confirmed by many of the kings having borne the name of Piankhi, prominent in the family of Her-Hor. After that time there was no question of the rule of the Pharaohs over Cush; so perhaps relatives of the priests of Amen may have founded the Ethiopian town circa 1000 B.C.
When the power of the XXIInd Dynasty became lamed, the kings of Napata could extend their dominion to Upper Egypt. Probably about the end of the reign of Shashanq III, 800 B.C., Thebes may have fallen into their hands; in the first half of the eighth century the valley of the Nile to the vicinity of Hermopolis was under the rule of the Ethiopian king Piankhi. In his time the Prince Tefnekht of Saïs succeeded in subjecting the west part of the Delta in Lower Egypt, in winning Memphis, and in making all the numerous princes, kings, and small lords of the middle and east Delta, “all princes of Lower Egypt who wear the feather” (the sign of the warrior casts of the Ma), acknowledge his supremacy. He did not adopt the title of king, probably because he wished to violate as little as possible the relations of rank which existed amongst the mercenary princes. From Memphis he went south, subjected Crocodilopolis, Oxyrhynchus and others, besieged Heracleopolis, the royal residence of Peftotbast, and compelled King Nimrod of Hermopolis to submit. Then Piankhi stepped forward, called to help by the adversaries of Tefnekht. His army conquered a hostile fleet on the Nile, drove Tefnekht back at Heracleopolis, besieged Nimrod in Hermopolis, and seized a number of small places. Then the king himself appeared at the seat of war; he compelled Nimrod to capitulate, and received rich presents from him. After the fall of Hermopolis, all the small places subjected themselves, only Memphis had to be taken by storm, after a plan of Tefnekht to relieve it had failed. Then Piankhi advanced to the Delta; small princes hastened together before him to swear allegiance and bring him rich gifts. Thus Tefnekht was no longer strong enough to assert his position; Piankhi may also have had misgivings as to waging a dangerous war in the west Delta. He contented himself with Tefnekht’s taking the oath of allegiance in the presence of the ambassador of the Ethiopian king and sending him presents after being promised safety.
[Sidenote: [ca. 775-704 B.C.]]
The campaigns of Piankhi, which fell in the year XXI of his reign (circa 775 B.C.), do not seem to have resulted in a lasting subjection of Egypt. If the vassal king Uasarken (III) of Bubastis was the second ruler of the XXIIIrd Dynasty, the Ethiopians must by that time have been expelled from Upper Egypt; for we meet with the third ruler of this house, Psamus, in two small inscriptions in the temple of Karnak. In the monuments Manetho lets him be succeeded by an unauthenticated king, Zet. Then follows the XXIVth Dynasty, which, according to him, only consists of the Saïte Bakenranf (probably 733-729 B.C.), who, according to the reliable Greek reports, was a son of Tnephachthus, that is to say, of Tefnekht, Piankhi’s adversary. In tradition he is praised as a wise prince and great legislator; from the monuments we only know that in his sixth year, an Apis was placed in the same sepulchral chamber with one that died under Shashanq IV; according to this he probably succeeded the last title-bearing king of the XXIInd Dynasty, but must already have reigned for some time previously in Saïs.
In Ethiopia, Piankhi (it is not known whether after one or more interregnums) was followed by Kashta, who was married to Shepenapet, a daughter of King Uasarken, probably Uasarken III of Bubastis. His son Shabak repeated the expedition to Egypt, conquered Bakenranf,--according to Manetho he burnt him alive,--and compelled the local dynasties to acknowledge his supremacy (728 B.C.). He took the title of a king of Egypt, but as real rulers of the land he established his sister Ameniritis and her husband, Piankhi (II?). We often meet with Shabak and his sister in the temples of Thebes, likewise in Hammamat and elsewhere; an exquisite alabaster statue of the queen has been found in Karnak. Greek tradition asserts that the Ethiopian king reigned very mildly over Egypt, executions never took place, criminals were made to build canals and dams. But a fixed and uniform dominion was never practised by the Ethiopians over Egypt. As in the time of Piankhi, the local dynasties remained in possession of their dominions, and amongst them in all probability also the successors of Tefnekht and Bakenranf in Saïs, the ancestors of the XXVIth Dynasty.
Although in the year 725 (II Kings xvii. 4) and in 720 (Annals of Sargon), Shabak is called “King of Egypt,” yet in 715 Sargon speaks of the tribute of “Pharaoh, King of Egypt”; in 711 he mentions the same together with the King of Melukhkha (i.e. Cush), and in Sennacherib’s time the “Kings of Egypt” appear together with “the troops of the King of Melukhkha.”
Numerous battles for the possession of the Lower Nile occupied the reigns of Shabak and his successors; it made it impossible for them to take part in the affairs of Asia, no matter how much they desired done.
[Sidenote: [ca. 704-672 B.C.]]
Shabak of Cush and Egypt was succeeded in the year 716 (?) by Shabatakh who, according to Manetho, was his son, and of whom only scattered monuments have been preserved in Karnak and Memphis. But in the year 704 he was succeeded by a younger, more vigorous prince, Tirhaqa. The latter appears not to have belonged to the royal family, but to have acquired the throne by marriage with the wife of Shabak and to have seized the government in the name of the latter’s son, Tanut-Amen; in Karnak the two conjointly raised a temple to Osiris Ptah, and are here both called kings in exactly the same terms. Tirhaqa was twenty years old when he obtained the double crown. The numerous princes of the Egyptian cities acknowledged his supremacy, and he was able to turn his attention to renewing Shabak’s interference in Syria. A number of Syrian princes were ready to join the liberator from the Assyrian yoke, especially Elulæus of Tyre, Hezekiah of Judah, who, in the year 714, had succeeded Ahaz, and Zidqa of Askalon. King Padi of Ekron remained faithful to the Assyrians, but his magnates revolted against him and delivered him up to Hezekiah. It might have been hoped that Sennacherib would be detained for a long time in Babylonia. We learn that Merodach-baladan had opened negotiations with Hezekiah, so that a great coalition against Assyria seems to have been planned.
Yet this time also the Assyrians were able to forestall their adversaries. Before their preparations were completed, in the beginning of 701, Sennacherib appeared in Syria and turned first against Elulæus. Sidon, Sarepta, Akko, and the other towns subject to him submitted, and he himself fled to Cyprus. From Phœnicia, Sennacherib marched to Philistia, having received in every way the homage of those vassals who had remained loyal. Zidqa of Askalon was captured, his towns reduced, and a new king set up. Then, the Great King further informs us, he marched against Ekron, when the army of the King of Cush (Assyrian, Melukhkha) and the princes of Egypt came to its assistance. At Altaku he defeated this force, took that city and Timnath, reduced Ekron where he punished the instigator of the rebellion, and restored King Padi, who had been taken as a prisoner to Jerusalem.
Trusting in Pharaoh and in Jehovah, Hezekiah persisted in resisting. Meantime the army of Tirhaqa, King of Cush, marched up. Sennacherib advanced against him and again demanded the surrender of Jerusalem. But Hezekiah, trusting in Jehovah’s word as announced to him by the prophet Isaiah, once more refused. In the night the Mal’ak-Yahveh (the angel of the Lord) smites the Assyrian army, so that 185,000 men die, and Sennacherib had to return to Nineveh.
[Sidenote: [ca. 672-663 B.C.]]
