H!
 

 
 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE 
 ANCIENT NEGRO 
 
 A Compilation 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD E. CARLISLE 
 JOSEPHINE E. CARLISLE 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 THE COSMOS PRESS 
 Cambridge, Mass.
 
 ^- v 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPHINE E. CARLISLE
 
 PREFACE 
 
 We have endeavored to present to our readers a 
 selected collection of historical facts in one volume on the 
 Ethiopian or Ancient Negro. It has long since been con- 
 ceded that Negro nations or Hamites were the earliest 
 civilized peoples and the real source of the civilization we 
 enjoy to-day. More and more are we made cognizant 
 of the fact that men to-day are but doing over the things 
 that were done thousands of years ago and it is inter- 
 esting to note that the Negro's share in those early 
 activities was not a small one. It is to familiarize the 
 youth as well as the adult of the Negro race with the 
 events in which many of their ancestors centered that it 
 may be an incentive to higher aims and nobler aspira- 
 tions. 
 
 "Now our day is come," says one writer, "we have 
 been born out of the eternal silence; and now we will 
 live for ourselves and not as the pall bearers of a 
 funeral. Now that we are here we will put our own 
 interpretation on things and our own things for inter- 
 pretation." This has been our chief aim in compiling 
 this work to interpret the Negro's status in the ancient 
 world unbiased and impartial to emphasize his identity 
 in the midst of the Caucasian chaos in which most histori- 
 ans have placed him only as a hewer of stone and drawer 
 of water is he in bold relief. Our own interpretation 
 has preserved to us, however, many glowing accounts 
 of the deeds of black men with which every one of African 
 descent should be familiar and justly proud. J. E. C.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 I. 
 
 The Dispersion of the Human Family with reference to 
 the children of Ham the Progenitor of the Negro race. 
 Nimrod the grandson of Ham (the Negro) the first ruler 
 and landed proprietor that history records, Cushites and 
 Canaanites, Negroes of antiquity. 
 
 II. 
 
 Meroe the Ethiopian Capital. 
 The State of Meroe. 
 The Commerce of Meroe. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ethiopian (or Negro) Supremacy, Piankhi the great 
 Negro Pharaoh, Amenardis his wife and queen mother of 
 Tirharka the formidable foe of Sennacherib Shabaka 
 brother of Piankhi Shabataka and Tanut-Amon, 
 successive Ethiopian Pharaohs. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Macrobian Ethiopians (Negroes) and Cambyses 
 attempt to make war upon them. 
 
 V. 
 
 Negro-Egyptian Pharaohs. 
 
 New Empire XVII, Theban Dynasty, Amenophites 
 and Thotmesites, Nefert-ari-Aahmes the black queen 
 ancestress of the line of kings of the eighteenth dynasty, 
 Amenhotep I, Thotmes I and his sister- wife Aahmes
 
 and their children Hashep and Hatasu. Thotmes II 
 and Thotmes III, Amenophis II, Thotmes IV, Amenophis 
 III (Mimnon), Amenophis IV. 
 
 VI. 
 
 How Moses made war upon the Ethiopians. His 
 marriage with the Ethiopian Princess Tharbis. 
 
 VII. 
 
 How Moses fled out of Egypt into Midian. He mar- 
 ries Zipporah an Ethiopian woman. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Moses receives Jethro, his father-in-law the black 
 priest of Midian who organized the first court of equity. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF SHEBA. 
 
 X. 
 
 Carthage. 
 
 Hamilcar, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, The Punic Wars, 
 Hannibals Treaty. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Septimus Severeus, Negro Emperor of Rome. His 
 Sons, Geta and Caracalla.
 
 Earth had mighty dark hued heroes 
 
 In the morning of the world 
 Giant warriors clad in lightning 
 
 Who their bold defiance hurled 
 High as heaven and down the ages: 
 
 Nimrod Seti, Rameses, 
 Hannibal bold lions rampant 
 
 Romping through dawn's amethyst 
 Bronzed Nemeans, leaping storming 
 
 Down the morning's amber mist! 
 
 Rise, forgotten Past! Meroe 
 
 Where great Moses loved arise! 
 Tyre Thebes Nineveh we knew you 
 
 When the world was paradise! 
 Sphinxes, pyramids, silent Memnon 
 
 Ruined Memphis Babylon, 
 Relics of great deeds and empires 
 
 Of the proud, dark peoples gone, 
 We your clay creators loved you 
 
 In the clanging purple dawn. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Jas. D. Corrothers.
 
 THE DISPERSION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 
 
 After the deluge the earth was divided between the 
 three sons of Noah, Japhet, Shem and Ham. The 
 peoples connected with Japhet occupy the northern 
 portion of the known wofld and include the Madai 
 (Medes) on the East of Assyria, Javans, lonians, i. e. 
 Greeks, on the West Coast of Asia Minor and Tarshish 
 (Tartessus) on the West Coast of Spain. 
 
 Shem is the ancestor of several peoples, occupying 
 roughly speaking, the central portion of the known 
 world. Shem stands for a people in Palestine or some 
 portion of them with whom Japhet lived in close con- 
 junction and to whom Canaan was subjugated. 1 
 
 Ham's descendants were alloted the southern portion 
 and possessed the land from Syria and Amans and the 
 mountains of Libanus seizing upon all that was on its 
 seacoasts and as far as the ocean, and keeping it as their 
 own. (Josephus.) 
 
 "According to Armenian tradition to Ham was given 
 the region of the blacks, to Shem the region of the 
 tawny, fuscorum and to Japhet the region of the ruddy, 
 rubrorum. To the sons of Shem was allotted the middle 
 of the earth, viz. Palestine, Syria, Assyria, Samaria, 
 Singar (or Shinar), Babel (or Babylonia), Persia and 
 Higiaz (Arabia) ; to the sons of Ham Tiemen or Idumea 
 (Jer. 49:7) Africa, Nigritia, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, 
 Scindia and India (or India west and east of the river 
 
 A. H.M'Neil. Bib. Diet.
 
 8 CARLISLE 
 
 Indus) ; to the sons of Japhet also, Garbia (the north), 
 Spain, France, the the countries of the Greeks, Scla- 
 vonians, Bulgarians, Turks and Armenians." 1 
 
 Ham, or Cham, son of Noah and brother to Shem 
 and Japhet is believed to be Noah's youngest son. 
 Ham, says Dr. Hales, signifies burnt or black and this 
 name was peculiarly significant of the regions allotted 
 to his family. To the Cushites, or children of his eldest 
 son Cush were allotted the hot southern regions of Asia 
 along the coasts of the Persian Gulf, Suisiana, Chusistan 
 Arabia, etc.; to the sons Canaan, Palestine and Syria; 
 to the sons of Mizraim Egypt and Lybia Libya in Africa. 2 
 
 THE SONS OF HAM. 
 
 The first and most celebrated of Ham's sons was 
 Cush who gave name to the land of Cush both in Asia 
 and Africa, the former called Chusistan by the Arabian 
 Geographers, Suisiana by the Greeks, Cusha Dwipa 
 within by the Hindus, the other Cusha Dwipa without. 
 
 The posterity of Cush spread over a great part of 
 Asia and Africa, were called Cushim or Cushites by 
 the Greeks and Romans and in our Bible Ethiopians. 
 They first settled on the Gulf of Persia, spread over 
 India and Arabia, particularly its western part on the 
 Red Sea, invaded Egypt under the name of Hyksos or 
 Shepherd kings and after ruling Egypt for five centuries 
 passed into Central Africa and first peopled the countries 
 
 1 Fessenden & Go's. Ency. 
 
 2 Watson, Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 9 
 
 south of Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinian and other countries 
 farther south. 1 
 
 And Cush begat Nimrod "he began to be mighty 
 hunter in the earth." (Gen.) and the most conspicuous 
 Negro character of early antiquity. He was the indirect 
 cause of the dispersion of mankind over the earth, being 
 one of the first examples of God's use of man as an agent 
 in carrying out the divine purpose. Having great 
 influence over the people, he suggested the building of a 
 tower that should reach to heaven and make them a 
 name and also serve as a refuge should there be another 
 flood. To this the people readily agreed and proceeded 
 to carry out Nimrod's rebellious plans, but were suddenly 
 confused, not being able to understand one another, and 
 the tower, called Babel (confusion) was abandoned. God 
 punished them in this way because they had been drawn 
 away from their allegiance to Him. 
 
 He may be styled the parent of organized human 
 society. "He, Nimrod, first subverted the patriarchal 
 government and introduced the Zabian idolatry or wor- 
 ship of the heavenly host; and after his death, was 
 deified by his subjects, and supposed to be translated 
 into the constellations of Orion attended by his hounds 
 Sirius and Canicular, and still pursuing his favorite 
 game, the great bear." 2 
 
 Nimrod was a despot and ruled tyrannically but we 
 can hardly conceive of any other form of government 
 being adequate for the horde with which he had to con- 
 tend, beset with doubts and fears. That Nimrod did 
 
 i Fessenden & Go's. Ency. 
 
 1 Watson, Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
 
 IO CARLISLE 
 
 not follow his kindred, but remained in the land of 
 Shinar, a usurper, but tends to show that God had work 
 to be done and had chosen whom he thought best fitted 
 to perform it. From Nimrod we trace the Asiatic 
 Ethiopians and those of India. 
 
 Canaan the fourth son of Ham settled what was 
 known in patriarchal ages as India and called it from 
 his own name Canaan. The posterity of Canaan was 
 numerous. His eldest son Sidon founded the city of 
 Sidon and was father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians 
 notwithstanding the curse (Gen. 9:25) is directed against 
 Canaan the son and not against the father, it is often 
 supposed that all the posterity of Ham were placed 
 under this maladiction, "Cursed be Canaan a servant of 
 servants shall he be unto his brethren." But the true 
 reason why Canaan only was mentioned probably is 
 that the curse was in fact restricted to the posterity of 
 Canaan. It is true that many Africans of other branches 
 of Hani's family have been cruelly enslaved; but so have 
 other tribes in different parts of the world. There is 
 certainly no proof that the Negro race was placed under 
 this malediction. 
 
 Whatever punishment the Canaanites received was 
 due to their disobedience and sins. "Joshua extir- 
 pated great numbers and obliged the rest to fly, some 
 of them into Africa, and others into Greece. Proco- 
 pius says, they first retreated into Egypt, but advanced 
 into Africa where they built many cities, and spread 
 themselves over these vast regions which reach to the 
 straits, preserving their old language with little altera- 
 tion. In the time of Athanasius, (296) the Africans still 
 said they were descended from the Canaanites; and 
 when asked their origin, they answered, "Canaani."
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO II 
 
 It is agreed that the Punic tongue was nearly the same 
 as the Canaanitish or Hebrew. 1 
 
 Now all the children of Mizraim, being eight in num- 
 ber, possessed the land from Gaza to Egypt though it 
 retained the name of one only, the Philistim, for the 
 Greeks called part of that country Palestine. As for 
 the rest we know nothing of them besides their names; 
 for the Ethiopic war caused those cities to be overthrown. 
 Phut was the founder of Libya and called the inhabitants 
 Phutites from himself. (Josephus.) 
 
 Thus we see that many centuries of time elapsed be- 
 fore these peoples arrived at fixed or final places of abode 
 from a geographical point of view. The children of 
 Ham were the leading people at this early period. 
 'Their early possession of the seacoasts made them a 
 seafaring race and early established commercial inter- 
 course between them, thus enabling them to sooner 
 arrive at civilization and the luxuries of life than their 
 simpler pastoral brethren of the other two families. 
 Tyre, Sidon and Carthage were early distinguished for 
 their commerce, but the sooner fell into decay.' 
 
 STATE or MERGE. 
 
 Let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians that handle the 
 shield. -Jer. XLVI, 9. 
 
 The Ethiopians were a civilized people who dwelt 
 in cities; who erected temples and other edifices; 
 who though without letters, had hieroglyphics; who 
 had government and laws; and the fame of whose 
 
 > Watson, Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
 
 1 2 CARLISLE 
 
 progress in knowledge and the social arts spread in the 
 earliest ages over a considerable part of the earth. 
 
 Meroe the mother city and capital of all Ethiopia 
 has been celebrated for upwards of two thousand years, 
 but its distant situation has always involved it in mys- 
 tery and obscurity. It was brought to light by Burk- 
 hardt and Caillaud. Meroe, however, did not appear 
 alone; a new world of antiquities was laid open to the 
 view of the astonished spectator. 
 
 The southern boundary of Egypt and the last cataract 
 of the Nile had hitherto been considered the utmost 
 verge of civilization and science. More distant regions 
 were now explored. The more early travellers Bruce 
 and his forerunners first led the way by crossing the 
 Nubian desert, others soon followed who penetrated up 
 the Nile, keeping near its banks, where they discovered 
 that succession of monuments which has excited so 
 much astonishment among all lovers of antiquity as 
 well by their numbers as their magnitude. Temple 
 after temple appeared, sometimes erected upon, at others 
 excavated in the rocks and the earth; scarcely had the 
 traveller left one than another arose to his view. 
 Colossal figures buried up to their shoulders in sand still 
 towered above all these which lay concealed behind 
 them. As the travellers continued their journey an 
 immense number of pyramids appeared with temples 
 and ruins of cities close by or intermingled with them 
 and at last the distant Meroe itself and the ancient 
 temple of Jupiter Ammon still erect and majestic in its 
 ruins. 
 
 The valley of the Nile was once covered on both sides 
 with villages of which Pliny has left us the names and 
 only the names of twenty on each side; in his time they
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 13 
 
 no longer existed and he informs us that they were not 
 destroyed by Roman wars, but by the earlier contentions 
 between Ethiopia and Egypt. (Heeren). 
 
 Meroe is of special interest as the royal city of Ethio- 
 pia. Here the Ethiopian or Negro kings and princes 
 first saw the light of day and among them and their 
 subjects the first seeds of civilization took root. All 
 the early royal personages of which we have any record 
 resided at Meroe. In the eighth century, B. C. Napata 
 was the capital "a city of great wealth, filled with 
 costly stone temples, avenues of sphinxes adorned the 
 approaches to these sacred edifices. 
 
 This is the period in which the three mighty con- 
 querors, Sabaco, Sevechus and Tirharkah directed their 
 weapons against Egypt. 
 
 COMMERCE OF MEROE. 
 ETHIOPIANS. II. 
 
 "As one passes beyond the land of the midday the Ethiopian land 
 is that which extends furthest of all lands towards the sunset. This 
 produces gold in abundance and large elephants and trees of all 
 kinds growing wild and ebony and men who of all men are the tallest 
 the most beautiful and ttie most long lived." (Herodotus.) 
 
 The Ethiopians were the most noted people of early 
 antiquity. ("They were a civilized people who dwelt 
 in cities, who erected temples and other edifices, who, 
 though without letters, had hieroglyphics, who had 
 government and laws and the fame of whose progress in 
 knowledge and the social arts spread in the earliest ages 
 over a considerable part of the earth.") From the 
 remotest times to the present one of the most celebrated
 
 14 CARLISLE 
 
 yet mysterious of nations. In the earliest traditions of 
 all the more civilized nations of antiquity the name of 
 this distant people is found. The annals of the Egyp- 
 tian priests were full of them; the nations of inner 
 Asia on the Euphrates and Tigris have interwoven the 
 fictions of the Ethiopians with their own traditions of 
 the conquests and wars of their heroes, and at a period 
 equally remote they glimmer in Greek mythology. 
 When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by 
 name the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of 
 their poets. "They are the remotest nation, the most 
 just of men, the favorites of the gods. The lofty inhabi- 
 tants of Olympus journey to them and take part in their 
 feasts. Their sacrifices are the most agreeable of all 
 that mortals can offer them " and when the faint gleam 
 of tradition gives way to the clear light of history, the 
 lustre of the Ethiopian is not diminished. They still 
 continue the object of curiosity and admiration, and the 
 pen of cautious clear sighted historians often places 
 them in the highest rank of knowledge and civilization. 1 
 
 In Scripture they occupy a prominent place. 
 Zipporah, the wife of Moses, the illustrious lawgiver, 
 was an Ethiopian and prior to his flight into Midian 
 Moses married Tharbis, an Ethiopian princess. Queen 
 Candace, whose eunuch Phillip baptized, was an Ethi- 
 opian and not the only Ethiopian queen by that name, 
 the title being used in the same way as Pharaoh for the 
 ruler of Egypt and Caesar for Rome. Ebed-Melech, 
 who rescued the prophet Jeremiah from the pit prison 
 was an Ethiopian enunch. The Ethiopian Zerah who 
 went out to meet Asa with a host of a thousand thous- 
 
 1 Heeren p. 290.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 1$ 
 
 and men and three hundred chariots was so formidable 
 a general that special divine favor alone saved Asa from 
 inglorious defeat. Solomon's renowned visitor, Makeda, 
 queen of Sheba, was an Ethiopian sovereign. Tirharkah, 
 the mere rumor of whose coming caused Sennacherib 
 and his army to flee from their already fortified posi- 
 tions was one of the greatest Ethiopian conquerors and 
 rulers of antiquity, second only to his father, Piankhi, 
 the Negro Pharaoh who subdued all Egypt and whose 
 reign was the beginning of Ethiopian supremacy. The 
 foregoing is but a hint of the Negro's illustrious ancestry 
 upon which modern research is shedding new light 
 every day. He not only bore the cross but wore a crown. 
 All true Christians are cross-bearers in a religious sense 
 but it does not necessarily follow that we must be burden 
 bearers for our brethren such a theory belongs to the 
 pessimist. To bear the cross of Christ is a signal honor 
 and privilege which could in nowise bring misery to a 
 people. We have confounded the crosses placed upon 
 us by our more fortunate brethren with that borne by 
 Simon the Cyrenian. We have thus submitted uncom- 
 plainingly to an unnatural burden. 
 
