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fogtorg Iprittura 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT 
 
 BY 
 
 F. C. H. WENDEL, A. M., Ph. D. 
 
 UNIVER." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1890 
 

 Copyright, 1890, 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting to the public this little book, which treats 
 of the history of ancient Egypt from the earliest times to 
 the conquest by Alexander the Great, my object has been 
 twofold : First, to give to American readers a brief ac- 
 count of Egyptian history which would be as reliable as 
 the present state of Egyptological science permits ; and, 
 second, to create a deeper interest in the study of ancient 
 Egypt. The study of Egyptology is of the greatest im- 
 portance to the theologist, the historian, the student of 
 civilization, and the art-student. In science and art Egypt 
 was the teacher of Greece ; even the Greek alphabet is 
 derived from the Egyptian through the medium of the 
 Phoenician, and Greece was the teacher of Europe. 
 
 The basis of a rational study of Egyptology will always 
 be a thorough knowledge of Egyptian history ; without 
 this the student can not properly understand the develop- 
 ment of Egypt's civilization — of its science, its religion, its 
 art, its language, and its literature. I have in the follow- 
 ing pages given as complete a history as the space allotted 
 would permit. In the introductory chapter I have not 
 been able to give as much space as I should have wished 
 to the subjects there treated, and have been compelled to 
 confine myself to what was absolutely necessary. Science, 
 art, and literature could not be treated, as even a partial 
 account of them would have required too much space. 
 
 In regard to the sources of my book, I have, as a rule, 
 
 184021 
 
4 . PREFACE. 
 
 confined myself to the Egyptian monuments, using foreign 
 sources only in emergencies, where no native sources are 
 extant for the period in question. It may appear strange 
 to some readers that I have not treated of the Exodus. 
 This event does not, however, properly belong to Egyptian 
 history. It did not at all affect Egypt, however important 
 it may have been to the Israelites. 
 
 In my chronology I have followed Eduard Meyer, the 
 famous German historian, who introduced a system of so- 
 called "approximate dates," which are always the latest 
 dates that can be given for an era. Thus, when we say 
 that King Mena ruled about 3200 B. c, that King Snefru 
 ruled about 2830 B. c, and Pepi I, 2530 B. c, we would 
 not by any means imply that these dates are absolutely 
 correct ; but we would merely imply that these monarchs 
 could not have ruled after the dates given, though we 
 can not say how long before these dates they did live. 
 Snefru may even have ruled five hundred years before 
 2830 B. c, but we have no means of knowing his exact 
 date. From the date of Aahmes I's accession to the 
 throne, about 1530 B. C, Meyer's dates are approximately 
 correct. We know that King Necho ruled 609-595 B - c -» 
 that Sheshong I lived about 930 B. C, that Ramses II 
 lived in the thirteenth and Thutmosis III in the fifteenth 
 century B. c, but we know, as an absolute certainty, noth- 
 ing more. These approximate dates are, however, such a 
 convenience that it would be well to adopt them until we can 
 give the exact dates. The maps here given have been most 
 carefully prepared, and will, I hope, greatly assist the reader 
 in understanding the history of the great campaigns. 
 
 With these few prefatory remarks I submit this book- 
 let to the judgment of the public, and, if I succeed in the 
 twofold object of spreading the truth so far as discover- 
 able, and creating a deeper interest in ancient Egypt, I 
 
 shall rest content. 
 
 F. C. H. Wendel, A. M., Ph. D. 
 
 New York City, November 11, 1889. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Introductory ....... 7-30 
 
 § i . Ancient Geography, 7 ; § 2. Sources of 
 Egyptian History, 12 ; § 3. Prehistoric Condi- 
 tions, 21 ; § 4. Religion, 23. 
 
 II. The Old Empire 31-45 
 
 § 1. Dynasty I, 31 ; § 2. Dynasty II, 33 ; § 3. 
 Dynasty III, 34 ; § 4. Dynasty IV, 35 ; § 5. Dy- 
 nasty V, 39 ; § 6. Dynasty VI, 41. 
 
 III. From the Seventh Dynasty to the close of the 
 
 Twelfth 46-57 
 
 § 1. The Transition Period, 46 ; § 2. The Mid- 
 dle Empire, 47. 
 
 IV. The Decline of the Egyptian Kingdom, and the 
 
 Hyksos Domination ..... 58-65 
 § 1. Dynasty XIII, 59 ; § 2. Dynasty XIV, 59 ; 
 § 3. The Hyksos Domination, 62 ; § 4. Dynast v 
 XVII, 65. 
 
 V. From the Expulsion of the Hyksos to the Close 
 
 of the Eighteenth Dynasty . . . 66-82 
 § 1. Aahmes I, 66 ; § 2. Amenhotep I, 69 ; § 3. 
 Thutmosis I, 69 ; § 4. Thutmosis II, 71 ; § 5. Ma- 
 ka-Ra, 71 ; § 6. Thutmosis III, 73 ; § 7. Amen- 
 hotep II, 77 ; § 8. Thutmosis IV, 77 ; § 9. Amen- 
 hotep III, 78 ; § 10. Amenhotep IV, 79 ; § 11. 
 The Struggle for the Succession, 81. 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGES 
 
 VI. The Nineteenth Dynasty .... 83-96 
 
 § 1. Hor-em-heb, 83 ; § 2. Ramses I, 84 ; § 3. 
 Seti I, 84 ; § 4. Ramses II, 87 ; § 5. Mer-en-Ptah, 
 95 ; § 6. Close of the Nineteenth Dynasty, 96. 
 
 VII. The Close of the New Empire and the Period 
 
 of Decline . . . . . . 97-1 11 
 
 § 1. Dynasty XX, 97 ; § 2. Dynasty XXI, 105 ; 
 § 3. Dynasty XXII, 108. 
 
 VIII. The Aethiopians and Assyrians in Egypt . 1 12-123 
 
 § 1. Dynasty XXIII, 112 ; § 2. Dynasty XXIV, 
 117; §3- Dynasty XXV, 118. 
 
 IX. The Twenty-sixth Dynasty — The Egyptian 
 
 Renaissance ...... 124-135 
 
 § 1. Psemtek I, 124 ; § 2. Nekau, 126 ; § 3. 
 Psemtek II, 128; § 4. Ouahabra, 128 ; § 5. Aahmes 
 II, 130 ; § 6. Psemtek III, 134. 
 
 X. From the Persian Conquest to the Invasion of 
 
 Alexander the Great 136-158 
 
 § 1. Dynasty XXVII, 136; § 2. Dynasty 
 XXVIII, 145 ; § 3- Dynasty XXIX, 145 ; § 4. 
 Dynasty XXX, 147 ; § 5- Dynasty XXXI, and 
 Invasion of Alexander, 155. 
 
 Chronological Table 159 
 
 MAPS. 
 
 1. Map of Egypt Frontispiece 
 
 2. Map of Aethiopia Opposite page 50 
 
 3. Map illustrating the Campaigns of Aah- 
 
 mes I and Thutmosis III in Asia . " " 66 
 
 4. Seti I and Ramses II in Asia . "83 
 
 5. Map of the Assy rio-Aethiopic Wars in Asia " " 118 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 § i. The Ancient Geography of Egypt. 
 
 Egypt lies in the northeastern corner of Africa, be- 
 tween the twenty-fourth and the thirty-second degrees of 
 north latitude. It is bounded on the east by Asia and the 
 Red Sea, on the south by a line drawn east and west 
 through Assuan, on the First Cataract, on the west by 
 the Desert of Sahara, and on the north by the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. This tract of country is five hundred and 
 twenty miles long, and on an average one hundred and sixty 
 miles wide. The area of the entire country is about one 
 hundred thousand square miles, or about two and a half 
 times that of Ohio. But the whole of this country is not 
 cultivable ; by far the larger part is desert — on the west a 
 low, arid, sandy plain ; on the east an arid mountain re- 
 gion. Only the immediate valley of the Nile is arable soil, 
 and this is a very narrow strip, which between Assuan 
 and the Delta never exceeds fifteen miles in width, and at 
 places is only two miles wide. In the Delta there is a far 
 wider stretch of cultivable land, owing to the fact that 
 the Nile here divides into numerous branches ; but even 
 here all the land is not available for cultivation, owing 
 to numerous great swamps and large lakes. In an- 
 tiquity the greater part of the Delta was swamp and 
 meadow land ; and its chief value lay in the fact that it 
 was a good grazing country, and that its swamps and 
 lakes made fine hunting-grounds, abounding as they did 
 in all sorts of aquatic birds. The lakes were full of fish, 
 so that fishing was added to grazing and hunting, and 
 thus the country possessed considerable resources even 
 before agriculture became profitable. It is well known 
 
8 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 that Egypt owes this strip of good land to the Nile. This 
 remarkable river, which rises in the Nyanza Lakes in 
 tropical Africa, and has several branches which come 
 from the Ethiopic highlands, is annually swollen by the 
 rains which prevail in the tropics during the rainy season. 
 Already in June the river begins to rise, and continues to 
 swell until about September 15th, when it reaches the 
 high-water mark. It then remains stationary until late in 
 October, when it begins to fall, and by January the river 
 is again at its old level. So important was this rise of the 
 Nile to the entire population, that the ancient Egyptians 
 made the day on which the river attained its highest level, 
 September 1 5th. their New-year's-day (called in Egyptian 
 up rompet). The inundation brought coolness, humidity, 
 and fertility. The river brought down from the Ethio- 
 pian highlands vast masses of mud, which it deposited on 
 the Egyptian soil when it inundated the land, and which 
 remained there when the water receded. Thus an allu- 
 vial soil of great depth and richness was produced. The 
 full benefits of the inundation could not, however, be 
 gained without hard work on the part of the dwellers in the 
 Nile valley. As rain was in antiquity almost entirely want- 
 ing in Egypt, a carefully arranged system of irrigation was 
 necessary to convey the much-needed moisture to the more 
 remote fields. The digging of canals from the river and 
 building of reservoirs were not easy work ; and, moreover, 
 the overflow had to be carefully regulated in accordance 
 with the character of the various fields, should the full 
 results be obtained. Thus we see that the Egyptian farmer 
 could not sit with folded arms and let his generous river 
 do the work for him. He had to be up and doing from 
 early morning till late at night, to reap the full benefits 
 obtainable from his wonderful stream. 
 
 Before we touch the old geographical division of the 
 country, we may well say a few words of the character of 
 the rocky highlands that fringe the Nile valley. At the 
 First Cataract the river breaks through a vast granite bar- 
 rier that here crosses the Nubian sandstone deposit. At 
 this place the Egyptians had established, already in the 
 times of King Chufu (about 2800 B. a), great quarries from 
 which they took their supply of granite. In the same 
 neighborhood basalt, too, was quarried about this time. 
 The Nubian sandstone then continues as far north as 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 9 
 
 Silsileh, where the Egyptians early worked sandstone quar- 
 ries. The character of the hills now changes, a little to 
 the north of Silsileh, the sandstone giving place to a ter- 
 tiary nummulitic limestone, which formation continues on 
 both sides of the Nile, on the west to the Mediterranean, 
 on the east to Memphis, whence it strikes off to the north- 
 east. These rocky hills seldom reach and never exceed 
 the moderate height of six hundred to eight hundred feet. 
 The character of the mountain region between the Nile 
 and the Red Sea is, however, vastly different. Here we 
 meet with grand and imposing mountain scenery, the bold, 
 many-colored mountain-peaks often reaching a height of 
 six thousand feet. These mountains consist of crystalline 
 rock, granite, gneiss, porphyry, diorite, and others. Sev- 
 eral valleys lead from the Nile into this region. The most 
 important of these is the Wadi Hammamat, the Rohanu 
 of the ancient Egyptians, a valley extending from Qeneh 
 on the Nile to Qoser, on the Red Sea. This valley was 
 used in antiquity as a trade route between the Nile valley 
 and the sea, the point of departure being in olden times 
 the city of Qebti (the Koptos of the Greeks, the modern 
 Quft), and the Red Sea port being some place near the 
 modern Ooser). For a time it was at the extremity of 
 the Wadi Gasus, north of Ooser. This valley had in an- 
 tiquity a further significance. Midway between the Nile 
 and the Red Sea the Egyptians worked in very early times 
 diorite quarries of considerable extent. 
 
 So much for the general character of the land. We 
 now turn to a consideration of the ancient geography. 
 The Egyptian official name of the state was Taut, " both 
 lands " — i. e., both North and South Egypt ; the name Qe- 
 met, " the black (land) " was also often used, though not in 
 state documents. From this name was derived the Coptic 
 name of the country, KHME in Sahidic, XHMI in Boheiric, 
 from which latter form was derived the Hebrew Ham 
 ( on ). The country was divided into two parts, the South, 
 known in Egyptian as Res or Qe?nat, M the South," and as 
 Pa ta res, " the South Land," which latter name gave rise 
 to the Hebrew Patros, the UaOovprjs of the Septuaginta, 
 and the North, designated in the Egyptian as Mehta " the 
 North," and Pa ta mera. The " South " included all the 
 land from Assuan to Memphis, the " North " all of the Delta. 
 Why this division was made we shall see in § 3. Each 
 
10 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of these countries was divided into a number of small dis- 
 tricts, which we are accustomed to designate as nomes, 
 generally given as forty-two in number, twenty-two in 
 Upper and twenty in Lower Egypt. I here enumerate 
 the twenty-two Upper Egyptian and the principal Lower 
 Egyptian nomes, going from south to north, and stating 
 as briefly as possible what interest attaches to each: I. 
 The southernmost nome, Ta Chont, extended from Assuan 
 to Silsileh. Its chief town was the city of Abu (Greek Ele- 
 phantine), situated on an island in the Nile. Opposite thin 
 city, on the river-bank, lay the town of Swen, where the old 
 granite quarries were situated ; Swen became in Greek 
 Syene, and from this, by prefixing the article, the Arabs 
 made Assuan. On the northern boundary of the nome 
 lay the sandstone quarries of Silsileh. The deity wor- 
 shiped in this nome was the god Chnum. II. The sec- 
 ond nome was called Tes Hor. Its capital and religious 
 center was the famous old town of Debhot, the modern 
 Kdfu y where the well-preserved ruins of the temple erected 
 by the Ptolemies to the local divinity Hor Debehti, a form 
 of the god Horus still excite the admiration of the beholder. 
 III. The third nome, Ten, with the capital Neckebet, the 
 modern Elkab, Greek Eletheia, the home of the old tutelar 
 deity of Upper Egypt, the goddess Neckebet, had for local 
 deity the god Chnum. Two other cities of importance 
 were situated in this nome : Enyt, the modern Esnek, 
 where there stands a fairly preserved temple built in Ptol- 
 emaic times, and the city of On, called " On of the god 
 Mont," in contradistinction to On- Heliopolis, the city 
 of Ra, in Lower Egypt ; it is the Greek Hermontkzs, and 
 Arabic Ernient. IV. Now follows the fourth nome, Oue- 
 set, the capital of which was the famous city of Oueset 
 (commonly known by its Greek name Thebes) ; its chief 
 divinity was Anion ; Mentu was worshiped in the south- 
 ern portion. V. Horui, the capital of which was the city 
 of Qebti, situated on the Nile at the entrance to the Wadi 
 Hammamat, of which we have spoken above ; the local 
 divinity was the god Mm. VI. Aati had chiefly religious 
 importance ; its capital, Ta ent terer (modern Denderah, 
 Greek Tentyris), was the home of the great goddess Ha- 
 thor. Her temple, built by the Ptolemies, is fairly pre- 
 served. VII. The nome Seckem, the capital of which was 
 Hat {Diospolis parva) had the same local divinity, Hathor. 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 1 1 
 
 VIII. Abt was one of the most important nomes ; its cap- 
 ital was Abdu (Abydos) the seat of the Osiris religion, and 
 alleged burial-place of the god. IX. The ninth nome, 
 Min, with the capital Per-Min (House of Min), Greek 
 Panopolis, had but little importance. X. This nome, 
 called Ouatjet y the capital of which was Debu (Aphro- 
 ditopolis), worshiped the goddess Hathor ; the district 
 Neterui, with the capital Duqa and the god Horns, 
 formed part of it. XL The eleventh nome, Set, the capi- 
 tal of which was Shashotep (Hypse/e), was devoted to 
 the god Chnum. XII. Duhefu had as capital the town 
 of Nut ent Bek and worshiped the god Horus. The 
 chief importance of this nome lay in its valuable alabaster 
 quarries, which were worked in very early times, near the 
 ancient city of Hat-nub, the modern Ebnub. XIII. The 
 nome Atefchont, the capital of which was the old city of 
 Saiut (Siut), a town that in the Middle Empire (2 100-1900 
 B. C.), was of considerable importance, owing to the influ- 
 ential and powerful position occupied by its nomarchoi ; it 
 was the chief seat of the cult of the jackal-headed god of the 
 Dead Anubis, XIV. Atefpeh was unimportant ; its capi- 
 tal was Qesi (Cusa), and its deity Hathor. XV. The 
 nome of Ouen had for capital the city of Chmunu (Greek 
 HermopoliSy modern Eshrnuniri), which derived its name 
 from the fact that it was the seat of the eight gods of the 
 elements, so called ; the chief divinity of the nome was the 
 god of wisdom Thot. XVI. Mehmahet was of great im- 
 portance in the times of the Middle Empire, owing to its 
 influential and mighty nomarchoi, whose tombs were dis- 
 covered at Benihassan. To these tombs, which are hewn 
 into the living rock, and the walls of which are covered 
 with important representations and inscriptions, we owe 
 much of what we know of this period. The capital was 
 Hebenu, and the local divinity Horus. XVII. The capi- 
 tal of the nome Anbu was Kasa (Cynonpolis) ; its god 
 was Anubis. XVIII. Sapet, the capital of which was 
 Hatbenu (A/abastronpo/is), one of the seats of the 
 Anubis cult, was important for its alabaster quarries, 
 which were opened in early times. XIX. Ouab, the capi- 
 tal of which was the city of Permatjet {Oxyrrhynchos), 
 was the only nome where Set was worshiped. From this 
 nome led the roads to the oases of the eastern Sahara. 
 XX. This nome bore the name Atefchont. Its capital was 
 2 
 
12 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Ckenensuten (Heracleopolis magna), a city of great im- 
 portance in the religion of Egypt, as the god Rd was 
 supposed to have made his first appearance here. The 
 local divinity of the nome was HorshdH, a form of Horus. 
 
 XXI. Atef'peh had for capital the city of Semenhor, and 
 for local deity the god Chnum. The western part was 
 know as Ta she, " Lakeland," the modern name of the re- 
 gion being Fayoum, which is derived from the ancient word 
 Pa-yom, " the sea," through the medium of the Boheiric 
 dialect of the Coptic, in which it became Pha-yom. Here 
 was situated the great reservoir built by Amenhotep III. 
 
 XXII. The northernmost nome of Upper Egypt was 
 known as Mdten. Its capital was Tepah, and its local 
 deity the goddess Hathor. 
 
 Of the twenty Lower Egyptian nomes I shall enumer- 
 ate only the principal ones : I. Anbu-hetj, the nome of 
 Mennefer (Memphis), the city of Ptah. IV. Sept-res, 
 the nome of Tjeka (Canopus), where Amon-Rd was wor- 
 shiped. V. Sepi-em-het, the nome of Sa (Sai's), where 
 the great goddess Neit was worshiped, the home of the 
 Psametichs. IX. Atji, the nome of Per-Usiri (Busiris), 
 the city of Osiris. XII. Katjeb, the nome of Tjebneter 
 (Sebennythos), the home of the god Anhur. XIII. Ha- 
 kad, the nome of On {Heliopolis), the great seat of the 
 Rd religion. XIV. Chentabed, the nome of Tjan ( Tanis), 
 where Horus was worshiped. XVI. Char, the nome of 
 Per-Banebded (Mendes), the god of which was the sac- 
 red ram Banebded. XVIII. Amchent, the nome of Per- 
 bastet (Bubastis), the city of the cat-headed goddess 
 Bastet. XIX. Ampeh, the name of Per-Ouatj (Buto), 
 where Ouatj, the tutelar deity of Lower Egypt, had her 
 home. 
 
 § 2. The Sources of Egyptian History. 
 
 It is needful in a history of Egypt to give a brief sum- 
 mary of the sources from which our knowledge of the 
 facts is derived. These sources are : a. National ; b. 
 Asiatic ; and c. Classical. 
 
 a. National Sources.— Before we give any ac- 
 count of the monuments and documents on which by far 
 the greatest part of Egyptian history is based, it may be 
 well to review rapidly the history of the decipherment of 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 13 
 
 the hieroglyphics and to give a brief sketch of the Egyp- 
 tion system of writing. 
 
 Already in the Middle Ages men like Athanasius 
 Kircher attempted to decipher the " mysterious picture- 
 writing " of ancient Egypt ; but their interpretations, pro- 
 ceeding from an utter misconception of the true nature of 
 the hieroglyphics, were fantastical and utterly useless. 
 The results attained by these men discredited the study 
 of hieroglyphics, and scholars turned rather to Coptic, the 
 liturgic language of the Christian Church of Egypt, a de- 
 scendant of the Egyptian tongue, and at the time still a 
 living language. The results attained in this study were 
 later on of great value to the decipherers of the ancient 
 tongue. In August. 1799, there was unearthed at Rosetta 
 a block of black basalt bearing a decree of Ptolemy Epi- 
 phanes in Greek, hieroglyphics, and demotic — the cele- 
 brated " Rosetta stone." Immediately scholars set to 
 work at deciphering the inscription. Thomas Young, an 
 English mathematician, and Francois Champollion, a. 
 French savant, working independently of one another, 
 succeeded at about the same time in deciphering the royal 
 names in the hieroglyphical part, and, to the surprise of 
 all, it was found that the writing was largely phonetic. 
 Champollion's results were by far the more important, 
 and when, ten years after his first great discovery, he died 
 in 1832, he had already correctly given the contents of 
 entire inscriptions and papyri, and had laid down the ele- 
 ments of a grammar. Ten years later Richard Karl 
 Lepsius, the great German Egyptologist, who died some 
 years ago, carried further the work so ably begun by Cham- 
 pollion, and through him the final proof was given that 
 the results so far attained were correct. He discovered 
 in 1867 at Tanis a trilingual inscription — the so-called 
 "Decree of Canopus" — the study of which document 
 finally confirmed the results hitherto obtained from the 
 study of the Egyptian texts. Thus the stage of decipher- 
 ment came to a close. Since then able scholars in all 
 parts of Europe have been adding to our knowledge of 
 Egyptian matters. 
 