The Egyptians gave Herodotus a similar account: after the Ethiopian Sabaco [Shabak], a former priest of Ptah, Sethos, who had been at enmity with the warrior caste, ruled over Egypt. Now when Sennacherib, “King of the Arabians and Assyrians,” made an expedition against Egypt, the warriors refused to fight, and Sethos was in great distress. But the gods sent field-mice against the hostile army which was encamped at Pelusium, and the mice gnawed the bows and all the leather trappings of the enemy, so that on the following day they could easily be defeated by the Egyptian artisans and merchants that had been impressed into service.
We can never be completely clear as to what did happen, especially so long as the position of the places mentioned is not positively ascertained. This much is established, that although Sennacherib may have exaggerated the importance of the victory at Altaku, he did not suffer defeat at the hands of the Egyptians. For in that case Tirhaqa would have followed up his victory--while, as a matter of fact, he did not again interfere in Syria for the space of thirty years--and the Egyptians would have spoken of a victory and not of a miracle. It is much more likely that it was some natural visitation, presumably a pestilence, which compelled Sennacherib to give up the invasion of Egypt and raise the siege of Jerusalem. There was, however, no further hope of aid from Egypt, so Hezekiah made his peace with the Great King and sent to his capital the heavy contribution which could, only with great difficulty, be raised by the little city. In spite of the half compulsory retreat, the supremacy over Syria was secured; during the next decades none of the petty states ventured to dream of a revolt from the Assyrian. It was not till towards the end of his reign, after 672 B.C., that Esarhaddon undertook a great campaign. Again had rebellion broken out in Syria in reliance on Ethiopian support: King Baal of Tyre had renounced his allegiance. Esarhaddon determined to find some means of putting an end to the ever-recurring danger. Tyre was blockaded anew, but the main army marched straight on Egypt. The prince of the desert Arabs furnished camels, and the toilsome march from Raphia to Pelusium was successfully accomplished. We do not know whether Tirhaqa was in a position to offer resistance; at all events Memphis was taken, and the Assyrian army penetrated as far as Thebes. Tirhaqa had to retreat to Ethiopia, and the numerous provincial princes of Egypt submitted, and were confirmed in possession as tributary vassals. No less than twenty of them are mentioned as being summoned to Thebes from the Delta and the towns of Upper Egypt. The most powerful amongst them was Neku, the lord of Saïs and Memphis (according to Manetho 671-664 B.C.), whose forefathers, Stephinates and Nechepsos, had already risen in power in Saïs, and were probably the direct successors of Tefnekht and Bocchoris (Bakenranf). At the bidding of the Assyrian king, Neku had to change the name of Saïs into Karbilmatati, “garden of the lord of the countries”; in the same way his son Psamthek received the Assyrian name of Nabu-shezib-anni. From this time Esarhaddon styles himself “King of the Kings of Misir (Lower Egypt), Patoris (Upper Egypt), and Cush.” On the 12th of Airu (April), 668 B.C., Esarhaddon laid down the government. He set his illegitimate son Shamash-shum-ukin over the Babylonian provinces as vice-king, while Asshurbanapal inherited the crown of the Assyrian empire. The change of rulers encouraged Tirhaqa to attempt to win back Egypt. Mentu-em-ha, the governor of Thebes, hailed him as a deliverer. Memphis was also won, and in Thebes restoration works were even taken in hand. But the success was not a lasting one; an army despatched by Asshurbanapal beat the Ethiopian troops, and Tirhaqa had to fly to Thebes but did not manage to hold it (about 667 B.C.). It is true that several Egyptian princes, Neku, Pakruru of Pisept, and Sharludari of Tanis (Pelusium), now attempted to overthrow the rule of the foreigner and bring back Tirhaqa: but the Assyrian generals anticipated them; Neku and Sharludari were taken and the rebel towns severely punished. In Neku, Asshurbanapal hoped to be able to win a firm support for his rule, and presumably on information of warlike preparations in Ethiopia, he released him from his captivity with rich presents and reinstated him in his principality.
[Sidenote: [663-655 B.C.]]
In the year 664-663 Tirhaqa died; he was succeeded by his stepson Tanut-Amen, who was already advanced in years. A dream which promised him the double crown, induced him, so he states in an inscription, to lead his army from Napata against Egypt in the very beginning of his reign. At Thebes he encountered no resistance; before Memphis the enemy’s troops were beaten and the town taken. In one of these engagements Neku, the most powerful of the Assyrian vassals, probably met his death: Herodotus relates that he was slain by the Ethiopian king, and according to Manetho he died 663 B.C. On the other hand, the attempt to conquer the towns of the Delta was unsuccessful: but some of the vassals, including Pakruru of Pisept, presented themselves at the court at Memphis. Tanut-Amen’s inscription tells only of the long theological discourses which the king held before them, and how, after having been well entertained, each returned to his own town. Silence is preserved as to the sequel; from Asshurbanapal’s annals we learn that the feeble prince, who was completely under the dominion of theological fancies, evacuated the country before the Assyrian army, without striking a blow, and returned to his own land. This terminated the Ethiopian rule for all time (about 662 B.C.): Thebes fell again into the hands of the Assyrians and rich booty was carried to Nineveh. The memory of the retreat of the Ethiopians was preserved down to a late period; the priests told Herodotus that Shabak, the representative of the Ethiopian rule, had voluntarily evacuated Egypt after a reign of fifty years, in consequence of a dream. It is true that they omitted to mention that as a result of this the country fell into the hands of the Assyrians.
The following table will assist the reader in straightening out the dynasties of this much confused period.
TABLE OF CONTEMPORANEOUS DYNASTIES
-----+------------------+-----------------+---------------+------------- Dates| XXIInd Dynasty | XXIIIrd Dynasty |XXIVth Dynasty |XXVth Dynasty -----+------------------+-----------------+---------------+------------- B.C. |Bubastites |Tanites |Saïtes |Ethiopians |(From monuments |(From Manetho) | | |at Memphis) | | | | | | | 800 |1. Shashanq III | | | |(52 years) | | | |(Perhaps S-- of | | | |Busiris, of | | | |Piankhi Stele) |Petasebast | | | | | | 775 |2. Pamai (at least|Uasarken III |Tefnekht |Piankhi I |2 years) |(King of Bubastis|(Prince of Saïs| |(Perhaps P-- of |according to |according to | |Busiris, of |Piankhi Stele) |Piankhi Stele) | |Piankhi Stele) | | | | | | | |3. Shashanq IV (at|Psamus | | |least 37 years) |(According to | |Kashta |(About 771-735). |Theban monuments)| |(Husband of | | |4. Bocchoris |Shepenapet, 750 |Predecessor of |Zet |(of Manetho, or|daughter of |Bocchoris |(Total duration |Bakenranf, from|King Uasarken |(Bakenranf) |of this dynasty |the Memphis |[III?]) | |according to |monuments) | | |Africanus, |ruled, |5. Shabak | |89 years. |according |(728-717 | |823-735 B.C.) |to Africanus, 6|[Manetho]; 725 | | |years, 734-726;|brother of | | |according |Ameniritis, | | |to Eusebius, |wife of | | |44 years, |Piankhi II) | | |772-729 [?]) | | | | |6. Shabatakh 700 |XXVIth Dynasty. | | |(716-705 | | | |[Manetho]) |Saïtes | | | |(Figures according| | |7. Tirhaqa |to Manetho) | | |(704-664; | | | |only to 685 | | | |[Manetho]) | | | | 675 |Stephinates, | | |Tanut-Amen |684-687 | | |(664-663; |Nechepsos, 677-672| | |reigned |Neku I, 671-664 | | |12 years | | | |[Manetho]) |8. Psamthek I, | | | |663-610 (Psamthek | | | |I became king | | | |of all Egypt | | | |about 655) | | | -----+------------------+-----------------+---------------+-------------
The numbers 1, 2, etc., show the direct succession of the recognised legitimate Pharaohs.[d]
VIII. THE CLOSING SCENES
[DYNASTIES XXVI-XXXI: 655-332 B.C.]