 This view, however, has been ably sustained by many 
 learned men notably among them Prof. Heeren, whose 
 inferences seem most logical and whom we shall quote 
 at length. 
 
 COMMERCE OF MEROE. 
 
 In proportion as we ascend into the primeval ages, 
 the closer seems the connection between Egypt and 
 Ethiopia. The Hebrew poets seldom mention the 
 former without the latter; the inhabitants of both are 
 drawn as commercial nations. When Isaiah, or rather
 
 1 6 CARLISLE 
 
 a later poet in his name, celebrates the victories of 
 Cyrus, their submission is spoken of as his most magnifi- 
 cent reward. ''The trade of the Egyptians and the 
 merchandise of the Ethiopians, and of the tall men of 
 Saba will come over to thee and become thine own." 
 When Jeremiah extols the great victory of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar over Pharaoh Neco near Carchemish, the Ethi- 
 opians are allied to the Egyptians. When Ezekiel 
 threatens the downfall of Egypt, the remotest parts of 
 Ethiopia tremble at the denunciation. 
 
 Every page indeed of Egyptian history exhibits 
 proofs of the close intimacy in which they stood. The 
 primitive states of Egypt .... derived their origin from 
 these remote regions. 
 
 Thebes and Meroe founded in common a colony in 
 Libya. Ethiopian conquerors more than once invaded 
 Egypt. Egyptian kings in return forced their way into 
 Ethiopia, the same worship, the same manners and cus- 
 toms, the same mode of writing are found in both coun- 
 tries; and under Psammatichus the noble and numerous 
 party of malcontents retired into Ethiopia. Does not 
 this intimate connection presuppose a permanent alliance 
 which could only have been formed and maintained by a 
 long peacable and friendly intercourse? 
 
 Egypt also, as far as history reaches back, abounded 
 in all the commodities of the southern regions. Whence 
 did she obtain the spices and drugs with which so many 
 thousand of her dead were embalmed? Whence the 
 incense which burned on her altars? Whence that 
 immense quantity of cotton in which her inhabitants 
 were clad and which her own soil produced so sparingly? 
 
 Further, whence came into Egypt that early rumor 
 of the Ethiopian gold countries, which Cambyses set
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 17 
 
 out to discover and lost half his army in the attempt? 
 Whence that profusion of ivory and ebony with which 
 the ancient artists of Greece and Palestine embellished? 
 Whence that general and early spread of the name of 
 Ethiopia which glimmers in the traditional history of 
 so many nations, and which is celebrated as well by the 
 Jewish poets as the earliest Grecian bards? Whence 
 all this if the deserts which surrounded that people had 
 formed an impassible barrier between them and the 
 inhabitants of the northern district? Yet why should 
 I invoke the traditions that have so long slept? Let 
 the remains of those proud monuments which extend 
 in one unbroken line from Elephantis and Philae be- 
 yond the desert to Meroe now speak for themselves. 
 However short and monosyllabic their language, they 
 plainly evince that close connection must have pre- 
 vailed between the two nations that erected them, a 
 connection between the richest and most productive 
 regions of the earth; the gold countries of eastern Africa, 
 the spice regions of India and the native land of frankin- 
 cense, precious stones and drugs in Southern Arabia. 
 
 THE RELATION IN WHICH COMMERCE STOOD IN THESE 
 REGIONS WITH RELIGION. 
 
 Commerce and religion have always been indissolubly 
 connected in the East. All trade and commercial 
 intercourse requires peaceable and secure places in 
 which it may be transacted. In the limited countries 
 of Europe inhabited by nations partly or altogether 
 civilized every city, indeed almost every hamlet affords 
 this. How totally different is the case in the immeas- 
 urable tracts of the East? The rich caravans here have
 
 1 8 CARLISLE 
 
 often to perform journeys of hundreds of miles through 
 nations of nomad robbers. The mart is not where they 
 might choose, but on the boundaries of the desert, 
 where nature herself fixes it in the midst or in the neigh- 
 borhood of these roving hordes. What can protect 
 commerce here but the sanctity of the place? Where 
 are their asylums except under the walls of the temple? 
 
 Besides, a profitable and ready sale of merchandise 
 requires resorting together of men; and where does this 
 take place so frequently and to such an extent as in the 
 vicinity of the national sanctuaries, where whole nations 
 celebrate their feasts. Here where men give them- 
 selves up to good living; the necessaries of life will be 
 plentiful, and here the merchant will obtain the best 
 profits. Now, however, the East affords a striking 
 example of the extent to which the trade by sea has 
 diminished that by land. Mecca remains still through 
 its holy sanctuary the chief mart for the commerce of 
 Arabia and what are the great caravans of pilgrims 
 which journey thither from Asia and Africa but trading 
 caravans? Are not the fairs which depend upon them 
 the greatest in Asia? 
 
 The rapidity with which a place rises in the East, 
 when once it has obtained a sanctuary that becomes the 
 object of pilgrimage and by that means becomes a place 
 of trade, almost surpasses belief. Tenta, a city of the 
 Delta, is celebrated as containing the sepulchre of a 
 Mohammetan Mohomitan saint Seyd Achmed. The 
 veneration in which this is held brings an incredible 
 number of pilgrims, who come at the time of the spring 
 equinox and summer solstice, from Egypt, Abysinnia, 
 Arabia and Darfour. Their number is stated at one 
 hundred and fifty thousand.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 19 
 
 The whole organization of social life in these parts 
 contributes towards it. 
 
 These periodical assemblies, besides the worship of 
 the saint, are devoted to commerce; and each of them 
 is a period of a celebrated fair which lasts for many 
 days and at which the produce of Upper Egypt, the coast 
 of Barbary and the whole of the East is exchanged for 
 the cattle of the Delta and the linen there manufactured. 
 
 The fame of the Ethiopians as a civilized people had 
 forced its way into Greece in the time of Homer and 
 referred preeminently to Meroe. The hundred gated 
 Thebes is celebrated by the same poet. The traditions 
 of Jupiter Ammon in Libya are interwoven with most 
 ancient Greek Mythi (Dioatorus i, p. 237) and that the 
 Carthaginian coasts was a theatre of these mythi is 
 generally known from the Argonautic expedition, the 
 Triton sea, the garden of the Hesperides, the Gorgons, 
 etc. 
 
 All this proves that rumors of these regions and places 
 travelled very early into the West; and is it not evident 
 that these should be understood of the places, which 
 were the seats of national commerce? 
 
 The chief places of this trade were likewise establish- 
 ments of the priest caste who as a dominant race had 
 their principal seat at Meroe whence they sent out 
 colonies which in their turn became builders of cities 
 and temples and likewise the founders of states. 
 
 No doubt therefore can exist respecting the close 
 connection between trade and religion here, nor respect- 
 ing the manner in which more than one state can be 
 formed in the interior of Africa in very high antiquity. 
 
 Notwithstanding the part which nomads took in 
 conducting it, the trade itself still remained in the hands
 
 20 CARLISLE 
 
 of Meroe and Auxum, who carried it on by their foreign 
 settlements and these places still remain what nature 
 herself has appointed, the great marts for the southern 
 commerce. 
 
 Thus the great conclusion so interesting and important 
 for human nature and its history, becomes in a manner 
 forced upon us; the first seats of commerce were also 
 the first seats of civilization; exchange of merchandise 
 led to exchange of ideas and by this mutual friction was 
 first kindled the sacred flame of moral and intellectual 
 culture. 
 
 That this civilization of the Ethiopians, that is, of the 
 ruling priest caste, was bound to their religion is easily 
 shown. Some scientific knowledge must indisputably 
 have been connected with it else the erection of these 
 monuments would have been impossible. 
 
 Diodorus derives the civilization of the Egyptians 
 in general from Ethiopia. Champollion by comparing 
 the manners and customs, the political institutions and 
 physical organizations of the Egyptians with those of 
 other nations regards it as certain that they are a genuine 
 African descended race. 
 
 The Ethiopians possessed the art of writing, not 
 however, alphabetical characters but merely picture 
 writing, a proof of which is still preserved upon the ruins 
 of Meroe and from this passage the first invention of it 
 has been attributed to them. The invention of this kind 
 of writing would be nowhere more easy than among 
 a people with so decided a bias for the pictorial arts 
 nor the use and perfectioning of it more natural than 
 in a state whose government, next to religion, was founded 
 upon trade. A very interesting fact, however, is re- 
 corded by Diodorus; namely that the knowledge of
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 21 
 
 picture writing in Ethiopia was not a privilege confined 
 solely to the caste of priests as in Egypt, but that every 
 one might attain it as freely as they might in Egypt 
 the writing in common use. This, then, is a powerful 
 proof of its being applied to the purposes of trade. 
 A great commercial nation altogether without writing 
 surely could never exist. Hieroglyphics were quite 
 adequate for the caravan trade whose ' regular course 
 and simple merchandise demanded but few accounts. 
 
 The fame of the piety and justice of the Ethiopians, 
 true even to our day among African natives, spread 
 to the most distant regions even to the Greeks. They 
 are the first virtues which would be cultivated in a 
 nation whose government was established by religion 
 and commerce and not by violence and oppression. 
 
 The progress this nation had made in the pictorial 
 arts is still one of the greatest problems, though one of 
 the greatest certainties. The ruins of those colossal 
 monuments, more or less preserved, still lie there and 
 will remain the everlasting proofs of the awful magnifi- 
 cence of their architecture. 1 
 
 Walking among ruins the traveller forgets the present to contem- 
 plate the past and amid the traces of a degenerate race mark the 
 remains of a mighty nation. 
 
 "The flourishing period of Meroe was 700-800 B. C., 
 the period in which the three mighty conquerors, Sabaco, 
 Sevechus and Tirharkah or Tarhaco started up as con- 
 querors and directed their weapons against Egypt, to 
 which at least Upper Egypt became an easy prey, the un- 
 fortunate troubles of the dodecarchy having just taken 
 place. According to Eusibius, Sabaco reigned twelve, 
 
 * A. H. L. Hieren: Extracts from Com. of Mero.
 
 22 CARLISLE 
 
 Sevechus twelve and Tirharkah twenty years. Hero- 
 dotus mentions only Sabaco, to whom he gives a reign 
 of fifty years, which covers the whole dynasty." Later 
 research, however, has given us five Ethiopian kings of 
 pure stock: Piankhi, Shabaka, Shabataka, Tirharkah 
 and Tamitamon, all of whose reigns we have been able 
 to give in detail under Mr. Breasted's " Ethiopian 
 Supremacy." 
 
 Herodotus gives an interesting account of the reign 
 of Sabaco the Ethiopian. He was a just king, who 
 punished crime not by putting to death, but passed 
 sentence according to the magnitude of the offence, 
 that imposed being to throw up mounds or dams about 
 the city to which they belonged, thus making the cities 
 higher. 
 
 After a reign of fifty years, remembering that the 
 oracle had said he was to remain in Egypt for that length 
 of time and having had a vision that seemed to bode ill, 
 he returned to Ethiopia. This shows their great faith 
 in and dependence upon the oracle of Ammon. 
 
 Sevechus was the contemporary of Hosea, king of 
 Israel, whose reign ended 722, and of Salmanasar. 
 
 Tirharkah was the contemporary of his successor, 
 Sennacherib, and deterred him in the year 714 B. C. 
 from the invasions of Egypt merely by the rumor of his 
 advance against him. His name was not unknown to 
 the Greeks. Eratosthenes, in Strabo, mentions him as a 
 conqueror who had penetrated into Europe and as far 
 as the pillars of Hercules, that is, as a great conqueror. 
 Meroe must have ranked at this time as a very important 
 state and we shall find this to be the case if we go back 
 about two hundred years to the time of Asa, the great 
 grandson of Solomon, but who nevertheless mounted
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 23 
 
 the throne of Judah within twenty years after his grand- 
 sires death, 955. "Against him went out Zerah, the 
 Ethiopian, with a host of a thousand thousand men and 
 three hundred chariots . ' ' This is a proof of the mightiness 
 of the empire which at this time probably comprised 
 Arabia Felix, but the chariots of war, which were never 
 in use in Arabia, prove that the passage refers to Ethio- 
 pia. Zerah 's exhibition took place in the early part of 
 Asa's reign, about nine hundred and fifty years before 
 Christ, and such an empire could not be quite a new one. 
 We are led by undoubted historical statements up to 
 the period of Solomon, about 1000 B. C. Further back 
 than this the annals of history are silent but the monu- 
 ments now begin to speak and confirm that high an- 
 tiquity which general opinion and the tradition of 
 Meroe attribute to this state. The name of Rameses 
 or Sesostris has been found upon many of the Nubian 
 monuments, and that he was the conqueror of Ethiopia 
 is known from history. The period in which he flour- 
 ished cannot be placed later than fifteen hundred years 
 before the Christian era. But the name of Thutmosis, 
 belonging to the preceding dynasty, has also been found 
 in Nubia, and that assuredly upon one of the most 
 ancient monuments of Armada. But in this sculpture, 
 as well as in the procession representing the victory over 
 Ethiopia, in the offering of the booty, there appears a 
 degree of civilization which shows an acquaintance 
 with the peaceful arts; they must consequently be 
 attributed to a nation that had long been formed.
 
 24 CARLISLE 
 
 ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY. 
 
 Ethiopia, sable goddess, from her ebon throne now stretches forth 
 in royal majesty Her ebon sceptor o'er the ancient world. 
 
 "I am born 6f the loins created from the egg of the Diety. 
 I have not acted without his knowledge; he ordained that 
 I should so act." This was the declaration of Piankhi, 
 an Ethiopian monarch of Egypt, when marching against 
 the native princes that had revolted from him. This 
 assertion embodies the pride of birth that characterized 
 the Ethiopian of antiquity. They knew that they were 
 a great people and under a special dispensation. They 
 believed that they had a covenant with the Diety, and 
 all the privileges and obligations that went with it, all 
 this favor having come to them through their merits of 
 good principle and acceptable conduct. 
 
 Lower Nubia had been dominated by the Egyptians 
 for over eighteen hundred years while the country above 
 the second cataract to the region of the fourth cataract 
 had for the most part been under Egyptian control for 
 something like a thousand years. The fertile and 
 productive land below the fourth cataract, the rich gold 
 mines in the mountains east of Lower Nubia, which 
 compensated in some measure for its agricultural pov- 
 erty, and the active trade from the Sudan which was 
 constantly passing through the country made it a land 
 of resources and possibilities which the Egyptianized 
 Nubian, slowly awakening to his birthright, was now 
 beginning to realize. 
 
 "Sheshouk I. had still held Nubia and it is probable 
 that the cataract country was still a dependency of 
 Egypt until the middle of the Twenty-second Dynasty,
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 2$ 
 
 about 850 B. C. Nubia had for five centuries been very 
 closely connected with Thebes and the temple of Amon. 
 The control of the Theban High Priest had finally 
 strengthened into full possession of Nubia for two hun- 
 dred and fifty years. It must have been the Theban 
 priesthood, perhaps as political exiles, who founded the 
 Amonite theocracy which now as a fully developed 
 Nubian king emerges upon our view, with its seat of 
 government at Napata, just below the fourth cataract. 
 Napata had been an Egyptian frontier station from the 
 days of Amenhotep II. seven hundred years earlier. 
 It was the remotest point in Egyptian Nubia and hence 
 safest from attack from the north." 
 
 The state which arose here was in accordance with our 
 explanation of its origin, a reproduction of the Amonite 
 theocracy at Thebes. 
 
 The state god was Amon and he continually inter- 
 vened directly in the affairs of government by specific 
 oracles. The king bore all the Pharaonic titles, calling 
 himself Lord of the Two Lands as if he governed all 
 Egypt. He built temples of Egyptian architecture, 
 decorated with Egyptian reliefs and bearing hiero- 
 glyphic inscriptions and dedications of the traditional 
 Egyptian form. By 721 B. C. we suddenly find Pianki, 
 the Nubian (Negro) king, then over twenty years upon 
 the throne, in possession of Upper Egypt as far north as 
 Heracleopolis just south of the Fayum, with Nubian * 
 (Negro) garrisons in the more important towns. At 
 this time the Twenty-third Dynasty, represented by 
 Osorkon III at Bubastis, was no longer actually ruling 
 more than the district of Bubastis and surrounded by 
 rivals in every important town in the Delta. This 
 
 * Nubian here we interpret as Negro.
 
 26 CARLISLE 
 
 Saite had subdued all his neighbors in the western Delta 
 and, beginning the absorption of Upper Egypt, had 
 already captured Hermopolis. Painkhi sent an army 
 against him which drove him back into the Delta and 
 began the siege of Hermopolis. Several months later 
 Piankhi himself reached Hermopolis with reinforcements 
 and vigorously pushed the siege, soon forcing the sur- 
 render of the place. 
 