 The Egyptian system of writing appears at first glance 
 to be highly complicated, but it is in reality far simpler 
 than it looks. It is a combination of the phonetic — 
 alphabetic and syllabic — and ideographic systems, to 
 
14 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 which is added a system of determinatives. The alpha- 
 bet consists of twenty-two consonants — vowels are, as in 
 all other old Semitic languages, not written. The alpha- 
 betic and syllabic signs are by far the oldest, the most 
 ancient texts being purely phonetic, containing neither 
 ideograms nor determinatives. Owing to the fact that 
 the vowels were not written, confusion early arose among 
 words having the same consonants but different significa- 
 tions, and, in all probability, pronounced with different 
 vowels. To obviate this difficulty, the Egyptians early 
 invented a system of determinatives. A determinative is 
 the picture of an object placed after the word signifying 
 the object in question. Determinatives are either generic 
 or specific. The generic determinative is the picture of 
 some object which is characteristic of a group. Thus, 
 after the names of animals we frequently find the picture 
 of a piece of skin ; after abstract words and verbs we find 
 the picture of a papyrus roll ; and after the names of for- 
 eign countries we find the picture of a range of hills. The 
 specific determinative is the picture of the object that the 
 word denotes. Thus, after the word hetra, signifying 
 " horse," the picture of a horse was often placed ; after 
 the word abu, denoting " panther," we often find a picture 
 of that animal ; after the word romet, " man," we find the 
 picture of a man, as also after the names of males ; after 
 the word suten, " king," we find the picture of a king ; 
 after the word himet, "woman," the names of females 
 and goddesses, we find the picture of a woman ; and after 
 the names of cities we find the plan of a city. From these 
 determinatives arose in course of time ideograms, or 
 word-pictures. Thus the plan of a city, originally the 
 determinative of the word nut, "city," came with time to 
 stand for the word itself, which is never written phonetic- 
 ally ; the picture of a bee, originally the determinative of 
 the word afet, "honey," came with time to be used as the 
 ideogram for that word ; the figure of a man walking with 
 a long staff, originally the determinative of the word ser, 
 " prince," later on was used as an ideogram. Many other 
 examples could be given, but these will illustrate the general 
 principle. In Ptolemaic times the ideograms were greatly 
 multiplied, many texts being written almost entirely in ideo- 
 grams. It must, however, always be borne in mind that 
 the writing was originally phonetic, and not ideographic. 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 15 
 
 The writing, too, has a history of its own. In the 
 oldest times the writing was purely hieroglyphical. Hiero- 
 glyphics were written as early as 4000 B. C, if not earlier, 
 and continued in use far into the times of the Roman em- 
 perors. These hieroglyphics were originally finely exe- 
 cuted in every detail, and this remained the custom on all 
 government monuments so long as hieroglyphics were 
 used. But it was early found that the full hieroglyphics, 
 while admirably adapted for inscriptions on stone, were 
 too cumbersome for writing on papyrus or mummy-bands 
 (which were of linen), so an abridged or cursive form, 
 that we call linear hieroglyphics, was invented. These 
 linear hieroglyphics are merely the characteristic outlines 
 of the full signs. They remained in use all through 
 Egyptian history for religious texts written on papyrus 
 and mummy-bands. About 1700 B. C. a new method of 
 writing came into vogue for profane writings. This new 
 method, which still further abridged the hieroglyphics, is 
 called Hieratic, The older form of this hieratic still in 
 some measure resembles the linear hieroglyphical writing 
 from which it was derived. Some four hundred years this 
 method seems to have been in use, when a new system 
 came into being, which is also called hieratic, but differs 
 materially from the older style, from which it is abridged, 
 in that it is far less cumbersome, omitting many of the 
 details found in the older hieratic, and being thus far 
 more suitable for rapid writing. From this newer hie- 
 ratic was derived the Phoenician alphabet, from which the 
 Greek alphabet was derived. This form of the hieratic is 
 thus the ancestor of our alphabet. This style of writing 
 remained in fashion many hundred years as the cursive 
 script used on papyrus, and sometimes even on mummy- 
 bands. The last stage in the development of Egyptian 
 script was reached in the Demotic in the fifth century be- 
 fore the Christian era. This was a still further abridg- 
 ment of the new hieratic, but it eliminated so many details 
 that very many letters and syllabic signs that had been 
 kept distinct in hieratic became one and the same sign, a 
 fact that renders the reading of Demotic very difficult. 
 The new system had, however, the advantage of being 
 very rapid, and thus it quickly supplanted the hieratic ; it 
 remained in use up to the Christian times, when it was 
 supplanted by the Coptic script, which was modeled after 
 
16 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the Greek. The reader must not, however, imagine that 
 these changes were sudden ; one led gradually to the 
 other. Thus the old, full hieroglyphics were abridged in 
 the linear hieroglyphics, from these was developed the 
 old hieratic, from this the new hieratic, and this, becom- 
 ing gradually more and more cursive, led over to the 
 Demotic. 
 
 We now pass to a consideration of the Egyptian 
 sources from which our knowledge of the facts of Egyptian 
 history is derived. The texts which are of primary im- 
 portance are the lists of kings compiled in antiquity. 
 The most important of these is the so-called " Turin 
 Papyrus of Kings," which gives a list of Egyptian kings 
 from the earliest times to the times of the sixteenth 
 dynasty (about 1700 B. C), including the earlier kings of 
 this dynasty, in which it was most probably written. This 
 list is chronological, the duration of the reign of each king 
 in years, months, and days, being given after his name. 
 Unfortunately, however, the papyrus is fragmentary, hav- 
 ing been broken into one hundred and sixty-four small 
 pieces on the way to Turin. Prof. Seyffarth conferred a 
 lasting benefit on historical science by arranging, number- 
 ing, and mounting these fragments, thus preserving this 
 valuable document. The second list of importance is that 
 discovered in the temple of Osiris in Abydos. This list 
 contains the names of seventy -five predecessors of Seti I 
 (about 1320 B. c), arranged in chronological order. The 
 third list was discovered in a private tomb dating from 
 the times of Ramses II (1300 to 1230 B. C.) ; it enumerates 
 forty-seven kings. The last important list is that found in 
 Karnak, which enumerates sixty-one predecessors of Thut- 
 mosis III (1480 to 1430). Besides these a number of 
 smaller and less important lists have been discovered. 
 Next in importance to the lists stand the official inscrip- 
 tions of the kings. The pharaohs were in the habit of 
 inscribing on the walls of the temples they erected to the 
 gods long accounts of their deeds. In order to be able to 
 give a full account of their campaigns the kings were ac- 
 companied by scribes specially detailed to write down the 
 history of these campaigns. Their accounts were then 
 copied on the temple walls. Great paintings illustrating 
 the principal events of a campaign covered the space not 
 occupied by the inscriptions, in that part of the temple 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 17 
 
 allotted to the annals. These inscriptions were divided 
 into two parts — the date, on which followed, as a rule, a 
 laudatory hymn to the king, and the account of the cam- 
 paign. These texts give a chronological account of the 
 campaigns of the king, often going into the details of the 
 march and of the various battles. Among the most in- 
 teresting of these inscriptions is a copy of the treaty of 
 peace and alliance between Ramses II and Chetasar, king 
 of the Cheta, which was originally engraved on a silver 
 plate, and from this was copied on the outer wall of the 
 temple of Karnak, where it has been completely preserved. 
 Of importance are further royal decrees, which are fre- 
 quently found inscribed on stelae and temple walls. Re- 
 ports of buildings erected by the kings, and of expeditions 
 undertaken at their command, are not unfrequent ; several 
 of the latter the reader will meet with later on. The most 
 important report of all is that which Ramses III (about 
 1 1 80 to 1 148 B. C.) gave of his reign, and which is pre- 
 served in the so-called Papyrus Harris I ; it is a com- 
 prehensive account of Ramses's architectural enterprises, 
 his expeditions, and his gifts to the temples ; in addition it 
 gives a brief review of the state of Egypt immediately be- 
 fore the reign of the king's father, Setnecht. Lists of 
 conquered nations are also of frequent occurrence, but 
 often possess very little value. The most valuable of 
 these lists is that of Thutmosis III, which gives the names 
 of irom three hundred to four hundred conquered nations 
 and cities, lying mostly in Asia. Later lists, as those of 
 Seti I and Ramses II, enumerating over a hundred coun- 
 tries, and that of Sheshong I, which gives an equal num- 
 ber, are frequently copied in part from the lists of Thut- 
 mosis III, and can be used only with the utmost caution. 
 The oldest example of such a list is a stele of Usertesen I, 
 which enumerates the negro tribes conquered by him. 
 Scarabasi are seldom of historical value, though some 
 belonging to the reign of Amenhetep III are important, 
 viz., those noticing his marriage with Queen Tii, and those 
 giving accounts of his hunting exploits. Of great im- 
 portance are the tombs of the nobles. These tombs had 
 attached to them funereal chapels, the walls of which 
 were covered with paintings and inscriptions, giving a 
 brief biographical sketch of the individual buried in the 
 tomb, enumerating his titles, his possessions, and all his 
 
18 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 exploits. These inscriptions are of great value. To them 
 we owe all that we know of the Egyptian civilization, and 
 often all the historical knowledge we possess of entire 
 epochs (confer the case of the Una inscription, page 42). 
 
 b. Asiatic Sources. — First among these we must 
 mention the Bible. The Sacred Writings are, as may be 
 expected from their character, not the most copious or 
 important sources of Egyptian history. The first two 
 books, Genesis and Exodus, frequently mention Egypt, 
 but they are concerned only with the fate of the Hebrews 
 who dwelt in Egypt, and do not go into Egyptian history. 
 In the books of the Kings and in Chronicles frequent al- 
 lusions are made to Egyptian history, and what we find 
 here is always confirmed by the monuments. The proph- 
 ets, especially Ezekiel and Jeremias, frequently allude to 
 contemporaneous Egyptian history. Of greater impor- 
 tance are the Assyrian inscriptions. These inscriptions 
 shed light on a period of Egyptian history of which we 
 know nothing from the national monuments. I refer to 
 the period of the Assyrian invasions in the seventh century 
 B. C. The Assyrian kings whose inscriptions are of im- 
 portance in this connection are Tiglathpilesar III, Sargon 
 
 'II, Sanherib, and Assurbanipal. Next in importance are 
 the inscriptions of King Nebuchadnezzar II, of Babylon, 
 who invaded Egypt in the sixth century B. c. 
 
 c. Classical Sources. — Of the host of classical 
 writers who wrote on Egypt I give in the following only 
 the principal ones. The book that long stood unchal- 
 lenged as a source of Egyptian history is the "Histories" 
 of Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The study of the monu- 
 ments has, however, revealed great errors in this work, 
 and has proved it to be utterly untrustworthy as a his- 
 tory. Herodotus's great fault was that he believed all the 
 stories his guides told him, some of which are so improb- 
 able that we are surprised to find that so intelligent a man 
 as our author was should have believed them at all. He 
 visited Egypt about 450 B. c, at a time when it was under 
 Persian rule, and probably never got farther south than 
 Memphis. What he saw he described accurately, and 
 that part of his history which relates to the times of the 
 last Psametichs and the Persian rulers of the land is per- 
 fectly reliable. His book is the book of a tourist, and all 
 his faults are the faults of a tourist who travels in a 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 19 
 
 strange and wonderful land without any knowledge of the 
 language, and having but a short time to " do " the sights. 
 Another reason why the book is in great part unreliable 
 is because the Greeks, believing the Egyptians possessed 
 of a deep and mysterious learning, and having some dim 
 tradition of the fact that their arts and sciences were origi- 
 nally derived from Egypt, though they had already far 
 surpassed their teachers, sought to derive their entire 
 civilization — their religion and philosophy, which were 
 purely native, as well as art and science, which had in- 
 deed received their first impulse from Egypt — from the 
 mystic lore of that most ancient land. The Egyptian 
 priests with whom the Greek tourists came into contact 
 naturally strengthened them in this belief, and gave them- 
 selves a very mysterious air, thus still more increasing 
 their reputations for learning. One word on the subject 
 of castes may well be said here before we leave Herodo- 
 tus. From his work an erroneous impression has crept 
 into many modern books on Egypt, that the ancient 
 Egyptians were divided into so-called "castes." In an-* 
 cient Egypt there existed, of course, the same classes that **"*• 
 existed in all ancient monarchies. There was the king 
 and the royal family, the hereditary nobility, the middle 
 class, consisting of merchants, farmers, mechanics — from 
 which government officials and priests were recruited as 
 well as from the princes and nobles — the laborers, and 
 the slaves. No one was, however, compelled to follow in 
 the footsteps of his father. Thus, if the father was a gov- 
 ernment official, a priest, an officer, a merchant, a farmer, 
 or a mechanic, the son need not necessarily also be a gov- 
 ernment official, a priest, an officer, a merchant, a farmer, 
 or a mechanic, but was free to choose his vocation. We 
 have even instances of men of humble birth rising to the 
 highest position in the gift of the crown ; and that does 
 not look as though the Egyptians had possessed a system 
 of castes. 
 
 The most important of these writers is Manetho of N 
 Sebennythos. He lived in the third century before the 
 common era, and his book was written about 271 B. C, as 
 tradition asserts at the instance of Ptolemy Philadelphus. 
 Manetho was a high priest and temple scribe of Sebenny- 
 thos, and was thus familiar with the Egyptian language. 
 He was also an able classical scholar. Thus he was fitted 
 
20 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 . for the work of writing an Egyptian history as perhaps no 
 other man then living, his learning giving him access alike 
 to the native monuments and the classic authors, the errors 
 of which latter he attacked. The chief value of the work 
 lay in the fact that, being based on the native sources, it 
 must have been quite reliable. Manetho divided all the 
 kings from Mena to Alexander the Great into thirty-one 
 so-called dynasties, stating from what part of Egypt the 
 various dynasties came. On what his division is based 
 we can not say. It is important to note that the Turin 
 Papyrus makes a somewhat different division from his. 
 He also divided Egyptian history into three periods : I. 
 Old Empire (Dynasties I to XI) ; II. Middle Empire (Dy- 
 nasties XII to XIX) ; III. New Empire (Dynasties XX 
 to XXX). We retain his terms, but make a somewhat 
 different division, as will be seen in the course of this book. 
 Unfortunately, this important work is lost, and only frag- 
 mentary extracts of it have been preserved. The histori- 
 ans who made these extracts were not guided by a true 
 scientific spirit, but took only what happened to suit their 
 immediate purpose, and the extracts frequently conflict 
 with one another in important details. These copy- 
 ists were Josephus, the Jewish historian, Africanus and 
 Eusebius. Of course, we can form no just estimate of a 
 work preserved in so fragmentary a condition. Diodorus 
 Siculus, who visited Egypt about 57 B. c, wrote an ac- 
 count of the country. His work is, however, but little 
 more trustworthy than that of Herodotus. Diodorus 
 seems to have had all of Herodotus's faults but none of 
 his virtues. Manetho he does not seem to have known ; 
 at all events he does not refer to his book. Strabo and 
 Pliny both touch Egyptian history incidentally, but are 
 not trustworthy. Plutarch, who lived in the second cent- 
 ury A. D M wrote a fair work on Egyptian religion, under 
 the title of " Peri Isidos kai Osiridos." Horapollon 
 Nilous wrote between the years 379 and 395 A. D., a work 
 under the title " Hieroglyphica" in which he gives mostly 
 correct explanations of such hieroglyphics as frequently 
 occur in Ptolemaic inscriptions. He knew, however, 
 merely the ideographic and not the phonetic value of these 
 hieroglyphs. 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 21 
 
 § 3. Prehistoric Conditions, 
 
 When we first come upon Egypt, it is a full-grown 
 state possessed of a well-ordered government, a well-or- 
 ganized society, and a civilization of a high order. At 
 the dawn of history the formative period of the nation 
 was over, and Egypt was a finished product. How many 
 centuries the formative period lasted we can not say, but 
 we can, from facts observed in the later development of 
 the land and its religion, make some deductions as to the 
 prehistoric conditions of the country. We can even — and 
 that is of great importance — trace in general outline the 
 formative process, the result of which was the Egyptian 
 state. Egypt was not always a single united country as 
 it was in historic times, but was for a long time previous 
 to Mena divided into two countries, which were entirely 
 independent of one another, and remained so until King 
 Mena united them and founded the Egyptian state about 
 3200 B. C. These two countries were known even after 
 the union as " the North " and " the South" and the offi- 
 cial name of the united kingdom was Taut — "Both 
 lands " — thus preserving the memory that there were 
 originally two countries where in historical times there was 
 but one. One of the king's titles was Sam-taui, uniter of 
 both lands. We can even say what cities were the capi- 
 tals of the two states. The capital of the South was in 
 all probability the city of Nechebet, that of the North was 
 the city of Buto. We deduce these facts from the fact 
 that the goddess of Nechebet, whose name was also 
 Nechebet, was regarded in all epochs of Egyptian history 
 as the tutelar divinity of Upper Egypt (the South), and 
 the goddess of Buto (known originally as the double city 
 of Pe and Dep, and in later times as Per Ouatj) Ouatj was 
 regarded in all epochs of Egyptian history as the tutelar 
 deity of Lower Egypt (the North). Each of these two 
 countries had its own crown— Lower Egypt a curiously 
 shaped red crown,- and Upper Egypt a peculiar white 
 crown, shaped like one of the pieces used in playing nine- 
 pins. When the two countries were united these two 
 crowns were combined into one as the peshent, or double 
 crown — the white crown being put inside of the red. 
 
 These two countries were in themselves composite 
 products, resulting from the union of various small dis- 
 
22 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tricts which we designate as nomes. That these nomes 
 were originally independent of one another we can deduce 
 with some degree of. certainty from the fact that they re- 
 tained their autonomy through all epochs of Egyptian his- 
 tory, had their own hereditary rulers, known as nomarchoi, 
 their own local governments, and, what is most important 
 in this inquiry, their own peculiar religious beliefs. 
 
 Egyptian tradition naturally ignores this state of things, 
 asserting that the first pharaohs of the land were the 
 gods; that on these succeeded the Shemsu-Hor, "Follow- 
 ers of Horus " — a sort of demi-gods ; and on these, finally, 
 King Mena. That in Mena's time the two countries were 
 united into one was a fact that could not be spirited away 
 by any amount of tradition ; so a legend arose to explain 
 the fact that the country was divided before Mena's time, 
 that Horus and Set had divided the country between 
 them. Such a legend which seeks to explain existing 
 conditions we call aiteological. 
 
 The question whether or not the Egyptians were abo- 
 rigines has been frequently discussed. The most proba- 
 ble solution of the problem is this : The Egyptians as a 
 race were aborigines, and they always looked upon them- 
 selves as such. They designate only their own people as 
 ronietu, " men " ; the other peoples may be Syrians, Ne- 
 groes, or Asiatics, but " men " they are not. It seems prob- 
 able, however, that these aborigines were subdued by a 
 small band of invaders who came from southwestern 
 Asia, and who, though not strong enough to influence the 
 race, yet were sufficiently powerful to force on the con- 
 quered people their language, and perhaps some of their 
 religious conceptions. The relations between conqueror 
 and conquered were then pretty much the same as those 
 between the Anglo-Saxons and aboriginal Britons, and 
 those between the conquering Arabs and the modern 
 Egyptians. Of course, this is merely a hypothesis, though 
 it is a very probable one. ■ 
 
 To speak of a " Stone age " in prehistoric Egypt is en- 
 tirely out of the way. Stone implements were used for 
 many centuries even in historic times, and the " Stone 
 age " — if we may speak of one at all — falls within the his- 
 toric periods. 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 23 
 
 § 4. A Brief Sketch of the Ancient Egyptian Religion. 
 
 To understand the development of Egyptian religion 
 we must understand the prehistoric conditions sketched 
 above, and must have a thorough knowledge of Egyptian 
 history. We would, therefore, advise our readers to read 
 the history before they read this sketch of the religion of 
 Egypt. 
 
 The Egyptians were originally what is called ammists ; 
 that is to say, they believed that, just as man is endowed 
 with a soul, so every animal, every plant, ay, every inani- 
 mate object is also endowed with a soul, or rather is pos- 
 sessed of a spirit or demon which is the cause of the good 
 or evil qualities the animal, plant, or thing in question 
 possesses. The animal, plant, or thing in question thus 
 became the object of a primitive cult with a view to pro- 
 pitiating the same. The two great motives of primitive 
 cults are always love and fear, and of the two fear is the 
 stronger. The savage is quicker at propitiating an evil 
 spirit in order to preserve himself from harm than at 
 showing gratitude to a benignant one. The early Egyp- 
 tians worshiped animals and trees with especial fervor. 
 Of the tree cult we do not know more than that every 
 nome had its sacred trees ; that the sycamore was sacred 
 to the goddess Hathor, and that one of the gods bore the 
 name Cheri-baqef u He-in-his-oil-tree " — i. e., the spirit 
 dwelling in the oil-tree. Of the animal worship we know 
 a little more. Both motives of primitive cults, love and 
 fear, must have operated on the Egyptian mind in this 
 cult. The evil spirits that dwell in the lion, the crocodile, 
 the hippopotamus, must be propitiated, and to this end 
 the animal must be worshiped ; the primitive mind can 
 not abstract the spirit from the animal it has chosen for a 
 dwelling-place. Again, it can scarce have been fear that 
 impelled the worship of the bull, the cow, and such useful 
 scavengers as the ibis, the vulture, and the sparrow-hawk. 
 Even in later times, when animism no longer prevailed, 
 some traces of this early animal cult still remained in 
 that various animals were looked upon as sacred to the 
 gods. How the sacred animals came to be connected 
 with their divinities we do not undertake to say. We 
 shall here confine ourselves to an enumeration of the 
 various sacred animals. The oldest and chief of these 
 
24 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 were the Apis-bull, sacred to Ptah, and the Mnevis-bull, 
 sacred to Raharmachis ; the cow was sacred to Isis, 
 Hathor, and Nephthys ; the ram to Amon and Chnum ; 
 the cat to Ra, Sochet, Bast, and Tefnut ; the lion to P6- 
 chet and Sochet ; the ibis and cynocephalus were sacred 
 to Thot ; the jackal was sacred to Anubis, the sparrow- 
 hawk to Horus, the vulture to Nechebet, the asp to Ouatj, 
 and the crocodile to Sebek. Frequently the deities were 
 depicted with the heads of their sacred animals. Thus 
 Horus always has the head of a sparrow-hawk, Chnum 
 that of a ram, Thot that of an ibis ; Nephthys and Hathor 
 are cow-headed, a solar disk being fixed between the 
 horns. Other examples could be given, but these will 
 suffice. 
 
 From this early animism was developed in the course 
 of time a polydcemonism — i. e., a belief in many demons 
 or spirits. This is the second stage in religious develop- 
 ment ; the spirit has been abstracted from the animal, 
 plant, or thing it inhabited and possessed, and has been 
 given a separate, independent existence. From this poly- 
 dccmonisin was later on developed polytheism, or the be- 
 lief in many gods. How these changes came about we 
 can not say ; for, when we first come upon the Egyptian 
 religion, it has gone through all of these stages, but it has 
 retained numerous traces of this early development. This 
 development must have taken place in the various nomes 
 before their union and independently in each, for they pre- 
 sent to us very varied religious beliefs. Each nome had its 
 own peculiar local divinities and its own local theosophy. 
 The head of the local pantheon had his temple in the local 
 capital. These local divinities were all supreme in their 
 own localities, and it is them that the people worshiped, 
 whatever divinity might be the head of the national pan- 
 theon. Every house had attached to it a chapel, in which 
 the local divinities were worshiped. These local deities 
 were all, as a matter of policy, recognized by the national 
 government as the guardian deities of their respective 
 localities. The national religion was, in return, recognized 
 by the various local governments, and the head of the 
 national pantheon had dedicated to him a chapel in each 
 of the local temples. The various religions of these 
 nomes, all in themselves polytheistic, united after the union 
 to form that composite whole — the Egyptian religion— 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 25 
 
 which we may well designate as an agglomerated poly- 
 theism. Thus we see that, just as from the union of the 
 nomes, and, finally, of Upper and Lower Egypt, resulted 
 the Egyptian state, so from a union of the local relig- 
 ions of these nomes resulted the Egyptian religion. It 
 has been already mentioned above that Nechebet was re- 
 garded as the guardian divinity of the South and Ouatj as 
 that of the North. 
 
 In many localities the head of the local pantheon had 
 associated with him two other divinities, who shared his 
 eminence and formed with him what we call a triad. 
 Such a triad consisted generally of father, mother, and 
 son. Thus, the triad of Memphis embraced Ptah, his wife 
 Socket, and their son Imhotep ; that of Abydos, Osiris, his 
 wife Isis, and their son Horus ; and that of Thebes, 
 Amon, his wife Mut, and their son Chonsu. But we also 
 find triads consisting of one male and two female mem- 
 bers — possibly father, mother, and daughter — e. g., that 
 of Elephantine : Chnum, Satet, and Anuket. 
 