And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down. They also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.--Ezekiel XXX. 4, 6, 7.
A great nation in its time of decline does not sink into utter insignificance without making spasmodic efforts at recuperation. Such efforts were made by Egypt in the XXVIth Dynasty, when there sat upon the throne of Egypt several monarchs who recalled something of the days of yore. Notable among these were Psamthek I (Psammetichus) and Aahmes II, under whose beneficent rule Egypt was voluntarily opened up to commerce with the outside world. These rulers built no lasting monuments comparable to the Pyramids or the Labyrinth, and attempted no conquests like those of Tehutimes and Ramses. But their reigns were marked by a period of national prosperity such as had not been known in Egypt for several centuries; and they were also notable because at this time the first recorded observations that have come down to us were made by foreigners regarding Egyptian history and the Egyptian people. We shall, therefore, consider some details of this dynasty before passing on to a brief consideration of the reign of the Persians in Egypt and an even briefer analysis of the remaining dynasties. In this sweeping view more than three hundred years are covered. During this period the centres of world-historic influence are shifted from Assyria to Babylonia; from Babylonia to Persia; and thence to Greece; but never again does Egypt occupy her old position. Her reminiscent glory only serves to make her the more coveted as a conqueror’s prize. But first there is the bright spot of Psamthek’s reign.[a]
PSAMTHEK
[Sidenote: [655-612 B.C.]]
It was no longer the time of Tehutimes and Ramses. It was the turn of Egypt to be enslaved, now by the “vile race of the Cushites,” now by the “vile race of the Kheta.” The Egyptian monuments, which register only victories, would not have sufficed to make known to us the history of this troubled epoch; it is only since the Assyrian inscriptions have been deciphered that we have been able to learn of the double conquest of Egypt by Kings Esarhaddon and Asshurbanapal.
The princes of the Delta received investiture from these Asiatic conquerors, for whom they had perhaps less aversion than for the Ethiopian kings. Twice, however, was Egypt reconquered by Tirhaqa and by his successor, Tanut-Amen. But all these successive invasions had broken the bond which attached the nomes to the national unity; all that remained was an Egypt parcelled out like feudal Europe after the invasion of the Northmen.
The princes of the South continued to recognise the authority of the Ethiopian Dynasty; those of the Delta, to the number of twelve, formed a sort of federation which the Greek authors call the Dodecarchy. But at the end of fifteen years, the prince of Saïs, Psamthek, became an object of suspicion to his colleagues. Herodotus tells us the occasion.
“At the very commencement of their reign, an oracle had foretold to them that he amongst them who should make libations in the temple of Hephaistos (Ptah) with a brazen cup, would have the empire of all Egypt. Some time later, as they were on the point of making libations, after having offered sacrifices in the temple, the high priest presented them with cups of gold; but he made a mistake in the number, and instead of twelve cups, he only brought eleven for the twelve kings. Then Psammetichus [Psamthek], who happened to be in the first rank, took his helmet, which was of bronze, and used it for the libations. The other kings, reflecting on his action and on the oracle, and recognising that he had not acted from premeditated design, thought that it would be unjust to put him to death; but they despoiled him of the greater part of his power, and relegated him to the marshes, forbidding him to leave them or to keep up any correspondence with the rest of Egypt.
“Smarting under this outrage, and resolved to avenge himself on the authors of his exile, he sent to Buto to consult the oracle of Leto, the most veracious of the Egyptian oracles. Answer was returned that he would be avenged by men of bronze, coming from the sea. At first he could not persuade himself that men of bronze could come to his aid; but a short time after, some Ionian and Carian pirates, being obliged to put into Egypt, came on shore clothed in bronze armour. An Egyptian ran to carry the news to Psammetichus, and as this Egyptian had never seen men armed in such a manner, he told them that men of bronze, coming from the sea, were pillaging the countryside. The king, perceiving that the oracle was accomplished, made alliance with the Ionians and Carians, and engaged them by large promises to take his part. With these auxiliary troops and the Egyptians who had remained faithful to him, he dethroned the eleven kings.”
Upper Egypt submitted without resistance, and the names of the Ethiopian kings were struck off the Theban monuments. They seem, however, to have retained some partisans, for Psamthek espoused a wife of their race, the means employed by each dynasty to legitimatise its usurpation. He recompensed his auxiliaries by giving them territories near the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, and made them his guard of honour. This was not an innovation; for a long time the kings of Egypt had been wont to take foreigners into their pay, and there is no doubt that there were in the native army many soldiers of Libyan or Ethiopian race; but they were annoyed at the favour shown the newcomers, and emigrated into Ethiopia to the number of two hundred thousand men. Psamthek tried to detain them by appealing to their patriotism, but they struck their lances on their shields and answered that so long as they had arms they would find their own country wherever they chose to establish themselves.
This wholesale desertion was a benefit to Egypt, which it thus relieved from military rule. Conquests lead to inevitable reprisals. Armies, like all privileged classes, end by becoming corrupted, and then, useless in the face of the enemy, they become a heavy burden and an instrument of civil war. Psamthek had no reason to regret these soldiers, who had been unable to repel foreign invasion.
The labours of peace repaired the recent disasters; the temples were rebuilt; the arts shone with a new brilliancy; the whole activity of the nation was turned towards commerce and industry. Psamthek inaugurated a new policy by opening the country to foreigners.
“He received those who visited Egypt with hospitality,” says Diodorus; “he was the first of the Egyptian kings to open markets to other nations, and to give great security to navigators.”
The Greeks, who had helped to conquer the throne, were particularly favoured. Encouraged by the example of the Ionian and Carian adventurers whose services he had paid so well, some Milesian colonists anchored thirty ships at the entrance of the Bolbitinic mouth of the Nile, and there founded a fortified trading establishment. To facilitate commercial relations for the future, Psamthek confided some Egyptian children to the Greeks established in Egypt, that they might learn Greek, and thus arose those interpreters who formed a distinct class in the towns of the Delta. It even appears, according to Diodorus, that Psamthek had his own children taught Greek. The intercourse of the Greeks with the Egyptians became from that time so constant that from the reign of Psammetichus, says Herodotus, we know with certainty all that passed in that country.
The accession of Psamthek and the XXVIth Dynasty is fixed at the year 655 before the Christian era, and it is only from this period that we have certain dates for the history of Egypt. The complete chronology of the XXVIth Dynasty has been recovered in the monuments of the tomb of Apis, discovered by Mariette Bey, in the excavation of the Serapeum of Memphis, and now in the Louvre. This chronology differs somewhat sensibly from that which it had been possible to draw up from Manetho’s lists, so that we are, says De Rougé, obliged to distrust figures preserved in those lists, which a few years ago were regarded as an infallible criterion. An attempt has been made to restore to them the credit they had lost as an instrument of chronology, by attaching to them an undisputed synchronism. According to the calculation of M. Biot, a rising of the star Sothis (Sirius), indicated at Thebes under Ramses III, towards the commencement of the XXth Dynasty, would fall at the beginning of the thirteenth century B.C.