 The advance to the Delta, sailing down the Bahr 
 Yusuf , was then begun, and the chief towns of the west 
 side surrendered one after another on seeing Piankhi's 
 force. The Nubian (Negro) king offered sacrifice to the 
 gods in all the cities which he passed and took possession 
 of all the available property for his own treasury and the 
 estate of Amon. On reaching Memphis it was found to 
 be very strongly fortified by Tefnakhte who exhorted 
 the garrison to rely on their strong walls, their plenti- 
 ful supplies and the high water which protected the east 
 side from attack, while he rode away northward for re- 
 inforcements. Having landed on the north of the city, 
 Piankhi, surprised at the strength of the place, devised a 
 shrewd plan of assault, which speaks highly for his skill 
 as a strategist. The high walls on the west of the city 
 had been recently raised still higher, and it was evident 
 that the east side, protected by waters, perhaps artifi- 
 cially raised, was being neglected. 
 
 Here was the harbour, where the ships now floated so 
 high that their bow ropes were fastened among the houses 
 of the city. Piankhi sent his fleet against the harbour 
 and quickly captured all the shipping. Then taking 
 command in person he rapidly ranged the captured 
 craft, together with his own fleet, along the eastern walls, 
 thus furnishing footing for his assaulting lines which he
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 2? 
 
 immediately sent over the ramparts and captured the 
 city, before its eastern defenses could be strengthened 
 against him. 
 
 The entire region of Memphis then submitted, where- 
 upon the Delta dynasts also appeared in numbers with 
 gifts for Piankhi and signified their submission. Piankhi 
 now crossed the river and followed the old sacred road 
 to Heliopolis, where he camped by the harbour. His 
 annals narrate at length how he entered the holy of holies 
 of the sun-god here, that he might be recognized as his 
 son and heir to the throne of Egypt, according to the 
 custom since the remote days of the Fifth Dynasty. 
 Here King Osorkon III of the Twenty-third Dynasty at 
 Bubastis, now but a petty dynast like the rest, visited 
 Piankhi and recognized the Nubian's suzerainty. Hav- 
 ing then moved his camp to a point just east of Athribis, 
 Piankhi there received the submission of the principal 
 Delta bards, fifteen in number. 
 
 Meantime the desperate Tefnakhte, having been driven 
 from his last fortress, had taken refuge on one of the 
 remote islands in the western mouths of the Nile. Many 
 miles of vast Delta morass and network of irrigation 
 canals separated Piankhi from the fugitive. 
 
 It would have been a hazardous undertaking to dis- 
 patch an army into such a region. When therefore, 
 Tefnakhte sent gifts and an humble message of submis- 
 sion requesting that Piankhi send to him a messenger 
 with whom he might go to a neighboring temple and take 
 the oath of allegiance to his Nubian suzerian, Piankhi 
 was very glad to accept the proposal. This done, a 
 Nubian Pharaoh had obtained complete recognition, 
 had supplanted the Libyans and was lord of all Egypt. 
 
 When his Delta vassals had paid Piankhi a last visit,
 
 28 CARLISLE 
 
 he loaded his ships with the riches of the North and sailed 
 away to his southern capital amid the acclamation of the 
 people. Arrived at Napata, Piankhi erected in the 
 temple of Amon a magnificent granite stela, inscribed on 
 all four sides, recording in detail the entire campaign. 
 It is the clearest and most rational account of a military 
 expedition which has survived from ancient Egypt. 
 
 It is this document of course which has enabled us to 
 follow Piankhi in his conquest of the North (Bar. IV, 
 796-883) . Tefnakhte, while he had nominally submitted 
 to Piankhi, only awaited the withdrawal of the Ethio- 
 ian to resume his designs. He eventually succeeded in 
 establishing a kingdom of Lower Egypt, assumed the 
 Pharaonic titles and ruled at least eight years over a 
 feudal state like that of the Twenty-second Dynasty. 
 His reign is parallel with the last years of the Twenty- 
 third Dynasty, which seems to have struggled on at 
 Bubastis as vassal princes under him. In Upper Egypt 
 Pankhi controlled Thebes long enough to do some slight 
 building in the temple of Mut. 
 
 In order to gain the control of the fortune of Amon with 
 an appearance of legitimacy, Piankhi had caused his 
 sister- wife, Amenardis, to be adopted by Shepnupet, the 
 daughter of Osorkon III, who was sacerdotal princess of 
 Thebes. The device was probably not new. But as 
 Piankhi withdrew, the decadent Twenty-third Dynasty 
 put forth its last expiring effort and established an 
 ephemeral authority in Thebes. Piankhi's invasion of 
 Egypt and entire reign there seems therefore to have 
 fallen into the reign of Osorkon III. 
 
 But the rising power of Sais soon overwhelmed the 
 failing Bubastites and Bocchoris son of Tefnakhte of Sais, 
 gained the throne of Lower Egypt about 718 B. C., to be
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 2Q 
 
 later known as the founder and, in so far as we know, the 
 sole king of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty. 
 
 Egypt had now been under the divided authority of 
 numerous local dynasts for probably over a century and 
 a half. With its vast works of irrigation slowly going to 
 ruin, its roads unprotected, intercourse between cities 
 unsafe, and the large communities suffering from constant 
 turmoil and agitation, the productive capacity of the 
 country was steadily waning, while foreign commerce 
 disappeared. The hopeless state of the country was 
 clearly understood by the sagacious Isaiah, who declared 
 to his people "Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud 
 and cometh unto Egypt ; and the idols of Egypt shall be 
 moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall 
 melt in the midst of it. And I will stir up the Egyptians 
 against the Egyptians; and they shall fight every one 
 against his brother and every one against his neighbor; 
 city against city and kingdom against kingdom. And I 
 will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel 
 lord, and a fierce king shall rule over them saith the 
 Lord the Lord of Hosts. The princes of Zoan are 
 utterly foolish the counsel of the wisest counsellors of 
 Pharaoh is become brutish. 
 
 The princes of Zoan are become fools; the princes of 
 Noph (Napata) are deceived; they have caused Egypt 
 to go astray that are the cornerstone of her tribes. 
 The Lord hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the 
 midst of her. They have caused Egypt to go astray 
 in every work thereof as a drunken man staggering in 
 his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work 
 which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do." (Is. 
 XIX.) No truer picture could possibly be portrayed.
 
 30 CARLISLE 
 
 SHABAKA (REIGN OF). 
 
 Some ten years after the retirement of Piankhi, the 
 Nubian kings again appeared in the North. Piankhi 
 had now been succeeded by his brother Shabaka, with 
 whom the uninterrupted series of pure Ethiopian royal 
 names begins. We possess no native records of his 
 conquest of the country, but Manetho states that he 
 burned Bocchoris alive. Lower Egypt was subdued, 
 Ethiopian Supremacy acknowledged, and Shabaka en- 
 trenched himself so firmly that he became founder of the 
 Twenty-fifth Dynasty (or Ethiopian) as reported by 
 Manetho. Appreciating the serious danger of Assyria's 
 presence on his very borders, Shabaka immediately sent 
 his agents among the Syro-Palestinian states to excite 
 them to revolt. In Philistia, Judah, Moabaud, Edom, 
 he promised the vassals of Assyria support in rebellion 
 against their Ninevite Suzerain. 
 
 Remembering the ancient supremacy of Egypt, 
 failing to understand the state of decadent importance 
 into which she had fallen, and anxious to shake off 
 oppressive Assyrian yoke, they lent a ready ear to the 
 emissaries of Shabaka. Only in Judah did the prophet 
 statesman, Isaiah, foresee the futility of depending upon 
 Egypt, and the final catastrophe which should overtake 
 her at the hands of Assyria. The vigilant Assyrian, 
 however, hearing of the projected alliance, acted so 
 quickly that the conspirators were glad to drop their 
 designs and protest fidelity. In spite of difficulties in 
 Babylon and rebellions in the north, the able and aggres- 
 sive Sargon pushed the consolidation of his power with 
 brilliant success and left to his son Sennacherib in 705 
 B. C. the first stable and firmly compacted empire ever 
 founded by a Semitic power. 1 
 
 > i Is. XX, Wang: Bar IV, 920.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 31 
 
 Sennacherib was embarrassed in his earlier years 
 with the usual complications in Babylon. Maraduk- 
 baliddin (Mero-dach-Baladan) an able and active 
 claimant of the Babylonian throne, who had already 
 caused Sennacherib's father much trouble, now sent 
 his emissaries to stir up defection and create a diversion 
 in his favor in the west. As a result Luli, the energetic 
 king of Tyre, Hezekiah of Judah, the dynasts of Edom, 
 Moab and Ammon with the chiefs of their Beduin 
 neighbors, in fact all the southern half of the Assyrian 
 conquests in the west besides Egypt, were finally or- 
 ganized in a great alliance against Nineveh. Before the 
 allies could act in concert Sennacherib suddenly appeared 
 in the west, marched down the Phoenician coast, captur- 
 ing all its strongholds save Tyre; and pressed on south- 
 ward to the revolting Philistine cities. Here having 
 punished Askalon he advanced to Altaqu, where he 
 came upon the mother army gathered by the tardy 
 Shabaka among his northern vassals whom Sennacherib 
 calls "the Kings of Mucri (Egypt). 
 
 We know nothing of the strength of this force, al- 
 though Sennacherib claims that they were "without 
 number"; but it is safe to conclude that it was not a 
 formidable army. A loose aggregation of levies from 
 the domains of the local Delta princes was little fitted to 
 meet the compact and finely organized armies which 
 the Assyrian kings had gradually developed till they had 
 become the dread and terror of the west. Although 
 small Egyptian contingents had before served as auxil- 
 iaries against the Assyrians, the armies of the two em- 
 pires on the Nile and the Tigris had never before faced 
 each other. Sennacherib led his own power in person 
 while the Egyptian army was entrusted by Shabaka to
 
 32 CARLISLE 
 
 his nephew, a son of Piankhi named Taharka (Tirharkah), 
 who some thirteen or fourteen years afterward became 
 king of Ethiopia a fact which led the Hebrew annalist to 
 give him that title already at the time of this campaign. 
 There was but one possible issue for the battle; Senna- 
 cherib disposed of Taharka 's army without difficulty; 
 having meanwhile beleagered Jerusalem, the plague in- 
 fected winds from the malarial shores east of the Delta 
 had scattered death among his troops. This over- 
 whelming catastrophe, together with disquieting news 
 from Babylon, forced him hastily to retire to Nineveh, 
 thus bringing to Jerusalem the deliverance promised 
 by Isaiah, an event in which pious tradition afterwards 
 saw the destroying angel of the Lord. This deliverance 
 was perhaps as fortunate for Egypt as Jerusalem. For 
 the third time the invincible Assyrian army had stood 
 on the very threshold of Egypt and still the decrepit 
 nation on the Nile was spared the inevitable humiliation 
 which was now so near. The Syro-Palestinian princes, 
 however, were so thoroughly cowed that Egypt was 
 thenceforth unable to seduce them to rebellion. Like 
 the Hebrews, they at last recognized the truth, as mock- 
 ingly stated by the officers of Sennacherib to the un- 
 happy ambassadors of Jerusalem; "Now behold, thou 
 trusted upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon 
 Egypt ; whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and 
 pierce it; so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust 
 on him." l 
 
 Shabaka apparently ruled his vassal Egyptian states 
 for the remainder of his reign in peace. The fragments 
 of a clay tablet bearing the seal of Shabaka and a king 
 
 i Kings II. XIX.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 
 
 33 
 
 of Assyria, found at Kuyunjek may indicate some agree- 
 ment between the two nations. At Thebes, Shabaka 
 reinstated his sister, Amenardis, who must have been 
 temporarily expelled by Osorkon III. 
 
 He built a chapel at Karnak and his building operations 
 necessitated an expedition to the distant quarries of 
 Hammamat. We also find records of his temple restora- 
 tions at Thebes and it is evident that he governed Egypt 
 at least in his relations with the temples, precisely as a 
 native Pharaoh would have done. It was probably 
 Shabaka who now broke the power of the High Priest 
 at Amon, of whose importance we shall see further as 
 we proceed. 
 
 SHABATAKA. 
 
 About 700 B. C. Shabaka was succeeded by Shabataka 
 another Ethiopian whose connection with the reigning 
 Ethiopian or Nubian family is a little uncertain, although 
 Manetho, who calls him Sebichos, makes him a son of
 
 34 CARLISLE 
 
 Shabaka. As the western vassals remained quiet and 
 Sennacherib was now absorbed in his operations at the 
 other extremity of his empire, Shabataka was unmolested 
 by the Assyrian. 
 
 His name is rare in Egypt but it is evident from the 
 conditions which survived him that he was entirely 
 unable to exterminate the local dynasts and consolidate 
 the power of Egypt. His reign ended about 688 B. C. 
 
 TAHARKA (TIRHARKAH). 
 
 It is at this juncture that we can trace the rising 
 fortunes of a son of Piankhi, prince Taharka, whose 
 features as preserved in contemporary sculptures show 
 unmistakable negroid characteristics. He had been 
 entrusted with the command of the army in the cam- 
 paign against Sennacherib. While we know nothing 
 of the circumstances which brought about his advent 
 to the throne, Manetho states that leading an army from
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 35 
 
 Ethiopia he slew Sebichos, who must be Shabataka, and 
 seized the crown. The contemporary monuments, with- 
 out intimation of these events, abruptly picture him in 
 Tanis as king, summoning his mother, whom he has not 
 seen in many years, from Napata to Tanis, that she may 
 assume her proper station as queen mother there. In 
 view of this fact and the trouble to be anticipated from 
 Assyria, it is not improbable that the Ethiopians at this 
 time maintained Tanis as their Egyptian residence. 
 
 For some thirteen years Taharka ruled his kingdom 
 without interference from Assyria. The west had for 
 twenty years seen nothing of Sennacherib, who was now 
 assassinated by his son in 68 1 B. C. As soon as Esar- 
 haddon could arrange the affairs of the great empire to 
 which he had succeeded, he determined to resort to the 
 only possible remedy for the constant interference of 
 Egypt with the authority of Assyria in Palestine, viz., 
 the conquest of the Nile country and humiliation of the 
 Pharaoh. With farseeing thoroughness he laid his plans
 
 36 CARLISLE 
 
 for the execution of this purpose and his army was 
 knocking at the frontier fortresses of the eastern Delta 
 in 674 B. C. But Taharka, who was a man of far greater 
 ability than his two Ethiopian predecessors, must have 
 made a supreme effort to meet the crisis. The out- 
 come of the battle (673 B. C.) was unfavorable for the 
 Assyrian, if indeed, as the documents perhaps indi- 
 cate, the Assyrian did not suffer positive defeat. But 
 Esarhaddon nevertheless quietly continued his prepara- 
 tions for the conquest of Egypt. Baal, king of Tyre, 
 perhaps encouraged by the indecisive result of the first 
 Assyrian invasion, then rebelled, making common cause 
 with Taharka. In 670 B. C. Esarhaddon was again 
 in the west at the head of his forces. Having invested 
 Tyre, he defeated and scattered the Egyptian army. 
 As the Ethiopian fell back upon Memphis Esarhaddon 
 pressed him closely and beseiged and captured the city, 
 which fell a rich prey to the cruel and rapacious Ninevite 
 army. Fleeing southward, Taharka abandoned Lower 
 Egypt, which was immediately organized by Esarhaddon 
 into dependencies of Assyria. 
 
 He records the names of twenty lords of the Delta 
 formerly Ethiopian vassals who now took the oath of 
 fealty to him. Among these names, written in cuniform, 
 a number may be recognized as those of the same men 
 with eighteen of whom Piankhi had to deal in the same 
 region. 
 
 Necho, doubtless descendant of Tefnakhte occupies the 
 most prominent place among them as prince of Sais and 
 Memphis. The list also includes a prince of Thebes, 
 but Esarhaddon possessed no more than a nominal 
 authority in Upper Egypt at this time. As he returned 
 to Nineveh northward along the coast road he hewed 
 in the rock at the Dog River, beside the triumphant
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 37 
 
 stelar of Rameses II, a record of his great achievement, 
 while in Samal in North Syria he erected a similar 
 monument representing himself, of heroic stature, leading 
 two captives, of whom one is probably Baal of Tyre and 
 the other, as his negroid features indicate, is the unfortu- 
 nate Taharka. 
 
 After the domination of Libyan and Nubian in turn, 
 Egypt was now a prey to a third foreign conqueror who, 
 however, differed essentially from the others in that he 
 resided abroad and evinced not the slightest sympathy 
 with Egyptian institutions and customs. The result was 
 that the Delta kinglets who had sworn allegiance to the 
 Ninevite immediately plotted with Taharka for the 
 resumption of his rule in Lower Egypt, which he there- 
 upon assumed without much delay on the withdrawal 
 of the Assyrian army. Esarhaddon was thus forced to 
 begin his work over again; but in 668 B.C., while on the 
 march to resume operations in Egypt, he died. With 
 but slight delay his son Ashurbanipal continued the 
 campaign, and placed one of his commanders in charge 
 of the expedition. 
 