 Another combination of gods is the ennead, or circle of 
 nine gods. The ennead first appears in the fourth Dynasty 
 (about 3000 B. a). It consists of nine members, com- 
 bined in an apparently arbitrary manner: 1. Shu; 2. 
 Tefnut; 3. Qeb ; 4. Nut ; 5. Osiris ; 6. Isis ; 7. Horus ; 
 8. Set ; 9. Nephthys ; where Shu and Tefnut are broth- 
 er and sister, Qeb and Nut man and wife, parents of 
 Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys ; Osiris, Iris, and Horus 
 are father, mother, and son ; and Set and Nephthys man 
 and wife. The ennead was originated by the priests of 
 On-Heliopolis in order to bring into closer connection the 
 various local religions. These priests claim that it was 
 originated by Turn, a solar deity, who was in Heliopolis 
 considered the leader of the ennead, though standing out- 
 side of it. In fact, the ennead, which had national ac- 
 ceptance, was everywhere assigned a different deity, the 
 head of the local pantheon as leader, though its member- 
 ship remained fixed, except that in later times Set was 
 eliminated, and Horwer, a form of the god Horus, or Thot, 
 put in his place. 
 
 To many of the Egyptian gods there has been ascribed 
 a cosmological origin. Thus Ptah of Memphis and 
 Chnum of Elephantine were in the very first line con- 
 sidered as world-builders, or, to use the scientific term, as 
 
26 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 lemiurgoi, while the priests of On-Heliopolis ascribed the 
 same function to Rd and Turn. But we must not wonder 
 at this multitude of world-builders. It is but consistent 
 with the entire character of the Egyptian religion ; it is 
 but natural that the important office of world-builder 
 should be ascribed in every locality to the head of the 
 local pantheon. 
 
 These were not, however, the cosmological gods 
 proper. There was a number of other gods of undoubted 
 cosmological origin that- had not the slightest connection 
 with any pantheon, some of which were worshiped by the 
 people generally, while others were mere speculative dei- 
 ties, the full import of which was known to the priesthood 
 alone. One of the chief divinities of the former class was 
 Ranutet, the goddess of the harvest, who was recognized 
 and worshiped throughout the land. She had her chapels 
 in the granaries and her altars in the open field, and was 
 ardently worshiped by the great land-owners as well as 
 by the small farmers. Of her official cult we know noth- 
 ing. Another popular cosmological figure was Hdpi, the 
 god of the Nile, of whose cult in the times of the New 
 Empire (B.C. 1 530-1050) we are well informed. Hun- 
 dreds of hymns addressed to him have come down to us, 
 all expressing a fervent devotion and sincere gratitude for 
 his many good offices. Thousands of statuettes repre- 
 senting the god have also been preserved. With time he 
 assumed a national importance rivaled only by the heads 
 of the great national religions, Ptah, Rd, Osiris, and 
 Amon. This is but natural, for it is to this stream that 
 Egypt owes all its prosperity — ay, its very existence. 
 Min, the agricultural god of Qebti (Coptos, fifth Upper 
 Egyptian nome), also belongs to this class of divinities. 
 A typical representative of the second class is Chepra, 
 the god of the mysterious Becoming ; he was a purely 
 theosophical figure, and had no hold on the popular 
 mind. 
 
 Results of cosmological speculation are likewise the 
 " eight gods of the elements," so called— the ogdoas of 
 Ckmunu-HermopoliSy the home of Thot. They appear 
 in four couples: 1. Nun and Nut\ 2. Heh and Hehet\ 
 3. Keh and Keket ; and 4. Nenu and Nenut. Originally 
 there were only the four male divinities, as they appear in 
 the paintings on the walls of the tomb of Seti I (died about 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 27 
 
 1300 B. C.) ; the goddesses are later additions, their na^e 
 being merely the feminine forms of those of the male di- 
 vinities. The meaning ascribed to them is this: 1. Nun 
 is the male generative principle of the universe, the father 
 of Rd, Nut is the female conceptive principle, while to- 
 gether they personify the original chaos; 2. Heh and 
 Hehet personify eternity; 3. Kek and Keket, darkness; 
 and, 4. Nenu and Nenut, moisture. The full develop- 
 ment of this curious cosmological doctrine seems to be- 
 long to a later theosophy. Another cosmological couple 
 are Shu and his sister Tefnut. Shu is the god that sup- 
 ports the heavens, and is, in all probability, a personifica- 
 tion of the atmosphere. His sister Tefnut owes her ex- 
 istence merely to the desire of giving every god a female 
 companion. Qeb and Nut, his wife, are also a cosmologi- 
 cal couple. He is a personification of the earth, she of 
 the heavens. They are given a place in one of the ac- 
 knowledged national religions as parents of Osiris, Isis, 
 Set, and Nephthys (Egyptian name, Nebhaf). 
 
 There were several deities that owed their existence to 
 pure speculation and had, as a rule, no connection with 
 the pantheons. The most important of these was Mat, 
 the goddess of truth and justice, who is the personification 
 of these qualities. She had national importance as lady- 
 patroness of justice and its ministers, the judges, who 
 were all priests of Mat. There is little reason to doubt 
 the statement of Herodotus that the judges wore her pict- 
 ure on their breasts. Of her cult, however, we know 
 nothing. Sdfchet, the goddess of wisdom, of which she 
 is a personification, was regarded as the wife of Thot, and 
 was no doubt a very old figure in the theosophy of 
 Chmunu-Hermopolis. Thot himself is a result of specu- 
 lation, the personification of learning and wisdom ; the 
 scribe of the gods, and as such the patron of scribes. He 
 has in this capacity national recognition. His home, 
 Chmunu, seems to have been a great seat of speculative 
 theosophy. 
 
 Besides these many divinities — and our space has not 
 permitted us to name more than the most important ones 
 — untold legions of demons, some attached to a particular 
 pantheon, others floating about in wild and unrestrained 
 freedom, help to complicate the religion. Osiris alone 
 had forty-two demons attached to his person as associate 
 
28 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 judges in the court that sat in the Lower World — in that 
 part of it known as the " hall of the two truths " — and 
 tried the departed souls to judge of their worthiness to 
 enter the blessed abodes. Each of these had a peculiarly- 
 absurd name, which the dead man had to know and to 
 each one he had to make a special negative confession. 
 Besides these forty-two judges, unnumbered good and evil 
 spirits peopled the Lower World, all of which the dead 
 man had to know and name at sight. It is only of these 
 spirits of the Amenti, as the Egyptians called the Lower 
 World, that we know the names and, to some extent, the 
 natures. It was, by the by, far more important to know 
 the former than the latter, for by merely calling him by 
 name the dead man could bring to his aid a good spirit or 
 exorcise an evil one. To know the demon was to have 
 power over him, so that the outlook of the poor soul was 
 not so bad, after all. The rite of circumcision, so exten- 
 sively practiced by the ancient Egyptians, has been brought 
 into connection with this belief in demons. It is conject- 
 ured that this rite was originally a substitute for human 
 sacrifice which may have been practiced in prehistoric 
 times. 
 
 Now, we inquire in what relation the various local re- 
 ligions stood to one another. Part of them remained in 
 obscurity, having only local significance ; part came with 
 time to have national import ; and it is now our object to 
 inquire into the cause of this. Eight of these religions 
 came with time to have national sway : those of Ptah of 
 Memphis, of Rd of Heliopolis, Osiris of Abydos, Anion 
 of Thebes, Sebak of Crocodolilopolis, Neit of Sais, Hathor 
 of Denderah, and Horus of Edfu. The causes of this lay- 
 partly in the character of the religion itself, partly in the 
 history of the nation. Three religions seem to have come 
 into prominence much at the same time : those of Rd, 
 Osiris, and Ptah. Rd owes his early prominence to the 
 fact that he was the solar deity par excellence ; he was 
 looked upon as the first divine king of Egypt. His re- 
 ligion is of peculiar interest to us, for it finally culminated 
 in a solar monotheism under Amenhetep IV (about 1382- 
 1370 B. C.), who set up Aten, the solar disk, as the su- 
 preme and, to a certain extent, the only god of Egypt. 
 After the suppression of this reform, Rd seems rapidly to 
 have lost his national prestige, and to have sunk to the 
 
INTRODUCTORY, 29 
 
 rank of the local deity of Heliopolis, becoming merged 
 with Amon as Amon-Rd. Osiris also owes his early 
 prominence to religious reasons. He was god of the 
 dead, the ruler of the Amenti, and as such was a promi- 
 nent figure in all epochs of Egyptian history. Together 
 with him, Horus, and his mother /sis, and Nebhat (Neph- 
 thys), the sister of Osiris, came into prominence. Set, his 
 brother, gained an unenviable notoriety through the Osiris 
 mythology, as the evil god — the great enemy of his brother 
 Osiris. Anubis is also drawn into the circle by being 
 made the son of Osiris and Nebhat. Ptah was originally 
 merely the head of the Memphitic pantheon, and as such 
 was no more than the head of any other local pantheon. 
 The rise of Mena, however, the union of the North and 
 South, and the fact that through this union Memphis be- 
 came the capital of the united kingdom, gave him a com- 
 manding place in the national pantheon. He became the 
 god of the government, and, as such, the chief god of the 
 nation ; and, even after Amon had succeeded him in this 
 position, he held a high place in the religion until, under 
 the Ptolemies, he was merged with Osiris into the new 
 god Serapis, who was imported from Asia Minor and 
 given out as a union of Osiris and the Apis-bull, the sacred 
 animal of Ptah. At the close of the Old Empire (about 
 2400 B. C.) there is a gap in Egyptian history, and it is 
 not until 2100 B. C. that we again stand on firm ground, 
 and then it is Thebes that is the capital of Egypt ; and, as 
 a consequence, the head, of its local pantheon, Amon, a 
 deity hitherto obscure, is the official head of the national 
 pantheon. He retained this position throughout the elev- 
 enth and twelfth dynasties, but in the thirteenth dynasty 
 (about 1930 B. C.) he seems to have surrendered the su- 
 premacy to Sebak, of Crocodilopolis in the Fayoum. Sebak 
 did not retain his position long, for the thirteenth dynasty 
 ended in anarchy, and soon after its fall the Hyksos in- 
 vaded Egypt. For several centuries the foreign invaders 
 ruled supreme; but about 1530 B. C. they were driven out 
 by Aahmes I, a Theban king, and Thebes again became 
 the capital of Egypt. As one consequence of this, Amon 
 again became the official head of the pantheon. But 
 about 1400 B. C. he was again dethroned, when King 
 Amenhetep IV (Chuenaten) instituted the religious re- 
 form above mentioned. Unfortunately, the reform was 
 
30 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 short-lived, dying soon after its founder. Again, Anion, 
 now called Amon-Rd, ruled supreme. Through all the 
 vicissitudes of Egyptian history he held his own, even ex- 
 tending his sway to the neighboring kingdom of Napata, 
 founded in Ethiopia early in the tenth century B. C, 
 probably by the descendants of the priest-kings of Dynasty 
 XXI, who had been driven from Egypt by Sheshong I, 
 until, finally, when Psemtek I founded the twenty-sixth 
 dynasty, he gave way to Neit of Sais. She seems to have 
 retained the place at the head of the national pantheon 
 until the times of the Ptolemies, when Hathor of Denderah 
 and Horus of Edfu shared the supremacy with Serapis. 
 They, too, finally passed away with the advent of Chris- 
 tianity. Alone of all the old deities Isis retained her 
 sway, even in Christian times, well into the fourth century 
 A. D. on the Island of Philse ; but she, too, finally yielded, 
 and passed away before the new religion. 
 
 Such is as adequate a sketch of the Egyptian religion 
 as can be given in the space allotted. The reader will 
 observe that the religion was not a homogeneous whole, 
 the result of a continuous development along one line of 
 thought, but a heterogeneous mass, the resultant of the 
 union of a large number of religions, each of itself poly- 
 theistic in nature ; and that with so little fusion of the 
 component parts that we have all through the history of 
 this curious religion three ox four — and in later times as 
 many as eight — essentially different religions having na- 
 tional recognition and a large number of local religions 
 running side by side. The reader will further observe 
 that there is no trace of an " original monotheism," and 
 that the monotheism which was developed from the Rd- 
 religion was a very imperfect one, and was, far from being 
 " original," the result of many centuries of thought and 
 speculation. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OLD EMPIRE — FROM THE UNION OF THE UPPER 
 AND LOWER COUNTRIES TO THE CLOSE OF THE 
 SIXTH DYNASTY— ABOUT 3200-2400 B. C. 
 
 ^uThe First Dynasty. 
 
 Mena (3200 B. a). — The great king who first united 
 Upper and Lower Egypt into one country lived not later 
 than 3200 B. C. How many years earlier he lived we have 
 no means of saying ; he may have lived five hundred or 
 even a thousand years earlier ; but, until we can assign 
 him an accurately correct date, it is best to retain the one 
 here given. Naturally he occupies a high place in Egyp- 
 tian tradition, being regarded as the first human king of 
 the country. His birthplace was the small town of Tent 
 (Greek, This), near Abydos. This town was not, how- 
 ever, favorably located for the capital of a great empire ; 
 so Mena left it, and removed the seat of the government 
 to the city of Memphis, which lay on the Nile a little to 
 the south of the apex of the Delta. This city was the 
 home of the god Plan, who thus became the official head 
 of the Egyptian pantheon. The site of this city was on 
 the left bank of the Nile, a little above the modern city of 
 Cairo. At the modern village of Mitrahine a few mounds 
 of rubbish and some scattered ruins still mark the place 
 where once stood one of the greatest and richest cities of 
 all antiquity. The Egyptian name of the city was Afen- 
 nefer — " the good (or beautiful) abode " — from which the 
 Greek name Memphis, by which we designate the city, 
 was derived. Every city of ancient Egypt had two names 
 — a common orprofane name and a sacred name, derived 
 either from the name of its god or from some mythological 
 event located at it. The sacred name of Men-nefer was 
 Het-ka-Ptak, "the abode of the spirit of Ftak." It was 
 
32 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 defended by a citadel called " anbuhetj," " the white wall." 
 The city itself was probably far older than the time of 
 Mena ; but, in transferring the capital to it, the king nat- 
 urally greatly enlarged it, and came to be considered, 
 first, its benefactor, and later on its founder. What we 
 know of this king has come to us through the Greek his- 
 torians and Manetho. All that is usually ascribed to the 
 founders of empire is ascribed to him. The legends re- 
 lated of him are mostly absurd. He is said to have 
 founded the temple of Ptah at Memphis, which was the 
 first Egyptian temple, to have first organized the temple 
 ritual, and to have introduced the cult of the Apis-bull — 
 all of which stories are alike incredible. As above noted, 
 Memphis and its cult existed long before Mena's time. 
 He is also said to have invented the alphabet. The most 
 absurd story is that told by Diodorus, who relates that the 
 king had once upon a time, when pursued by his own 
 hounds, fled into Lake Mceris, and had been brought to 
 shore by a crocodile ; and, in gratitude for this rescue, he 
 had built Crocodilopolis on the lake-shore, had instituted 
 the crocodile-cult, and given over the lake to these sauri- 
 ans. Then he had built a pyramid here for his tomb, and 
 had founded the celebrated labyrinth. In reality the 
 "lake" did not yet exist in these early times, having been 
 built by Amenhetep III almost two thousand years 
 later. Crocodilopolis, the pyramid, and the labyrinth were 
 built by this same pharaoh.* Almost as absurd is the 
 legend that he was an effeminate king, devoted to the 
 pleasures of the table, and had first taught his subjects 
 to take a reclining posture while eating. In the first place, 
 founders of empire are not made of such stuff; and, in the 
 second place, the custom in Egypt was not to recline, but 
 to sit at table. The king is also represented as a patron 
 of poets. More trustworthy is what Manetho tells us of 
 this king. He was a mighty warrior, w r ho campaigned in 
 Lybia, and was killed by a hippopotamus. This agrees 
 well with what we would expect of a founder of empire 
 — he was a warlike ruler, and was killed while hunting. 
 According to Manetho, he ruled about sixty years. 
 
 * The word pharaoh, which was taken over into the modern 
 languages from the Bible, is derived from the Egyptian word per da 
 — " the great house " — a common designation of the king. 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE. 33 
 
 Teta, whom the Greek writers called Atothis I, suc- 
 ceeded Mena. According to the extract from Manetho, 
 made by Africanus, he ruled fifty-seven years ; according 
 to that made by Eusebius, he reigned only twenty-seven. 
 Manetho relates that he built the citadel of Memphis, and 
 wrote a work on anatomy. This latter notice is to some 
 extent confirmed by a passage of the medical " Papyrus 
 Ebers," in which a hair-restorer is said to have been in- 
 vented by Skesh, the mother of our ruler. A two-headed 
 crane is said to have appeared in his reign — a phenome- 
 non that presaged a long period of prosperity. Of Atet 
 {Atothis II), whom Manetho called Kenkenes, nothing is 
 known beyond the fact that he ruled thirty-two years. In 
 the reign of Ata, the Ouenephes of Manetho, who ruled 
 twenty-three years, a great famine prevailed in Egypt. He 
 is said to have erected a pyramid at Kochome, near Saq- 
 qarah. Hesepti, the Usaphaides of Manetho, who ruled 
 twenty years, is quite a literary character among these 
 kings. A remedy for leprosy, which was afterward copied 
 in a medical papyrus preserved in Berlin and in the " Papy- 
 rus Ebers," is said to date from his reign. Numerous 
 copies of the sixty-fourth chapter of the "Book of the 
 Dead " assert that this chapter was " discovered " in his 
 reign, and not in that of Mycerinos, while all copies agree 
 that the one hundred and thirtieth chapter dates from this 
 reign. Merbapen, the Miebidos of Manetho, reigned 
 nineteen years. He must have been quite an important 
 ruler, for the list of kings discovered at Saqqarah begins 
 with his name. Semenptah, the Semempses of Mane- 
 tho, ruled eighteen years. It is related that many mira- 
 cles took place in his reign, and that a great plague almost 
 depopulated the land. Of Kebhu, the Blenches of 
 Manetho, we know only that he ruled twenty-six years. 
 
 (§2. The Second Dynasty7^> 
 
 Neterbau, the Betjau of the list of kings found at 
 Abydos, the Boethos of Manetho, reigned thirty- eight 
 years. Manetho relates that during his reign an earth- 
 quake at Bubastis swallowed up many people. Kakau, 
 the Kaichos of Manetho, reigned twenty-nine years. Ac- 
 cording to Manetho, he introduced the cult of the Apis-bull 
 at Memphis, that of the Menevis-bull at Heliopolis, and 
 
34 HISTORY OF EGYPT, 
 
 that of the ram at Mendes. This legend is incredible 
 and unhistorical. These cults were all as old as the cities 
 in which they were practiced, and antedated the union of 
 the two countries by many centuries, Ba-en-neter, 
 whom Manetho calls Binothris, reigned forty-seven years. 
 He seems to have been an important lawgiver. If we can 
 credit the account of Manetho, it was this pharaoh who 
 first legalized the succession in the female line. This was 
 of great importance throughout the course of Egyptian 
 history, for according to this law a woman could sit on 
 the Egyptian throne, and many a dynasty based its right 
 to the throne on the law of female succession. Of Ouat- 
 jnes, the Tlasol Manetho, we know only that he reigned 
 seventeen years. Sent, called Sethenes by Manetho, who 
 ruled forty-one years, is said to have revised a medical 
 treatise written in the reign of Hesepti. Perabsen, 
 possibly the Chaires of Manetho, reigned seventeen years. 
 Neferkara, the Nephercheres of Manetho, is said to 
 have ruled twenty-live years. Under him, Manetho says, 
 the Nile ran honey for eleven days. — Maspero, following 
 Mariette, places in this dynasty some monuments, which 
 are certainly older than the times of the fourth dynasty. 
 They are few in number, but show certain striking pecul- 
 iarities which prove that they belong together. But we can 
 not fully verify this very plausible hypothesis until we have 
 more of these monuments. For the present it is certainly 
 better not to ascribe them to any particular period, but to 
 say merely that they are older than the times of the fourth 
 dynasty. The same may be said of the great Sphinx of 
 Gizeh, the age of which is unknown. 
 
 § 3. The Third Dynasty. 
 
 How the second dynasty came to an end and the third 
 ascended the throne we do not know ; in fact, our knowl- 
 edge of the first three dynasties is limited to the names of 
 the rulers and a few legends. Neferkasokar was the 
 first king of this dynasty. Manetho calls him Nechero- 
 phes, and ascribes to him a reign of twenty-eight years. 
 The same historian relates that in this reign the Lybians 
 revolted ; but, as the battle was about to begin, they 
 became frightened at seeing the moon apparently greatly 
 enlarged, and fled from the field. Tosorthos ruled 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE. 35 
 
 twenty-nine years. Manetho relates that he was a great 
 builder, and had perfected the system of writing. He was 
 also a great physician, and for this reason had been iden- 
 tified with Asclepios by the Greeks. Of the other rulers 
 of this dynasty we know only the names. Huni, the ' 
 last of these kings, the Kerpheres of Manetho, who ruled 
 twenty- six years, was the immediate predecessor of King 
 S7iefru, the founder of the fourth dynasty. 
 
 § 4. The Fourth Dynasty — The Pyramid- Builders, about 
 2830-2700 B. C. 
 
 Snefru (2830-2806 B. C.), the founder of the fourth 
 dynastyTascended the throne about 2830 B. c. The change 
 of dynasty seems to have been peaceably accomplished. 
 " Papyrus Prisse," the only text that refers to it, remarks : 
 " Then King Huni died, and King Snefru became a benefi- 
 cent ruler over the entire land." He is the first king from 
 whose reign monuments have come down to us. He and 
 his successors built for their tombs great pyramids, form- 
 ing a line miles in length, from Gizeh on the north to 
 Meydoum on the south. King Snefru, in all probability, 
 is buried in the pyramid of Meydoum, about which lie 
 the tombs of many of his courtiers. The Egyptian name 
 of the pyramid was Cha ; its builder was Henka. Of his- 
 torical events of this reign we know but little. A legend- 
 ary papyrus preserved in St. Petersburg tells of an incur- 
 sion of the Asiatic Bedouins known as Amu. To guard 
 against these inroads a line of forts was established stretch- 
 ing across the Egyptian part of the Isthmus of Suez. 
 This string of forts is frequently mentioned in the texts 
 and its official name anbu hegu, " Wall of the princes," 
 gave rise to the mistaken impression that the Egyptians 
 had built a wall across their eastern frontier. One of 
 these forts, named after King Snefru, Aa Snefru, is men- 
 tioned in the memoirs of a noble who lived over a thou- 
 sand years, later. But King Snefru was not content with 
 repelling the inroads of the Asiatics. He was bent on 
 enlarging his empire. On the Sinai peninsula there were 
 located rich copper and malachite mines which the Egyp- 
 tions worked in very early times. Whether Snefru was 
 the first king who opened these mines, or whether they 
 had been opened to the Egyptians by some previous king, 
 4 
 
36 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 we do not undertake to say, but it is a fact that he is the 
 first king of whom monuments have been found on the 
 peninsula. Inscriptions at both of the great mining camps 
 at Sarbut el Chadem and Wadi Maghara tell of the king's 
 campaigns against the Bedouins of the region, who were 
 called Mentiu Satet, and who seem to have seriously re- 
 sented the encroachment of the Egyptians. They were 
 of course beaten, but could never be wholly subdued, and 
 gave much trouble in later reigns. Snefru died after a 
 prosperous reign of twenty-four years. 
 