Psamthek had his reign dated from the death of Tirhaqa (664), without taking the Dodecarchy into account, and this is doubtless the reason why Herodotus gives him fifty-four years’ reign, although in reality he reigned only forty-four. He had built the southern pylon of the temple of Ptah at Memphis, and a peristyle court where the Apis bull was fed. The walls were covered with bas-reliefs, and colossi, twelve ells high, took the place of columns; these were probably caryatides like those which are seen at Thebes and Abu Simbel. These structures have disappeared, like all the other buildings of Memphis. The only monuments of the reign of Psamthek which still exist are the twelve columns, twenty-one metres (about sixty-nine feet) high, whose ruins are seen in the first court of the temple of Karnak, where they formed a double rank. One only of these columns is still upright. It is not known whether they were raised to form the centre avenue of a hypostyle hall like that of Seti, or whether they were intended to bear symbolic images which served the Egyptians as military ensigns, such as the ram, the ibis, the sparrow-hawk, the jackal, etc.
Psamthek and his successors, though not residing at Thebes, restored its monuments and repaired the disasters of the Assyrian invasion. In the Louvre and the British Museum there are numerous sculptures of the Saïtic epoch, which is one of the grand epochs of Egyptian art.
In the reign of Psamthek, the Scythians, driving the Cimmerians before them, had invaded Asia and were threatening Egypt. Psamthek preferred to buy their retreat by a money payment, rather than expose the country to the danger of invasion, and the barbarians retraced their steps northward. But in order to protect Egypt on the northeast, it was necessary to have a foothold in Palestine, and Psamthek therefore laid siege to the town of Ashdod.
[Sidenote: [612-594 B.C.]]
This siege, says Herodotus, lasted twenty-nine years, but perhaps, as M. Maspero thinks, Herodotus’ interpreters meant to say that the taking of Ashdod took place in the twenty-ninth year of Psamthek’s reign. His son, Neku II, who succeeded him in 612, desiring to profit by the changes which had supervened in Asia, and to re-establish the dominion of Egypt, gave battle to the Jews and Syrians near Megiddo. Josiah, king of Judah, was killed, his son Jehoahaz, whom the Jews had proclaimed king, was dethroned by Neku, who put in his place Eliakim, another son of Josiah, and remained master of all Syria. But he soon found a redoubtable adversary in front of him, for the kingdom of Babylon had succeeded to that of Nineveh. Beaten by Nebuchadrezzar at Carchemish on the banks of the Euphrates, Neku lost all his conquests and returned precipitately to Egypt.
His name remains connected with an enterprise more important than his military expeditions. Two kings of the XIXth Dynasty, Seti I and Ramses II, had had a canal of communication dug between the eastern branch of the Nile and the Red Sea. But whether it was that this canal had not been finished, or that it was blocked up by the sands, Neku desired to restore it. The canal began a little above Bubastis. According to Herodotus, a hundred and twenty thousand workmen perished in digging it, and Neku had it discontinued in consequence of an oracle, which warned him that he was labouring for the barbarians; an oracle which was accomplished, for the canal was finished by the Persians. In our own day, when it was desired to open direct communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the operations were begun with the restoration of Neku’s canal, to supply fresh water for the workmen who were digging the maritime canal.
After abandoning his project, Neku conceived another which might have had still more important consequences. He sent some Phœnician sailors to make a voyage of circumnavigation round Africa.[b]
“The Phœnicians,” says Herodotus,[e] “having embarked on the Erythræan Sea, sailed into the Southern Sea. As the autumn was come they landed on that part of Libya at which they found themselves, and sowed corn. They then awaited the time of the harvest, and having gathered it again took to the sea. Having voyaged thus for two years, in the third year they doubled the pillars of Heracles and, returning to Egypt, related what I do not believe, but which others may perhaps credit; that whilst sailing round Libya they had the sun on their right.”
Psamthek was well known to classic writers under the name Psammetichus. The old historian Diodorus picturesquely tells of his accession. We prefer to quote the old translation of Booth, 1700.
THE GOOD KING SABACH [SHABAK] AND PSAMMETICHUS
[Sidenote: [728-612 B.C.]]
“After a long time, one Sabach an Ethiopian came to the Throne, going beyond all his Predecessors in his Worship of the Gods, and kindness to his Subjects. Any Man may judge and have a clear Evidence of his gentle Disposition in this, that when the Laws pronounced the severest Judgment (I mean Sentence of Death) he chang’d the Punishment, and made an Edict that the Condemn’d Persons should be kept to work in the Towns in Chains, by whose Labour he rais’d many Mounts, and made many Commodious Canals; conceiving by this means he should not only moderate the severity of the Punishment, but instead of that which was unprofitable, advance the publick Good, by the Service and Labours of the Condemn’d.
“A Man may likewise judge of his extraordinary Piety from his Dream, and his Abdication of the Government; for the Tutelar God of Thebes, seem’d to speak to him in his Sleep, and told him that he could not long reign happily and prosperously in Egypt, except he cut all the Priests in Pieces, when he pass’d through the midst of them with his Guards and Servants; which Advice being often repeated, he at length sent for the Priests from all parts, and told them that if he staid in Egypt any longer, he found that he should displease God, who never at any time before by Dreams or Visions commanded any such thing. And that he would rather be gone and lose his Life, being pure and innocent, than displease God, or enjoy the Crown of Egypt, by staining his Life with the horrid Murder of the Innocent.
“And so at length giving up the Kingdom into the Hands of the People, he return’d into Ethiopia. Upon this there was an Anarchy for the space of Two Years; but the People falling into Tumults and intestine Broyls and Slaughters one of another, Twelve of the chief Nobility of the Kingdom joyn’d in a Solemn Oath, and then calling a Senate at Memphis, and making some Laws for the better directing and cementing of them in mutual peace and fidelity, they took upon them the Regal Power and Authority.
“After they had govern’d the Kingdom very amicably for the space of Fifteen Years, (according to the Agreement which they had mutually sworn to observe) they apply’d themselves to the building of a Sepulcher, where they might all lye together; that as in their Life-time they had been equal in their Power and Authority, and had always carried it with love and respect one towards another; so after Death (being all bury’d together in one Place) they might continue the Glory of their Names in one and the same Monument.
“To this end they made it their business to excel all their Predecessors in the greatness of their Works: For near the Lake of Myris in Lybia, they built a Four-square Monument of Polish’d Marble, every square a Furlong in length, for curious Carvings and other pieces of Art, not to be equall’d by any that should come after them. When you are enter’d within the Wall, there’s presented a stately Fabrick, supported round with Pillars, Forty on every side: The Roof was of one intire Stone, whereon was curiously carv’d Racks and Mangers for Horses, and other excellent pieces of Workmanship, and painted and adorn’d with divers sorts of Pictures and Images; where likewise were portray’d the Resemblances of the Kings, the Temples, and the Sacrifices in most beautiful Colours. And such was the Cost and Stateliness of this Sepulcher, begun by these Kings, that (if they had not been dethron’d before it was perfected) none ever after could have exceeded them in the state and magnificence of their Works. But after they had reign’d over Egypt Fifteen Years, all of them but one lost their Sovereignty in the manner following.