 Between Memphis and the frontier, eastern Delta 
 Taharka was again routed. He fled to Thebes this time 
 pursued by the Assyrians who made the forty days 
 march thither determined to expel him from Egypt. 
 Whether the enemy actually captured Thebes at this time 
 is somewhat doubtful. In any case Ashurbanipal was 
 unable to extend his authority to Upper Egypt. He had 
 hardly restored his supremacy in the Delta when his 
 rivals there again began communicating with Taharka 
 purposing his restoration as before. But this corre- 
 spondence with Taharka was discovered by the Assyrian 
 officials in Egypt and they were sent to Nineveh in 
 chains. There the wily Necho, whom Esarhaddou had
 
 38 CARLISLE 
 
 made king of Sais, was able to win the confidence of 
 Ashurbanipal, who pardoned him, loaded him with 
 honors and restored him to his kingdom in Sais while his 
 son was appointed to rule Athribis. At the same time 
 Ashurbanipal accompanied him with Assyrian officials 
 intended, of course, to be a check upon his conduct. 
 Taharka was now unable to gain any further foothold 
 among the Assyrian vassals in the Delta. He probably 
 held Thebes, where he controlled the fortune of Amon by 
 causing his sister Shepnupet to be adopted by Amenar- 
 dis the "Divine Votress or sacerdotal princess of Thebes, 
 who had been appointed by Piankhi in the same way. 
 At Napata, Taharka built two considerable temples 
 and the Ethiopian capital evidently became a worthy 
 royal residence in his time. 
 
 He was an enterprising prince engaged in many wars 
 and a determined opponent of the Assyrian. His name 
 is read on Egyptian monuments as Tahark or Torek 
 and his face which appears on them is expressive of 
 determination. In the latter part of his life, his star ulti- 
 mately paled but not from any lack of courage or resolu- 
 tion or good faith on his part. He struggled gallantly 
 against the Assyrian power for above thirty years, was 
 never wanting to his confederates and was among the 
 m'ost distinguished monarchs of his race and period. 
 
 (Note). Poselleni in exploring the tomb of a nurse of a daughter 
 of Taharka at Thebes found beside the mummy in a case of wood a 
 bronze mirror with a cover which protected it from the air and turned 
 aside on a pin to allow of its being used. The polished surface of the 
 mirror retained enough of its brightness when discovered to reflect 
 the face. 
 
 Taharka survived but a few months his appointment 
 of Tanutamon, a son of Shabaka as co-regent, who then 
 succeeded to the crown in 663 B. C.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 39 
 
 TANUTAMON. 
 
 Encouraged by a favorable dream Tanutamon under- 
 took the recovery of Lower Egypt, defeated the Assyrian 
 commander, retook Memphis and demanded the sub- 
 mission of the Delta dynasts. He had hardly settled in 
 Memphis, when Ashurbanipal's army appeared and 
 drove the Ethiopian for the last time from Lower Egypt. 
 The Assyrians pursued him to Thebes, and as he inglori- 
 ously withdrew southward, they sacked and plundered 
 the magnificent capital of Egypt's age of splendor. 
 
 As the Assyrians withdrew from Thebes, Tanutamon 
 again entered the desolated city where he maintained 
 himself for at least six years more till 655 B. C. By 654 
 B. C. he had disappeared from Thebes whether by death 
 or retirement and his disappearance was the termination 
 of Ethiopian Supremacy in Egypt. 
 
 Withdrawing to Napata the Ethiopians never made 
 another attempt to subdue the kingdom of the Lower 
 river but gave their attention to the development of 
 Nubia. 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE MACROBIAN ETHIOPIANS. 
 BY HERODOTUS. 
 
 Cambyses planned three several expeditions, one 
 against the Carthaginians, another against the Ammoni- 
 ans and a third against the Macrobian Ethiopians, who 
 inhabit that part of Libya which lies upon the South 
 Sea. In forming his plans, he determined to send a naval 
 
 James Henry Breasted, Ancient Egyptians, Chap. XXVI.
 
 40 CARLISLE 
 
 force against the Carthaginians and against the Ammon- 
 ians, a detachment of his land forces, and against the 
 Ethiopians, spies in the first instance, who were to see 
 the table of the sun which was said to exist among the 
 Ethiopians and besides to explore other things, and to 
 cover their design, they were to carry presents to the 
 king. The table of the sun is said to be of the following 
 description. There is a meadow in the suburbs filled 
 with the cooked flesh of all sorts of quadrupeds, in this 
 the several magistrates of the city, for some purpose, 
 place the flesh at night, and in the day time whoever 
 chooses comes and feasts on it. The inhabitants say, 
 that the earth itself, from time to time produces these 
 things. Such is the description given of what is called 
 the table of the sun. When the Ichthyophagic spies 
 came to Cambyses from Elephantine, he dispatched them 
 to the Ethiopians, having instructed them what to say, 
 carrying presents consisting of a purple cloak, a golden 
 necklace, bracelets, an alabaster box of ointment and a 
 cask of palm wine. These Ethiopians, to whom Camby- 
 ses sent, are said to be the tallest and handsomest of all 
 men; and they say that they have customs different 
 from those of other nations, and especially the following 
 with regard to the regal power; for they confer the 
 sovereignty upon the man whom they consider to be 
 of the largest stature and to possess strength proportion- 
 able to his size. 
 
 When, therefore the Ichthyophagi arrived among this 
 people, they gave the presents to the'king, and addressed 
 him as follows: "Cambyses, king of the Persians, 
 desirous of becoming your friend and ally, has sent us, 
 bidding us confer with you, and he presents" you with 
 these gifts, which are such as he himself most delights
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 41 
 
 in." But the Ethiopian knowing that they came as 
 spies spoke thus to them. "Neither has the king of 
 Persia sent you with these presents to me because he 
 valued my alliance; nor do you speak the truth, for you 
 have come as spies of my kingdom; nor is he a just 
 man; for if he were just, he would not desire any 
 other territory than his own; nor would he reduce 
 people into servitude who have done him no injury. 
 However, give him this bow, and say these words to 
 him: "The king of the Ethiopians advises the king of 
 the Persians, when the Persians can thus easily draw a 
 bow of this size, then to make war on the Macrobian 
 Ethiopians with more numerous forces; but until that 
 time, let him thank the gods, who have not inspired the 
 sons of the Ethiopians with a desire of adding another 
 land to their own." Having spoken thus and unstrung 
 the bow he delivered it to the comers. 
 
 Then taking up the purple cloak he asked what it was 
 and how made; and when the Ichthyophagi told him 
 the truth respecting the purple and the manner of 
 dyeing, he said that the men are deceptive, and their 
 garments are deceptive also. Next he inquired about the 
 necklace and bracelets and when the Ichthyophagi 
 explained to him their use as ornaments, the king laugh- 
 ing and supposing them to be fetters, said that they 
 have stronger fetters than these. 
 
 Thirdly, he inquired about the ointment; and when 
 they told him about its composition and use, he made 
 the same remark as he had on the cloak. But when he 
 came to the wine, and inquired how it was made, being 
 very much delighted with the draught, he farther asked 
 what food the king made use of and what was the longest 
 age to which a Persian lived. They answered that he
 
 42 CARLISLE 
 
 fed on bread, describing the nature of wheat; and that 
 the longest life of a Persian was eighty years. Upon 
 this, the Ethiopian said that he was not at all surprised 
 if men who fed on dung lived so few years; and they 
 would not be able to live so many years, if they did not 
 refresh themselves with this beverage showing the wine 
 to the Ichthyophagi; for in this he admitted they were 
 surpassed by the Persians. The Ichthyophagi inquiring 
 in turn of the king concerning the life and diet of the 
 Ethiopians, he said that most of them attained to a 
 hundred and twenty years and some even exceeded that 
 term, and that their food was boiled flesh and their 
 drink milk. And when the spies expressed astonish- 
 ment at the number of years, he led them to a fountain 
 by washing in which they became sleek as if it had been 
 of oil, and an odor proceeded from it as of violets. The 
 water of this fountain, the spies said, is so weak that 
 nothing is able to float upon it, neither wood nor such 
 things as lighter than wood; but everything sinks to 
 the bottom. If this water is truly such as it is said to be, 
 it may be they are long lived by reason of the abundant 
 use of it. Leaving this fountain he conducted them to 
 the common prison, where all were fettered with golden 
 chains; for among these Ethiopians brass is the most rare 
 and precious of all metals. After having viewed the 
 prison they next visited that which is called the table 
 of the sun. After this they visited last of all their 
 sepulchres which are said to be prepared from crystal 
 in the following manner: when they have dried the 
 body, either as the Egyptians do, or in some other way, 
 they plaster it all over with gypsum, and paint it making 
 it as much as possible resemble real life; they then put 
 round it a hollow column made of crystal, which they
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 43 
 
 dig up in abundance and is easily wrought. The body 
 being in the middle of the column is plainly seen nor does 
 it emit an unpleasant smell nor is it in any way offen- 
 sive; and it is all visible as the body itself. The nearest 
 relations keep the column in their houses for a year, offer- 
 ing to it the first fruits of all, and performing sacrifices; 
 after that time they carry it out and place it somewhere 
 near the city. 
 
 The spies having seen everything returned home; 
 and when they had reported all that had passed, Camby- 
 ses, being greatly enraged immediately marched against 
 the Ethiopians, without making any provision for the 
 subsistence of his army or once considering that he was 
 going to carry his arms to the remotest part of the world; 
 but as a madman and not in possession of his senses, as 
 soon as he heard the report of the Ichthyophagi, he set 
 out on his march, ordering the Greeks, who were present 
 to stay behind and taking with him all his land forces. 
 When the army reached Thebes, he detached about 
 fifty thousand men, and ordered them to reduce the 
 Ammonians to slavery, and to burn the oracular temple 
 of Jupiter, while he with the rest of his army, marched 
 against the Ethiopians, but before the army had passed 
 over a fifth part of the way all the provisions that they 
 had were exhausted, and after the provisions, the beasts 
 of burden were eaten, and likewise failed. Now if 
 Cambyses, when he learned this, had altered his purpose, 
 and had led back his army even after his first error, he 
 would have proved himself to be a wise man; but now 
 without any reflection, he still continued advancing. 
 The soldiers, as long as they could gather any from the 
 earth supported life by eating herbs; but when they 
 reached the sands some of them had recourse to a horrid
 
 44 CARLISLE 
 
 expedient, for, taking one man in ten by lot they 
 devoured him. When Cambyses heard this, shocked 
 at their eating one another, he abandoned his expedition 
 against the Ethiopians, marched back and reached 
 Thebes, after losing a great part from his army. From 
 Thebes, he went down to Memphis, and suffered the 
 Greeks to sail away. This ended the expedition against 
 the Ethiopians. 1 
 
 V. 
 
 NEGRO-EGYPTIAN PHARAOHS 
 
 AMENOPHITES AND THOTMESITES NEW 
 
 EMPIRE. 
 
 XVII. THEBAN DYNASTY. 
 
 The Ethiopians and Egyptians being closely allied, it is 
 not surprising that we find a marked Negro caste among 
 the latter who were but another African people and 
 between whom there was but slight physical differences. 
 Their intermarriages so blending the types that there 
 was no line of division between them, especially was this 
 true of the ruling caste. 
 
 All sculptures and monuments of the earliest peoples 
 are predominantly negroid. Royal heads four thousand 
 years old belonging to the fourth dynasty recently 
 unearthed are undoubtedly of Negro origin. Hence, 
 Egyptian history is Negro history as we have abun- 
 dant proof from the earliest dynasties through Egypt's 
 age of splendor, the royal line was strongly imbued 
 with the blood of the Negro, therefore we have chosen 
 the name Negro-Egyptian as most fitting for the Phara- 
 ohs of the seventeenth dynasty, especially. 
 
 3ook III. 17-26.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 45 
 
 Piankhi who won the title of Pharaoh by conquest was 
 the first ruler of Egypt of pure Negro blood. He was 
 the father of Tirhakra, mentioned in our Bible, the 
 sound of whose name awed the great Sennacherib. 
 These names and many others with which our readers 
 will become familiar should be precious to us as they 
 represent men who were our very own, bone of our bone 
 and flesh of our flesh. What Cromwell was to the 
 English, Napoleon to the French, these great Negro- 
 Egyptian Pharaohs were to the African Negroes. 
 
 This period about 1700 B. C. begins with the reign 
 of Aahmes, Amasis a native Egyptian, who is credited 
 with the expulsion of the Hyksos with whom he warred 
 five years. These wars concluded he turned his atten- 
 tion to the regions south of Egypt and led an expedition 
 against them. At first he swept everything before him 
 and victory seemed certain, but the Negroes were not 
 such easy prey. A Nubian chief, Teta-an, rallied forces 
 and went out and forced Aahmes back, retook the 
 regions of the south and destroying the temples of the 
 Egyptian garrisons and annihilating the Egyptian 
 power." This was the beginning of a long struggle, 
 lasting until the twenty-first year of the reign of Amasis 
 who was finally victorious and took Teta-an prisoner. 
 Much credit is due this chief and his army in their deter- 
 mined resistance to retain the control of their territory. 
 
 Aahnes having established Egyptian control over the 
 country between the First and Second Cataract, gave 
 himself to domestic affairs and began to repair the 
 temples and other sacred edifices. His reign covered 
 twenty-five years. He married an Ethiopian princess 
 and conferred upon her the throne name of Nefert-ari- 
 Aahmes, "the beautiful companion of Aahmes." Her
 
 46 CARLISLE 
 
 complexion was of ebon blackness. This beautiful 
 Cushite princess became his favorite wife and the 
 mother of succeeding Pharoahs. She is called, "the 
 daughter, sister, wife and mother of a king." This 
 alliance between Aahmes and Nefert-ari was not merely 
 a political one. "His queen was certainly regarded as 
 an important personage. She was called "the wife of 
 the god Ammon," and enjoyed some high post con- 
 
 AAHMBS-NOFRE-ABI. 
 
 nected with the worship of that god with Thebes; 
 Aahbes commemorated her upon his monuments; 
 during her son's reign she held for a time the reins 
 of power; while in after ages she was venerated as 
 "ancestress and founder of the eightieth dynasty." 
 Amenhotek I the son and successor of Aahmes reigned 
 under the tutelage of his mother, continued the Ethiopian 
 campaigns and embellished Thebes. He was first of the 
 line of Negro-Egyptian Pharaohs. He was a mother's 
 son of Cush, whose maternal grandsires were full blooded 
 Negroes "of the best physical type." He associated
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 
 
 47 
 
 his mother, the beautiful black queen, with himself in 
 government. On his monuments his mother shares a 
 place equal with his own. "She is joined with him in 
 the worship of the gods; and she is "the lady of the 
 two lands" as he is lord of them." Amenophis married 
 an Egyptian lady, his son by her he named Thotmes. 
 The reign of Thotmes I was marked as the period of 
 Egypt's first attempt to carry arms into Asia and thus 
 retaliate against the oppression she suffered from the 
 Hyksos which resulted in a spirit of military activity 
 and conquest covering three centuries and raised it to 
 its zenith. Thothmes I not only extended his dominions 
 in the south but led successive campaigns into Asia. On 
 his return to Egypt he proceeded to enlarge and embel- 
 
 AAHMBS. 
 
 THOTMBS L 
 
 lish the temple of Ammon at Thebes in return for the 
 victories which this god was supposed to have made 
 possible for him. His reign is supposed to have been 
 twenty-one years. 
 Thotmes married Aahmes, thought to be his sister, by
 
 48 CARLISLE 
 
 whom he had a daughter and two sons, Hasheps or Hat- 
 asu, the sons, having the same name as their father, 
 Thotmes II and Thotmes III and great grand children 
 of Aahmes and Nefert-ari-Aahmes. 
 
 The reign of Thotmes II was uneventful except for 
 an expedition against the Arabs. His sister Hatasu, 
 being more ambitious for power and having an influence 
 over him was permitted to share his throne and virtually 
 directed the affairs of government. Together they 
 made additions to the temples. Thotmes II 's brief reign 
 ended, Hasheps became sole ruler, and in every way as a 
 king masculine of mind, she donned male attire and 
 
 THOTMJS IL 
 
 the title of a king. Her young brother was hardly more 
 than a subject. She erected many buildings of elegant 
 taste obelisks at Thebes in the temple of Ammon 
 statues of herself in various places and extended her 
 sovereignty over the land of Punt by means of a naval 
 expedition which returned to Egypt laden with the 
 wealth of the country. She tardily acknowledged the
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 49 
 
 majority of her brother and reluctantly gave him recog- 
 nition as sovereign by allowing his name to appear on 
 public monuments; after having held absolute control 
 of the government for fifteen years. A woman of 
 wonderful executive ability, yet unscrupulous in her 
 lust for power, her reign compared favorably with that 
 of preceding Pharaohs. Her reign as co-regent with 
 Thotmes III was about seven years. As great-grand- 
 daughter of the Ethiopian queen Nefert-ari-Ahames, 
 she deserves an honored place. 
 
 THOTMES III. 
 
 Thotmes III was beyond doubt the greatest of Negro- 
 Egyptian Pharaohs and Conquerors and has been called 
 
 THOTXXS III. 
 
 "the Alexander of Egyptian history." He led an 
 expedition into Western Asia forced the states to pay 
 him tribute and to acknowledge his suzerainty. He 
 carried on at least eight successive campaigns with the
 
 $0 CARLISLE 
 
 states of Asia covering a period from his twenty-third 
 to his fortieth year. "Ambitious, restless, brave even 
 to rashness, equally remarkable as a warrior and as a 
 general successful in his naval no less than in his mili- 
 tary operations he spread the name and fame of Egypt 
 through distant lands alarmed the great empires of 
 Western Asia conquered and held in subjection all 
 Syria and Western Mesopotamia as far as the Khabour 
 River, probably reduced Cyprus, chastised the Arabs, 
 crushed rebellion in Nubia, and left to his successor 
 a dominion extending above eleven hundred miles from 
 north to south, and (in places) four hundred and fifty 
 miles from west to east. At the same time he dis- 
 tinguished himself as a builder. Restorer or founder 
 of a score of temples, designer of the great "Hall of 
 Pillars" at Thebes, by far the largest apartment that 
 the world has as yet seen, erector of numerous gigantic 
 obelisks, constructor and adorner of vast propylaea, 
 author or restorer of at least five huge colossi, he has 
 left the impress of his presence in Egypt more widely 
 than almost any other of her kings while at the same time 
 he has supplied to the great capitals of the modern world 
 their most striking Egyptian monuments. 
 