 Chufu (2806-2782 B. c.).— When Snefru died he left 
 to his oldest son and successor a great and flourishing 
 kingdom. This king is the Cheops of Herodotus. He is 
 the builder of the largest of the three great pyramids of 
 Gizeh, the measurements of which are : side of square 
 base, originally 764 feet, at present 746 feet ; perpendicu- 
 lar height, originally 480 feet, now 450 feet ; and height of 
 slope, originally 611 feet, at present 568 feet. Inside of 
 this great mass of solid masonry there is the chamber in 
 which the sarcophagus of the king was deposited. This 
 chamber is approached by a series of narrow passages, 
 which were, after the sarcophagus was in place, blocked 
 up in a very ingenious manner. The Egyptian name of 
 this pyramid was Chut. I may here mention some gen- 
 eral facts which hold good for all the pyramids of Gizeh. 
 Each one had connected with it a funereal temple dedi- 
 cated to the memory of the king buried in the pyramid. 
 All of the pyramids were built as planned, a fact that the 
 recent measurements of W. Flinders Petrie have demon- 
 strated beyond a doubt. Thus the old theory that every 
 king when he ascended the throne began a pyramid of 
 moderate proportions, and gradually enlarged it as he 
 found he had the time, is exploded. The reader will find 
 a full expose 1 of these facts in Mr. Petrie 's admirable book, 
 "The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh." About each 
 pyramid lay a number of smaller pyramids, probably the 
 tombs of the members of the royal families, as well as the 
 tombs of the nobles that had lived at the court. 
 
 This king was a great builder, the temple of the *' Lady 
 of the Pyramids, Isis," and the foundation of the temple 
 of Hathor at Denderah are attributed to him. Two cities 
 — Mendt-Chufu (the modern Minye, north of Hermopo- 
 lis) and Chufukebet—bzax his name. Like his prede- 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE. 37 
 
 cessor, he was compelled to make a campaign against the 
 Mentiu Satet, on the Sinai peninsula, who it seems had 
 again begun to molest the Egyptian miners. 
 
 The classical accounts of this king are all unreliable. 
 Herodotus gives him a reign of fifty years, and Manetho 
 says he reigned sixty-three, while we know from the Turin 
 Papyrus that he ruled only twenty-four years. The clas- 
 sical historians would also have him appear as a great 
 tyrant, who closed the temples in order that the Egyptians 
 might all labor continuously at his pyramid, and who, 
 when money failed him, prostituted his own daughter 
 in order to raise funds. The chief responsibility for these 
 stories rests on Herodotus. Manetho attempts to recon- 
 cile history and legend by relating that the king, whom he 
 calls Soufihis, had repented in his old age, and had written 
 a book that was regarded as sacred. 
 
 Radede£l 2782-27 5Q B. a). — The son and successor 
 of Chufu, who ruled twenty-three years, did not build a 
 pyramid. Why he departed from the custom begun by 
 his two predecessors we can not say ; perhaps the forces 
 and resources of the kingdom were otherwise employed. 
 We know, however, absolutely nothing of this compara- 
 tively long reign. 
 
 Chafra (2758-2750 B. a), the Chephren of Herodotus, 
 is thelSulfaer of the second great pyramid of Gizeh, the 
 Egyptian name of which is Ouer, " the Great One." This 
 pyramid is somewhat smaller than that of Chafra's father, 
 Chufu, but it is still of respectable size. Its dimensions 
 are : Length of side of square base originally, 707 feet, now 
 690 feet ; perpendicular height originally, 454J feet, now 
 447 feet ; inclined height originally, 572 feet, at present 563 
 feet. Like all the other pyramids of Gizeh, this one is built 
 of blocks of limestone taken from the quarries of Turah 
 (Egyptian name, Rodii), in the hills on the east bank of 
 the Nile, opposite Memphis. All the pyramids were built 
 so that their sides resembled great steps, and then these 
 steps were filled in with granite blocks, so placed that they 
 formed a smooth, continuous inclined surface. Part of 
 this coating of granite is still left on the upper part of this 
 pyramid. Before this pyramid, a little to the south of the 
 great Sphinx, there stands a large temple built of granite 
 and alabaster, which was most probably erected at Cha- 
 fra's order. The fact that it stands in front of his pyra- 
 
38 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 mid proves conclusively that it was built after that struct- 
 ure. In a well in the interior of this temple were found 
 the fragments of nine exquisitely wrought diorite statues 
 of the king. Seven of these are at present in the museum 
 of Boulaq, one of them being almost unharmed. How 
 these statues got in the well we do not know. The tem- 
 ple itself is also a mystery ; it may have been Chafra's 
 1 funereal temple, but it may just as well have been erected 
 to the Sphinx, the image of Rdhartnachis, or to any 
 other deity. Of him also the classical historians relate 
 that he was a great tyrant, who systematically oppressed 
 his subjects in order to be able to complete his great pyra- 
 mid ; but there is absolutely no foundation for these 
 stories. He died after a reign of only eight years. 
 
 Menkaura (2749-2724 B. C.), the Mycerinos of 
 Herodotus, succeeded Chafra. Herodotus tells us this 
 pharaoh was celebrated for his great piety and righteous- 
 ness, and the Egyptian monuments bear this out. They 
 tell us that he sent out his son Hordedef to inspect the 
 temples of the land, and that while on this tour of inspec- 
 tion the prince had " discovered " the sixty- fourth chapter 
 of the "Book of the Dead" at Hermopolis (Chmunu). 
 Some copies of the thirtieth chapter of the same compila- 
 tion state that it also was " found " in this reign. Several 
 later texts mention this prince ; the celebrated " Minstrel's 
 Song " quotes one of his sayings, and a letter written in 
 the time of Ramses II speaks of the difficulty of under- 
 standing his writings. The story, related by some Greek 
 authors, that the oracle of Buto had predicted to him that 
 he would die young, and that he had consequently spent 
 day and night in dissipation in order to double his life, is 
 utterly untrustworthy. His tomb is the third and smallest 
 of the pyramids of Gizeh. Its dimensions are : Side of 
 square base, 354^ feet ; perpendicular height, originally 
 218 feet, now 203 feet; height of incline, originally 278 
 feet, now 261 feet. The order to erect this structure and 
 the account of the work are given in an unfortunately ex- 
 tremely mutilated inscription in one of the tombs of Gizeh. 
 The name of the pyramid was Heri. Although a sys- 
 tematic attempt to destroy this pyramid was made in 11 96 
 A. D., it is the best preserved of all the pyramids of Gizeh. 
 In the chamber Vyse found the stone sarcophagus and 
 fragments of the wooden mummy-case of this king. The 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE. 39 
 
 former was lost in a shipwreck ; the latter are preserved in 
 the British Museum. How long this pharaoh ruled we 
 can not say, as the Turin Papyrus has a break at his name. 
 We must, therefore, for the present take the years given 
 by the most trustworthy of the classical writers, Manetho, 
 who states the king ruled twenty-five years. 
 
 Shepsesk af (2723-2701 B. a). — Of this king we 
 know very littleT An interesting description was found in 
 the tomb of his favorite, Ptahshepses. This man was born 
 in the reign of Menkaura, and was educated together with 
 the royal princes. His career as an official falls almost en- 
 tirely within Shepseskaf ' s reign. This king gave his favor- 
 ite his daughter Mdatchd in marriage, and heaped honors 
 upon him. It is a characteristic fact that neither in this 
 biography nor in any other inscription of this time do we 
 meet with any mention of warlike expeditions. The monu- 
 ments, however, make frequent mention of the king's trips 
 through the country, of festivals, and of buildings erected 
 by the pharaoh. Herodotus tells us that the successor 
 of Mycerinos, whom he calls Asychis, built a pyramid of 
 brick, and enlarged the southern peristyle of the Ptah- 
 temple of Memphis. Biodorus, who calls him Sasychzs, 
 mentions him as one of the five great lawgivers of Egypt. 
 One of his alleged laws is mentioned by Herodotus : al- 
 lowing a debtor to pawn his father's mummy; in case 
 the mummy were not redeemed, he would lose for himself 
 and family the right of burial. Diodorus also states that 
 this Pharaoh regulated the ritual, and invented geometry 
 and the art of observing the stars. Of these stories it is safe 
 to accept only what relates to the building operations of the 
 king. According to Manetho, he ruled twenty-two years. 
 
 Two kings, Sebercheres and Tamphthis, are mentioned 
 by Manetho as belonging to this dynasty, but their names 
 have not yet been found on the monuments. 
 
 5. The Fift h Dynasty {2700-23 60 > b Tc^T ^ 
 
 The change of dynasty seems to have been peaceably 
 accomplished, for we find that men who had held office 
 under the preceding dynasty were retained by the kings 
 of the new house. Possibly the direct male line had died 
 out, and the new line came to the throne by the right of 
 female succession. 
 
40 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Userkaf (2700-2693 B. c), the first king of this dy- 
 nasty, was the immediate successor of Shepseskaf, as is 
 proved by the inscription of Seckemkard, who held offi- 
 cial positions under Kings Chafra, Menkaura, Shepseskaf, 
 Userkaf, and Sahura. All we know of this pharaoh is that 
 he ruled seven years, and was buried in a pyramid called 
 Abasu. 
 
 Sahura (2692 2680 b. c.) had to repel inroads of the 
 Mentiu Satet, who had again begun to molest the Egyp- 
 tian miners on the Sinai peninsula. He founded the city 
 of Persahurd, north of Esneh, and built a temple to the 
 goddess Socket, the wife of Ptah, in Memphis. His pyra- 
 mid, Chdba, lies north of Abusir. Sahura ruled twelve 
 years. 
 
 Neferarkara (2679-2672 B. c), the successor of 
 Sahura, is tailed Kaka in the list of Abydos. He died 
 after a reign of seven years, and was buried in a pyramid 
 called Ba. Of Shepseskara (2761-2759 B. a), we 
 know only that he reigned twelve years. Of Ahtes we 
 know nothing. Neferbara reigned probably ten years. 
 Akauhor is another ruler of whom we know absolutely 
 nothing. 
 
 An, whose pr&nomon was Userenrd, was the first king 
 to adopt a throne-name. Hitherto the kings had kept the 
 names they had borne as princes, but now the kings took 
 a new name on ascending the throne. This name was 
 always compounded with the name of the god Pa, and 
 was the official name of the ruler, by which he was desig- 
 nated in all state documents. The name of Pa was 
 chosen, in all probability, because this god was considered 
 as the first divine king of Egypt. The king, however, re- 
 tained his old name, placing before it the title Sa Pa, 
 " Son of Pa." Thus Aris name now was King of Upper 
 and Lower Egypt, User-en-Rd, the son of Pd, An. Not 
 content with these two names, the pharaohs took three 
 other names on ascending the throne, answering to the 
 three titles : Horus, Lord of Both Lands, and Horus 
 Nubti — i. e., " Horus, the conqueror of Set." In olden 
 times the kings used one and the same name with these 
 three titles. Thus, the full name of Amenemhat I was : 
 The Horus, Nem Mesut (Renewer of Births), Lord of 
 Both Lands, Nem Mesut, Horus Nubti, Nem Mesut, 
 King of Upper and Lower Egyyt, Sehotep-ab-Pd, the 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE, 41 
 
 son of Ra, Amenemhdt, In later times the Pharaohs took 
 a separate name with each title. Thus, the full name of 
 Ramses II was : Horus, The strong steer, beloved of 
 Mat, Lord of Both Lands ; He that protecteth Egypt 
 and subdueth the Barbarians, Horus Nubti, Rich in 
 years, great in victories, King of Upper and Lower 
 Egypt, Ra user mat setep en Ra (i. e., Ra, strong- in 
 truth, chosen of Ra), the son of Ra, Ramessu tneri 
 Amon (Ramses, beloved of Amon). Frequently other 
 titles are added, and the titulature becomes a hymn on 
 the king. ' An warred on the Sinai peninsula with the 
 Mentiu Satet, He died after a reign of ten years. 
 
 Menkauhor ruled eight years. All we know of him 
 is triat he, too, worked the copper and malachite mines of 
 the Sinai. Ded-ka-Ra Assa ruled twenty-eight years. 
 In the fourth year of his reign he sent an expedition to 
 Wadi Maghara on the Sinai. He is the first pharaoh 
 whose name we meet with in the quarries of the Wadi 
 Hammamat, although undoubtedly already King Chafra 
 worked them. Unas was the last king of this dynasty. 
 With his name the Turin Papyrus concludes a division, 
 and sums up the number of years since Mena, in all six 
 hundred and fifty. It thus would seem that his death 
 marked an epoch in Egyptian history, but our information 
 about this period is so meager that we can not say what 
 great event can have taken place at this time. Unas had 
 been appointed co-regent by his father Assa, He does 
 not seem to have undertaken any warlike expeditions. 
 He was, however, a great builder, erecting a temple to 
 the goddess Hat/wr, near Memphis ; in the Fayoum there 
 was a city called Unas after him, and probably founded 
 by him. The diorite he needed for these works he quar- 
 ried in Hammamat. After a reign of thirty years the king 
 died. 
 
 § 6. The Sixth Dynasty {about 2560-2400 B. C). 
 
 Teta was the founder of the new dynasty, and seems 
 to have been the immediate successor of Unas, It would 
 seem, however, that the new dynasty did not gain the 
 throne without a struggle ; two kings are mentioned who 
 belong about in this time — Ati and Imhotep — both of 
 whom quarried stone in the Wadi Hammamat. They were 
 
42 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 most probably pretenders to the crown. Teta triumphed 
 over all his rivals, and ascended the throne about 2560 
 B. c. (?) Whatever struggle there was seems to have 
 been short-lived, and is not mentioned in the inscriptions. 
 These inscriptions are chiefly those of nobles, and though 
 they are, despite their brevity, accurate biographies, re- 
 counting the possessions and offices of the nobles they 
 treat of, they touch on matters of state only incidentally. 
 Of the history of this king we know absolutely nothing. 
 Manetho has preserved a legend that he was murdered by 
 one of his body-guard. According to the same historian, 
 he ruled thirty years. This pharaoh was buried in a 
 pyramid near Saqqarah, which was opened in 1881. The 
 Egyptian name of the structure was Dedasu. The open- 
 ing of this pyramid was of the greatest importance for 
 religious history, but of none whatever for secular history, 
 the walls being covered with long religious texts, contain- 
 ing not the slightest historical allusion. After Teta, the 
 list of Abydos mentions a King Ouserkard, of whom we 
 know nothing ; perhaps this was the king's throne-name, 
 and was put here by mistake. 
 
 Meri Rg LPgni (2530-2510 B. a), who ascended the 
 throne about 2530 B. C, is the greatest monarch of this 
 dynasty. Pepi was the immediate successor of Teta, but 
 we do not know whether he was related to his predecessor 
 or not. Pepi's empire embraced all of Egypt and the 
 Sinai peninsula. In the eighteenth year of his reign he 
 sent an expedition to the Wadi Maghara, and was com- 
 pelled to punish the Mentiu, who had again become 
 troublesome. In the same year he also sent an expedition 
 to Rokanu (Wadi Hammamat) to quarry stones for some 
 temples he was erecting. His name also appears in the 
 sandstone quarries of Gebel Silsileh, and he is the first 
 king of whose operations here we have any tidings, though 
 assuredly the quarries had been worked by many of his 
 predecessors. We know that he built in Tanis, and an 
 inscription on the walls of the temple of Denderah relates 
 that he had found the old plan of this building prepared 
 in King Chufu's time. He also founded a city, the gov- 
 ernor of which, BebcTy is buried at Shech Said. 
 
 The greater part of what we know of his reign is 
 gleaned from the inscription of a noble named Una. This 
 noble began his career under King Teta in minor offices. 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE. 43 
 
 Under Pepi he rapidly gained distinction, rising to high 
 offices. Early in Pepi's reign he was made judge, and 
 acquitted himself so well in a very delicate case that he 
 was given the exalted title of " Only friend to the pharaoh," 
 and was appointed governor of the Nubian district. He 
 now conducted, in conjunction with a justice of lower rank, 
 a case brought by the king against Queen Amset. The 
 case was a very delicate one, and conducted with the ut- 
 most secrecy ; we do not hear the cause of action, or the 
 outcome of the case. The king was highly pleased with 
 Una's conduct of this case, and heaped new honors upon 
 him. The Amu Heriuska, as the Egyptians called the 
 Syrian Bedouins, at this time began to make inroads on 
 Egyptian territory, and it was determined to punish them. 
 A vast army was collected from all parts of Egypt and 
 Nubia, drilled and disciplined under the direction of Una. 
 With this army he marched against the enemy, and in 
 five successive campaigns completely routed them ; their 
 strongholds were taken and destroyed, their crops were 
 burned, their cattle driven <off, vast numbers of prisoners 
 were taken, and their country was left completely devas- 
 tated and almost depopulated. Pepi died soon after the 
 close of this war, after a reign of twenty years, and was 
 buried in his pyramid, which bore the name of Men-nefer 
 (the same as that of Memphis). This pyramid, which lies 
 near Saqqarah, was opened in 1881. Its walls are cov- 
 ered with long religious inscriptions. 
 
 Mer-en-Ra Horemsaf (2509-2502 B.C.). — On 
 Pepi's death, his son Merenrd ascended the throne. Of 
 him we know little outside of what Una tells us. This 
 noble was made a prince by the new ruler, and appointed 
 Governor of the South. In this capacity he highly distin- 
 guished himself. He made two enumerations of the South 
 (i. e., twice took the census of his province), a thing that 
 had never been done before, and that gained him great 
 praise from the king. He was then ordered to bring a 
 granite sarcophagus and fittings for the king's pyramid 
 from the quarries at Elephantine. The fact that only one 
 man-of-war was needed to escort six transports and six 
 other vessels is a significant proof of the extent of the 
 Egyptian power in these early times. We have already 
 seen that Pepi I conscripted troops from the Nubian dis- 
 tricts bordering on Egypt. In an expedition undertaken 
 
44 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 somewhat later Una pressed Nubian tribes into his service 
 to cut timber and build boats. Most probably these tribes 
 had been subdued already by King Chufu when he opened 
 the granite quarries on the First Cataract. These tribes 
 most probably stood in a relation of semidependence to 
 Egypt. They certainly retained their tribal relations and 
 their autonomy, but were compelled to serve in the Egyp- 
 tian army in case of war, and to assist the expeditions 
 that were sent to Assuan. Outside of this we know of 
 this reign only that the king made a tour of inspection on 
 which he visited the quarries of Assuan, and that he sent 
 an expedition to the Wadi Hammamat. According to 
 Manetho, he ruled only seven years. He was entombed in 
 his pyramid, which was named Chdnofer. This pyramid 
 was opened in 1881, and it was found that the walls were 
 covered with inscriptions analogous to those found in the 
 pyramid of his father. In the sarcophagus-chamber was 
 found the carefully embalmed and well-preserved mummy 
 of the king, which was brought to Boulaq. The body is 
 that of a young man, which well accords with the short 
 reign ascribed to him by Manetho. 
 
 Neferkara, Pe pi_U (2501-241 1 B.C.). — On Meren- 
 ras death his brother Neferkara ascended the throne. 
 He corresponds to Manetho's King Phiops, who ruled one 
 hundred years, as the Turin Papyrus gives Pepi II over 
 ninety years. All that we know of him is that he sent an 
 expedition to the copper-mines of Wadi Maghara on the 
 Sinai. This king was buried in a pyramid near Saqqarah, 
 the Egyptian name of which was Men-dnch. It was 
 opened in 1881, and contained the same texts as the oth- 
 ers. The close of this dynasty is shrouded in darkness. 
 We know a few of the names belonging here, but of not 
 one of the kings after Pepi II do we know the history. 
 Thus we hear of a King Ment-e7n-Sdf, a King Nefrus y 
 and a King Ab. 
 
 Neitaqer, the Nitocris of the classical authors, be- 
 longs in this dynasty, though we can not give her her 
 exact place. Her name is mentioned on none of the monu- 
 ments, but many a legend is related of her. Herodotus tells 
 us that, after a reign of scarce one year, King Menthesou- 
 phis was murdered, and his sister and wife, " the beautiful 
 one with the rosy cheeks," succeeded him. She resolved 
 to avenge her husband and brother. To this end she had 
 
THE OLD EMPIRE. 45 
 
 a great hall built underground which was connected with 
 the waters of the Nile ; the river was prevented from en- 
 tering by mighty flood-gates. To this hall she invited all 
 who were implicated in the murder of her husband to a 
 banquet. When this was at its height she herself opened 
 the flood-gates, and, the waters of the Nile streaming in, 
 all the guests perished. Then, to avoid the vengeance of 
 the murderers' friends, she threw herself into a large 
 chamber filled with glowing coal and was burned up. 
 The same historian further relates that, in her reign of 
 seven years, she had enlarged the pyramid of Mycerinos, 
 and had coated its apex with granite. There is as little 
 foundation for one of these tales as for the other. The 
 latter story is disproved by the fact that the third pyramid 
 shows no traces of having been rebuilt or enlarged. An 
 Arabic legend is also connected with Nitocris, or, rather, 
 with the third pyramid. To the present day, the Arabs 
 dwelling about the pyramids believe that the ghost of the 
 southern pyramid hovers about it in the shape of a beau- 
 tiful naked woman. Whom she sets eyes on her smile 
 infatuates ; but she is a great coquette, alternately attract- 
 ing and repelling her victim until he becomes insane and 
 wanders aimless through the land. Many and many a 
 one, say they, has seen her, especially at noon and sunset, 
 hovering about her pyramid. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE SEVENTH DYNASTY TO THE CLOSE OF THE 
 TWELFTH — THE TRANSITION PERIOD AND THE 
 MIDDLE EMPIRE — ABOUT 24OO-I930 B. C. 
 
 § i. The Transition Period— Dynasties VII-XI. 
 
 This was a period of frequent revolutions ; king after 
 king ascended the throne, but it was a long time before a 
 king arose who succeeded in securing a firm hold on the 
 reins of state. It is next to impossible to give even a 
 chronological list of the kings who ruled in this period, 
 which must have covered some two hundred years, and 
 perhaps more. It is owing to this gap, and one that we 
 shall meet with later, that the chronology of the earlier 
 periods of Egypt is so very uncertain. From conditions 
 existing in the times of the twelfth dynasty it would seem 
 that the great hereditary princes of the realm, the nomar- 
 choi, succeeded in winning some considerable independ- 
 ence during this period. It is but natural that, in a time 
 when the kings felt anything but secure on the throne, 
 they should seek to enlist the support of the nobility, and 
 be ready to purchase that support by according them 
 greater privileges than they had hitherto enjoyed. These 
 nobles were a very shrewd lot, and no doubt made the 
 best of the bargain by selling their support to the highest 
 bidder. It was in all probability this inordinate strength- 
 ening of the nobility that finally led to the rise of the 
 Theban princes, and to their accession to the throne 
 under the founder of the eleventh dynasty. This was 
 significant for the entire future of Egypt, as Thebes con- 
 trolled the destinies of the kingdom for over a thousand 
 years. 
 
 Manetho gives only a list of dynasties for this period, 
 as follows : 
 
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE. 47 
 
 VII Dynasty: Memphitic, 70 kings in 70 days (ac- 
 cording- to Eusebius, 5 kings in 75 years). 
 
 VIII Dynasty: Memphitic, 27 kings in 146 years. 
 
 IX Dynasty: from Heracleopolis, 27 kings in 409 years 
 (Syncellus, 4 kings in 100 years). 
 
 X Dynasty;, from Heracleopolis, 17 kings in 185 years. 
 \-^"OF"tne names, Manetho gives only that of King Ach- 
 thoes, the founder of the ninth dynasty, of whom he relates 
 that he was the most barbarous and inhuman king that 
 had hitherto ruled in Egypt. He committed many crimes, 
 and was finally stricken with insanity and killed by a 
 crocodile. It is a probable conjecture that Manetho 
 wishes to convey the impression that this king was a for- 
 eign invader. In all probability the Amu Heriusha whom 
 Una had so effectually crushed had been left alone by 
 Meri-Ras immediate successors, and had again gathered 
 sufficient strength to renew their attacks on Egypt. If 
 this is so, the attack must not have come until after Ne- 
 ferka-Ras long reign. It seems that this time the bar- 
 barians had it all their own way, and had finally succeeded 
 in conquering the country. This hypothesis receives some 
 confirmation, however slight, from the fact that a semi- 
 legendary papyrus mentions combats with the Heriusha 
 under Kings Chruti and Ameno. Judging from the 
 names, Ameno was probably one of the kings of the elev- 
 enth dynasty, and these battles were then fought in de- 
 livering Egypt from the foreign invader. 
 