[Sidenote: [655-612 B.C.]]
“Psammeticus Saïtes [Psamthek I], one of the Kings, whose Province was upon the Sea Coasts, traffickt with all sorts of Merchants, and especially with the Phenicians and Grecians; by this means inriching his Province, by vending his own Commodities, and the importation of those that came from Greece, he not only grew very wealthy, but gain’d an interest in the Nations and Princes abroad; upon which account he was envy’d by the rest of the Kings, who for that reason made War upon him. Some antient Historians tell a Story, That these Princes were told by the Oracle, That which of them should first pour Wine out of a brazen Viol to the God ador’d at Memphis, should be sole Lord of all Egypt. Whereupon Psammeticus when the Priest brought out of the Temple Twelve Golden Viols, pluckt off his Helmet, and pour’d out a Wine Offering from thence; which when his Collegues took notice of, they forbore putting him to death, but depos’d him, and banish’d him into the Fenns, bordering upon the Sea-Coasts.[10]
“Whether therefore it were this, or Envy as is said before, that gave Birth to this Dissention and Difference amongst them, it’s certain Psammeticus hir’d Souldiers out of Arabia, Caria and Ionia, and in a Field-Fight near the City Moniemphis, he got the day. Some of the Kings of the other side were slain, and the rest fled into Africa, and were not able further to contend for the Kingdom.
“Psammeticus having now gain’d possession of the whole, built a Portico to the East Gate of the Temple at Memphis, in honour of that God, and incompass’d the Temple with a Wall, supporting it with Colosses of Twelve Cubits high in the room of Pillars. He bestow’d likewise upon his Mercenary Souldiers many large Rewards over and above their Pay promis’d them.”[c]
To return to later and less credulous historians, it will be well to note a more authoritative account of this period.
THE RESTORATION IN EGYPT
[Sidenote: [655-612 B.C.]]
When Asshurbanapal again subjected the petty princes of Egypt, he had favoured none so much as Neku I of Saïs. The latter had fallen in battle against Tanut-Amen; his son Psamthek had sought refuge with the Assyrians and had been brought back to his dominions by them. As soon as circumstances allowed, he threw off the Assyrian yoke, as his father had done before him. At the same time he took up the task begun by Tefnekht, his predecessor and courageous ancestor, of suppressing the petty princes and uniting Egypt. King Gyges of Lydia sent him auxiliaries; they were the Carian and Ionian troops, which, according to Herodotus, landed in Egypt one day and were employed by Psamthek against his rivals. Soon the first mercenaries were followed by others; they formed the backbone of the king’s army.
What took place in the individual fights is not known; that is, we have no knowledge of the battles with the Assyrians. But about the year 655 the object was obtained, Egypt freed and united. So as to establish his rule safely, the king married Shepenapet, daughter of Queen Ameniritis.
The chief opponents of the new ruler were doubtless the mercenaries organised as a warrior caste, the Ma, who had shared the land under the Ethiopian and Assyrian supremacy. Herodotus relates that 240,000 warriors “who stood to the left of the king” had wandered to Ethiopia, under Psamthek, since for three years they were not relieved in the garrisons; the king, who hastened after them, could not persuade them to return. Although the recital is legendary with regard to the immense number, the fact fits in clearly with the history of the times that a considerable number of the warrior caste, who would not submit to the new circumstances, should have left the land, been taken up by the king of Napata and colonised the valley of the Upper Nile.
It has already been mentioned that Psamthek, so as to protect himself against the renewed invasion of the Assyrians, also turned to Asia. As Aahmes I, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, invested Sherohan in Palestine, so for twenty-nine years Psamthek took the field against Ashdod, until he conquered the town. His power does not seem to have extended farther south than the First Cataract. His grandson, Psamthek II, first took the field against Ethiopia. To his time probably belong the inscriptions which Greek, Carian, and Phœnician soldiers have inscribed on the colossi of the temples of Abu Simbel in their mother tongues. Southern Nubia did not remain long conquered. The three strong border fortresses of Elephantine in the south, Daphne in the east, and Marea in the west, essentially determine the limits of Egyptian power.
The new state, in which, after some two hundred years of anarchy, the kingdom of the Pharaohs was again established, was only partly national. The dynasty was, as the name teaches, not of Egyptian origin, but in all probability Libyan. The troops which the princes of Saïs could raise were doubtless for the greater part Libyans, and the particular characteristic was due to the mercenaries who had come across the sea. In future days the Ionians and Carians who were colonised in the “camps” between Bubastis and Pelusium, on that most dangerous east border of the land, were the chief support of the throne; under Uah-ab-Ra [Apries] their number increased to thirty thousand men.
[Sidenote: [612-596 B.C.]]
Thus from the beginning the kings of the restoration, like the Ptolemies, held a much freer position, which raised them far above their predecessors. They, manifestly with intention, held Saïs as residence, although Memphis was honoured as the oldest capital, and structures were built on the ruins of ancient Thebes. With full knowledge they carried on a considerable commerce. Psamthek’s son, Neku II (612-596), began to build a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea; he sent out a Phœnician fleet to circumnavigate Africa, which returned to the Mediterranean three years after its departure from Suez. A fleet was maintained on the Arabian as well as in the Mediterranean Sea.
With the Greeks, who in earlier times came to Egypt only as pirates or were driven there by storm, but now sought to draw all the coasts of the Mediterranean into their commerce, active negotiations were taken up. From trading with them arose the numerous caste of the interpreters. Neku II sends oblations to Brandichæ; to his son, Psamthek II, there came an embassy from Elis; the Egyptian divinities begin to become known to the Greeks: whilst amongst Asiatics closely related to the culture and customs of the Egyptians there reigned active negotiation and a reciprocal influence, the Hellenes, of quite other disposition and more active in commerce, remained strangers to the Egyptians. They were met with suspicion, and restrictions were laid upon them. Aahmes was the first to assign them a place in Naucratis, south of Saïs, where they gained influence and property and could organise themselves as an independent community, but the Greek merchants were forbidden to navigate in any other branch of the Nile.
Internally the XXVIth Dynasty in every sense bears the stamp of restoration. The end of a formidable crisis had come, and the endeavour was made to re-establish conditions as they were conceived to have been of old--that is to say--to introduce the abstract ideal.
Therefore the Egyptians held themselves more aloof from the strangers, most carefully observing all laws as to cleanliness; the god of the strangers and hostile powers, the till-now-honoured Set, was cast out of the Pantheon, his name and image effaced everywhere: also the divinities taken up from the Syrian neighbours, such as Astarte and Anata, completely disappeared. In religion they turned back to the oldest laws; the dead formulas of the tombs of the Pyramids were revived, the worship of the early kings of Memphis, Sneferu, Khufu, Sahu-Ra, was again taken up.
The art of this period is throughout archaic, constituting a period of efflorescence distinguished by excellence and neatness of the forms, but wanting in all originality. In writing, the endeavour is made as far as possible to imitate the old models. Naturally in this manner the relative simplicity and naturalness of the olden times was not reached; the heritage of a thousand years’ development, the endless magic and formal ritual with its wearying system and its dead phrases, is carefully preserved and ever increased. If, according to Greek reports, the Egyptians believed in the transmigration of souls after death into the body of another being, and that, after having gone through all the animals of land and sea and air, they returned to human form after three thousand years, this doctrine, which is nowhere to be found in manuscripts left to us, may have arisen at this time from their view of conditions after death and the consubstantiality of all life. That Egypt which the Greeks learnt to know was a well-preserved mummy of primitive times and served to impress them by its uniqueness and its age, and individually to stimulate, but was no more in a position to awaken a new life.