 Thotmes III died after a reign of fifty-four years, 
 probably at about the age of sixty." 1 
 
 AMENOPHIS II. 
 
 Amenophis II son of Thotmes III, succeeded his father 
 on the throne and found it necessary to put down rebel- 
 lion in the states of Asia who, as was common at that 
 period, renounced their allegiance to Egypt upon the 
 
 1 Rawlinson's Ancient Egypt, p. 259-260.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 51 
 
 death of Thotmes and assumed their independence. 
 Amenophis is said to have re-established Egyptian power 
 in all the countries previously subdued by his father, 
 this alone was no small task and must have kept him 
 busily employed. His architecture is said to be far 
 inferior to that of his predecessors. His reign was of 
 short duration. His son who succeeded him on the 
 
 THOTHM IV. 
 
 AMUKOPH II. 
 
 throne took the name of Thotmes that of his grandfather 
 and was known as Thotmes IV. He was not the eldest 
 son of Amenophis but was his father's immediate succes- 
 sor which he attributed to some special favor of the god 
 Hanuachis, this god having appeared to him in a dream. 
 In some way associating Hanuachis with the sphinx, he 
 dug away the accumulation of sand at its base, "set up 
 between the fore paws of the Sphinx a massive memorial 
 tablet twelve feet high and eight feet broad on which he 
 recorded the circumstances of his dream. In front of his 
 memorial tablet and also within the paws of the mon-
 
 52 CARLISLE 
 
 strous animal he Thotmes constructed a small temple 
 for the worship of the god with whom he identified it. 
 One expedition against the Hittites of Syria and another 
 against the Cushites or people of Ethiopia are all that 
 can be assigned to him. The former he commemorated 
 in the great temple of Ammon at Thebes, the latter in 
 the Nubian temple of Amada." 
 
 He was a great sportsman, his favorite game was the 
 lion hunt, a fondness for swift horses that "outstripped 
 the wind" according to his own statement. 1 
 
 AMENOPHIS III. 
 
 Thotmes IV married a foreigner, an Ethiopian or 
 Cushite, named Maut-Hemwa by whom he had a son, 
 Amen-hotep or Amenophis who succeeded him. Ameno- 
 phis III married a foreigner, Taia who was an Ethiopian. 
 Amenophis was deeply attached to his mother, Queen 
 Maut-Hemwa and later to his wife, Queen Taia whose 
 advice and counsel he sought and acted upon. He gave 
 little attention to military enterprise, the boundaries of 
 Egypt remained the same as when he inherited the throne 
 but his building activities more than made up the 
 deficit. He began in the first year of his reign to exca- 
 vate stone for the repair of temples and throughout his 
 reign of thirty six years, his zeal seemed untiring in the 
 erection of magnificent buildings which have been of 
 greater attraction to travellers than those of any other 
 Pharaoh. Amenophis erected the great temple of 
 Ammon at Luxor, one of the most magnificent in all 
 Egypt, embellished that of Karnak with a new propylon, 
 built two new temples to Ammon and Maut and united 
 
 1 Rawlinson's anc. Egypt Vol. II.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 
 
 53 
 
 the whole quarter of the temples at Karnak with the 
 new temple of Ammon at Luxor by an avenue of crio- 
 sphinxes with the sun's disk on their heads (there was a 
 leaning to this worship by Amenophis). He also built 
 two temples to Knephor Khnum (gods) at Elephantine, 
 
 AMTJNOPH IIL Mention. 
 
 MAUT-HBMWA. 
 
 one to contain his own image at Soleb in Nubia, a shrine 
 with a propylon and ram-sphinxes before it at Gebel 
 Berkal or Napata and another shrine at Sedinga. In- 
 scribed tablets dated in his reign are found at Semneh 
 in the island of Konosso on the rocks between Philae 
 and Asscuan, at El-Kaab at Silsilis and at Sarabit- 
 el-Khadim in the Sinaitic peninsula. Of all his edifices 
 that which approved itself the most highly in his own 
 eyes was the temple or rather, perhaps, the temple-palace 
 of Luxor. " I built on the rocky soil," he says, " a court 
 of alabaster, of rose granite and of black stone. Also a 
 double tower gateway did I execute, because I had under- 
 taken to dedicate the most beautiful thing possible to
 
 54 
 
 CARLISLE 
 
 my divine father " (i. e. Ammon). Statues of the gods 
 are to be seen in it everywhere. They are carved in all 
 their parts. A great statue was made of gold and of all 
 kinds of beautiful precious stones. I gave directions to 
 execute O Ammon, what pleased thee well to unite thee 
 with thy beautiful dwelling." 1 
 
 TAIA. 
 
 His most remarkable work was the twin colossi, 
 two gigantic statues sitting, of the Pharaoh cut out of 
 one solid block of stone and between 60 and 70 feet high. 
 One has been called "vocal Memnon" because of a 
 musical sound that issued from it at day break, supposed 
 to have been caused by a fissure in the rock, caused 
 perhaps by earthquake, together with the action of the 
 sun's rays upon it. 
 
 This statue was repaired by Septimus Severus, A. D. 
 196. 
 
 Amenophis III was a kind and benevolent ruler, crime 
 
 1 Rawlinson's An. Egypt, Vol. II.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 55 
 
 was punished with justice, while loyalty was often liber- 
 ally rewarded. Amenophis reigned thirty-six years. He 
 was survived by his Queen Taia. 
 
 NOTE. In the Theban tomb, there was an amazing collection of 
 Negro Scenes. A Negress, apparently a princess, arrives at Thebes 
 drawn in a plastrum by a pair of humped oxen. The driver and 
 groom are Egyptians, perhaps eunuchs. Following her, are multi- 
 tudes of Negroes bringing tribute from the Upper country and 
 slaves red and black, Egyptian and Negro of both sexes. They 
 have come to make offerings in the tomb of a " royal son of Kush," 
 Amenoph or Amenophis, and no doubt this princess is Queen Taia. 
 
 AMUNOJH IV. 
 
 His son, Amenhotep IV, succeeded him to the throne. 
 He was the founder of the " Disk Heresy," or the worship 
 of the sun's disk. Before this new form of worship was 
 firmly implanted the influence of the priesthood was 
 successful in winning back to an extent, the adherents 
 of the old form and Amenhotep found it necessary to 
 quit Egypt. He set up an independent kingdom
 
 56 CARLISLE 
 
 between Thebes and Memphis, Khu-aten, he beautified 
 it with temples and monuments and with a large num- 
 ber of followers, reigned twelve years in unbroken peace. 
 His mother was made a permanent resident of his court 
 and enjoyed all the honors due queen mother. To his 
 wife he was greatly devoted. "Sweet love fills my 
 heart," he says in one inscription, "for the queen and for 
 her young children. Grant a long life of many years 
 to the Queen Nefert Tii; may she keep the hand of 
 Pharaoh! Grant a long life to the royal daughter, 
 Meri-Aten, and to the royal daughter Mak-Aten and 
 to their children. May they keep the hand of the queen, 
 their mother, eternally and forever. What I swear is 
 a true avowal of what my heart says to me. Never is 
 there falsehood in what I say." 1 
 
 VI. 
 How MOSES MADE WAR WITH THE ETHIOPIANS. 
 
 When Moses came to the age of maturity he made his 
 virtues manifest to the Egyptians and showed them he 
 was born for bringing them down and raising the Israel- 
 ites. And the occasion he laid hold of was this: The 
 Ethiopians who were next neighbors to the Egyptians 
 made an inroad into their country which they seized 
 upon and carried off the effects of the Egyptians, who in 
 their rage fought against them and revenged the affronts 
 they had received from them; but being overcome in 
 battle some of them were slain and the rest ran away in 
 a shameful manner and by that means saved themselves 
 whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the 
 pursuit; and thinking it would be a mark of cowardice 
 
 J Rawlinson's An. E. Vol. II.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 57 
 
 if they did not subdue all Egypt, they went on to 
 subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and when they 
 had tasted the sweets they never left of the prosecution 
 of the war; and as the nearest parts had not courage 
 enough, at first, to fight with them they proceeded as far 
 as Memphis and the sea itself while not one of the cities 
 was able to oppose them. The Egyptians under this 
 sad oppression betook themselves to their oracles and 
 prophecies, and when God had given them this counsel 
 to make use of Moses, the Hebrew, and take his assist- 
 ance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him, 
 that he might be the general of the army. Upon which, 
 when she had made him swear he would do him no harm, 
 she delivered him to the king and supposed his assistance 
 would be of great advantage to them. She withal, 
 reproached the priest, who, when he had before admon- 
 ished the Egyptians to kill him, was not ashamed to own 
 their want of his help. So Moses, at the persuasion of 
 Thermuthis and the king himself, cheerfully undertook 
 the business ; and the sacred scribes of both nations were 
 glad, those of the Egyptians that they would once more 
 overcome their enemies by his valor and that by the 
 same piece of management Moses would be slain; but 
 those of the Hebrews that they should escape from the 
 Egyptians because Moses was to be their general. 
 But Moses prevented the enemies and took and led his 
 army before those enemies were apprised of his attack- 
 ing them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, 
 where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity; 
 for when the ground was difficult to be passed over 
 because of the multitude of serpents, which it produces 
 in vast numbers and indeed is singular in some of those 
 productions which other countries do not breed and yet
 
 58 CARLISLE 
 
 such as are worse than others in power and mischief and 
 an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend 
 out of the ground unseen and also fly in the air and 
 so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mis- 
 chief, Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve 
 the army safe and without hurt; for he made baskets, 
 like unto arks, of sedge and filled them with ibes, and 
 carried them along with them; which animal is the 
 greatest enemy to serpents, imaginable, for they fly 
 from them when they come near them, and as they 
 fly, they are caught and devoured by them as if it were 
 done by the harts; but the ibes are tame creatures and 
 only enemies to the serpentine kind. As soon therefore, 
 as Moses was come to the land which was the breeder 
 of these serpents, he let loose the ibes; and by their 
 means repelled the serpentine kind and used them for 
 his assistants before the army came upon the ground. 
 When he had then proceeded thus on his journey he 
 came upon the Ethiopians before they expected him; 
 and joining battle with them he beat them of the hopes 
 they had of success against the Egyptians and went on 
 in overthrowing their cities and indeed made a great 
 slaughter of these Ethiopians. Now when the Egyp- 
 tian army had once tasted of this prosperous success, 
 by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their dili- 
 gence insomuch that the Ethiopians were in danger of 
 being reduced to slavery and all sorts of destruction and 
 at length they retired to Saba which was a royal city of 
 Ethiopia and Cambyses afterward named Meroe after 
 the name of his own sister. The place was to be beseiged 
 with very great difficulty since it was both encompassed 
 by the Nile, quite round and the other rivers, Asapus and 
 Astaborus, made it a very difficult thing for such as 
 attempted to pass over them; for the city was situated
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 59 
 
 in a retired place and was inhabited after the manner of 
 an island, being encompassed with a strong wall and 
 having the rivers to guard from their enemies and having 
 great ramparts between the wall and the rivers, insomuch 
 that when the waters came with the greatest violence it 
 can never be drowned; which ramparts make it next to 
 impossible, for even such as are gotten over the rivers to 
 take the city. However, while Moses was uneasy at the 
 army's lying idle, for the enemies durst not come to battle, 
 Tharbis, who was the daughter of the king of the Ethio- 
 pians, happened to see Moses as he led the army near to 
 the walls; and fought with great courage, and admiring 
 the subtility of his undertaking and believing him to be 
 the author of the Egyptian success when they had before 
 despaired of recovering their liberty, and to the occasion 
 of the great danger the Ethiopians were in when they had 
 before boasted of their great achievements, she fell deeply 
 in love with him and upon the prevalency of that passion 
 sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to dis- 
 course with him upon their marriage. 
 
 He thereupon accepted the offer on condition she 
 would procure the delivering up of the city and gave the 
 assurance to take her to be his wife, and that when he 
 had once taken possession of the city he would not break 
 his oath to her. No sooner was the agreement made 
 it took effect immediately; and when Moses had cut 
 off the Ethiopians, he gave thanks to God and consum- 
 mated his marriage and led the Egyptians back to their 
 own land. 1 
 
 NOTE. The history of Moses as general of the Egyptians against 
 the Ethiopians is wholly omitted in the Bible but is thus cited by 
 Iraneus from Josephus and that soon after his ownage, Josephus 
 
 Josephus Aut. Book II. Chap. V, p. 93.
 
 60 CARLISLE 
 
 says that when Moses was nourished in the king's palace he was 
 appointed general of the army against the Ethiopians and conquered 
 them; when he married the king's daughter, because out of her 
 affection for him, she delivered the city up to him. Nor perhaps, 
 did St. Stephen refer to anything else when he said of Moses, before 
 he was sent by God to the Israelites that he was not only learned in 
 all the wisdom of the Egyptians but was also mighty in words and in 
 deeds. 1 
 
 VII. 
 How MOSES FLED OUT OF EGYPT INTO MIDIAN. 
 
 Now the Egyptians after they had been preserved by 
 Moses, entertained a hatred toward him, as suspecting 
 that he would take occasion from his good success to 
 raise a sedition, and bring innovations into Egypt, and 
 told the king he ought to be slain. The king had also 
 some intentions, of himself, to the same purpose and this 
 as well out of envy at his glorious expedition at the head 
 of his army as out of fear of being brought low by him, 
 and being instigated by the sacred scribes, he was ready 
 to undertake to kill Moses. But when he had learned 
 beforehand what plots there were against him he went 
 away privately; and because the public roads were 
 watched, he took his flight through the deserts and where 
 his enemies could not suspect he would travel; and 
 though he was destitute of food he went on and despised 
 that difficulty courageously. And when he came to the 
 city of Midian which lay upon the Red Sea and was so 
 occasion offered him by the custom of the country, of 
 doing what recommended his virtue and afforded him 
 an opportunity of bettering his circumstances. 
 
 For that country having but little water, the shepherds 
 
 i Acts. VII-22 (Whiston).
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 6 1 
 
 used to seize on the wells, before others came, lest their 
 flocks should want water, and lest it should be spent 
 by others before they came. There were now, therefore, 
 to this well seven sisters that were virgins, the daughters 
 of Raguel, a priest, and one thought worthy, by the people 
 of the country, of great honor; these virgins who took 
 care of their father's flock, which sort of work it was 
 customary and very familiar for women to do in the 
 country of the Troglodites, they came first of all and 
 drew water out of the well in a quantity sufficient for 
 their flocks, into troughs which were made for the recep- 
 tion of that water. But when the shepherds came 
 upon the maidens and drove them away that they 
 might have the command of the waters themselves, 
 Moses, thinking it would be a terrible reproach upon 
 him if he overlooked the young women under unjust 
 oppression and should suffer the violence of the men 
 to prevail over the right of the maidens, he drove away 
 the men who had a mind to more than their share and 
 afforded a proper assistance to the women who, when 
 they had received such a benefit from him, came to 
 their father and told him how they had been affronted 
 by the shepherds, and assisted by a stranger and en- 
 treated that he would not let this generous action be 
 done in vain, nor go without a reward. Now the father 
 took it well from his daughters that they were so desirous 
 to reward their benefactor, and bid them bring Moses 
 into his presence, that he might be rewarded as he 
 deserved. And when Moses came he told him what 
 testimony his daughters bare to him, that he had assisted 
 them; and that as he admired him for his virtue he said 
 that Moses had bestowed such assistance on persons, 
 not insensible of benefits, but where they were both
 
 62 CARLISLE 
 
 willing and able to return the kindness and even to 
 exceed the measure of his generosity. So he made him 
 his son, and gave him one of his daughters in marriage; 
 (Ex. II-2i) and he appointed him to be the guardian 
 and superintendent over his cattle, for of old all the 
 wealth of the barbarians was in those cattle. 1 
 
 So Moses, when he understood that the Pharaoh, in 
 whose reign he fled away was dead, asked leave of Raguel 
 to go to Egypt for the benefit of his own people; and 
 he took with him Zipporah, the daughter of Raguel, 
 whom he had married and the children he had by her, 
 Gersom and Eleazar, and made haste into Egypt. 2 
 
 VIII. 
 MOSES RECEIVES JETHRO, HIS FATHER-IN-LAW. 
 
 Now when Raguel, Moses's father-in-law understood 
 in what a prosperous condition his affairs were he wil- 
 lingly came to meet him; and Moses took Zipporah, his 
 wife and his children and pleased himself with his 
 coming. And when he had offered sacrifice he made a 
 feast for the multitude near the bush he had formerly 
 seen; which multitude, every one according to their 
 families partook of the feast. But Aaron and his 
 family took Raguel and sang hymns to God as to him 
 who had been the author and procurer of their deliver- 
 ance and freedom. They also praised their conductor 
 as by him whose virtue it was that all things had suc- 
 ceeded so well with them. Raguel also in his eucharisti- 
 
 Josephus, Book II, Chap. XI. 
 ' Josephus, Book II, Chap. XIII.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 63 
 
 cal oration to Moses, made great encomiums upon the 
 whole multitude; and he could not but admire Moses, for 
 his fortitude and that humanity he had shown in the 
 deliverance of his friends. 1 
 
 The next day as Raguel saw Moses in the midst of a 
 crowd of business, (for he determined the differences of 
 those that referred them to him) everyone still going to 
 him and supposing that they should then only obtain 
 justice, if he were the arbitrator; and those that lost 
 their causes thought it no harm, while they thought they 
 lost them justly and not by partiality. Raguel, how- 
 ever, said nothing to him at the time as not desirous to 
 be any hindrance to such as had a mind to make use of the 
 virtue of their conductor. But afterward he took him 
 to himself and when he had him alone he instructed him 
 in what he ought to do, and advised him to leave the 
 trouble of lesser causes to others, but himself to take 
 care of the greater and of the people's welfare, for that 
 certain others of the Hebrews might be found that were 
 fit to determine causes, but that nobody but a Moses 
 could take care of the safety of so many ten thousands. 
 Be not therefore insensible of thine own virtue and what 
 thou hast done by ministering under God to the people's 
 preservation. Permit, therefore, the determination of 
 common causes to be done by others, but do thou reserve 
 thyself to the attendance on God only; and look out 
 for methods of preserving the multitude from their 
 present distress. Make use of the method I suggest to 
 you as to human affairs, and take a review of the army 
 and appoint chosen rulers over tens of thousands and 
 then over thousands; then divide them into five hun- 
 
 > Josephus, Book III , Chap. III.
 