 § 2. The Middle Empire, Dynasties XI and XII. 
 
 The Eleventh Dynasty. — With the founder of 
 this dynasty, the Theban princes ascended the throne of 
 Egypt. These kings seem to have delivered Egypt from 
 the yoke of the foreign invader — the war possibly being 
 begun by Chruti and Ameno — though we nowhere find 
 any mention of this fact. The first of these princes men- 
 tioned in the lists of kings is the erpdti (i. e., hereditary 
 prince) Antef. The three succeeding kings are desig- 
 nated as Hor, and the fourth successor of Antef is the 
 first one to bear the full titulature of Egyptian kings. 
 From this fact the conclusion has been drawn that the 
 first Antef was merely Prince of Thebes ; that his next 
 successors had gradually enlarged their sway until they 
 5 
 
48 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ruled over all of Upper Egypt and had assumed the title 
 Hor — signifying ruler of Upper Egypt ; and that, finally, 
 the fourth successor of Antef had succeeded in conquer- 
 ing all of Egypt, and had consequently assumed the full 
 titulature of the Egyptian kings. This conjecture is en- 
 tirely unwarranted. It is probable that these rulers de- 
 livered Egypt from the yoke of the foreign invader, but 
 any attempt to read the history of the war from the titles 
 of these kings is futile. The founder of the dynasty, 
 Prince Antef, in all probability was the man with whom 
 the national movement began, though he possibly died 
 before other princes had recognized his authority, and 
 owes his place in the list of kings to the fact that his 
 dynasty based their claim to the throne on him. To 
 translate the title of Hor as "ruler of Upper Egypt," or 
 as "duke," is not admissible. Hor was one of the titles 
 of the Egyptian kings. The word signifies Horus, and 
 this title was given the king because he was looked upon 
 as the u Horus on Earth." The order of succession of 
 these kings is not certain, and we therefore deem it ad- 
 visable to group them according to their names. This 
 will give us two groups, one of kings whose names were 
 all the same — Antef, and another of kings whose names 
 were all the same — Mentuhdtep. Any other arrangement 
 would be equally arbitrary, while lacking the clearness of 
 this. 
 
 The An tef Kings . — Antef da (i. e., the Great), with 
 the throne-name T^aT-fechein-up-mdt, is the only king of 
 this line of whose family relations we have any knowledge. 
 A note on his sarcophagus informs us that his younger 
 brother and successor, Anantef Rd-secheni-herher-nidt, 
 had the sarcophagus made. This sarcophagus is in the 
 museum of the Louvre ; it is of gilt wood, and is orna- 
 mented with wings folded protectingly about the deceased. 
 An inscription found in Abydos mentions buildings erected 
 by him in this city. A pyramidion, mentioning the name 
 of his wife Mentuhdtep, was discovered at Qurnah. The 
 record of a criminal procedure against Theban tomb-rob- 
 bers informs us that he was buried in the Necropolis of 
 Thebes. The gilt-wood sarcophagus of Anantef is in the 
 British Museum, his silver-gilt diadem is in the museum 
 of Leyden. Nub-cheper-Rd Anantef is mentioned on a 
 statue as the conqueror of Asiatics and Nubians, but the 
 
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE, 49 
 
 texts do not give any detailed accounts of his campaigns. 
 His tomb at Drah-abul-Neggah, opposite Thebes, was 
 discovered by Mariette in 1860-61. The stele found in 
 the funereal chapel dates from his fiftieth year, so that we 
 know he reigned fifty years, and consequently must have 
 lived at a time when the country was tranquil. At the 
 same place fragments of two obelisks erected by this pha- 
 raoh were found. An da (the Great) is one of the kings 
 whose tombs are mentioned in the criminal procedure 
 above alluded to. One of the Hieratic copies of the " Book 
 of the Dead " alleges that the one hundred and thirtieth 
 chapter was discovered in his reign. 
 
 The Mentuhotep king s belong to the same fami- 
 ly with the 'Ante* kings. IVebhotep Mentuhotep is known 
 only from a stele found at Konosso, on which he is de- 
 picted as adoring the local divinities of that region, who 
 "throw all peoples under his feet " — i. e., give him power 
 over them. From this we must infer that Nebhotep car- 
 ried on wars in Nubia. Of Rd-neb-taui Mentuhotep we 
 know only that he sent an expedition to the quarries of 
 the Wadi Hammamat to quarry a sarcophagus for him. 
 On this occasion he caused a great reservoir to be cut in 
 the rock, so that the men " might not die of thirst." Ra- 
 neb-chepru MentuhStep reigned over forty-six years, as is 
 proved by the tombstone of a certain Meru, who died in 
 the forty-sixth year of this reign. We know of him only 
 that he quarried stone in Assuan. This pharaoh must 
 have been a ruler of some consequence, for his name is 
 mentioned in all of the lists of kings, and in several lists 
 his is the only name of a king ruling before the Hyksos 
 invasion that is mentioned. 
 
 Sednch-ka-Rd was the last king of this dynasty. A 
 very interesting inscription, graven on the rock in the 
 Wadi Hammamat, relates the story of one of his expedi- 
 tions. In the eighth year of his reign three thousand men, 
 under command of Henu, started from Qebti, at the mouth 
 of the valley. The expedition had a twofold object : first, 
 to quarry stone for the monarch's tomb and sarcophagus ; 
 and, second, to visit the shores of Pewent — i. e., the south- 
 west coast of Arabia and the Somali coast on the African 
 side of the Red Sea — on a trading expedition. Henu ac- 
 complished both objects successfully. To facilitate the 
 provisioning of so large a detachment, a number of sta- 
 
50 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tions was established and wells sunk along the line of 
 march. Arrived at the quarries, one detachment of the 
 expedition settled down to work, while the other contin- 
 ued its march to the sea, which it reached at about the 
 place where Qoss£r now stands. From here Henu sent 
 out a fleet — no mention is made of the building- of ships — 
 to the shores of Pewent, awaiting their return at QosseY. 
 The fleet brought back all the products of this country, 
 consisting of incense, precious stones, and other valuables. 
 Meanwhile the stone-cutters had done their work, and the 
 expedition returned to Egypt. This expedition is memo- 
 rable in that it proves that this pharaoh was firmly deter- 
 mined to establish a regular trade with Pewent. The 
 undertaking was in a certain sense a pioneer expedition, 
 the duty of which was to survey the road from Oebti to 
 the Red Sea, and, by the establishment of watering sta- 
 tions, to make it practicable. The first king of whom we 
 know that he followed in Seanch-ka-Ra's footsteps was 
 Amenemhat II. 
 
 The Twelfth Dynast^ (2 130-1930 b. C.).— The 
 eleventh dynasty had been a period of strife ; in it Egypt 
 had been delivered from the domination of the foreign in- 
 vader, the kingdom had been reunified, and the work- of 
 reorganizing the government had been begun. So well 
 had the last rulers of this dynasty done their work, that 
 Sednck-ka-Rd could undertake the work of opening a road 
 through the Wadi Hammamat, from Qebti to the Red 
 Sea ; and of laying the first fou«dations of a direct com- 
 mercial intercourse with the coast of southwestern Arabia 
 and the Somali coast. To what extent the work of reor- 
 ganization was completed when Amenemhat I ascended 
 the throne we do not know, as but few monuments of the 
 kings immediately preceding him have come down to us. 
 Of the times embraced by the twelfth dynasty w r e have, 
 however, a fair knowledge. Though the buildings erected 
 by the kings of this dynasty have disappeared, yet the 
 numerous inscriptions that have been preserved in all parts 
 of Egypt contain records of their doings. Much of our 
 knowledge of this period we owe to the tombs discovered 
 at Benihassan and Bersheh. But even here it is not yet pos- 
 sible to give details, or to fully understand all the condi- 
 tions that led to the rise and the fall of this house. 
 
 Sehotep-ab-Ra, Amenemhat (2 130-2100 B.C.). 
 
MAP OF 
 
 AETHIOPI^ 
 
 SHOWING iDHB 
 
 Extant of the EgyptTa 
 QpjiquesJs and the 
 Location of the 
 Capital. 
 
 SCALE OF MILES 
 
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE. 51 
 
 — About the year 2130 Kilig_Ameil£mhiXJ ascended the 
 throne of Egypt. What claim he had to the crown we 
 are not told, but in all probability he was related to the 
 last king of the preceding dynasty. The change of dynasty 
 was not accomplished without severe internal dissensions. 
 Several inscriptions allude to these disturbances, but give 
 no details. The new pharaoh was equal to the occasion ; 
 he defeated the rebels, and then set to work to reorganize 
 his kingdom. One of his first measures was to curb the 
 power of the nobles who had become semi-independent. 
 The principle of heredity he dared not abolish, but he 
 regulated the succession. When an old nomarchos died 
 the king chose his successor from his heirs-at-law, and 
 thus bound the new prince to his person. He also per- 
 sonally superintended a new survey of the whole country. 
 It would seem that, during the periods of anarchy, foreign 
 domination, and restoration, following on the decline of the 
 Old Empire, the Egyptian kings had not possessed the 
 leisure or the power to adjust disputes concerning bound- 
 aries which had arisen among the nobles. The stronger 
 had preyed upon the weaker, and many a prince had 
 seized the occasion of enlarging his domain. Amenemhat 
 made a tour of inspection through the country, personally 
 hearing complaints and readjusting the boundaries. He 
 thus succeeded in reorganizing his kingdom in a very 
 short time, and, when order was once restored, he was 
 the man to keep it with an iron hand. This policy enabled 
 him early in his reign to turn his attention to foreign af- 
 fairs. He marched against the Libyan tribe of the Mat- 
 jiu and conquered them. He also warred on the Asiatic 
 frontier against the Bedouins of the Syrian Desert. In 
 the twenty-ninth year of his reign he led his forces into 
 Nubia, and entirely subdued the Ouaoua — a tribe that had 
 begun to give trouble. Like all the pharaohs, he was a 
 great Duilder. Traces of his work have been found at 
 Tanis, Abydos, Memphis, and Karnak. The relics of his 
 work found at Karnak are of great importance, as they 
 prove that the great temple of Amon was founded by this 
 ruler. The stone needed for these buildings was quarried 
 m the limestone quarries of Turah (Ed du), opposite Mem- 
 phis, in the diorite quarries of the Wadi Hammamat, and 
 in the granite quarries of Assuan. In the sixteenth Upper 
 Egyptian nome he built a city called Hdt-Sehotep-ab-Rd, 
 
52 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 as also a fort called Amenemhdt-Ded-Taui. This pha- 
 raoh had in later times the reputation of being a great 
 sage. A papyrus, written about one thousand years after 
 his time, said to be a series of precepts addressed to his 
 son, Usertesen I, tells the story of his accession to the 
 throne, and relates some other events of his reign. This 
 interesting papyrus, which is said to have been composed 
 by the king himself, is preserved in the British Museum. 
 In the twenty-first year of his reign Amenemhat, in all 
 probability with the purpose of avoiding a civil war over 
 the succession, appointed his son Usertesen co-regent. 
 This practice was imitated by most of his successors. 
 The pharaoh died in the thirtieth year of his reign, and 
 the events related and allusions made in the memoirs of 
 a prince of this time force on us the suspicion that he was 
 murdered. 
 
 Cheper-ka-Ra Usertesen (2099-2065 B.C.). 
 — When Use rtesen I ascended the throne, about 2099 
 B. G.j he succeeded to a mighty empire firmly united in its 
 various parts and presenting a bold front to its hostile 
 neighbors. Already as co-regent Usertesen had distin- 
 guished himself in the field, and his warlike ardor did not 
 abate when he sat on the throne as sole ruler. He was 
 compelled to take the field against the Libyan Bedouins, 
 whom he subdued. In the forty-third year of his reign he 
 invaded Nubia, and penetrated as far as the Second Cat- 
 aract. Here he set up a stele, on which he enumerates 
 the names of eleven conquered Nubian tribes. Of these 
 names, nine are preserved: 1. Huu ; 2. Kas ; 3. (de- 
 stroyed); 4. Shemik ; 5. Chasaa ; 6. Shadt ; J.Asher- 
 kin ; 8. Ouaoua ; 9. Chemer ; 10. (destroyed) ; 11. Am.au. 
 It is very unfortunate that we have no detailed accounts of 
 these wars ; we know only where the king warred, and 
 read the names of the conquered nations, but here our 
 knowledge ends. This pharaoh opened the copper and 
 malachite mines of the Set Mefkat — " Malachite Land,"- 
 as the Egyptians called the Sinai peninsula. He also 
 quarried stone in the Wadi Hammamat. The most im- 
 portant of the buildings erected by this pharaoh were, of 
 course, at Thebes. He built the priests' quarters at Kar- 
 nak, which were restored in the reign of Ramses IX, and 
 had his statue placed in the temple-yard. A very fine 
 colossal statue of this king which was found at Tanis is 
 
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE, 53 
 
 now in the Museum of Berlin. In the third year of his reign, 
 according to the text written on a roll of leather preserved 
 in the same museum, the pharaoh began work on the 
 temple of Rd at Heliopolis. As his father was then still 
 living, and he was merely co-regent, Amenemhat I ap- 
 pears as the directing spirit, while Usertesen seems to 
 have exercised executive functions. The temple was called 
 Het-chd-Sehotepab-Rd — i. e., " The shining temple of 
 AmenemhaL L" — while a portion of it was named after 
 Usertesen. The only trace left of this temple are two 
 obelisks erected by Usertesen, one of which is still stand- 
 ing, while the other is fallen and in fragments. A pecul- 
 iarly shaped obelisk, rounded at the apex and showing 
 undoubted traces of the fact that it was once capped with 
 metal, was found, broken in two, at Begfg, in the Fayoum. 
 Owing to the fact that the Fellahln of the region look 
 upon it as sacred, it could not be removed. The king also 
 built in Abydos. In his forty-second year Usertesen ap- 
 pointed his son Amenemhat co-regent. Two years after 
 he died, having ruled in all forty-four years, of which he 
 shared ten with his father and two with his son, and ruled 
 thirty-two alone. 
 
 Nub-ka-Ra Amenemhat (2064-2031 B.C.) 
 ascended the throne as sole king about 2064 B. C. He 
 was a ruler of no special prominence, but he was well able 
 to keep together the great kingdom left him by his father. 
 Irji the twenty-eighth year of his reign this king sent an 
 expedition under command of Ckent-chd-ouer to Arabia 
 and the Somali coast {Pewenf). The expedition was a 
 success. This is the first time since the reign of Seanch- 
 ka-Ra that we hear of a government expedition sent to 
 this country. Like his father, he worked the Sinai copper- 
 mines, and built at Sarbut el Chadem a temple to Hathor, 
 who was the tutelar deity of this region. He also operated 
 the quarries of the Wadi Hammamat. In the thirty-sec- 
 ond year of his reign he appointed his son Usertesen co- 
 regent, and died three years later, having ruled in all thirty- 
 five years — two years as co-regent of his father, thirty years 
 alone, and three years together with his son. 
 
 Cha-cheper-Ra, Usertesen (2030-2014 B. a). — 
 Of Usertesen Jl, who came to the throne about 2030 B. C, 
 we knOw but little. Almost all our knowledge of his 
 reign is confined to what the great inscriptions in the 
 
54 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tombs at Benihassan and Bersheh tell us of the social 
 conditions of the time. In the first year of his reign he 
 sent an expedition to the Wadi Gasus, a branch of the 
 Wadi Hammamat, which runs in a slanting (northeast) 
 direction to the Red Sea. This expedition most probably 
 went to Pewent. In the fifth year of his reign he sent an 
 expedition under Mentuhotep to Assuan, and it would 
 seem from his inscription that the tribes dwelling about 
 the quarries had given trouble and had been subdued. 
 This pharaoh built at Memphis and Tanis, at which latter 
 place a statue of his wife Nefert was found. 
 
 In the times of the twelfth dynasty it was a customary 
 thing for Syrian Bedouins to cross the Egyptian border 
 and seek permission to pasture their herds on Egyptian 
 soil. A migration of this character which took place in 
 the sixth year of this reign is represented on a celebrated 
 painting found in the tomb of Chnernhotep, the nomarchos 
 of the sixteenth Upper Egyptian nome. This painting 
 represents the arrival of thirty-seven Asiatics who came 
 before that noble, bearing costly presents, among which 
 was a specially valuable eye-salve, seeking his protection 
 and asking permission to settle on his territory. The 
 painting has become widely known through the attempted 
 identification of the people here depicted with Abraham 
 and his party. This attempt, however, is futile. The 
 Bible relates that Abraham came to Egypt on a similar 
 errand, and that his stay in this country was advantageous 
 to him. The account of the Bible shows a good knowledge 
 of the conditions under which such migrations were made, 
 and is certainly based on old recollections of the race, 
 some parts of which no doubt did dwell in Egypt under 
 these conditions while they were yet in the nomadic state. 
 
 Manetho calls this king Sesostris, and attributes to him 
 the conquest of the world ; but as yet no monuments have 
 been discovered that bear out this statement. As Sesos- 
 tris is the usual designation of Ramses II with the Classi- 
 cal writers, it is, however, just possible that the copyists 
 of Manetho got things slightly mixed. The king died 
 after a reign of nineteen years, three of which he shared 
 with his father. 
 
 Cha-ka-Ra, Usertesen (201 3-1 987 B. a), who 
 succeeded his father about 2013 B. C, is one of the great- 
 est figures of Egyptian history. He it was that finally 
 
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE. 55 
 
 subdued Aethiopia. The victories of Usertesen I had 
 placed the southern boundary of the realm at the Sec- 
 ond Cataract. Tjsgrtesp. p TTI immediately proceeded to 
 strengthen this frontier and make it the basis of his oper- 
 ations. Having defeated the hostile tribes of the region, 
 he built two forts on opposite sides of the Nile, one at 
 Semneh and one at Kumneh, on this cataract, and in the 
 eighth year of his reign erected a boundary-stone warning 
 all negroes from coming down the river on their boats 
 unless they were bringing cattle or merchandise to mar- 
 ket at Heh (Semneh) or Aqen (Kumneh). In the sixteenth 
 year of his reign the pharaoh set out on his second cam- 
 paign against the Nubians. He completely devastated 
 the country, destroyed the crops, drove off the cattle, and 
 took numerous prisoners. Despite this great victory, the 
 Nubians were not yet completely subdued. In the nine- 
 teenth year of his reign the king was again compelled to 
 take the field against them, and again he completely de- 
 feated them, taking large numbers of prisoners and de- 
 vastating the country. After this the tribes seem to have 
 submitted and remained tranquil, for during the rest of 
 this epoch we hear of no new outbreaks. — The king was 
 an active builder. We have already mentioned two of his 
 great works. He also built in Thebes, in Heracleopolis 
 magna, in Abydos, in Tanis, and in Amada. He was, 
 moreover, the first founder of the temples on the Island of 
 Elephantine, where he erected a temple to Satet and Ann- 
 ket, two of the local deities of the region. Near the island 
 he founded a new city, which he called Heru-chd-ka-Rd. 
 It is interesting to note how posterity honored this great 
 monarch. Almost six hundred years after the king's 
 death, Thutmosis III erected a temple to him at Semneh, 
 and seems to have attempted to make him a local divinity 
 of this region. He also appears as a god in the temple of 
 Kumneh, in that of Dosheh, and at other places in Nubia. 
 Usertesen died after a reign of twenty-six years. 
 
 Mat-en-Ra, Amenemhat (1986-1942 B. c.).— 
 About 1986 B. c, Amenemhat IILj 2 ne of Egypt's great- 
 est pharaohs, ascended the throne. ""This king was not a 
 great warrior and conqueror, but he was the projector and 
 builder of an important work that was of far greater value 
 to Egypt than would have been the conquest of a dozen 
 or more of the border tribes. His fame rests on the im- 
 
56 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 mense reservoir he built in the western part of the twenty- 
 first Upper Egyptian nome. This reservoir, according to 
 all appearances, was built and not dug. A vast dam was 
 erected inclosing a large area in this part of the country. 
 The exact extent of the reservoir we have no means of 
 ascertaining, nor do we know exactly what part of the dis- 
 trict known to-day as the Fayoum was inclosed in its 
 dams, some remains of which have been discovered. The 
 object of this vast reservoir was to regulate the inunda- 
 tion of the Nile. It received and stored up for future use 
 vast quantities of water. Just how this was accomplished 
 or where the flood-gates were, or what canals led to and 
 from the reservoir we do not know. The great work is 
 now in ruins, and we have no description of it as it was in 
 the days of its builder. As stated on a previous page, this 
 work gave to the district in which it was erected the name 
 of Ta-ske, " Lake-land " — the modern name of the region, 
 Fayoum, being derived through the Coptic pha ydm, from 
 the ancient word pa-yom, u the sea." In this reservoir 
 Amenemhat erected two pyramids. At Illahun, on the 
 northern outlet of the reservoir, a city in all probability 
 founded by the pharaoh, he built a pyramid in which he 
 was buried. On the northeastern bank he erected the 
 great building known as the Labyrinth, about which the 
 Greeks tell so many stories, and which was originally a 
 temple, dedicated either entire or in part to the crocodile- 
 headed god Sebak, the head of the local pantheon of this 
 region. The city of Crocodilopolis, the Egyptian name of 
 which seems to have been She&et, lying on the west bank 
 of the reservoir, was the capital of Ta-she, and was no 
 doubt also founded by this ruler. The Greek name of the, 
 work, Lake Mceris, was most probably derived from the 
 Egyptian word meri> " lake." Despite the fact that the 
 building of the reservoir and the cities lying about it must 
 have taken up a great part of his time, Amenemhat still 
 was able to erect buildings elsewhere. He certainly did 
 not forget Thebes, and we hear that he built in Abydos and 
 Memphis. Several expeditions, one of which the king led 
 in person, were sent to the diorite quarries of the Wadi 
 Hammamat, He also continued the working of the cop- 
 per and malachite mines of the Sinai, and had a grotto cut 
 into the rock at Sarbut-el-Chadem. Of interest are the 
 notes regarding the rise of the Nile, found on the rocks at 
 
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE, 57 
 
 Semneh and Kumneh, which prove that the Nile rose 
 twenty-seven feet three inches higher at these places, dur- 
 ing this time, than it rises to-day. Toward the close of 
 his reign of forty-four years he appointed his son, Ame- 
 nemhat, co-regent. 
 
 Ra-ma-cheru, Amenemhat (1941-1932 B.C.). 
 — This pharaoh, the fourth of his name, who ascended 
 the throne about 1941 B. C, was apparently a weak king. 
 All we know of him is that he worked the copper-mines 
 of the Sinai and had, like all kings of his line, the rise of 
 the Nile carefully recorded at Semneh and Kumneh. He 
 married his sister, Sebak-nefru-Rd, whom he appointed 
 co-regent. Together they ruled about nine years. The 
 close of the dynasty is shrouded in darkness. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DECLINE OF THE EGYPTIAN KINGDOM AND THE 
 HYKSOS DOMINATION — ABOUT I930-153O B. C. 
 
 THIS period is one of the darkest in the history of 
 Egypt. Very few monuments have come down to us 
 from this epoch, and almost all we know of the entire four 
 hundred years or more is the names of the kings and in 
 some cases the length of the various reigns. Of some of 
 these rulers we know from the monuments found how 
 far their power extended, but here our knowledge ends. 
 We know, further, that in this period the Egyptian kings 
 were dethroned by foreign invaders coming from Asia and 
 known to us as the Hyksos, and that these foreigners held 
 Egypt in subjugation for many years. Who they were, 
 and how long they remained in the country, we have no 
 means of knowing. The only review of this period that 
 any ancient writer has given us is that copied from Ma- 
 netho : 
 
 XIII Dynasty : from Thebes, 60 kings in 453 years. 
 