In the social domain, if we can believe the reports of the Greeks, the separation of classes was brought about. The priesthood was an exclusive caste, and their dignity was hereditary; next to them come the completely exclusive warrior class, consisting of the successors of the Ma, divided into the Calasirians and Hermotybians. Priests as well as warriors are exempt from taxes and in possession of a great part of the agricultural land, which they hire out to peasants for large sums of money. The remaining part of the soil is royal dominion. Far below the privileged classes stands the mass of the people, the labourers, manufacturers, merchants, finally the shepherds of the Delta, of Semitic descent, and the inhabitants of the Delta living on fisheries of the swamps, both of which are considered unclean in Egypt. In theory the principle may also be set down here that every class forms a decided caste; that this was not practically carried through is taught us by the report of Herodotus, II, 147, that the Shepherd race, being unclean, could marry only within itself. From which we may infer that other castes were permitted to intermarry.[d]
THE PERSIAN CONQUEST AND THE END OF EGYPTIAN AUTONOMY
[Sidenote: [596-572 B.C.]]
With the XXVIth Dynasty the curtain was practically drawn for all time on Egyptian autonomy. The recurrent struggle between Asia and Africa was renewed with disastrous consequences to the people of the Nile. We have here to do with the Persian conquest, and in particular with the deeds of Cambyses.
Neku reigned six years according to Manetho, sixteen according to Herodotus, and this latter figure is confirmed by two steles at Florence and Leyden. His son, Psamthek II, whom Herodotus calls Psammis (596), reigned six years and died on his return from an expedition into Ethiopia. It was probably during this expedition that some Greek and Phœnician soldiers carved their names on the leg of one of the colossi of Abu-Simbel.
In the reign of Uah-ab-Ra, the Apries of the Greeks (591), Syria and Palestine were the theatre of important events. The petty people of these countries, threatened by the Chaldean power, tried to save their independence by the help of Egypt.
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, first turned his forces against the kingdom of Judah, which succumbed in spite of Egypt’s tardy and inefficient intervention. Jerusalem was taken, and the people led away to captivity. The Jewish prophets, in their anger against Egypt, announced for it the fate of Judah, and, if we are to believe Josephus, these predictions were accomplished; for Nebuchadrezzar is said to have defeated and killed Uah-ab-Ra and subdued Egypt. But Herodotus and Diodorus say nothing of this defeat, and speak, on the contrary, of a naval victory of Apries over the Phœnicians and Cypriotes. M. Renan’s explorations have brought to light the ruins of a temple raised by the Egyptians at Gebel, a fact which seems to indicate that they remained masters of the country.
Uah-ab-Ra undertook to subdue the Greek colony of Cyrene, and, as it would not have been prudent to oppose his Greek auxiliaries to a people of the same race, he employed only native troops on this expedition, which was an unfortunate one. The Egyptian soldiers, believing he had undertaken it solely in order to get rid of them, revolted. To appease them, Uah-ab-Ra sent an officer named Aahmes, whose good nature pleased the soldiers. As he was speaking to them, one of them put a helmet on his head, and there was a cry that they ought to make him their king. He did not wait to be persuaded, and immediately put himself at the head of the rebels.
Uah-ab-Ra, learning this, gave orders to one of those who remained faithful to him to bring Aahmes to him, dead or alive. The envoy received only a very coarse answer, and when he returned, the king had his nose and ears cut off. The indignant Egyptians instantly went over to Aahmes. Uah-ab-Ra at the head of his Carian and Ionian mercenaries, to the number of thirty thousand, marched against the rebels, who were far more numerous. He was beaten and led back, a prisoner, into the palace which had been his. Aahmes at first treated him with consideration, but the Egyptians insisted that he should be delivered up to them, and strangled. He had reigned twenty years. Aahmes had him buried in the tomb of his ancestors, and espoused a daughter of Psamthek II in order to graft himself on the Saïtic Dynasty.
[Sidenote: [572-525 B.C.]]
Aahmes II, though he had become king by a reaction of the national party against the foreigner, nevertheless showed himself still more favourable to the Greeks than his predecessors had been. He permitted them to establish themselves at Naucratis, on the Canopic branch of the Nile, and to raise temples to their gods. One of these temples, the Hellenion, was built at the public expense by the principal Greek towns in Asia. Particular temples were consecrated to Apollo by the Milesians, to Hera by the Samians, and to Zeus by the Æginians. Aahmes sent his statue to several towns in Greece, and when the temple of Delphi was destroyed by fire, he desired to contribute to the subscription opened for its reconstruction, and offered a talent of alum from Egypt. He entered into an alliance with the Cyrenæans, and married one of the daughters of the country; he also allied himself with Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, and with Crœsus, king of the Lydians. He made no war except against the Cypriotes, whom he subjected to a tribute. He chiefly occupied himself, as Psamthek had done, in developing the trade of Egypt. Like him he erected monuments at Saïs and Memphis, which are no longer in existence, but of which Herodotus speaks with admiration. There is at the Louvre a monolithic chapel in pink granite, which dates from the reign of Aahmes, and the British Museum possesses the sarcophagus of one of his wives, Queen Ankhnes, who long resided at Thebes. It is believed that the hypogees of Assassif, near Gurnah, belong to the Saïtic epoch. There is one of them which, in extent and richness, yields to none of the tombs of Biban-el-Moluk. This is the tomb of a high priest who was at the same time a royal functionary.
Aahmes was nothing more than a soldier of fortune, and it appears that the ceremonious etiquette of the ancient kings of Egypt wearied him. When he had employed his morning in administering justice, he passed the rest of the time at table with his friends. Certain courtiers represented to him that he was compromising his dignity. He answered that a bow-string could not always be stretched. At the beginning of his reign the obscurity of his birth made him despised. Perceiving this, he had melted a gold basin, in which he used to wash his feet, made from it the golden statue of a god and offered it to the public veneration.
“Thus it was with me,” he said; “I was a plebeian, now I am your king; render me, then, the honour and respect which are due me.” The people understood the allegory, and ended by becoming attached to this sensible man, who took his trade of king seriously. It was from him, according to Herodotus, that the Athenians borrowed their famous law against idleness.
“He ordered each Egyptian to declare to the nomarch, every year, what were his means of subsistence. He who did not comply with the law, or could not prove that he lived by honest means, was punished with death. Solon, the Athenian, borrowed this law from Egypt, and established it in Athens, where it is still in force, because it is a wise one and no fault can be found with it.”
Herodotus says that Egypt was never happier or more flourishing than in the reign of Aahmes, and that there were then in that country twenty thousand well-peopled towns or villages.
All this prosperity was to disappear in one day, for Egypt was about to founder like Nineveh and Jerusalem and Sardis and Babylon, without previous decay, in one of those sudden and overwhelming storms which sweep monarchies away.
A new empire had just arisen in Asia. Persia had absorbed Media and subdued Chaldea and Asia Minor. Lydia had succumbed so quickly that Aahmes had not been able to succour his ally, Crœsus. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, left Egypt in peace, and she took good care not to stir; but his son Cambyses felt the need of aggrandising his states, and as in default of reasons wars never lack pretexts, here is the one he gave, or which was perhaps invented as an afterthought.