 64 CARLISLE 
 
 dreds, and again into hundreds and into fifties, and 
 set rulers over each of them, who may distinguish them 
 into thirties and keep them in order, and at last number 
 them by twenties and by tens; and let there be one 
 commander over each number to be denominated from 
 the number of those over whom they are rulers but these 
 such as the whole multitude have tried and do approve 
 as being good and righteous men; and let these rulers 
 decide the controversies they have one with another. 
 But if any great cause arise let them bring the cognizance 
 of it before the rulers of a higher dignity; but if any 
 great difficulty arise that is too hard for even their 
 determination let them send it to thee. By these means 
 two advantages will be gained: that the Hebrews will 
 have justice done and thou wilt be able to attend con- 
 stantly upon God and procure him to be more favorable 
 to the people. 
 
 This was the admonition of Raguel; and Moses re- 
 ceived his advice very kindly and acted according to 
 his suggestion. Nor did he conceal the invention of 
 this method nor pretend to it himself, but informed the 
 multitude who it was that invented it, nay, he has named 
 Raguel in the books he wrote as the person who invented 
 this ordering of the people as thinking it right to give 
 true testimony to worthy persons, although he might 
 have gotten reputation by ascribing to himself the in- 
 ventions of other men. 
 
 Whence we may learn the virtuous disposition of Moses. 1 
 
 NOTE. This manner of electing the judges and officers of the 
 Israelites by the testimonies and suffrages of the people before they 
 were ordained by God or by Moses deserves to be carefully noted 
 because it was the pattern in the like manner of the choice and ordi- 
 nation of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons in the Christian church. 
 (Whistm). 
 
 i Jos. Book III. Chap. IV.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 65 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE QUEEN or SHEBA. 
 
 There was then a woman queen of Egypt and Ethiopia; 
 she was inquisitive into philosophy and one that on 
 other accounts was to be admired. When this queen 
 heard of the virtue and prudence of Solomon, she had 
 a great mind to see him, she being desirous to be satis- 
 fied by her own experience and not by bare hearing (for 
 reports thus heard are likely enough to comply with a 
 false opinion while they wholly depend on the credit of 
 the relaters) ; so she resolved to come to him, and that 
 especially in order to have a trial of his wisdom while she 
 proposed questions of very great difficulty and entreated 
 that he would solve their hidden meaning. Accord- 
 ingly she came to Jerusalem with rich splendor, and rich 
 furniture; for she brought with camels laden with gold, 
 with several sorts of sweet spices and with precious 
 stones. Now upon the king's kind reception of her, he 
 both showed a great desire to please her, and easily 
 comprehending in his mind the meaning of her curious 
 questions she propounded to him he resolved them 
 sooner than any one could have expected, so she was 
 amazed at the wisdom of Solomon, and discovered that 
 it was more excellent upon trial than what she had 
 heard by report beforehand; and especially she was 
 surprised at the fineness and largeness of his royal palace, 
 and not less at the good order of the apartments for she 
 observed that the king had therein shown great wisdom; 
 but she was beyond measure astonished at the house 
 which was called the forest of Lebanon as also at the 
 magnificence of his daily table, and the circumstances 
 of its preparation and ministration with the apparel of 
 his servants that waited, and the decent management of
 
 66 CARLISLE 
 
 their attendance nor was she less affected with those 
 daily sacrifices which were offered to God and the 
 careful management which the priests and Levites used 
 about them. When she saw this done every day she 
 was in the greatest admiration imaginable, insomuch 
 that she was not able to contain the surprise she was in, 
 but openly confessed how wonderfully she was affected; 
 for she proceeded to discourse with the king and thereby 
 owned that she was overcome with admiration at the 
 things before related; and said, "all things, indeed O 
 king, that came to our knowledge by report, came with 
 uncertainty as to our belief of them; both such as thou, 
 thyself possessed, I mean wisdom and prudence, and the 
 happiness thou hast from thy kingdom, certainly the 
 fame that came to us was no falsity; it was not only a 
 true report, but it related thy happiness after a much 
 lower manner, than I now see it before my eyes. For 
 as for the report it only attempted to persuade our 
 hearing, but did not so make known the dignity of the 
 things themselves as does the sight of them, and being 
 present among them I indeed, who did not believe what 
 was reported by reason of the multitude and grandeur 
 of the things I inquired about, do see them to be much 
 more numerous, than they were reported to be. Ac- 
 cordingly I esteem the Hebrew people as well as thy 
 servants and friends to be happy, who enjoy thy pres- 
 ence, hear thy wisdom every day, continually. One 
 would therefore bless God who hath so loved this coun- 
 try and those that inhabit therein as to make thee king 
 over them." 
 
 Now when the queen had thus demonstrated how 
 deeply the king had affected her, her disposition was 
 known by certain presents, for she gave him twenty
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 67 
 
 talents of gold, and an immense quantity of spices and 
 precious stones. (They say also that we possess the 
 root of that balsam which our country still bears by this 
 woman's gift.) Solomon also repaid her with many 
 good things and principally by bestowing upon her 
 what she chose of her own inclination, for there was 
 nothing she desired which he denied her and as he was 
 very generous and liberal in his own temper so did he 
 show the greatness of his soul in bestowing on her what 
 she herself desired of him. 
 
 So when this queen of Ethiopia had obtained what we 
 have already given an account of and had again com- 
 municated to the king what she brought with her, she 
 returned to her own kingdom. 
 
 X. 
 
 CARTHAGE. 
 
 Carthage is said to have been founded nearly 900 
 years before the Christian Era by Dido, with a colony 
 of Tyrians. The government, at first monarchical, 
 became afterwards republican, and it is commended by 
 Aristotle as one of the most perfect of antiquity. The 
 two chief magistrates called suffetes or judges were 
 elected annually from the first families. The religion 
 was a cruel superstition and human victims were offered 
 in sacrifice. 
 
 In the time of the Punic wars, Carthage was the most 
 commercial and wealthy city and one of the most splen- 
 did in the world. It had under its dominion about 300 
 smaller towns in Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, 
 a great part of Spain, also of Sicily and other islands. 
 The Carthaginians worked the gold mines of Spain,
 
 68 CARLISLE 
 
 they were devoted to commerce and had the vices and 
 characteristics of a commercial people. The Romans, 
 who were their rivals and enemies, represented them as 
 wanting in integrity and honor, hence the ironical phrase 
 Punica fides [Punic faith] to denote treachery. 
 
 The Periphes, or voyage of Hanuo, an illustrious 
 Carthaginian who wrote an account of his expedition 
 affords proof of ardent enterprise. Carthage produced 
 several celebrated generals, among whom were Hamil- 
 car, Hasdrubal and Hannibal; the last, the most formid- 
 able enemy that Rome ever experienced. 1 
 
 The most distinguished Carthaginian commander in 
 the first Punic war was Hamilcar who was the father of 
 Hannibal, and who trained his son to war and made him 
 swear a perpetual enmity to the Roman name. Hanni- 
 bal was one of the greatest generals of antiquity and at 
 the early age of twenty-six was raised to the command 
 of the Carthaginian army. He commenced the second 
 Punic war by besieging Saguntum, a city of Spain, in 
 alliance with the Romans. After a siege of seven months, 
 the desperate inhabitants set fire to the city and perished 
 in the flames. Hannibal now formed the bold design of 
 carrying the war into Italy and by an arduous and toil- 
 some march he led his army over the Pyrenees and after- 
 wards over the Alps, without halting, one of the most 
 wonderful exploits of which there is any record; and 
 though having lost 30,000 men, rushed into Italy and 
 gained four great victories. The first over Scipio, near 
 the Tici-mus; the second over Sempronions near the 
 Trebia; and the third over Flaminius near the Lake 
 Thrasmenus; and the fourth over ^Emilius. Among 
 
 i Worcester Sec. IV, p. 69.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 69 
 
 the slain were 5,000 or 6,000 Roman knights, the greater 
 part of the whole body. The last was the most memor- 
 able defeat the Romans ever suffered. According to 
 Livy 50,000 and according to Polybius no less than 
 70,000 of their troops were left dead upon the field 
 together with the consul ^Emilius, and Hannibal is 
 said to have sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings 
 which they wore on their fingers. 
 
 HANNIBAL. 
 
 Hannibal has been censured for not making the best 
 of his great victory by immediately attacking Rome, 
 and instead of doing this for leading his troops into 
 winter quarters at Capua where they were corrupted 
 and enervated by dissipation in that luxurious city. 
 
 The Romans being now guided by the counsels of the 
 sagacious and prudent Fabius Maximus concentrated 
 their strength.
 
 70 CARLISLE 
 
 The chief command of their armies was given to 
 Fabius, styled the shield, and to Marcellus, the sword of 
 Rome. The good fortune of Hannibal now forsook him 
 and he remained 13 years in Italy after the battle of 
 Canne, without gaining any signal advantage. At 
 the siege of Nola was repulsed by Marcellus with con- 
 siderable loss, and his army was harassed and weakened 
 by Fabius. 
 
 Syracuse, which had taken part with Carthage, was 
 besieged by Marcellus and after being defended for three 
 years, by the inventive genius of the celebrated mathe- 
 matician, Archimedes, it was at last compelled to 
 surrender. 
 
 This event put an end to the kingdom of Syracuse, 
 which now became a part of the Roman province of 
 Sicily. A large army of Carthaginians was sent from 
 Spain, into Italy under the command of Asdrubal, the 
 brother of Hannibal, who was defeated with great 
 slaughter by the Romans under the command of the 
 consuls, Livy and Nero, near the small river Metaurus, 
 which empties into the Tyrrhem sea. 
 
 Scipio, afterwards surnamed Africanus, having con- 
 quered Spain, passed over into Africa, with a Roman 
 army and carried havoc and devastation to the walls of 
 Carthage. 
 
 Alarmed for the fate of their empire the Carthaginians 
 immediately recalled Hannibal from Italy. These two 
 great commanders, Hannibal and Scipio at the head of 
 their respective armies fought in the plains of Zama, a 
 memorable battle in which the Carthaginians were 
 totally defeated. A peace soon followed the conditions 
 of which were that Carthage should abandon Spain, 
 Sicily and all the other islands in the Mediterranean,
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO Jl 
 
 surrender all their prisoners, give up their whole fleet 
 except ten galleys and in future undertake no war with- 
 out the consent of the Romans. This terminated the 
 second Punic war, in the humiliation of Carthage after 
 having continued for 17 years. Hannibal afterwards 
 fled from his country and passed the last thirteen years 
 of his life in Syria and Bithynia. During his exile, 
 Scipio resided a while in the same country and many 
 friendly conversations passed between them. In one 
 of which the Roman is said to have asked the Cartha- 
 ginian whom he thought the greatest general, Hannibal 
 immediately replied "Alexander, because that with a 
 small body of men, he had defeated very numerous 
 armies and had overrun a great part of the world." 
 "And who do you think deserves the next place?" con- 
 tinued the Roman . ' ' Pyrrhus ' ' replied the other ; " he first 
 taught the method of forming a camp to the best ad- 
 vantage. Nobody knew better how to post guards 
 more properly." "And whom do you place next to those? " 
 said Scipio. " Myself," said Hannibal at which Scipio 
 asked with a smile, "Where then would you have placed 
 yourself if you had conquered me?" "Above Alex- 
 ander," replied the Carthaginian, "above Pyrrhus and 
 above all other generals." 1 
 
 HANNIBAL'S TREATY. 
 
 IV. Treaty concluded between Hannibal, general of the 
 Carthagenians, and Phillip king of Macedonia, in the 
 fourth year of the second Punic war, 215 B. C. 2 
 
 i Worcester, Sec. V. p. 72. 
 
 * From Polyb. II, p. 598; Hieren Ap. p. 483.
 
 72 CARLISLE 
 
 This is the treaty which Hannibal the general, Mago, 
 Myrcan, Barmocar and all the senators of Carthage 
 that were with him, and all the Carthaginians that are 
 in the army with him have sworn with Xenophams, 
 the son of Chomachus, the ambassador deputed by king 
 Phillip, the son of Demetrius, in his own name, and in 
 the name of the Macedonians and their allies. 
 
 In the presence of Jupiter, Juno and Apollo; in the 
 presence of the deity of the Carthaginians, and of 
 Hercules and lolaus, in the presence of Mars, Triton, 
 and Poseidon; in the presence of all the gods who are 
 with us in the camp and of the sun, the moon, and the 
 earth; in the presence of the rivers, the lakes, and the 
 waters; in the presence of all the gods who preside over 
 the state of Carthage in the presence of all the gods who 
 preside over the Macedonian empire, and the rest of 
 Greece; in the presence of all the gods who direct the 
 affairs of this war, and who are witnesses of the faith; 
 Hannibal, the general and all the senators of Carthage 
 that are with him and all the Carthaginians that are 
 in the army with him, have said, with the consent of 
 you and of us, this treaty of amity and concord shall 
 connect us together as friends, as kindred, and as brothers 
 upon the following conditions: 
 
 King Phillip and the Macedonians, together with the 
 rest of the Greeks that are in alliance with them shall 
 protect and help the people of Carthage, Hannibal the 
 general, and those that are with him; the governors in 
 every place in which the laws of Carthage are observed; 
 the people of Utica, and all the cities and nations that 
 are subject to the Carthaginian sway, together with 
 their armies and their allies; the cities likewise and all 
 the people with whom we are allied, in Italy, in Gaul
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 73 
 
 and in Liguria; and all those that shall hereafter enter 
 into friendship and alliance with us in those countries. 
 The Carthaginians, on the other hand, the people of 
 Utica and all the other cities and states that are subject 
 to the Carthaginians, with their allies and armies, the 
 cities also and all the people of Italy, of Gaul and of 
 Liguria, that are at this time in alliance with us, and 
 all others likewise that shall hereafter be received into 
 our alliance in any of those parts of Italy; shall protect 
 and defend king Phillip and the Macedonians, together 
 with the rest of the Greeks that are in alliance with 
 them. We will not engage in any ill designs or employ 
 any kind of treachery the one against the other. But 
 with all alacrity and willingness, without any deceit 
 or fraud, you, the Macedonians shall declare yourselves 
 the enemies of those that are enemies of the Carthagin- 
 ians; those kings alone excepted, and those parts and 
 cities, with which you are connected by any treaty. 
 And we also on the other hand, will be the enemies of 
 those that are enemies of King Phillip; those kings and 
 cities and nations alone excepted, to which we are already 
 bound by treaty. You shall be partners also with us in 
 the war, in which we are now engaged against the 
 Romans; till the gods give to you and to us a happy 
 peace. You shall supply us with the assistance that is 
 requisite, and in the manner that shall be stipulated 
 between us. And if the gods, refusing success to our 
 endeavors, in the war against the Romans and their 
 allies should dispose us to enter into treaty with them, 
 we shall insist, that you also be included in the treaty, 
 and that the peace be made upon these expressed condi- 
 tions; that the Romans shall at no time make war 
 against us; that they shall not remain masters, Corcyra,
 
 74 CARLISLE 
 
 Apollonia, Epidanenus, Pharos, Dimalle and Atintania. 
 And that they shall restore also to Demetrius of Pharos, 
 all the persons of his kindred, who are now detained in 
 public custody at Rome. If the Romans shall after- 
 wards make war either against you or us, we will mu- 
 tually send such assistance as shall be requisite to either 
 party. The same thing also will we perform if any other 
 power shall declare war against us; those cities and 
 states alone excepted with which we are allied by treaty. 
 If at any time it should be judged expedient to add to the 
 present treaty or to detract from it, it shall be done 
 with mutual consent. 
 
 NOTE. Hannibal was at this time in Lower Italy and hoped by 
 this union with Phillip, who was to invade Italy by crossing the 
 Adriatic Sea, to annihilate Rome. 
 