 XIV Dynasty : from Chois (in the Delta), j6 kings in 
 484 years. 
 
 XV Dynasty : Hyksos, 6 kings in 260 years. 
 
 XVI Dynasty : Hyksos, ? kings in 251 years. 
 
 XVII Dynasty : from Thebes, ? kings in ? years. 
 
 The number of hypotheses concerning this epoch is 
 legion, but not one is supported by facts and monuments. 
 The times of the thirteenth and fourteenth dynasties seem 
 to have been troublesome. The kings of the former ruled, 
 according to Manetho, only about seven and a half years 
 on an average, those of the latter only about six years, 
 while the members of the first Hyksos dynasty ruled on 
 an average forty-three and one third years. The entire 
 period is evidently set down as too long by Manetho 's 
 copyists, who give over one hundred and forty-two kings in 
 
THE THIRTEENTH DYNASTY. 59 
 
 over fourteen hundred and forty-eight years. The monu- 
 ments do not permit us to assume so great a gap in the 
 history as five hundred and eleven years between the close 
 of the fourteenth dynasty and the beginning of the New 
 Empire (about 1530 B. a). There have come down to us 
 the genealogies of nobles who lived early in the eighteenth 
 dynasty that after a few generations give names which 
 certainly belonged to contemporaries of the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth dynasties. It is very probable, if not certain, 
 that the last kings of the fourteenth dynasty were contem- 
 porary with the earliest Hyksos kings, and we know that 
 all of the kings of the seventeenth dynasty were contem- 
 poraries of the last Hyksos kings. If we must state the 
 duration of this period in years, we would say that it can 
 not have exceeded four hundred years, of which one hun- 
 dred and fifty years would give about the duration of 
 Dynasties XIII and XIV and two hundred and fifty years 
 the duration of the Hyksos domination. 
 
 J 1. The Thirteenth Dynasty. 
 
 The new dynasty, which was founded by King Ra- 
 chu-taui, seems to have been closely connected with the 
 twelfth. Already, at the close of the preceding dynasty, 
 we find the crocodile god of the Fayoum, Sebak, in the 
 ascendency, owing to the extensive works erected by the 
 last kings of that dynasty in the Fayoum. Names con- 
 taining that of Sebak as a component part begin to appear 
 about the same time ; witness that of Queen Sebak-nofru- 
 Rd. This custom has become prevalent in the new dy- 
 nasty. It is further significant that two kings of this line 
 adopted the throne-name of Amenemhat I, Sehotep-ab- 
 Rd. A long list of kings of this house has been pre- 
 served, but of scarce a single one do we know more than 
 the name. As above remarked, the times seem to have 
 been troublesome and rife with insurrections and usurpa- 
 tions. Of Sednch-ab-Rd, Ame?io, w r e know that he built 
 at Karnak, two altars dedicated by him to Amon-Rd hav- 
 ing been found here. 
 
 § 2. The Fx)urtee)ith Dynasty. 
 
 Ransenib, the eleventh or twelfth successor of Rd- 
 chu-taui, the founder of Dynasty XIII, founded a new dy- 
 
60 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 nasty. The greater part of his successors have left us 
 monuments ; and the fact that these monuments have been 
 found in all parts of Egypt from Tanis to Semneh, and 
 even far to the south of this place, proves that these 
 pharaohs had control of the entire country, though at 
 times they must have found it quite a difficult task to hold 
 their own. Accordingly, we must not picture them to 
 ourselves as exceedingly mighty monarchs. They were 
 nothing of the kind ; they merely succeeded in holding 
 together the mighty kingdom of the twelfth dynasty. 
 They have left us only short inscriptions and statues that 
 are, it is true, sometimes of colossal proportions and of 
 superior workmanship ; but that could easily have been 
 executed in a short period. Manetho states that this dy- 
 nasty came originally from the town of Choi's in the Delta, 
 but where he got this information is a mystery to us. 
 Sechem-chu-taui- Rd, Sebakhotep III, has left us several 
 records of the rise of the Nile at Semneh and Kumneh. 
 The sixth king of this line, Se-mench-ka-Rd Mermenfitu, 
 is generally supposed to have been a usurper; but this 
 supposition is based merely on the fact that his name, 
 Mermenfitu, means " general " and is very doubtful. Of 
 him there are extant two colossal statues that once adorned 
 the temple of Ptah at Tanis. Both of these were later on 
 usurped by the Hyksos king Apepi, and still later Ramses 
 II put his cartouches on one of them. At the same place 
 a third statue of this ruler was found. Sechem-uatj-taui- 
 Rd, Sebakhotep IV, was the son of a private citizen 
 named Mentuhotep and the Princess Fu-henen-abu, the 
 daughter of Queen Nenna. It would thus seem that 
 Sebakhotep IV based his claim to the crown on his 
 mother. Chdseskesh-Rd NeferhStep, the son of a private 
 citizen named Hd-dnchef and his wife Kemdt, was one of 
 the mightiest of these kings, retaining the crown eleven 
 years. The temple of Abydos was specially favored by 
 this ruler. A long inscription found at this place relates 
 the following story : " One day King Neferhotep was 
 seized with a desire to see the books of the god A turn, a 
 solar deity. Receiving permission, he entered the temple 
 library and studied them. Hereupon he resolved to re- 
 store the entire temple." A good resolution, this, and 
 one he carried out. One of the most interesting monu- 
 ments of his reign is an inscription on the rocks of Ass- 
 
THE FOURTEENTH DYNASTY. 61 
 
 uan, representing him and his entire family, consisting of 
 his parents, Prince Sa-Hathor, Prince Sebakhotep, and a 
 relative named Nebhotep. A sandstone block found at 
 Karnak which, by the by, proves that he built here, is of 
 great interest, as it bears on the one side the name of 
 Neferhotep and on the other that of Sebakhotep, his son 
 and second successor. It would seem from this that Se- 
 bakhotep had been appointed co-regent by his father in 
 order that his succession might be assured. A small 
 granite statue of the king was found at Tanis. After the 
 short reign of Sa-Hathor, who seems to have died soon 
 after his accession, Chd-nefer-Rd, Sebakhotep V, ascended 
 the throne. He was a powerful monarch, who ruled over 
 the entire land. A colossal statue of rose-colored granite 
 representing this king, on which Ramses II afterward cut 
 his cartouches, was found at Tanis. A second statue was 
 found at Bubastis, and a third on the island of Argo, far 
 south of the Second Cataract. His name is frequently 
 found on the walls of the temple of Karnak. According 
 to the classical authors, who call him Chanephres, he 
 died of elephantiasis. Chd-dnch-Rd, Sebakhotep VI, is 
 mentioned on the walls of the temple of Karnak and on 
 several smaller monuments. Chd-hotep-Rd, Sebakhotep 
 VII, ruled, according to the Turin Papyrus, four years, 
 eight months, and twenty-nine days. Ouah-ab-Rd, Ad- 
 ab, reigned ten years, eight months, and eighteen days ; 
 and Mer-nefer-Rd, Ai, reigned thirteen years, eight 
 months, and eighteen days — as far as we know, longer 
 than any other king of this dynasty. Mer-ka-Rd, Sebak- 
 hotep VIII, has left us a statue. Several important tombs 
 at Siut date from this time. Of the remaining kings of 
 the dynasty we know nothing. Little by little we lose 
 grasp of the historical connection, and all that is left us is 
 a mere list of names, with here and there the statement 
 that a certain king ruled so and so many years. The 
 tombs of Siut that date from this time all show that the 
 nobles here buried were rich and powerful. They have 
 the same value for this period as those of Benihassan have 
 for the twelfth dynasty, but are not nearly so well pre- 
 served, and contain but few historical allusions. 
 
62 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 § 3. The Hyksos Domination, about jySo-ijjo B. C. 
 
 The Fifteenth Dynasty. — The fourteenth dy- 
 nasty succumbed to an invasion of Asiatic Bedouins, who 
 gradually succeeded in driving the Egyptian kings south. 
 It is highly probable, however, that the pharaohs yielded 
 only after along and bitter struggle. The only account 
 we have of the Hyksos invasion is that copied from Ma- 
 netho's book by Josephus. This account is as follows : 
 " At the time when King Timaos ruled in Egypt, God for 
 unknown reasons became incensed at the Egyptians. A 
 people coming from the east suddenly attacked the land 
 and easily conquered it. The ruling class were taken 
 prisoners, the cities were burned down, and the temples 
 devastated. All the inhabitants were treated in the most 
 hostile and barbarous manner ; some were slain, and the 
 wives and children of others were sold into slavery. At 
 last these barbarians elected one of their own number, 
 named Salatis, king. He made Memphis his capital, lev- 
 ied taxes in Upper and Lower Egypt, and garrisoned a 
 number of towns. The strongest garrisons were laid in 
 the eastern forts, as he feared the Assyrians, who were at 
 that time very powerful, might attack Egypt. Finding in 
 the Saitic (mistake for Sethroitic) nome a city favorably 
 located, east of the Bubastic branch of the Nile, which, 
 owing to an old legend, was called Avaris, he built a great 
 wall around it and put in a garrison of 240,000 men. To 
 this city he came in the summer, partly to direct the distri- 
 bution of food and pay, and partly to frighten the enemy 
 by constantly drilling his men. After a reign of nineteen 
 years he died, and the following were his successors : 
 Benon, who ruled forty-four years ; Apachnas, who ruled 
 thirty-six years and seven months (according to Africanus, 
 sixty-one years) ; Aphobis, also called Apophis, sixty-one 
 years ; Annas, fifty years and one month ; and Asseth, forty- 
 nine years and two months. These six kings were the 
 first rulers of the people that lived in constant strife with 
 the Egyptians and sought to exterminate them. The 
 whole people had the name of Hyksos — i. e., ' shepherd- 
 kings,' for hyk signifies in the old language ' king ' and 
 sos ' shepherd,' and still has this meaning in the Demotic. 
 Some say they were Arabs. In another copy of Manetho, 
 however, there is the note that the syllable hyk does not 
 
THE HYKSOS DOMINATION, 63 
 
 signify * king,' but that the entire word signifies ' prison- 
 ers of war.' This latter explanation seems to me," adds 
 Josephus, " the more plausible and better in accord with 
 ancient history." 
 
 The last note given by Josephus was certainly not found 
 in the original work of Manetho, but was added by some 
 later copyist, provided it be not an invention of Josephus 
 himself. This writer's object, in quoting this passage from 
 Manetho in his " History of the Jews," was to prove that 
 the Hyksos and the Jews were one and the same people, 
 and thus to demonstrate the great antiquity and nobility 
 of the Jewish race. Now, there w r as one thing that both- 
 ered him. The Hyksos entered the land as conquerors, 
 while the Jews, according to the Old Testament, entered 
 it peacefully. Josephus, therefore, bethought himself of 
 this not over-ingenious compromise. 
 
 On the other hand, Manetho's etymology is correct. 
 Heq does mean prince, and hyk may well be corrupted from 
 this word ; and sos certainly is a corruption of shasu or 
 shas, which was the name commonly applied in this period 
 to the nomads on the Asiatic frontier. I must in this 
 connection remind the reader of the fact that the Greeks 
 had no q and no sh, and were compelled to render the 
 former as k and the latter as s. The only difficulty lay in 
 the fact that hyk represented the singular heq, while the 
 plural heqn would have been the proper form ; but it has 
 been demonstrated that the form Hyksos is a mistake for 
 Hykussos. While Manetho is right here, he has made 
 some terrible slips in other parts of his narrative. His 
 most glaring mistake is, that he speaks of a powerful As- 
 syrian empire in about 1780 B. c, at a time when Assur 
 was a small and unimportant town that could scarcely 
 hold its own against its near neighbors. Even three hun- 
 dred years later, Assyria was so weak that when Thutmo- 
 sis III had defeated the Syrian kings, it sent him tribute. 
 Another bad slip is the story about Avaris. Assuredly 
 the Hyksos did not conquer Egypt in order to be able to 
 garrison a town on the borders of the desert ! Only the 
 bare facts of Manetho's narrative are available for histori- 
 cal purposes, and these are that a vast horde of Asiatic 
 Bedouins (this is the best rendering of Shasu) invaded 
 Egypt, and after a long struggle succeeded in conquering 
 the country. What race these Bedouins belonged to we 
 
64 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 can not say, nor have we any idea of their appearance. The 
 monuments found at Tanis and formerly attributed to 
 them have long since been proved to belong to another 
 epoch of Egyptian history. 
 
 Their religion was of course different from that of the 
 Egyptians. An Egyptian text treating of the expulsion of 
 the Hyksos states that they worshiped the god Sutech. 
 This is the name applied by the Egyptians to the god of 
 the foreigners, and is often a translation of the Semitic 
 Ba c al. Thus the Ba'alim of the various Cheta towns are 
 designated as Sutechu (plural of Sutech). As god of the 
 foreign enemies of Egypt, Sutech is identified with Set, 
 the enemy of Horus and principle of evil ; and it is but 
 natural that this god should be looked upon as the tutelar 
 deity of the hostile foreigners. In later times, when the 
 power of the New Empire declined, Sutech, as the power- 
 ful god of the mighty enemies, was considered a very po- 
 tent divinity, and found many worshipers in Egypt. The 
 names of most of the Hyksos kings are compounds of the 
 name of the god Set, but some are compounds of the 
 name Rd, showing that the Hyksos were to some extent 
 influenced by Egyptian religious thought. 
 
 The Sixteenth Dynasty. — The Hyksos did not 
 always remain uncultured barbarians, but with time began 
 to adopt the civilization of Egypt. Egyptian officials were 
 put in charge of the various departments ; Egyptian liter- 
 ature, science, and art were encouraged. Under King 
 Ad-oueser-Rd, Apepi I, was compiled a mathematical 
 treatise, of which a copy, written in the twenty-third year 
 of his reign, has come down to us. Ad-qenen-Rd, Apepi 
 II, is known from several monuments. The reign, or 
 rather death, of King Ad-pehti-Set, Nubti, is used as an 
 era in an inscription of the time of Ramses II, which is 
 dated four hundred years after King Nubtz. This would 
 place Nubti in the seventeenth century, somewhere be- 
 tween 1700 and 1630 B. c, as the inscription unfortunately 
 does not give the year of Ramses' s reign. Of the other 
 Hyksos kings, we know the names only. 
 
THE HYKSOS DOMINATION. 65 
 
 § 4. The Seventeenth Dynasty. — Beginning of the 
 Struggle for Independence, 
 
 Toward the close of the Hyksos domination there 
 ruled in Thebes a line of kings who were, in all probability, 
 descended from the last kings of the fourteenth or, per- 
 haps,. of the thirteenth dynasty. They are the rulers of 
 the seventeenth dynasty who began the combat with the 
 Hyksos. A legend preserved on a papyrus belonging to 
 the British Museum (Sallier I) relates the story of the out- 
 break. King Apepi, the Hyksos ruler, who was an ardent 
 worshiper of Sutech, sent messengers to the Egyptian 
 king of Thebes, Rd-seqenen Ta-da, bearing certain propo- 
 sitions regarding religious matters which Rd-seqenen re- 
 jected. There had also arisen misunderstandings regard- 
 ing a well lying on or near the border, in regard to which 
 no agreement could be reached. This brought on the 
 war. Rd-seqenen is called throughout the story " Prince 
 of the Southern City " — i. e., Thebes ; and it would seem 
 from this that the Hyksos had either never reached that 
 city, or the country had been reconquered so far north as 
 Thebes. At all events, the Theban kings were independ- 
 ent rulers, and resented the Hyksos king's attempt to 
 assert any claim of sovereignty over them ; and they 
 boldly took up the cause of Egyptian liberty. Long years 
 the war lasted, and the Hyksos were slowly driven north. 
 The kings who distinguished themselves in this war were 
 Rd-seqenen Ta-da - /, Ta-da II, the Great, Ta-da III, 
 the Brave, and Karnes, the husband of Queen Aahhotep 
 and father of Aahmes I. the final liberator of Egypt. In 
 1 88 1 the mummy of King Ra-seqenen was found in a 
 shaft at D£r-el-bahari. An ugly gash on the head of the 
 mummy proves that the king died a violent death. In all 
 probability he was killed in his struggle for the liberty of 
 his country. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM THE EXPULSION OF THE HYKSOS TO THE CLOSE 
 OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY— ABOUT 1530-1340 
 B. C— BEGINNING OF THE NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 With this dynasty begins the period commonly known 
 as the "New Empire," which embraces the eighteenth, 
 nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties. The dynasty is 
 memorable in several respects. In the first place, the 
 first great campaigns against Asia were undertaken in this 
 time, and Egypt was thus made a conquering power ; and, 
 in the second place, a great religious reform, which is of 
 special interest to us moderns, was attempted by one of 
 the rulers of this line. 
 
 § 1 . Aahmes I. 
 
 How long the war between the kings of Thebes and 
 the Hyksos lasted we can not tell ; but it is safe to assume 
 that it began late in the seventeenth or early in the six- 
 teenth century B. c. An inscription on the tomb of 
 Aahmes, one of King Aahmes's admirals, gives us an ac- 
 count of the closing scenes of the great struggle. It 
 would seem that the predecessors of Aahmes had driven 
 the Hyksos into the Delta, and that they had thrown 
 themselves into the city of Hdtoudr (Avaris), in the north- 
 eastern part of the Delta, which they strongly fortified. 
 After several battles had been fought on land and water 
 in the neighborhood of the city, the pharaoh laid siege to 
 it, and, after a protracted resistance, the town finally fell 
 into his hands. Thus, about 1530 B. c, Egypt was 
 finally cleared of the foreign invaders that had held the 
 land in subjugation for centuries. The fleeing Hyksos 
 had gone to Asia, pursued by the pharaoh. Crossing the 
 boundary, he proceeded against the town of Sharha,7i t 
 
egypt i THES } ASU *? r> 
 
 ARAEIC DESERT 
 
 MAP ILLUSTRATING 
 
 j Campaigns of Aahmes I. 
 
 THUTMOSIS I. 
 AND 
 
 THUTMOSIS III. IN ASIA, 
 
 SCALE OF MILES 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 -30 
 
THE NEW EMPIRE. 67 
 
 which is mentioned, Joshua, xix, 6, as belonging to the ter- 
 ritory allotted to the tribe of Simeon, and captured it in 
 the fifth year of his reign. He then invaded Phoenicia 
 and gained several victories. These successes secured the 
 Egyptian frontier from inroads of the Asiatics for a num- 
 ber of years. 
 
 This was not, however, the only result of this success- 
 ful war. Aahmes's Asiatic campaign had shown the 
 Egyptians the way into Asia, and many of his successors 
 gained their laurels in this country. The wars had also 
 trained generals and armies, and Aahmes's successors saw 
 to it that neither deteriorated. A new spirit had come 
 over the once peaceful people, and army after army set 
 out on warlike expeditions. Anton and Mentu, the great 
 gods of Thebes, became war-gods, in whose names the 
 kings fought their wars, and into the temples of Amon 
 poured the lion's share of the booty won in war and the 
 tribute wrung from conquered nations. The entire char- 
 acter of the wars, too, was changed by the introduction of 
 the horse from Asia. The home of the horse was most 
 probably the Turanian steppe. It was introduced into 
 Egypt by the Hyksos. Horses were not used in this time 
 as beasts of burden, but only in war and on the chase. 
 They were not used for riding, but only to draw the two- 
 wheeled chariots. These chariots were imported into 
 Egypt from Syria, where chariot-building was a flourishing 
 industry. The very word for chariot — merkabet — is of 
 Semitic origin. This new arm entirely changed the char- 
 acter and dimensions of battles. Moreover, chariots and 
 horses were expensive, and the charioteer required special 
 training. These two circumstances favored the formation 
 of standing armies, and increased the advantage the 
 greater states had over their smaller neighbors. These 
 facts will account for the successes the Egyptians won 
 over the Syrian states in the ensuing centuries. 
 
 Aahmes had scarcely finished his Asiatic campaign 
 when he was compelled to take the field against the ChenU 
 nefer, a mountain tribe of Aethiopia. In a great battle 
 this tribe was utterly routed, and the king, glad of his easy 
 victory, was already returning home, when the news reached 
 him that the Aethiopians had again invaded the country, 
 and were even desecrating the temples of the gods. Rap- 
 idly returning, he fought the battle of Tenia- da in north- 
 7 
 
68 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 era Aethiopia, again completely routing the enemy. Not 
 dismayed by these repeated defeats, the Aethiopians a 
 third time returned to the attack under a leader named 
 Tenta-dn, but a third time they were defeated, and this 
 time with such frightful loss that they did not again vent- 
 ure to attack their successful opponents. In these wars 
 the above-mentioned admiral, Aahmes, who had begun 
 his career as adjutant of this king, but had rapidly earned 
 promotion, greatly distinguished himself, and received the 
 " gold for bravery " several times. The " gold for brav- 
 ery " was a reward paid to distinguished soldiers and civil- 
 ians out of the public treasury, and consisted of munificent 
 . gifts of gold in the shape of disks, bees, lions, etc. Aah- 
 mes received these gifts on seven different occasions. 
 
 There are indications in the inscription of Aahmes that 
 the pharaoh had to put down a rebellion in the south. 
 This rebellion probably stood in some connection with 
 the Aethiopian wars ; but we know none of the details. 
 In fact, we never hear much of the civil wars of Egypt, of 
 which there were no doubt many ; they are always alluded 
 to in general terms, and the details are never entered into. 
 
 Having now secured Egypt against foreign invasion, 
 and having quelled a probably dangerous rebellion, Aahmes 
 was free to devote the remainder of his reign to internal 
 improvements. He ruled over twenty-two years. How 
 much of this time was taken up by his wars we do not 
 know. At all events, he had abundant time to strengthen 
 his reign, and to make Thebes, his capital, the greatest city 
 in the land. It was no easy task that was set this pharaoh. 
 Everywhere the temples had suffered from neglect and, 
 during the late wars, from the depredations of the Hyksos 
 in the north and the Aethiopians in the south. Aahmes 
 was, however, equal to the task, He immediately set to 
 work and began the restoration and rebuilding of all the 
 temples in the land. His own city of Thebes was the 
 special object of his care. The city had been the capital 
 of the land for several centuries, and already the kings 
 of the twelfth dynasty, five hundred years and more be- 
 fore Aahmes's time, had laid the first foundations of its 
 future greatness. They had laid, too, the first foundations 
 of the great national temple of Egypt — the temple of Amon 
 at Karnak. This temple was enlarged by our king. The 
 city steadily grew from this time on, and in the course of 
 
THE NEW EMPIRE. 69 
 
 a few decades became the greatest city of the land, and 
 consequently of the then known world. The story of the 
 rise, decline, and fall of Thebes is an integral part of 
 Egyptian history. 
 
 When Aahmes died, after a reign of over twenty-two 
 years, he was buried in the Theban necropolis, on the 
 west bank of the Nile, opposite the city, at Drah-abul- 
 Neggah. His mummy, incased in a wooden casket, was 
 recently discovered at Der-el-bahari, together with a large 
 number of other royal mummies. 
 
 § 2. Amenhdtep I {Amenofihis). ^ 
 
 Aahmes was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep I, 'the 
 early part of whose reign was shared with his mother, 
 Aahmes-nefert-ari. The "queen was, after her death, wor- 
 shiped as a divinity, an honor accorded all kings but 
 very few queens. Early in this reigh the Aethiopians 
 again became troublesome, and the pharaoh marched 
 against them. He crossed the frontier, and in the battle 
 that ensued captured the opposing general with his own 
 hand. The victory won, the Egyptian army overran the 
 country, and it would seem that some detachments even 
 advanced as far as Meroe, the Aethiopian capital. The 
 southern campaign was brought to an abrupt close by\the 
 news of trouble on the northern frontier. In a remark- 
 ably short time the king arrived at the seat of war — Libya 
 — and defeated the enemy* This king, like his father, was 
 frequently compelled to invade Asia, but on the whole 
 this reign was more peaceable than the preceding one. 
 Amenhotep was a great builder, and continued the work 
 of improvement and restoration begun by his father. He 
 died after a reign of twenty-two years. His mummy was 
 found at Der-el-bahari. 
 