It was said that Cyrus had asked Aahmes to send him the best physician for diseases of the eye, to be found in his dominion. This physician wished to avenge himself on the king of Egypt, who had torn him from the arms of his wife and children to send him into Persia. He persuaded Cambyses to demand the daughter of Aahmes, counting on a refusal, which would not fail to be considered as an insult. Aahmes knew well that Cambyses would not make his daughter a queen, but a slave of the harem; he sent a daughter of Uah-ab-Ra. The latter disclosed the ruse to the king of Persia, and demanded of him to avenge her father, whose murderer Aahmes had been. Cambyses flew into a violent rage and resolved to carry war into Egypt.
A desert that an army could not cross in less than three days’ march protected Egypt on the side of Asia. Following the advice of Phanes, a Greek officer and deserter from the Egyptian army, Cambyses secured for himself the alliance of the Arab king, who stationed camels laden with skins full of water, all along the route the Persians were to follow. The town of Pelusium, which was the key of Egypt, was besieged by Cambyses. Polyænus relates that he caused dogs, cats, and ibises to be collected, and placed them in front of his army; the Egyptians dared not fly their arrows for fear of hitting the sacred animals, and the town was taken without resistance. Aahmes had just died, after a reign of forty-four years (528). His son, Psamthek III, the Psammenitus of Herodotus, came to meet the enemy. The Greek and Carian mercenaries in the pay of the king of Egypt, learning the treason of Phanes, their former chief, revenged themselves on his children.
“They led them into the camp,” says Herodotus, “and, having placed a mixing bowl between the two armies, they cut their throats under the eyes of their father, mingled their blood with wine and water in the bowl, and, when all the auxiliaries had drunk, rushed into battle.”
It was fierce and bloody; many perished on either side; but at last the Egyptians had the worst of it and fled in disorder to Memphis. Cambyses summoned the town to surrender; the crowd destroyed the Mytilenean vessel which carried the ambassadors, massacred those who manned it, and dragged their limbs through the citadel. The town was taken, and Psamthek brought before the conqueror. He had reigned only six months.
THE ATROCITIES OF CAMBYSES
[Sidenote: [525 B.C.]]
Cambyses treated him with the utmost severity, and had him led before the town, together with some other Egyptians.
“The king’s daughter,” says Herodotus, “was clad as a slave and sent, pitcher in hand, in search of water, with several other young girls of rank. They passed, weeping, in front of their captive fathers, who groaned at their humiliation. Psammenitus [Psamthek III] saw them and lowered his eyes towards the earth. Then Cambyses caused his son and two thousand young men of the same age to pass before him, with cords round their necks and bridles in their mouths. They were being led to death to avenge the Mytileneans slain at Memphis, for the royal judges had ordained that, for every man killed on that occasion, ten Egyptians of the first families should be put to death. Psammenitus saw them pass and recognised his son; but while the other Egyptians round him wept and lamented themselves, he preserved the same countenance as at the sight of his daughter. When the young men had passed, he perceived an old man who generally ate at his table. This man, despoiled of his goods, and reduced to live on charity, was imploring pity from the soldiers and even from Psammenitus and the Egyptian captives brought into the outskirts of the town. Psammenitus could not restrain his tears; he beat himself on the head and called to his friend. Three guards, deputed to watch him, made this known to Cambyses. He was astonished and sent a messenger to Psammenitus, who questioned him thus:
“‘Cambyses, thy master, demands wherefore, having neither wept or groaned when thou sawest thy daughter treated as a slave and thy son marching to execution, thou shouldst interest thyself in the lot of this beggar who, from what we learn, is neither thy relative nor ally.’
“He answered, ‘Son of Cyrus, the misfortunes of my house are too great to be wept; but the fate of a friend, once happy, and reduced to begging in his old age, has seemed to me to deserve tears.’
“This answer was reported, and appeared a just one. The Egyptians say that Crœsus, who had come into Egypt in the train of Cambyses, wept, and the Persians who were present wept also. Even Cambyses felt some pity. He ordered Psammenitus brought before him and his son to be withdrawn from the number of those about to die.
“Those sent to seek the child did not find him alive; he had been the first struck. They made Psammenitus rise and conducted him into the presence of Cambyses. He remained in the retinue and suffered no violence. The government of Egypt would even have been restored to him if he had not been suspected of exciting disturbances; for the Persians are wont to honour the children of kings and to replace them on the thrones lost by their fathers. But Psammenitus, having conspired, received his reward. Convicted by Cambyses of having urged the Egyptians to revolt, he drank bull’s blood and died of it on the spot.
“From Memphis, Cambyses went on to Saïs, and as soon as he had reached the tomb of Amasis [Aahmes] he ordered the corpse to be exhumed, to be beaten with rods, to have the hair and beard torn out, to be pricked with goads--in short, to be subjected to all sorts of outrages. The executioners soon grew tired of maltreating a lifeless body, from which they could break off nothing, as it was embalmed. Then Cambyses had it burnt without any respect of holy things. Indeed the Persians believe that fire is a god, and it is not permitted, either by their law or by that of the Egyptians, to burn the dead. Thus Cambyses performed on this occasion an act equally condemned by the laws of both peoples.”
In violating the tomb of the man who had usurped the throne of Egypt, Cambyses perhaps counted on rallying the legitimists, for he thus presented himself as the avenger and heir of Uah-ab-Ra. From the inscriptions on a statuette in the Vatican, it appears that, in the early days of his conquest, he avoided giving offence to the religion of the vanquished. He caused the great temple of Nit, where some Persian troops had installed themselves, to be evacuated, and had it repaired at his own expense. He even carried his zeal so far as to be initiated into the mysteries of Osiris. But this apparent and wholly political deference could not last long.
The religious symbols of the Egyptians, the external forms of their worship, inspired profound aversion in the Persians, whose religion greatly resembled the strict monotheism of the Semitic peoples. This antipathy, which was only awaiting an opportunity to manifest itself, blazed out after an unfortunate expedition of Cambyses against Ethiopia. Instead of ascending the Nile as far as Napata, he had taken the shorter route of the desert.
The provisions gave out, and his soldiers were reduced to devouring each other. He returned, having lost many men, and then learnt the complete destruction of another army which he had sent against the Ammonians and which had been entombed under whirlwinds of sand. He was exasperated at this disaster, and, as the Egyptians naturally attributed it to the vengeance of the gods, his fury turned against the Egyptian religion.
“From Assuan to Thebes and from Thebes to Memphis,” says Mariette, “he marked his route by ruin: the temples were devastated, the tombs of the kings were opened and pillaged.” The mummy of Queen Ankhnes, wife of Aahmes, was torn from its sarcophagus in the depths of a funeral vault behind the Ramesseum, and burned as that of Aahmes himself had been. When this sarcophagus, which is now in London, was discovered by a French officer, remains of charred bones were found in it, according to Champollion Figéac, some of them preserving traces of gilding.
“Cambyses having returned to Memphis,” says Herodotus, “the god Apis, whom the Greeks call Epaphos, manifested himself to the Egyptians. As soon as he had shown himself, they donned their richest clothing and made great rejoicings. Cambyses, believing that they were rejoicing at the ill-success of his arms, called the magistrates of Memphis before him, and asked them why, having exhibited no joy the first time that they saw him in their town, they were exhibiting so much of it since his return and after he had lost part of his army. They told him that their god, who was generally very long in appearing, had just manifested himself, and that the Egyptians were accustomed to celebrate this epiphany by public festivities. Cambyses, hearing this, said that they lied, and punished them with death for liars. When they had been killed he sent for the priests to come into his presence, and, having received the same answer from them, he told them that if any god showed himself familiarly to the Egyptians, he would not hide himself from him, and he ordered them to bring Apis to him. The priests immediately went in search of him.