 About fifty years after the conclusion of the second 
 Punic war, the Carthaginians attempted to repel the 
 Numidians who made incursions into a territory claimed 
 by the former. The Romans, pretending this was a 
 violation of their treaty laid hold of it as a pretext for 
 commencing the third Punic war, with a determination 
 to effect the entire destruction of Carthage. Porcius 
 Cata, the censor, who now swayed the decisions of the 
 senate, had long cherished this savage design and had 
 been in the habit of concluding his speeches with this 
 expression "Delenda est Carthage," "Carthage must be 
 destroyed." 
 
 The Carthaginians conscious of their inability to 
 resist the Romans offered every submission and were 
 ready to acknowledge themselves subjects of Rome. 
 They yielded up to the Romans, their ships, their arms, 
 and munitions of war. They were then required to 
 abandon the city in order that it might be destroyed.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 75 
 
 This demand was heard by the inhabitants with a mixed 
 feeling of indignation and despair; but the spirit of 
 liberty and independence not being yet extinct they were 
 roused to make the most strenuous effort, having resolved 
 to sacrifice their lives rather than to obey the barbarous 
 mandate. 
 
 After the most desperate resistance for three years, the 
 city was at last taken by Scipio, the second Africanus, and 
 being set on fire, the flames continued to rage during 
 1 7 days. Thus was Carthage with its walls and buildings 
 razed to its foundations. Such of the inhabitants as 
 disdained to surrender themselves prisoners of war were 
 either massacred or perished in the flames. The scenes 
 of horror were such as to force tears even from the 
 Roman general. 
 
 A new Carthage arose from its ruins, with the title of 
 a colony ; and though Carthage might yield to the royal 
 perogative of Constantinople and perhaps to the trade 
 of Alexandria or the splendor of Antioch, she still main- 
 tained the second rank in the West; as the Rome of the 
 African world. 
 
 That wealthy and opulent metropolis displayed in a 
 dependent condition the image of a flourishing republic. 
 Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms and the 
 treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination 
 of civil honors, gradually ascended from the chief pro- 
 curators of streets and quarters of the city to the tribu- 
 nal of the supreme magistrate, who with the title of 
 proconsul, represented the state dignity of a consul of 
 ancient Rome. Schools and gymnasia were instituted 
 for the education of the African youth; and the liberal 
 arts and manners, grammar, rhetoric and philosophy were 
 publicly taught in the Greek and Latin languages. The
 
 76 CARLISLE 
 
 buildings of Carthage were uniform and magnificent. 
 A shady grove was planted in the midst of the capital, 
 the new port, a secure and capacious harbor was sub- 
 servient to the commercial industry of citizens and 
 strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and 
 theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the 
 barbarians. 
 
 The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to 
 that of their country and the reproach of Punic faith 
 still adhered to their subtle and faithless character. The 
 habits of trade and the abuse of luxury had corrupted 
 their manners. In 439 A. D. they were surprised by the 
 Vandals and reduced to a state of servitude. 1 
 
 XL 
 
 SEPTIMUS SEVERUS. (NEGRO EMPEROR OF 
 ROME). 
 
 From Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia which occu- 
 pied the space between the Danube and the Hadriatic 
 was one of the last and most difficult conquests of the 
 Romans. In the defence of national freedom two hun- 
 dred thousand of the barbarians had once appeared in 
 the field, alarmed the declining age of Augustus and 
 exercised the vigilant prudence of Tiberius at the head 
 of the collected force of the Empire. The Pannonians 
 yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. 
 
 i Gibbon's Rome, p. 259.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 77 
 
 Their recent subjection, however, the neighborhood and 
 even the mixture of the unconquered tribes and perhaps 
 the climate adapted as it has been observed, to the pro- 
 duction of great bodies and slow minds all contributed 
 to preserve some remains of their original ferocity and 
 under the tame and uniform countenance of Roman 
 provincials the hardy features of the natives were still 
 to be discerned. Their warlike youth afforded an inex- 
 haustible supply of recruits to the legions stationed on 
 the banks of the Danube and which from a perpetual 
 warfare against the Germans and Samartians were 
 deservedly esteemed the best troops in the service. 
 
 The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by 
 Septimus Severus, a native African, who in the gradual 
 ascent of private honors had concealed his daring ambi- 
 tion, which was never diverted from its steady course by 
 the allurements of pleasure, the apprehension of danger 
 or the feelings of humanity. On the first news of the 
 murder of Pertinax he assembled his troops painted in the 
 most lively colors, the crime, the insolence and the weak- 
 ness of the Praetorian Guards, and animated the legions 
 to arms and to revenge. He concluded, and the perora- 
 tion was thought extremely eloquent, with promising every 
 soldier about four hundred pounds; an honorable dona- 
 tive double in value to the infamous bribe with which 
 Julian had purchased the empire. The acclamations of 
 the army immediately saluted Severus, with the names of 
 Augustus Pertinax and Emperor and he (A. D. 193 April 
 1 3th) thus attained the lofty station to which he was in- 
 vited by conscious merit, and a long train of dreams 
 and omens, the fruitful offspring either of his superstition 
 or policy. 
 
 The new candidate for empire saw and improved the
 
 78 CARLISLE 
 
 peculiar advantage of his situation. His province 
 extended to the Julian Alps which gave an easy access 
 into Italy; and he remembered the saying of Augustus 
 that a Pannonian army might in ten days appear in 
 sight of Rome, by a celerity proportioned to the great- 
 ness of the occasion he might reasonably hope to re- 
 venge Pertinax, punish Julian and receive the homage 
 of the senate and people as their lawful emperor, before 
 his competitors, separated from Italy by a vast tract 
 of sea and land, were apprised of his success or even of 
 his election. During the whole expedition he scarcely 
 allowed himself any moments for food or sleep; march- 
 ing on foot and in complete armor at the head of his 
 columns he insinuated himself into the confidence and 
 affection of his troops pressed their diligence, revived 
 their spirits, animated their hopes and was well satisfied 
 to share the hardships of the meanest soldier whilst he 
 kept in view the infinite superiority of his reward. 
 
 The wretched Julian had thought himself prepared 
 to dispute the empire with the governor of Syria but in 
 the invincible and rapid approach of the Pannonian 
 legions he saw his inevitable ruin. The hasty arrival 
 of every messenger increased his just apprehensions. 
 He was successively informed that Severus had passed 
 the Alps; that the Italian cities unwilling or unable to 
 oppose his progress had received him with the warmest 
 professions of joy and duty; that the important place 
 of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance and that 
 the Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. 
 The enemy was now within two hundred and fifty miles 
 of Rome; and every moment diminished the narrow 
 span, life and empire allotted Julian. 
 
 He attempted, however, to prevent or at least to 
 protract his ruin. He implored the venal faith of the
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 79 
 
 Praetorians, filled the city with unavailing preparations 
 for war; drew lines round the suburbs and even strength- 
 ened the fortifications of the palace; as if those last in- 
 trenchments could be defended without hope of relief 
 against a victorious invader. Fear and shame pre- 
 vented the guards from deserting his standard; but 
 they trembled at the name of Pannonian legions, com- 
 manded by an experienced general and accustomed to 
 vanquish the barbarians on the frozen Danube. They 
 quitted with a sigh the pleasures of the baths and theatres 
 to put on arms whose use they had almost forgotten 
 and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed. 
 
 The unpractised elephants whose uncouth appear- 
 ance it was hoped would strike terror into the army of 
 the north threw their unskillful riders; and the awkward 
 evolutions of the marines, drawn from the fleet of 
 Misenum were an object of ridicule to the populace; 
 whilst the Senate enjoyed with secret pleasure the 
 distress and weakness of the usurper. 
 
 Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling per- 
 plexity. He insisted that Severus should be declared 
 a public enemy by the senate. He intreated that the 
 Pannonian general might be associated to the empire. 
 He sent public ambassadors to negotiate with his rival; 
 he dispatched private assassins to take away his life. 
 He designed that the Vestal Virgins and all the colleges 
 of priests in the sacerdotal habits and bearing before 
 them the sacred pledges of the Roman religion, should 
 advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian 
 legions and at the same time he vainly tried to interro- 
 gate, or to appease the fates, by magic ceremonies and 
 unlawful sacrifices. 1 
 
 Hist. August p. 62-63.
 
 80 CARLISLE 
 
 Severus who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchant- 
 ments guarded himself from the only danger of secret 
 conspiracy, by the faithful attendance of six hundred 
 chosen men, who never quitted his person or their 
 cuirrasses either by night or by day during the whole 
 march. Advancing with a steady and rapid course he 
 passed without difficulty the denies of the Apennine, 
 received into his party the troops and ambassadors 
 sent to retard his progress and made a short halt at Inter- 
 amia about seventy miles from Rome. His victory was 
 already secure ; but the despair of the Praetorians might 
 have rendered it bloody; and Severus had the laudable 
 ambition of ascending the throne without drawing the 
 sword. His emissaries dispersed in the capital, assured 
 the guards, that provided they would abandon their 
 worthless prince and the perpetrators of the murder of 
 Pertinax, to the justice of the conqueror, he would 
 no longer consider that melancholy event as the act 
 of the whole body. The faithless Praetorians whose 
 resistance was supported only by sullen obstinacy, 
 gladly complied with the easy conditions, seized the 
 greatest part of the assassins and signified to the senate 
 that they no longer defended the cause of Julian. That 
 assembly convoked by the consul unanimously acknowl- 
 edged Severus as lawful emperor, decreed divine honors 
 to Pertinax and pronounced a sentence of deposition 
 and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian 
 was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of 
 the palace (A. D. 193, June 2) beheaded as a common 
 criminal after having purchased with an immense 
 treasure an anxious and precarious reign of only sixty- 
 six days. 1 
 
 i Dion. LXXIII, p. 1240. Herodian III, p. 83. Hist. August, p. 63.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 8l 
 
 Severus covered a distance of eight hundred miles in 
 forty days or twenty miles a day without halt or inter- 
 mission. The almost incredible expedition of Severus, 
 who in so short a space of time, conducted a numerous 
 army from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber, 
 proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by ag- 
 riculture and commerce, the goodness of roads, the 
 discipline of the legions and the indolent, subdued temper 
 of the provinces. 
 
 The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two meas- 
 ures, the one dictated by policy, the other by decency; 
 the revenge and the honors due to the memory of 
 Pertinax. Before the new emperor entered Rome he 
 issued his commands to the Praetorian Guards directing 
 them to wait his arrival on a large plain near the city, 
 without arms but in the habits of ceremony in which 
 they were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He 
 was obeyed by those haughty troops, whose contrition 
 was the effect of their just terrors. A chosen part of the 
 Illyrian army encompassed them with levelled spears. 
 Incapable of flight or resistance they expected their 
 fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the 
 tribunal, sternly reproached them with perfidy and 
 cowardice, dismissed them with ignominy from the 
 trust which they had betrayed, despoiled of their splen- 
 did ornaments, and banished them upon pain of death, 
 to the distance of a hundred miles from the capital. 
 During the transaction another detachment had been 
 sent to seize their arms, occupy their camp and prevent 
 the hasty consequences of their despair. 1 
 
 The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next 
 solemnized with every circumstance of sad magnificence. 
 
 1 Dion i. LXXIV, p. 1241. Herodian I. II, p. 84.
 
 82 CARLISLE 
 
 The senate with a melancholy pleasure, performed the 
 last rites to excellent prince, whom they had loved and 
 still regretted. The concern of his successor was proba- 
 bly less sincere. He esteemed the virtues of Pertinax 
 but those virtues would forever have confined his ambi- 
 tion to a private station. Severus pronounced his 
 funeral oration, with studied eloquence, inward satis- 
 faction and well acted sorrow; and by this pious regard 
 to his memory convinced the credulous multitude that 
 he alone was worthy to supply his place. Sensible, 
 however, that arms, not ceremony must assert his claim 
 to the empire, he left Rome at the end of thirty days, 
 and without suffering himself to be elated by this easy 
 victory prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals. 
 The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have 
 induced an elegant historian to compare him with the 
 first and greatest of the Caesars. 1 
 
 In less than four years (A. D. 193-197) Severus sub- 
 dued the riches of the east and the valor of the west. 
 He vanquished two competitors of reputation and ability 
 and defeated numerous armies, provided with weapons 
 and discipline equal to his own. In that age the art of 
 fortification and the principles of tactics were well under- 
 stood by all the Roman generals ; and the constant supe- 
 riority of Severus was that of an artist who uses the 
 same instruments with more skill and industry than his 
 rivals. I shall not, however, enter into a minute narra- 
 tive of these operations ; but as the two civil wars against 
 Niger and against Albiuns were almost the same in 
 their conduct, event and consequences, I shall collect 
 into one point of view the most striking circumstances, 
 
 i Herodias, i. Ill, p. 112.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 83 
 
 tending to develop the character of the conqueror and 
 the state of the empire. 
 
 Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem 
 to the dignity of public transactions offend us with a less 
 degrading idea of meanness, than when they are found 
 in the intercourse of private life. In the latter they dis- 
 cover a want of courage; in the other only a defect of 
 power; and as it is impossible for the most able states- 
 man to subdue millions of followers and enemies by their 
 own personal strength, the world, under the name, policy, 
 seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of 
 craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus 
 cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state 
 reason. He promised only to betray, he nattered only 
 to ruin and however he might occasionally bind himself 
 by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his 
 interest, always released him from the inconvenient 
 obligation. 1 
 
 If his two competitors reconciled by their common 
 danger had advanced upon him without delay, perhaps 
 Severus would have sunk under their united effort. 
 Had they even attacked him at the same time with 
 separate views and separate armies the contest might 
 have been long and doubtful. But they fell singly and 
 successively an easy prey to the arts as well as arms of 
 Severus, of the subtle enemy lulled into security by the 
 moderation of his professions and overwhelmed by the 
 rapidity of his action. He first marched against Niger 
 whose reputation and power he most dreaded but he 
 declined any hostile declaration, suppressed the name 
 of his antagonist and only signified to the senate and the 
 
 1 Herodian i. p. 85.
 
 84 CARLISLE 
 
 people his intention of regulating the eastern provinces. 
 In private, he spoke of Niger, his old friend, an intended 
 successor with the most affectionate regard and highly 
 applauded his generous design of revenging the murder 
 of Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the throne 
 was the duty of every Roman general. To persevere in 
 arms and to resist a lawful emperor acknowledged by 
 the senate would alone render him criminal. 1 
 
 The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands among the 
 children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome 
 as pledges for the loyalty of their parents. As long as 
 the power of Niger inspired terror or even respect they 
 were educated with the most tender care with the chil- 
 dren of Severus himself, even in the letter, in which he 
 announced his victory over Niger, he styles Albinus, the 
 brother of his soul and empire, sends him the affection- 
 ate salutations of his wife Julia, and his young family 
 and intreats him to preserve the armies and the republic 
 faithful to their common interest. The messengers 
 charged with this letter were instructed to accost the 
 Caesar with respect to desire a private audience and to 
 plunge their daggers into his heart. The conspiracy was 
 discovered and the too credulous Albinus at length 
 passed over to the continent and prepared for an unequal 
 contest with his rival who rushed upon him at the head 
 of a veteran and victorious army. 
 
 The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to 
 the importance of his conquests. Two engagements, 
 the one near the Hellespont, the other in the narrow 
 defiles of Cilicia decided the fate of his Syrian competi- 
 tor; and the troops of Europe asserted their usual 
 
 i Hist. August, p. 65.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 85 
 
 ascendant over the effeminate natives of Asia. The 
 battle of Lyons where one hundred and fifty thousand 
 (Dion i. LXXV, p. 1260) Romans were engaged was 
 equally fatal to Albinus. The valor of the British army 
 maintained a sharp and doubtful contest with the hardy 
 discipline of the Illyrian legions. The fame and person 
 of Severus appeared during a few moments irrecoverably 
 lost till that war-like prince rallied his fainting troops 
 and led them on to a decisive victory. The war was 
 finished by that memorable day. 
 
 Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to 
 death in their flight from the field of battle. Their 
 fate excited neither surprise nor compassion. They 
 had staked their lives against the chance of empire and 
 suffered what they would have inflicted; nor did Severus 
 claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his rivals to 
 live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper 
 stimulated by avarice indulged a spirit of revenge 
 where there was no room for apprehension. The most 
 considerable of the provincials, who without any dis- 
 like to the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor 
 under whose authority they were accidentally placed, 
 were punished by death, exile and especially by the 
 confiscation of their estates. Many cities of the east 
 were stript of their ancient honors and obliged to pay 
 into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of 
 the sums contributed by them for the service of Niger. 1 
 
 Till the final decision of the war the cruelty of Severus 
 was in some measure restrained by the uncertainty of 
 the event, and his pretended reverence for the senate. 
 The head of Albinus accompanied with a menacing 
 
 Dion. i. XXTV. p. 1250.
 
 86 CARLISLE 
 
 letter, announced to the Romans, that he was resolved 
 to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate com- 
 petitors. He was irritated by the just suspicion that 
 he had never possessed the affection of the senate and he 
 concealed his old malevolence under the discovery of 
 some treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, 
 however, accused of having favored the party of Albinus, 
 he freely pardoned; and, by his subsequent behavior 
 endeavored to convince them, that he had forgotten as 
 well as forgiven their supposed offences. But at the 
 same time he condemned forty-one other senators whose 
 names history has recorded; their wives, children and 
 clients attended them in death and the noblest pro- 
 vincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same 
 ruin. 
 