 § 3. Thutmosis I. 
 
 The son of Amenhotep I was a very young man when 
 he ascended the throne, and the conquered nations sought 
 to take advantage of this fact to regain their independ- 
 ence. Immediately after his accession the Aethiopians 
 began war. The pharaoh crossed the frontier, and, after 
 defeating the enemy in a decisive battle, overran and 
 
70 HISTORY OF EGYPT, 
 
 plundered the country, drove off the cattle, and carried 
 large numbers of the inhabitants into slavery. This was 
 the usual way of conducting an Aethiopian campaign ; it 
 was, as a rule, no more than a raid, made to punish the 
 Aethiopians for a similar raid on Egyptian territory. 
 Thutmosis varied the usual programme by hanging the 
 body of the Aethiopian leader by the heels to the stern of 
 the royal ship. Thutmosis now instituted a new Aethi- 
 opian policy. The configuration of the land was much the 
 same as that of Egypt, and it was not over-difficult to in- 
 troduce the Egyptian system of government in the land. 
 Accordingly, he divided Aethiopia into a number of dis- 
 tricts, over which he placed governors, while over the 
 entire region he set a governor-general with the title of 
 " Prince of Kush." What the duties of this official were 
 is not clear. In all probability he was a sort of viceroy 
 invested with civil and military power and responsible to 
 the king alone. This official held a high position at the 
 court, and was, in later times, not unfrequently a royal 
 prince. Colonists were sent out, temples built, and forts 
 erected and garrisoned. The chief of these forts were 
 Heh (Semneh) and Aqen (Kumneh), which had been 
 built by the great conqueror of Aethiopia, Usertesen III. 
 They were no doubt greatly strengthened by Thutmosis. 
 Aethiopia was thus secured, and even made a province 
 of Egypt, but the mountain tribes continued to be trouble- 
 some all through Egyptian history. 
 
 Early in this reign, too, a rebellion broke out in the dis- 
 trict of the city of Buto, in the Delta, and so serious did it 
 become that the pharaoh was compelled to proceed against 
 it in person. He succeeded in quelling the outbreak, and at 
 once marched against Asia. Crossing the Arabian Desert 
 and Palestine, he entered the land of Rutenu (Syria). 
 Here an army had been drawn up to check his advance, 
 but he defeated it with frightful slaughter and took large 
 numbers of prisoners. He then advanced to the Euphra- 
 tes River, on the banks of which he set up two stelae to 
 commemorate his victories and mark the boundaries of 
 his realm. Hereupon the Egyptian army retired ; and 
 herein lay the radical fault of the Egyptian foreign policy. 
 This fault cost them dear; for they were compelled to 
 send army after army into Asia. In fact, the Asiatic 
 campaigns were mostly plundering expeditions on a large 
 
THE NEW EMPIRE. 75 
 
 River. This town met with the usual fate. Aradus was 
 again taken and sacked, and Tyre suffered the same fate 
 after a short siege. 
 
 The following two years were devoted to a great cam- 
 paign in Palestine. The fortress of Anretu, on Lake 
 Nesruna, was taken and sacked after a short siege, and 
 the entire country was overrun, as was also part of Syria. 
 In the thirty-third year of his reign Thutmosis again in- 
 vaded Syria, and this time advanced to the Euphrates 
 River. Sailing down the stream, the pharaoh proceeded 
 against the King of Neharen (Mesopotamia), who had 
 massed his forces near his capital, Nil. These forces 
 were defeated, and Nil was taken and sacked. Sailing 
 still farther down the river, Thutmosis took a number of 
 forts. He then returned to Nil and instituted a great ele- 
 phant-hunt, on which occasion a hundred and twenty of 
 these noble animals were killed. In the following year 
 another rebellion broke out in Syria, where three cities 
 lying in the district of Anaukasa had formed a coalition. 
 Again the pharaoh invaded the country, punished the 
 rebels, and returned home with a long string of captives 
 and laden with booty. In this same year one of the 
 Aethiopian princes sent the king his daughter as a present. 
 In the following six years only two campaigns of impor- 
 tance were undertaken. The first of these was against 
 the Syrian fortress of Areana, in the thirty-fifth year ; the 
 second was against the fortress olAnau kasa, in the same 
 country, which city had given trouble before, three years 
 later. In the forty-first year of his reign the king set out 
 on his last Asiatic campaign. Marching along the sea- 
 coast, he first took the fortress oiArantu, and then, enter- 
 ing Palestine, captured several cities. Entering Syria he 
 next took the town of Tunep, and hereupon marched 
 against Qadesh, which seems to have been the soul of the 
 new coalition. He defeated the Cheta. army before the 
 city, which he. then laid siege to. A Mesopotamian army, 
 which made an attempt to raise the siege, was utterly 
 routed, and left six hundred and ninety-one prisoners in 
 the hands of the victor. Qadesh was now stormed and 
 sacked. This ended all opposition to Egyptian rule in 
 Asia : the backbone of the country was broken. 
 
 Thutmosis has left us long lists of names of captured 
 cities and conquered nations containing hundreds of names ; 
 
76 HISTORY OF EGYPT, 
 
 but only very few of these can be identified with names of 
 cities occurring elsewhere, and we are utterly in the dark 
 as regards the situation of most of these cities and countries. 
 The extent of these conquests has been greatly exagger- 
 ated. On the whole, the Amanus Mountains and the 
 Euphrates River seem to have been the boundaries of the 
 conquered region.* Although the king certainly did cross 
 the Euphrates twice, and did defeat the armies of Meso- 
 potamia and take Mesopotamian cities, he did not succeed 
 in holding these conquests. That he reached the city 
 of Nineveh is very doubtful. Nil may be the Egyptian 
 name of Nineveh, but in all probability it is the name of a 
 city lying much farther up the river on the other side from 
 the country of the Cheta ; its king seems to have been 
 allied with the Syrian countries with which Thutmosis was 
 at war. It is noteworthy that the king in the thirty-third 
 year of his reign set up two stelae on the banks of the 
 Euphrates, near Nil, by the side of those set up his father, 
 Thutmosis I. The coast of Phoenicia was under Egyptian 
 control. Aradus, Symiria, Joppa, and Tyre submitted only 
 after a siege ; the other cities seem to have yielded with- 
 out a struggle. It was obviously to their advantage to 
 stand under Egyptian rule, for Egyptian rule meant Egyp- 
 tian protection, and the wily Phoenician merchants soon 
 found that they could reap great commercial advantages 
 from their connection with Egypt. The Phoenician colo- 
 nies in Cyprus (Eg. Asebi) also submitted voluntarily, 
 and paid tribute, though standing in no danger of invasion 
 from Egypt. This ready submission secured for them 
 great advantages — the protection of Egypt and unbroken 
 connection with the mother-land, As Egypt did not in- 
 terfere in their internal affairs, the Phoenician cities of the 
 mainland and of Cyprus cheerfully paid tribute. 
 
 The material prosperity of Egypt was greatly aug- 
 mented by the successes of this king, and all the tombs, 
 even those of the humbler citizens, give evidence of this 
 fact. Generals and soldiers enriched themselves in these 
 Asiatic campaigns as well as the pharaoh. The lion's 
 share of the booty and tribute, however, went to Amon, 
 the great god of Thebes. In the name of Amon Thutmo- 
 sis had undertaken his campaigns, and with the aid of the 
 
 * See map. 
 
THE NEW EMPIRE. 77 
 
 god he had won his victories ; and in gratitude to him the 
 king erected the mighty buildings at Karnak, on the walls 
 of which he proclaimed these victories. But the other gods 
 were not forgotten ; in all parts of Egypt the king built, 
 restored, or completed temples. Of special importance 
 was the temple of Semneh, which was dedicated to the 
 deified King Usertesen III, the conqueror of Aethiopia. 
 In the fifty-fourth year of his reign this mighty ruler died 
 and was succeeded by his son. The mummy of this king 
 was found in a shaft at Der-el-bahari. The monarch 
 was a small man — the mummy is only five feet two inches 
 long — but with a determined cast of features, somewhat 
 resembling that of Napoleon I. 
 
 § 7. Amenhotep II, Amenophis {1427-1422 B. C.). 
 
 One day after the death of his father, Amenhotep II 
 ascended the throne. Already as crown prince he had 
 shown his ability in subjugating the nomadic tribes that 
 dwelt in the mountains between the Nile and the Red Sea, 
 and compelling them to pay tribute. Immediately after 
 his coronation the new pharaoh invaded Asia and gained 
 a series of brilliant victories. It seems that a new rebell- 
 ion had broken out, and that the distant city of Nil alone 
 had remained loyal, for when he entered this town the in- 
 habitants received him with demonstrations of great joy. 
 The campaign came to an end with the capture of the 
 fortress of Akati. His next campaign was directed against 
 the country of Techsi, in Syria, where he fought against a 
 mighty coalition. Seven native kings were killed, and the 
 land' was again subdued. The bodies of the dead kings 
 he took with him to Egypt ; six of them he had hung up 
 on the walls of his capital, Thebes, and one on the walls of 
 Napata, as a warning to the Aethiopians. Like all rulers 
 of this dynasty, he was a great builder. He died after a 
 short reign of only five years. 
 
 § 8. Thut7nosis IV (1421-1414 B. C). 
 
 Of the son and successor of Amenhotep we know little 
 more than that he ruled only seven years. He fought in 
 Aethiopia, Phoenicia, and Syria, probably quelling minor 
 revolts and repelling invasions of nomadic tribes. In the 
 
78 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 first year of his reign he caused the great Sphinx of Gizeh 
 to be freed from the sand which had accumulated about 
 this venerable monument. 
 
 § 9. Amenhdtep III (i^ij-ijy/ b. a). 
 
 In the fifth year of his reign, Amenhdtep III, the son 
 and successor of Thutmosis IV, invaded Aethiopia, and 
 easily subdued a number of rebellious Nubian tribes. 
 The victory did not amount to much, but the pharaoh 
 made a great fuss over it, having it recorded on several 
 stelae. This reign marked a new era in the relations with 
 Asia. A number of tablets was recently found at Tell- 
 el-Amarna, which contain letters addressed by Asiatic 
 kings to kings of Egypt. A number of these is addressed 
 to Amenhotep III. The most interesting one is that from 
 King Dushratta, of Mitdni (Eg. Satarna of Neharen — ■ 
 i. e., Mesopotamia), in which Amenhotep is called the 
 son-in-law of Dushratta. This Dushratta is no doubt 
 identical with the King Satarna of Neharen, who, in the 
 tenth year of this reign, sent Amenhotep his daughter 
 Kirkipa and three hundred and seventeen ladies for the 
 pharaoh's harem. Although already happily wedded to 
 Queen Tii % one of the most beautiful women of all an- 
 tiquity, the pharaoh had no recourse but to make the 
 princess his legitimate wife. This marriage was, in all 
 probability, entered into after the final ratification of a 
 treaty concluded between the two monarchs, and, in fact, 
 the treaty concluded between Amenophis's son, Chuenaten, 
 and Dushratta distinctly refers to this previous treaty. 
 It is a curious fact that the letters addressed to this king 
 and to his son are written in Assyrian. The king was a 
 passionate hunter, and an inscription engraved on several 
 scarabasi relates that in the first ten years of his reign he 
 killed a hundred and two lions. 
 
 Like all his predecessors, Amenhotep was a great 
 builder. He was the builder of the celebrated temple of 
 Amon-Ra, at Louqsor. The two celebrated " statues of 
 Memnon," on the west bank of the river opposite Thebes, 
 belong to this monarch. They stood originally in front 
 of the pylon of his temple in the necropolis ; but every 
 trace of the temple has vanished. The statues were 
 erected at his orders by the architect and sculptor Amen- 
 
THE NEW EMPIRE. 79 
 
 hotep, the son of Hdpi. They are of hard red crystalline 
 sandstone, quarried at the Djebel-el-Ahmar (Eg. Du 
 desher), in the desert northeast of Memphis. The Greeks 
 took the statues for those of the Aethiopian king Memnon, 
 mentioned by Homer, and explained the sound produced 
 by the northern statue as the greeting of Memnon to his 
 mother, Eos. The explanation of this sound is very sim- 
 ple. The upper portion of the statue was broken, and 
 when the sun rose the change in temperature caused the 
 particles of stone in the crack to split, and this splitting 
 produced a musical sound. After the statue was repaired 
 by Septimus Severus (reigned A. D. 193-21 1), the sound 
 was no longer heard. 
 
 § 10. Amenhotep IV, Chuenaten (1J/6-IJ64 B. C). 
 
 This pharaoh is to us one of the most interesting of 
 ancient monarchs, as the first promulgator of monotheism. 
 The Egyptian people up to this time had possessed no 
 uniform religion, but a large number of religions had 
 existed side by side, some being recognized throughout 
 the land, others having only local import, while one re- 
 ligion — that of the national capital — was the official re- 
 ligion of the government. At this time Thebes was the 
 capital of the land, and the Theban religion was the gov- 
 ernment faith ; consequently, the head of the Theban 
 pantheon, Anion, was the official head of the national pan- 
 theon. But there had arisen in Heliopolis (Eg. On), the 
 great seat of the Rd-rtY\g\on, already in early times a 
 movement toward a solar monotheism, and in Chuenaten's 
 reign this movement was victorious. The new king was 
 a fanatical adherent of this doctrine ; he, moreover, seems 
 to have stood entirely under the domination of the Helio- 
 politan priests, and gladly lent his hand to accomplish 
 their purposes. A new official religion was accordingly 
 proclaimed. This was a solar monotheism ; the new god 
 was, with a studied avoidance of the old names, called 
 Aten, " the Solar Disk," and was proclaimed to the nation 
 as their sole and only god. If this had signified merely 
 a change in the official religion of Egypt, and not in the 
 very inmost nature of the religion, the people would have 
 heeded it little and gone on praying to their own local 
 gods, and officially recognizing the new official head of the 
 8 
 
80 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 pantheon, as they had done heretofore. But here was a 
 complete and utter religious revolution, pronouncing all 
 of the old faiths heretical and supplanting them by a faith 
 the nature of which the people did not and could not un- 
 derstand. A propaganda of this character, no doubt 
 assisted by attempts to convert the people by force, natu- 
 rally led to discontent ; and it was probably owing to this 
 that the reformers graciously permitted the solar divinities 
 Horus, Rd, Rdharmachis, and some few others to con- 
 tinue in existence, explaining them as forms of their new 
 and only god Aten. Amon, however, was persecuted in 
 the approved orthodox manner. Wherever he could, 
 Amenhotep, or, as he now called himself, Chuenaten, had 
 the name of this hated divinity obliterated from the monu- 
 ments, even in the names of his predecessors. 
 
 After the reformation Chuenaten left the tainted city 
 of Thebes, the stronghold of the old Amon cult, and built 
 himself a new capital to the north of this city, and called it 
 Chut-Aten, " The Horizon of the Solar Disk." The ruins 
 of this town, which was never completed, lie at a place 
 called Tell-el-Amarna, and are of peculiar interest as 
 they, together with the tombs in the necropolis of the city, 
 give us a life-like picture of the court of this fanatical 
 and half-crazed king. One of his peculiarities was to sub- 
 stitute for the conventional style of Egyptian sculpture a 
 more realistic style. The pharaoh himself was hideously 
 ugly, owing to a bodily deformity, and he commanded his 
 artists henceforth to depict him in his real shape. Natu- 
 rally, his wife — who seems, by the by, to have had quite a 
 lovely face — and daughters were pictured as equally ugly, 
 and the courtiers, as true courtiers would, aped royalty, 
 and had themselves depicted in the likeness of their king. 
 
 Unfortunately, the reformation proved a failure, and 
 we know but little of the new faith. Long and beautiful 
 hymns, full of fervent devotion, addressed to Aten, have 
 come down to us, as have also various representations of 
 religious ceremonies. The new god is always depicted 
 as a solar disk, the rays of which terminate in hands ; but 
 the monuments do not give us any deeper insight into the 
 new religion. 
 
 There was in this reign no trouble with Asia. This 
 was a result of the diplomatic negotiations begun under 
 Amenhotep III, and concluded by this pharaoh. Trea- 
 
THE NEW EMPIRE, 81 
 
 ties of peace were concluded with Dushratta, of Mitdni 
 (Satarna, King of Neharen, i. e., Mesopotamia), Burna- 
 buriash, King of Karduniash (Babylonia), and Ashuru- 
 ballit, King of Assyria. All these treaties contain ref- 
 erences to former negotiations with Amenhotep III ; they 
 are all written in Assyrian, and are quite difficult of inter- 
 pretation, though the general import of these documents 
 can easily be given. 
 
 After a reign of only twelve years Chuenaten died, 
 and it is not at all doubtful that he lost his life in a revolt 
 brought on by his fanatical attempts to convert the peo- 
 ple to his new faith by force. He had no son, but seven 
 daughters, who were married to Egyptian nobles. Dis- 
 putes over the succession immediately arose, and the 
 country was plunged into all the horrors of a civil war. 
 
 § ii. The Struggle for the Succession {about B. C. 1363- 
 i34o). 
 
 How long the civil war lasted we can not say, nor 
 do we know exactly in what order the various kings that 
 followed Chuenaten succeeded one another. In all proba- 
 bility the next successor of Chuenaten was Seaa-ka- 
 Ra Sanecht, the husband of his favorite daughter, 
 Meraten. He was throughout his short reign a firm ad- 
 herent to the faith of his father-in-law ; but the revolution 
 that had dethroned his father-in-law proved fatal to him 
 also. He was deposed by the priest Ai, who was origi- 
 nally a firm adherent to the Aten-religion. Ai' was a 
 brother of one of Chuenaten's nurses, and had risen rap- 
 idly at court until he attained the position of Lord Equerry, 
 one of the highest offices in the gift of the crown. At 
 the time Ai' dethroned Sanecht, the reaction was at its 
 height, and Ai" was not the man to swim against the tide. 
 He therefore returned to the old faith and the old capital. 
 But he had nothing outside of this to recommend him to 
 the people, and so his apostacy availed him little. Four 
 years after he had wrested the crown from Sanecht he 
 was overthrown, and Ded-anch-Amon, the husband 
 of Chuenaten's third daughter Anchnes-pa-Aten, who now 
 changed her name to Anchnes- Anion, ascended the throne. 
 Like his predecessor, he was an apostate from the Aten- 
 religion, but this policy availed him as little as it had his 
 
82 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 antagonist. After a reign of only four years he lost his 
 throne and his life, and with him the last of Chuenaten's 
 heirs sank into the grave. After his death the confusion 
 became worse than ever. King after king ascended the 
 throne, but they all fell before they had tightened their 
 grasp on the reins of state. How long this state of affairs 
 lasted we can not say, but in our opinion the entire period 
 from the death of Chuenaten to the end of the civil war 
 can not have embraced less than about twenty or twenty- 
 five years. At length Hor-em-heb, who was in some way, 
 possibly through his wife, MuUnetjem, connected with the 
 royal family, succeeded in restoring order, and with him 
 begins the nineteenth dynasty. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY — ABOUT I33O-I180 B. C, 
 
 § i. Hor-em-heb (1 340-1320 B. a). 
 
 About 1340 b. C. Hor-em-heb succeeded in restoring 
 order in the kingdom. His accession to the throne marks 
 a new era in Egyptian history, that of the nineteenth dy- 
 nasty, in which Egypt, though its armies no longer 
 marched to the Euphrates and became the terror of the 
 Mesopotamian rulers, yet succeeded in making a part of 
 Asia an integral part of its empire. The preceding dynasty 
 had produced great conquerors who stand unrivaled in 
 the annals of the land of Qemet. This dynasty produced 
 rulers who were great warriors, and, but for events which 
 had occurred in Asia during the latter part of Dynasty 
 XVIII, would have equaled the two great Thutmoses in 
 extent of conquests, and who were besides great organ- 
 izers. How they succeeded in incorporating Palestine, 
 Phoenicia, and southern Syria in the kingdom we shall 
 presently see. The great mistake of these rulers was 
 that they little by little substituted Libyan mercenaries for 
 the national armies that had hitherto been the sole reli- 
 ance of Egypt, and we shall have occasion to trace the 
 grave results of this mistake. 
 
 A long inscription on a statue of Hor-em-heb, preserved 
 in Turin, gives us an account of his early life and relates 
 how he came to the throne. He was brought up in the 
 city of Hat-sid en, and already in his early youth was 
 highly honored. He was a member of the family of 
 Thutmosis III, whom he calls the father of his father — i. e., 
 his ancestor. When he was still a very young man the 
 ruling pharaoh, whose name is not mentioned, appointed 
 him to a high position in the eighteenth Upper Egyptian 
 nome {Saped), which was his home. As he made a good 
 
84 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 record in this position he was made aden (i. e., general), 
 and in this position he received the tributes of the foreign 
 princes and all the princes had to bow down before him. 
 After he had held this position for a number of years and 
 had shown great ability, he was appointed nomarchos of 
 Safied. This position he held when, as the text puts it, 
 Horus and Amon decided to place him on the throne. 
 Hor-em-heb certainly had a good right to the succession, 
 being a lineal descendant of Thutmosis III ; but his chief 
 claim lay in the fact that he had succeeded in triumphing 
 over all the usurpers that had arisen after the death of 
 the last pharaoh of Chuenaten's line. On the close of the 
 civil war he proceeded to Thebes, where he married the 
 royal princess Mut-netjem and was .crowned king. His 
 campaigns were chiefly in the south, where he put down 
 a number of rebellious Nubian tribes. We also know 
 that he conducted several campaigns in the north with 
 the usual success. It would seem, too, that the connec- 
 tions with southern Arabia and the Somali coast were 
 kept up, for the inscriptions mention the tribute of the 
 Prince of Pewent. Hor-em-heb tells us that he restored 
 the temples of the land from the Delta to Nubia and in- 
 creased the numbers of their slaves and the amounts of 
 the sacrificial offerings. Of the temples, those of Thebes, 
 On-Heliopolis, and Memphis were specially favored. Hor- 
 em-heb died after a reign of about twenty years. 
 
 § 2. Ramses I (1319-737/ B. C). 
 
 Very little is known of Hor-em-heb's son and succes- 
 sor, Ramses. He made several raids into Nubia, and 
 shortly before his death appointed his son, Seti, co-regent. 
 He died after a reign of only two years. His mummy 
 was among those found at Der-el-banari. 
 
 § 3. Seti I {13 16-1289 B. C.). 
 