“This Apis, who is the same as Epaphos, is born of a cow which can bear no further offspring. The Egyptians say that this cow conceives Apis by lightning, which descends from heaven. These are the distinguishing signs of the calf they call Apis: it is black, and bears a white square on its forehead; it has the figure of an eagle on its back, on its tongue that of a beetle, and the hairs of its tail are double.
“As soon as the priest had brought Apis, Cambyses, like a maniac, drew his sword to pierce its belly, but only struck its thigh. Then, beginning to laugh, he said to the priests:
“‘O blockheads, are there such gods, made of flesh and blood and susceptible to the stroke of steel? This god is well worthy of the Egyptians, but you shall have no cause to rejoice for having attempted to laugh at our expense.’
“Thereupon he had them whipped by those deputed for that purpose, and ordered such Egyptians as were found celebrating a festival to be slain. Thus the festivities ceased and the priests were punished. Apis, wounded in the thigh, languished, lying in the temple, and when he was dead the priests buried him, unknown to Cambyses. As to him, who was already wanting in good sense, he was from that time smitten with madness, the Egyptians say, in punishment of his crime.”
Among the funeral steles of the Apis, found by Mariette in the excavations of the Serapeum at Memphis, and which are now in the Egyptian Museum at the Louvre, are two connected with the facts recounted by Herodotus: one, whose inscription is almost illegible, contained the epitaph of the Apis who died in the reign of Cambyses, and was born, as it seems, in the twenty-fifth year of Aahmes. We possess, the catalogue says, his sarcophagus, sculptured by order of Cambyses. The other is the epitaph of the bull who died in the fourth year of Darius.
“We think,” says M. de Rougé, “that this is the same Apis whom Cambyses, in his fury, wounded when, on his return from the unfortunate Ethiopian expedition, he found the Egyptians abandoning themselves to the rejoicings which accompanied the festivities of the theophany of a new Apis (in 518 B.C.).” If this be so, this Apis must have survived his wound nearly five years.
[Sidenote: [522-332 B.C.]]
Darius wished to repair the mistakes of his predecessor, and tried to conciliate the Egyptians. He put to death the satrap Aryandes, whose tyranny was already provoking revolts, and, learning that the Apis had just died, he joined in the public mourning and promised one hundred talents of gold to whoever should find a new Apis. He visited the great temple of Ptah and would have placed his statue there beside that of Sesostris [Ramses II]. The priests told him that he had not yet equalled the exploits of Sesostris, since he had not subdued the Scythians. Darius was not offended at this exhibition of national pride; he answered simply that if he lived as long as Sesostris he would endeavour to equal him. He had a great temple of Amen, whose ruins still exist, built in the oasis of Thebes. Finally, he finished the canal of communication which Seti I and Neku II had wished to establish between the Nile and the Red Sea. According to Diodorus, his memory was venerated by the Egyptians, who placed him in the number of their great legislators.
The kings of Persia who form the XXVIIth Dynasty did not, however, succeed in making themselves accepted by Egypt. They had not, like the Shepherd kings, adopted her religion, her language, her writing, and her manners, and therefore they were always foreigners to her. Their dominion was rarely oppressive, and yet it was interrupted by insurrections which always found a support in the Greek republics.
After one hundred and twenty years, Egypt recovered her independence under three native dynasties, the XXVIIIth, the XXIXth, and the XXXth. But she lost it sixty-four years after, through the cowardice of her king, who fled into Ethiopia without fighting, as Meneptah had fled before the Unclean. Egypt was a second time conquered by the Persians, and Ochus renewed the follies and pillaging of Cambyses (340 B.C.).[b]
The XXVIIIth Dynasty is regarded as consisting of one king only, since at his death the rule passed to the princes of Mendes. This king was Amen-rut (Amyrtæus), 405-399 B.C., son of Pausiris and grandson of that Amyrtæus who was the ally of Inarus of Libya. Amen-rut revolted against Persia, and became independent on the death of Darius II.
Nia-faa-rut I, prince of Mendes (399-393), succeeded Amen-rut. He and his successors--Haker (393-380), Psamut (380), and Nia-faa-rut II (379)--form the XXIXth Dynasty, and continued, by the alliances with Persia’s enemies, to maintain the native rule of Egypt.
This state of affairs continued under the XXXth Dynasty, which ruled at Sebennytus. Under the first king, Nekht-Hor-heb (Nectanebo I), the Persians, two hundred thousand strong, made a desperate attempt, with the help of the Greek general Iphicrates and twenty thousand of his countrymen, to invade the Delta, but Nectanebo defeated them near Mendes. This victory secured peace and independence to Egypt for a term of years, during which art and commerce revived.
Tachus’ reign was short (364-361), and he had internal as well as external troubles to deal with. He died an exile at the court of Artaxerxes. Nekht-neb-ef (Nectanebo II), 361-340, brought his dynasty and the empire of the Pharoahs, after a duration of over four thousand years, to an end by succumbing to the Persians under Ochus (Artaxerxes III).[a]
[Sidenote: [ca. 322 B.C.]]
It is not surprising that, after the eight years during which this second Persian dynasty lasted, Alexander should have been received as a liberator and proclaimed son of Amen, that is to say, legitimate successor of the ancient kings of Egypt. The most able of his generals, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, founded a dynasty which may, in spite of its foreign origin, be considered as national as that of the Ramessides or of the Saïtic kings. Greek influence did not make itself felt outside Alexandria. The Lagides respected the religions and customs of Egypt, which became the most important of the Greek kingdoms, while still preserving her original civilisation. She even preserved it under the Roman dominion; and if we did not read the inscriptions, we could never guess that the temples of Esneh, of Edfu, of Denderah, and of Philæ belong to the time of the Lagides, the Cæsars, and the Antonines. Enfolded in the great Roman unity, Egypt did not regret her independence. Alexandria was the second town of the world, the capital of the East. The philosophic movement of which it was the seat entered as an important factor into the elaboration of Christian dogma. But the establishment of the new religion was the death-blow of old Egypt, for a people is dead when it has denied its gods. The edicts of the Christian emperors, ordering the destruction of the temples, dealt the last blow to Egyptian art. Those monuments which were not entirely destroyed were distorted to meet the needs of the new worship.
Then came the Mussulman conquest, which waged further war against the ruins. Finally, in our days, the introduction of Western civilisation into Egypt has done the monuments more harm than all the rest. When the viceroy wishes to build a barrack or a sugar factory, he takes stones from the temples; it saves expense.
Thus is accomplished the sad prediction of the Egyptian philosopher whose works bear the name of Hermes Trismegistus:
“O Egypt, Egypt, there shall remain of thy religion but vague stories which posterity will refuse to believe, and words graven in stone recounting thy piety. The Scythian, the Indian, or some other barbarous neighbour shall dwell in Egypt. The Divinity shall reascend into the heaven. And Egypt shall be a desert, widowed of men and gods.”[b]
FOOTNOTES
[10] [Herodotus tells the story somewhat differently.]