 Such rigid justice, for so he termed it, was in the 
 opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring 
 peace to the people or stability to the prince; and he 
 condescended slightly to lament that to be mild, it was 
 necessary that he should first be cruel (Aurelins Victor). 
 The true interest of an absolute monarch generally 
 coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their 
 wealth, their order and their security, are the best and 
 only foundations of his royal greatness; and were he 
 totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place 
 and would dictate the same rule of conduct. Severus 
 considered the Roman empire as his property and had 
 no sooner secured possession of it, than he bestowed his 
 care, on the cultivation and improvement of so valuable 
 an acquisition. Salutary laws, executed with inflexible 
 firmness soon corrected most of the abuses with which 
 since the death of Marcus, every part of the govern- 
 ment had been infected. In the administration of
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 87 
 
 justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized 
 by attention, discernment, and impartiality; and when- 
 ever he deviated from the strict line of equity it was 
 generally in favor of the poor and oppressed; not so 
 much indeed from a sense of humanity as from the 
 natural propensity of a despot to humble the pride of the 
 rich and to sink all his subjects to the same common 
 level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste for 
 building and magnificent shows, and above all a constant 
 and liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were 
 the surest means of captivating the affection of the 
 Roman people. The misfortunes of civil discord were 
 obliterated. The calm of peace and prosperity was once 
 more experienced in the provinces, and many cities 
 restored by the munificence of Severus assumed the 
 title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments 
 their gratitude and felicity. 
 
 The fame of the Roman arms was revived by that 
 warlike emperor and he boasted with a just pride that 
 having received the empire oppressed with foreign and 
 domestic wars, he left it established in profound universal 
 and honorable peace. 
 
 Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely 
 healed, its mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the 
 constitution. Severus possessed a considerable share of 
 vigor and ability; but the daring soul of the first Caesar, 
 or the deep policy of Augustus, were scarcely equal to 
 the task of curbing the insolence of the victorious legions. 
 By gratitude, by misguided policy, by seeming necessity, 
 Severus was induced to relax the nerves of discipline. 1 
 The vanity of his soldiers was flattered with honor of wear- 
 ing gold rings; their ease was indulged in the permission 
 
 1 Herodian i. Ill, p. 115. Hist. August, p. 68.
 
 88 CARLISLE 
 
 of living with their wives in the idleness of quarters. 
 He increased their pay beyond the example of former 
 times and taught to expect and soon to claim extraordi- 
 nary donations on every public occasion of danger or 
 festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury, and 
 raised above the level of subjects by their dangerous priv- 
 ileges they soon became incapable of military fatigue, 
 oppressive to the country, and impatient of a just sub- 
 ordination. Their officers asserted the superiority of 
 rank by a more profuse and elegant luxury. 
 
 There is still extant a letter of Severus lamenting the 
 licentious state of the army and exhorting one of his 
 generals to begin the necessary reformation, from the 
 tribunes themselves; since he justly observes the officer 
 who has forfeited the esteem, will never command the 
 obedience of his soldiers. 1 
 
 Had the emperor pursued the train of reflection he 
 would have discovered that the primary cause of this 
 general corruption might be ascribed not indeed to the 
 example but to the pernicious indulgence, however, of 
 the commander-in-chief. 
 
 The Praetorians who murdered their emperor and sold 
 the empire had received the just punishment of their 
 treason; but the necessary though dangerous institu- 
 tion of guards was soon restored on a new model by 
 Severus and increased to four times the ancient numbers. 2 
 
 Formerly these troops had recruited in Italy; and as 
 the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the softer 
 manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia, 
 
 i Hist. August, p. 73. 
 s Herodian i. Ill, p. 
 
 131.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 89 
 
 Noricum, and Spain. In the room of these elegant 
 troops, better adapted to the pomp of courts than to the 
 uses of war, it was established by Severus that from all 
 the legions of the frontiers, the soldiers most distinguished 
 for strength, valor, and fidelity should be occasionally 
 draughted and promoted, as an honor and reward, into 
 the more eligible service of the guards. Dion. i. XXV, 
 p. 1243. By this new institution, the Italian youths 
 were diverted from the exercise of arms and the capital 
 was terrified by the strange aspect and manners of a 
 multitude of barbarians. But Severus flattered him- 
 self that the legions would consider these chosen Prae- 
 torians as the representatives of the whole military 
 order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men, 
 superior in arms and appointments to any force that 
 could be brought into the field against them would for- 
 ever crush the hopes of rebellion, and secure the empire 
 to himself and his posterity. 
 
 The command of these favored and formidable troops 
 became the first office of the empire. As the govern- 
 ment degenerated into military despotism, the Praetor- 
 ian Praefect, who in his origin had been a simple captain 
 of the guards, was placed not only at the head of the 
 army, but of the finances and even of the law. In every 
 department of administration he represented the person 
 and exercised the authority of the emperor. The first 
 Praefect who enjoyed and abused this immense power 
 was Plantianus, the favorite minister of Severus. His 
 reign lasted about ten years, till the marriage of his 
 daughter with the eldest son of the emperor, which 
 seemed to assure his fortune, proved the occasion of his 
 ruin. The animosities of the palace by irritating the 
 ambition and alarming the fears of Plantianus threat-
 
 90 CARLISLE 
 
 ened to produce a revolution and obliged the emperor 
 who still loved him to consent with reluctance to his 
 death. After the fall of Plantianusan, eminent lawyer, 
 Paupinian was appointed to execute the motley office 
 of Praetorian Praefect. 
 
 Till the reign of Severus the virtue and even the good 
 sense of the emperors had been distinguished by their 
 zeal or affected reverence for the senate and by a tender 
 regard to the nice frame of civil policy instituted by 
 Augustus. But the youth of Severus had been trained 
 in the implicit obedience of camps and his riper years, 
 spent in the despotism of military commands. 
 
 His haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover 
 or would not acknowledge, the advantage of preserving 
 an immediate power, however imaginary between the 
 emperor and the army. He disdained to profess himself 
 the servant of an assembly that detested his person and 
 trembled at his frown. He issued his commands, where 
 his request would have proved as effectual, assumed the 
 conduct and style of a sovereign and conqueror and 
 exercised without disguise the whole legislative, as well 
 as executive power. The victory over the senate was 
 easy and inglorious. Every eye and every passion were 
 directed to the supreme magistrate, who possessed the 
 arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate neither 
 elected by the people nor guarded by military force, 
 nor animated by public spirit rested its declining author- 
 ity on the frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion. 
 The fine theory of a republic insensibly vanished and 
 made way for the more natural and substantial feelings 
 of monarchy. As the freedom and honors of Rome were 
 successively communicated to the provinces in which 
 the old government had been either unknown or remem-
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 91 
 
 bered with abhorrence, the tradition of republican max- 
 ims was gradually obliterated. 
 
 The Greek historians of the age of the Automines 
 observe with a malicious pleasure, that although the 
 sovereign of Rome in compliance with an obsolete preju- 
 dice abstained from the name of king, he possessed the 
 full measure of regal power. 
 
 In the reign of Severus the senate was filled with 
 polished and eloquent slaves from the Eastern provinces 
 who justified personal flattery by speculative principles 
 of servitude. These new advocates of prerogative were 
 heard with pleasure by the court and with patience by 
 the people, when they inculcated passive obedience and 
 descanted on the inevitable mischiefs of freedom. 
 
 The lawyers and historians concurred in teaching 
 that the imperial authority was held not by the delegated 
 commission but by the irrevocable resignation of the 
 senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint 
 of civil laws, could command by his arbitrary will the 
 lives and fortunes of his subjects and might dispose of 
 the empire as of his private patrimony. The most 
 eminent of the civil lawyers, and particularly Paupinian, 
 Paulus, and Illpian flourished under the house of Severus; 
 and the Roman jurisprudence having closely united 
 itself with the system of monarchy was supposed to 
 have attained its full maturity and prerogative. The 
 contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of peace 
 and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it 
 had been introduced. Posterity who experienced the 
 fatal effects of the maxims and example justly considered 
 him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman 
 empire. 
 
 The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous,
 
 Q2 CARLISLE 
 
 may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness 
 and exercise of its own powers; but the possession of a 
 throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to 
 an ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was felt 
 and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune and merit had 
 from a humble station elevated him to the first of mankind. 
 " He had been all things as he said himself and all was 
 of little value." 1 
 
 " Omnia fin et nihil expedit. " Oppressed with age and 
 infirmities, careless of fame distracted with the care, 
 not of acquiring but preserving an empire (Dion. Cas- 
 sins i. LXXVI, p. 1284), and satiated with power, all 
 his prospects of life were closed. The desire of per- 
 petuating the greatness of his family was the only re- 
 maining wish of his ambition and paternal tenderness. 
 Like most of the Africans Severus was passionately 
 addicted to the vain studies of magic and devination, 
 deeply versed in the interpretation of dreams and 
 omens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of 
 judicial astrology; which in almost every age except 
 the present has maintained its dominion over the mind 
 of man. 
 
 He had lost his first wife, whilst he was governor 
 of Lionnese Gaul. In the choice of a second, he sought 
 only to connect himself with some favorite of fortune; 
 and as soon as he discovered that a young lady of 
 Enusa in Syria had a royal nativity he solicited and 
 obtained her hand (Hist. August, p. 65). Julia Domna, 
 for that was her name, deserved all that the stars could 
 promise her/ She possessed even in advanced age 
 the attractions of beauty (Hist. August, p. 85) and 
 
 i Hist. August, p. 71.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 93 
 
 united to a lively imagination, a firmness of mind and 
 strength of judgment seldom bestowed on her sex. 
 Her amiable qualities never made any deep impression 
 on the dark and jealous temper of her husband; but 
 in her son's reign, she administered the principal affairs 
 of the empire with a prudence that supported his author- 
 ity; and with a moderation that sometimes corrected 
 his wild extravagances. (Dion. Cassins i. LXXVIL 
 p. 13, 14.) Julia applied herself to letters and philos- 
 ophy with some success and with the most splendid 
 reputation. She was the patroness of every art and the 
 friend of every man of genius. The grateful flattery of 
 the learned has celebrated her virtue; but, if we may 
 credit the scandal of ancient history, chastity was very 
 far from being her most conspicuous virtue. 1 
 
 Two sons Caracalla and Geta were the fruit of this 
 marriage and the destined heirs of the empire. The 
 fond hopes of the father and the Roman world, were 
 soon disappointed by these vain youths, who displayed 
 the indolent security of hereditary princes; and a 
 presumption that fortune would supply the place of 
 merit and application. Without any emulation or 
 virtue or talents, they discovered almost from their 
 infancy a fixed and implacable antipathy for each other. 
 Their aversion confirmed by years and fomented by the 
 arts of their interested favorites broke out in childish 
 and gradually in more serious competition; and at 
 length divided the theatre, the circus and the court into 
 two factions actuated by the hopes and fears of their 
 respective leaders. The prudent emperor endeavored 
 by every expedient of advice and authority to allay 
 
 Dion. i. LXXVI. p. 1283 Aurelius Victor.
 
 04 CARLISLE 
 
 this growing animosity. The unhappy discord of his 
 sons clouded all his prospects and threatened to over- 
 turn a throne raised with so much labor and cemented 
 with so much blood and guarded with every defence of 
 of arms and treasure. With an impartial hand he 
 maintained between them the exact balance of favor 
 conferred on both the rank of Augustus with the revered 
 name of Antonius; and for the first time the Roman 
 world beheld three emperors. Yet even this equal 
 conduct served only to inflame the contest. Whilst 
 the fierce Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture, 
 the milder Geta courted the affections of the people 
 and the soldiers. In the anguish of a disappointed 
 father Serverus foretold that the weaker of his sons would 
 fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who in his turn would 
 be ruined by his own vices. 
 
 In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in 
 Britain and of an invasion (A. D. 208) of the province 
 by the barbarians of the North was received with pleas- 
 ure by Severus. Though the vigilance of his lieutenants 
 might have been sufficient to repel the distant enemy, 
 he resolved to embrace the honorable pretext of with- 
 drawing his sons from the luxury of Rome which ener- 
 vated their minds and irritated their passions and of 
 inuring their youth to the toils of war and government. 
 Notwithstanding his advanced age, for he was above 
 three score, and his gout which obliged him to be carried 
 in a litter, he transported himself in person into that 
 remote island attended by his two sons, his whole court 
 and a formidable army. He immediately passed the 
 walls of Hadrian and Antonius and entered the enemy's 
 country with a design of completing the long attempted 
 conquest of Britain. He penetrated to the northern
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 95 
 
 extremity of the island without meeting an enemy. 
 But the concealed ambuscades of the Caledonians who 
 hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army, the 
 coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter 
 march across the hills and morasses of Scotland are 
 reported to have cost the Romans above fifty thousand 
 men. The Caledonians at length yielded to the powerful 
 and obstinate attack, sued for peace, and surrendered a 
 part of their arms and a large tract of territory. 
 
 But their apparent submission lasted no longer than 
 their present terror. As soon as the Roman legions had 
 retired they resumed their hostile independence. Their 
 restless spirit provoked Severus to send a new army into 
 Caledonia with the most bloody orders, not to subdue 
 but to extirpate the natives. They were saved by the 
 death of their haughty enemy. 1 
 
 The Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive 
 events nor attended with any important consequences, 
 would ill deserve our attention; but it is supposed not 
 without a considerable degree of probability that the 
 invasion of Severus is connected with the most shining 
 period of the British history of fable. 
 
 The declining health and last illness of Severus 
 inflamed the wild amibtion and black passions of Cara- 
 callas's soul. Impatient of any delay or division of 
 empire he attempted more than once to shorten the 
 small remainder of his father's days, and endeavored 
 but without success to excite a mutiny among the 
 troops. 2 
 
 The old emperor had often censured the misguided 
 leniency of Marcus, who by a single act of justice might 
 
 > Dion. i. XXVI, p. 1280 Herodian, i. Ill, p. 132 etc. 
 
 Dion. i. XXVI, p. 1282, Hist. August, p. 71, Aurelius Victor.
 
 g 6 CARLISLE 
 
 have saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless 
 sons. Placed in the same situation, he experienced how 
 easily the rigour of a judge dissolves away in the tender- 
 ness of a father. He deliberated, he threatened, but he 
 could not punish; and this last and only instance of 
 mercy was more fatal to the empire than a long series of 
 cruelty. 1 
 
 The disorder of his mind irritated the pains of his body; 
 he wished impatiently for death and hastened the 
 instant of it by his impatience. He expired A. D. 211, 
 Feb. 4 at York in the sixty-fifth year of his life and the 
 eighteenth of a glorious and successful reign. 
 
 CARACALLA, ROMAN EMPEROR 211-17 A. D. 
 
 Caracalla, eldest son of Septimus Severus, was born 
 at Lyons 188 A. D. He was originally named Bassianus 
 from his maternal grandfather, but his legal name as it 
 appears on medals and inscriptions was M. Aurelius 
 Antonius. He was nicknamed Caracalla from the long 
 hooded tunic which he wore after the fashion and in the 
 language of the Gauls. He ascended the throne as 
 co-regent with his brother Publius Septimus Antonius 
 Geta whom he afterwards murdered in his mother's 
 arms. His reign was a long train of cruelties. He put 
 to death all the friends and adherents of Geta among 
 them the eminent jurist, Papinianus. He resorted to 
 every possible means to maintain his extravagances 
 and to pay his soldiers. In his famous constitution he 
 bestowed Roman citizenship on all his free subjects not 
 citizens who formed the majority, especially in the 
 
 i Dion i. XXVI, p. 1283. Hist. August, p. 89.
 
 THE ANCIENT NEGRO 97 
 
 provinces but simply in order to levy a greater amount 
 of taxes on releases and heritages, which were paid 
 only by citizens. After almost exhausting Italy by his 
 extortions his arts of oppression were directed against 
 the provinces which had been in a great measure spared 
 by former emperors. In 214 he visited Gaul, Germany, 
 Dacia and Thrace, and after a campaign against the 
 Alemanui assumed the surname of Alemanuicus. He was 
 assassinated at the instigation of Macrinus, prefect of the 
 Praetorians, by one of his veterans named Martialis on the 
 8th of April, 2 17, on the way from Edessa to Carrhae. 
 
 A people without history, a country, or a flag would 
 be a most extraordinary circumstance yet owing to 
 misplaced facts it is in this light the Negro is regarded. 
 The day has come, however, for a fixed Negro status and 
 this must necessarily be based upon ancestry. 
 
 Ambitions and aspirations are inspired largely by pride 
 in our ancestors. Owing to a lack of knowledge or 
 source of information easily accessible we have remained 
 in ignorance to a great extent of the history of Negro peo- 
 ples. The average school history contains little or noth- 
 ing, leaving the Negro youth in the darkness of despair 
 
 To-day things are assuming a new aspect and in order 
 to meet the new issues we must needs have an enlarged 
 vision. The narrow confines which have so long held 
 us have been outgrown. 
 
 Descendants of kings and princes and illustrious 
 personages we have been denied the smallest item of 
 of their achievements, reciting ever and anon the glories 
 of other races, yet always craving tangible assurance of 
 our own origin. If this little volume of sketches tends 
 in any way to allay this longing we shall feel well paid 
 for our effort. 
 
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