 The son and successor of Ramses I was one of the 
 greatest and most warlike of all the Egyptian kings. Al- 
 ready in the first year of his reign he was compelled to in- 
 vade Asia. Starting from the Chetem — i. e., fort of Tjar, 
 which lay on the fresh-water canal that formed the east- 
 ern boundary-line of Egypt — he first attacked and easily 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 85 
 
 defeated the Shasu — i. e., the nomadic tribes dwelling in 
 the Arabian Desert — and then entered Canaan, defeated 
 the inhabitants, took their capital, and erected and gar- 
 risoned forts and dug wells in the conquered country. It 
 is evident that the pharaoh desired to hold the land per- 
 manently, and thus to secure Egypt against all further in- 
 roads from Asia. This rapid success of the Egyptian 
 army spread terror over all Syria, and the Syrian princes 
 submitted peaceably and paid tribute. Several strongly 
 fortified towns, however, held out and had to be taken by 
 force of arms. Among these were Qadesh^ a city of the 
 Amorites (in the district allotted to the tribe of Naphtali), 
 that must not be confounded with Qadesh on the Orontes, 
 the capital of the Cheta, and the fortress of Jenuam. 
 Seeing these Egyptian successes, Mautenouer, the king 
 of the Cheta, naturally thinking he would be attacked 
 next, determined to take a hand in the game. He was 
 defeated, but Seti gained no permanent advantage over 
 him. If we possessed the monuments of this Cheta king, 
 we certainly would read of victories gained over the 
 Egyptians. Seti now returned home. At Tjar he was 
 met by a procession of priests and nobles, who con- 
 ducted him to Thebes in triumphal procession. The suc- 
 cesses of this pharaoh must not be overestimated. All 
 he succeeded in doing was to conquer the land lying be- 
 tween the Egyptian and the Cheta frontier. The petty 
 sovereigns of southern Syria fell an easy prey to him, but 
 the mighty Cheta king succeeded in checking his advance. 
 The " lists " of " conquered " lands and cities are very 
 unreliable, many of the names having been copied from 
 the lists of Thutmosis III. 
 
 In the later years of his reign Seti was compelled to 
 march against the Tehenu — i. e., the Libyans, who had 
 again begun to make inroads on the western frontier. 
 The Libyan tribes, who were savage and warlike, had for 
 centuries almost constantly been at war with Egypt, and, 
 though at first easily defeated, had in the course of time 
 become very dangerous foes. In this reign they began a 
 series of invasions which were repelled only with great 
 difficulty. Seti was compelled to defeat them again and 
 again before he succeeded in subduing them for the time 
 being. These tribes soon assumed the same position as 
 regards Egypt that the German tribes in later times held 
 
86 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 as regards the Roman Empire. They began as enemies 
 and invaders, and with time, finding it profitable to serve 
 the pharaoh, entered the Egyptian service as mercenaries. 
 These mercenaries soon supplanted the native troops, and 
 in several centuries gained such controlling influence that, 
 some four hundred years after Setz's time, their com- 
 mander-in-chief, Sheshonq, could grasp the scepter and 
 ascend the throne of the pharaohs. The Tehenu tribes 
 that entered the Egyptian service in this and the follow- 
 ing reigns were the Mashawasha and the Qahaq, In 
 connection with these tribes there appears now for the 
 first time the tribe of the Shardana. Large bodies of 
 these Shardana entered the service of Egypt under Ram- 
 ses II, and a poem celebrating this monarch's victory over 
 the Cheta states that they were originally prisoners of 
 war. The armament of these men was peculiar ; they 
 carried small round shields or bucklers and a long, sharp- 
 pointed lance, and wore helmets with a round ball on top. 
 They also had full beards, while the Egyptian soldiers 
 wore no beards at all. In later times they are called 
 " people of the sea." Their home must consequently 
 have been some coast district or island of the Mediterra- 
 nean. We have no reason whatsoever to identify them 
 with the Sardinians. In all probability they were a tribe 
 that dwelt on the northern coast of Africa. 
 
 The architectural activity of this ruler was confined 
 chiefly to Thebes, where he built at the temple of Amon- 
 Ra at Karnak. Here he began the magnificent hypo- 
 style, which was completed by his son and successor. In 
 the necropolis of Thebes, on the west bank of the Nile, 
 he restored two funereal temples, that of Ma-ka-Ra at 
 D£r-el-bahari, and that of Thutmosis III at Medinet-Habu. 
 He also began a funereal temple dedicated to his father, 
 Ramses I, at Abd-el-Qurnah, which was completed by 
 Ramses II, who dedicated it to Seti, in conjunction with 
 Ramses I. The king also restored temples in all parts of 
 Egypt. The mines of the Set Mafkat — i. e., " Malachite 
 Region," as the Egyptians called the Sinai — he held and 
 operated. The quarries in Egypt proper were, of course, 
 in full operation, and the gold-mines of Aethiopia were 
 worked. Of these gold-mines there has been preserved, 
 in a Turin papyrus, a map which, though crudely drawn, is 
 easily intelligible — the oldest map extant. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 87 
 
 Before his death Seti appointed his young son Ramses 
 co-regent, but this appointment was merely nominal. 
 Ramses certainly never exercised the functions of this 
 office. He himself conceived it in this spirit, never dating 
 his reign from his appointment, as the kings of the twelfth 
 dynasty had done, but from his actual accession to the 
 throne as sole ruler. Seti died after a reign of about 
 twenty-seven years. The mummy of this ruler was found 
 in a shaft at Der-el-bahari, where it had been hid to pro- 
 tect it against the tomb-robbers that invested the necrop- 
 olis in the times of the priest-kings of Dynasty XXI. The 
 features are strongly marked, and give evidence of great 
 mental vigor and strength of will. 
 
 § 4. Ramses II {1288-1221 B. a). 
 
 This king has long been overestimated by those who 
 followed Greek tradition in Egyptian history. That this 
 tradition is utterly untrustworthy has been pointed out in 
 the introduction, and its utter w r orthlessness is here glar- 
 ingly illustrated. The Greeks called this king Sesostris, 
 and made him the representative of Egyptian greatness. 
 The name of Sesostris is undoubtedly authentic, being a 
 corruption of Sesetsu — a name applied to this king in a 
 critical letter written either in his reign or shortly after- 
 ward. He has been declared the greatest of all the pha- 
 raohs, while in reality he is to be placed after several 
 others. Of all the greatest was undoubtedly Thutmosis 
 III ; next after him we can place his father, Thutmosis I ; 
 then come Usertesen III, the conqueror of Aethiopia, and 
 Seti I, who conquered Libya and prepared the way for 
 Ramses II in Asia. 
 
 We give now a brief summary of the Greek accounts 
 of this king, and the reader can then himself compare 
 them with the authentic history gleaned from the monu- 
 ments of this reign, which, with the exception of the very 
 suspicious " lists " of " conquered nations," are entirely 
 trustworthy. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus are the 
 principal sources for the Sesostris legend. According to 
 them, Sesostris was educated together with all boys born 
 on the same day with himself. While yet crown prince he 
 was sent against the Aethiopians, and subdued their en- 
 tire country ; then he marched against Libya, and con- 
 
88 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 quered the greater part of that country. His father dying 
 soon after, he determined to conquer the world. Rais- 
 ing an army of six hundred thousand infantry, twenty- 
 four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven thousand char- 
 iots, he put them under command of the seventeen 
 hundred boys educated together with him. This vast 
 army first marched against Aethiopia (!), and, conquer- 
 ing the entire country, levied a tribute of gold, ebony, 
 and ivory. (Why conquer Aethiopia, which, according 
 to the same authority, he had already conquered ?) He 
 then fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail, the first (!) 
 Egyptian fleet, and, penetrating to the land where the cin- 
 namon grows and the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, con- 
 quered the land of the Ichthyophagoi, and erected stelae 
 there. Then he crossed to Arabia and overran that coun- 
 try and the Asiatic coasts as far as India. In proof of 
 this, they state that up to their time there were to be seen 
 in that country many " ramparts of Sesostris," as well as 
 numerous imitations of Egyptian temples. His land-forces 
 crossed the Ganges and conquered India. He next over- 
 ran the country of the Scythians up to the Tanai's River 
 (the modern Don River f). Here a part of his troops 
 remained, and from them are descended the Colchoi. 
 According to Pliny's version, however, Sesostris did not 
 succeed in invading the country, but was defeated by 
 Saulaces, King of Colchis. The king next entered Europe, 
 and overran Thrace. Here his army was almost entirely 
 broken up by hardships and starvation. At length, after 
 nine years of continued warfare, he returned home laden 
 with booty. In all of the conquered lands Sesostris set 
 up stelse. Some of these monuments alleged to have been 
 erected by him were shown to Herodotus in Ionia and 
 Syria. Manetho relates that, when Sesostris set out on his 
 campaigns, he had appointed his brother Harmai's regent 
 during his absence. After the king's return Harmais re- 
 volted, but was defeated at Pelusium. 
 
 The Egyptian account differs materially from this. 
 In Libya, Ramses fought only as crown prince under his 
 father's leadership. The monuments do, indeed, mention 
 campaigns in Aethiopia, but these were most probably 
 directed only against the mountain tribes that made con- 
 stant inroads on the civilized portion of Aethiopia. The 
 country proper was an integral part of Egypt and had 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 89 
 
 been so for centuries, and it was entirely unnecessary to 
 reconquer it. The great seat of the war in this reign 
 was Asia. In the second year of his reign the pharaoh 
 started on his first campaign m this region. It would 
 seem that disturbances had occurred in Palestine and 
 the land of the Amorites, and that this campaign was 
 necessary to restore order. Several cities had to be taken, 
 but, on the whole, the restoration of Egyptian supremacy 
 in the countries recently so severely visited by Seti I can 
 not have been an over-difficult task. As usual, it seems 
 that the fortresses alone offered any resistance, and after 
 they had fallen the rest of the country submitted peace- 
 ably. At the close of this campaign Ramses erected a 
 stele on the banks of the Naher-el-Kaleb, north of Bey- 
 rout. His second campaign, on which he set out in the 
 fifth year of his reign, after careful preparation, was 
 directed against the Cheta, the old enemies of Thutmosis 
 III and Seti I. 
 
 It may be well here to give a brief sketch of the rise of 
 this people. There were two peoples named Cheta, one in 
 Canaan and one dwelling between the Orontes and the 
 Euphrates. The latter is the people we refer to here. 
 Already in the time of Thutmosis III they seem to have 
 been an important and influential nation. The Cheta 
 were the soul of the last great coalition formed against 
 this pharaoh, but in these early times Egypt still proved 
 the master. After the death of Amenhotep III, the Egyp- 
 tians were too much occupied with internal affairs to inter- 
 fere in Syria, and in the time between the death of this 
 ruler and the accession of Seti I falls the rise of the Cheta. 
 Of the combats in which they gained this ascendency we 
 know nothing ; but it would seem that their kings Sapalel 
 and Marusar, who preceded Mautenouer, the contem- 
 porary of Seti, had succeeded in gaining the ascenden- 
 cy over all the states of northern Syria (the Rutenu 
 heru " Upper Rutenu " of the Egyptians), northern 
 Mesopotamia, and of that portion of Asia lying north of 
 their domain. We do not, however, know whether they 
 merely stood at the head of a confederacy composed of 
 these states, or had really conquered them. When Seti I 
 invaded Asia, Mautenouer felt sufficiently strong to oppose 
 him, and, though at first defeated, succeeded in checking 
 his advance. This success naturally increased the prestige 
 9 
 
go HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of the Cheta, and when Ramses II attacked them they 
 seem to have been able to call to their aid all the peoples 
 of northern Syria .and northern Mesopotamia and some 
 of the peoples of Asia Minor. The forces of this mighty 
 coalition were massed in front of Qadesh, the Cheta capital, 
 where they awaited the Egyptian advance. Led by treach- 
 erous guides, the advance guard of the Egyptian army, 
 which was under the personal command of the king, fell 
 into an ambuscade near Qadesh and were all but anni- 
 hilated. They were, however, rallied by Ramses, whose 
 personal prowess, as he tells us, alone turned the tide of 
 battle ; and when the rest of the army, which had been 
 hastily summoned, arrived on the battle-field they were just 
 in time to join in the pursuit of the fleeing foe. The 
 enemy were driven into the Orontes River (Eg. Arunta), 
 and suffered terrible losses ; one of their generals, the 
 Prince of Chaleb (Aleppo), was almost drowned. Again 
 and again Ramses reverts to this victory ; the poem and the 
 representations commemorative of it he had inscribed on 
 the walls of several temples. Undoubtedly it was an act 
 of great personal bravery, and the pharaoh had a right to 
 be proud of it ; but the victory was fruitless. Qadesh was 
 not taken, and if Ramses says that Mautenouer had turned 
 about and adored him, this can refer only to negotiations 
 concerning an armistice. At all events, the war went on 
 as before, and evidently with wavering success, though we 
 hear but little of its further course. Once we find the 
 pharaoh fighting far north, in the region of Tunep in 
 Neharen (Mesopotamia), but how he came there we do 
 not know. He did not retain this advanced position long, 
 however, but was driven back, for in the eighth year of 
 his reign he fought in Palestine, taking the towns of Merom, 
 Karpu in the region of Bet Anat, and Dapur in the 
 country of the Amorites. He also took the town of 
 Shapur, and finally reconquered Asqarun (Asqalon) which 
 had thrown off the yoke of Egypt. During this war 
 Mautenouer died, and Chetasar succeeded him. The 
 Cheta war was finally closed in the twenty-first year of 
 Ramses's reign by a treaty of peace and alliance. This 
 treaty proves that perfect equality existed between the 
 two nations. Both kings bound themselves to keep the 
 peace and be good and faithful allies. The treaty refers to 
 one in force in the times of Sapalel and Mautenouer, con- 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 91 
 
 eluded possibly with Seti I or one of his two predecessors. 
 It expressly states the obligation of either king to come to 
 the assistance of the other if so required. It further 
 defines the obligation of either king to return refugees. 
 Thus was concluded the first treaty of peace and alliance 
 the full text of which has come down to us. That treaties 
 had been concluded between the kings of Egypt and the 
 Mesopotamian rulers we have seen in the preceding 
 chapter. To strengthen this treaty Ramses married the 
 oldest daughter of Chetasar, acknowledging her as his 
 legitimate wife and queen, the princess adopting the Egyp- 
 tian name Mdt-nefru-Rd. Thirteen years later Cheta- 
 sar, accompanied by the Prince of Qedi, paid his royal 
 son-in-law a visit. The terms of the treaty seem to 
 have been strictly kept by both countries, as they were 
 weary of a war that drained their resources and brought 
 no result to either. Of the boundary between the two 
 nations nothing is said in the treaty ; but it would seem 
 probable that Egypt retained Phoenicia, Palestine, and 
 southern Syria, while the Cheta were free to extend their 
 domain northward. The Cheta made good use of their 
 opportunities. All through Asia Minor and as far north 
 as Smyrna we meet with monuments that were erected 
 by this people. 
 
 Ramses could not extend his sway any further than 
 the boundaries of the Cheta. He now set to work to se- 
 cure the conquered country. In all parts of Palestine and 
 southern Syria forts were erected and garrisoned, and it 
 would even seem that special officers rode through the 
 land on tours of inspection. The power of Egypt had 
 greatly weakened, and she was no longer what she had 
 been three centuries earlier. The '* lists " of " conquered 
 lands " which this pharaoh had inscribed on the temple 
 walls are utterly unreliable, being copied in great part 
 from those of Thutmosis III. Thus he mentions as con- 
 quered, among others, Assur (Assyria) and Sangar (Chal- 
 dea), countries with which this pharaoh had no relations 
 whatsoever. 
 
 That a very active commercial intercourse between 
 Egypt and Asia was brought about by the new relations 
 between Egypt and the Asiatic nations is self-evident. 
 Egypt powerfully influenced Asia, and was powerfully in- 
 fluenced in return. Syrian divinities, Baal and Astarte, 
 
92 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 were taken into the Egyptian pantheon. Set-Sutech, who 
 to the Egyptians represented the tutelar divinity of the 
 foreigners, gained greatly in prestige, owing to the suc- 
 cesses of these same foreigners. But the chief influence 
 was on the language. The influx of Semitic words into 
 the Egyptian at this time is something wonderful to 
 behold. It must have been considered elegant and a 
 proof of great learning to larder one's writings with these 
 foreign words and phrases, for some of the texts of this 
 period teem with them. 
 
 The peace which closed the Asiatic war in the twenty- 
 first year of Ramses's reign left the pharaoh forty-six 
 years to devote to internal improvements. The king di- 
 rected his attention chiefly to building, and there is scarce 
 a town in all Egypt in which he did not build, complete, 
 or restore temples. But, despite this great activity, he 
 does not seem to have been thoroughly satisfied with his 
 work, for he usurped many temples erected by his prede- 
 cessors. The usurpation of monuments was a common 
 practice in ancient Egypt. The usurper proceeded in a 
 very simple manner. He erased the name of the real 
 builder and substituted his own for it, thus making it ap- 
 pear as if the monument in question owed its existence to 
 him. This had been done before Ramses's time, but none 
 of his predecessors possessed the same finesse in this class 
 of work. He thus succeeded in arrogating to himself 
 many temples that had been built years, and sometimes 
 centuries, before his time ; and it is often owing only to 
 the fact that the men charged with the work did it very 
 slovenly, and left the name of the real builder standing in 
 some obscure corner, that we are enabled to discover the 
 imposition, 
 
 Tanis, a city lying near the northeastern boundary of 
 Egypt, shared with Thebes the honor of being the resi- 
 dence of the pharaoh. The various departments of the 
 government were located at the latter city, but Tanis of- 
 fered Ramses unrivaled facilities as a basis of operations 
 for his Asiatic campaigns. A king who spent so many 
 years warring in Asia would naturally find it of great ad- 
 vantage to fix his residence at a place so near the frontier. 
 Tanis thus owes the larger part of its glory and prosper- 
 ity to this pharaoh. He it was that built the vast granite 
 temple. As many as fourteen obelisks and several statues 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY, 93 
 
 of the king have been found here. Memphis also came 
 in for a share of the king's favor ; it was made one of his 
 residences, and its temple of Ptah was greatly enlarged. 
 But the great city of this reign was Thebes, of which we 
 may well here give a brief sketch. This city, the Egyp- 
 tian name of which was Oueset, was situated on the east 
 bank of the Nile, its site being still marked by the ruins of 
 the great temples of Karnak and Louqsor, both of which 
 were dedicated to Amon-Rd. Between these two temples 
 lay the city proper. The temple of Karnak had its own 
 names; one of these was Afiet, the other A^es-taui, 
 " Throne of Both Lands (i. e., Egypt)." On the west 
 bank of the river lay the necropolis, or cemetery of 
 Thebes, in which its kings, courtiers, and citizens lie 
 buried. The rulers of the Middle Empire were interred 
 in low pyramids built on the plain, those of the New Em- 
 pire were interred in tombs hewn into the living rock of 
 the hills that skirt the valley of the Nile on the west. 
 The temples dedicated to the cult of the pharaohs of this 
 latter period were built in the valley — thus a long row of 
 funereal temples extends through this plain : the temple 
 of Der-el-bahari, built by Ma-ka-Ra; that of Ramses I 
 and Seti I at Qurnah ; the Ramesseum, built by Ramses 
 II ; the temples of Thutmosis III and Ramses III at 
 Medinet Habu, and many others. This district was de- 
 voted to the use of the dead and of those who cared for 
 them. Masons, carpenters, embalmers, and laborers of 
 every description connected with w T hat the French call 
 " les pomfies funebres" had their homes here. In this 
 necropolis Ramses, was very busy. He first completed 
 the funereal temple at Qurnah begun by his father, and 
 then erected the wonderful Ramesseum — a temple dedi- 
 cated to Amon-Ra, and commemorative of the pharaoh's 
 victories. On the east bank of the river he completed the 
 wonderful hypostile of Karnak which his father had be- 
 gun, and otherwise improved and decorated the main 
 building, besides erecting a building south of the pond 
 belonging to the temple inclosure, and a pretty extensive 
 temple east of the great temple. This pharaoh was espe- 
 cially partial to grotto-temples, of which he built quite a 
 number — e. g., at Bet Wally, Geref Hussein, Wadi Se- 
 bua, and Abusimbel. The last-mentioned temple was 
 the best of this class. It is the largest and most beau- 
 
94 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tiful grotto ever cut from the living rock by the hand of 
 man. 
 
 The classical authors, Strabo, Pliny, and others, ascribe 
 to Sesostris the beginning of a canal connecting the Nile 
 with the Red Sea, which Necho is said to have continued 
 and Darius to have completed. The canal from Cairo to 
 Suez was afterwards again opened by Amru, the Moham- 
 medan conqueror of Egypt, but, one hundred and forty 
 years later, it was again closed by order of the caliph 
 Abu-Djar-el-Mansur. In fact, there existed already in 
 the times of Seti I a canal which, starting from the Nile, 
 near Memphis, ran through the Wadi. Tumilat to Lake 
 Timseh, and thence to the Red Sea. This canal is repre- 
 sented for the first time in an inscription of Seti I, where 
 the return of that conqueror from his Asiatic campaign 
 is depicted. It is pictured as full of fishes and crocodiles. 
 The canal bears the unassuming name of de?nat " canal." 
 A bridge led over it near the Chetem (fort) of Tjar that 
 covered this part of the frontier. When this canal was 
 dug we can not say to a certainty. It existed in the time 
 of King Seti I, and may have been dug by him, but it may 
 just as well be considerably older. It was dug originally 
 either for purposes of irrigation or as a defense against 
 the Asiatic Bedouins. We scarcely think that it served 
 any commercial purposes in these early times. The 
 canal is frequently mentioned by foreigners. Thus, the Bi- 
 ble mentions it as the "Brook of Egypt" (Nahal Miz- 
 rditri), Numbers xxxiv, 5 ; Joshua xv, 4 ; Isaiah xxvii, 
 etc.; and in the Assyrian inscriptions it is called "the 
 brook {Nahal) where there is no river (Ndru)," because 
 it was not a natural but an artificial water-way. It is con- 
 sidered by these texts as the boundary-line of Egypt. 
 
 The pharaoh died in the sixty-eighth year of his reign, 
 having previously appointed his fourteenth son, Mer-en- 
 Ptah, co-regent. A word about the monarch's family may 
 here be in place. He had several legitimate wives and 
 many concubines. Consequently he could also boast of 
 a large number of children. One list mentions one hun- 
 dred and sixty-two of these by name— one hundred and 
 eleven sons and fifty-one daughters, The mummy of the 
 king was found at Der-el-bahari. It shows a striking 
 resemblance to the beautiful statue of the king preserved 
 in the Museum of Turin. Ramses must have been in his 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 95 
 
 younger days quite a handsome man, and even in old age 
 his features preserved a determined cast. 
 
 § 5. Mer-en-Ptah (1220-1212 B. C). 
 
 About 1220 B.C. the last great ruler of this line as- 
 cended the throne. His history is not over-eventful. The 
 empire was at peace with the world. In the south the 
 Egyptians held as much of Aethiopia and Nubia as prac- 
 ticable, their only object being to control the Nubian 
 gold-mines and to secure the southern frontier against in- 
 vasion. In Asia the advance of the Egyptian arms had 
 received a decided check at the hands of the Cheta, and 
 the treaty of peace and alliance concluded in the twenty- 
 first year of the preceding reign had put an end to all 
 chance of war in that quarter. Canaan, Palestine, Phoe- 
 nicia, southern Syria, and the Sinai, were secure. The 
 last-named country had been under Egyptian control for 
 several thousand years, and the others were secured by 
 numerous forts established by Seti I, Ramses II, and 
 Mer-en-Ptah. f With Pewent there never had been war 
 and there was' no chance of war now, as the commercial 
 relations between the two countries continued profitable 
 to both, and would only have been disturbed by a war. 
 There was only one quarter from which a war could 
 threaten and that was Libya. We have seen that the 
 Libyans had frequently given trouble before, but that the 
 campaign of Seti I had effectually checked them and had 
 put a stop to their inroads for a long while. After this 
 campaign we find that many Libyans entered the service 
 of Seti I and Ramses II. It is hardly credible that they 
 remained in the service after Ramses's wars were over. 
 In all probability they returned home and told their coun- 
 trymen of the wealth of Egypt and of the immense booty 
 to be won there. Returning from successful campaigns 
 they no doubt brought home what seemed to them great 
 riches, and this aroused the greed of their countrymen. 
 Ramses himself they dared not attack, but after his death 
 they prepared to invade the land. Numerous Libyan 
 tribes from the sea-coast and the interior — the Lebu, Qa- 
 haq y Mashawasha, Akawasha, Turasha, Reku, Shar- 
 dana> and Shereshka — combined their forces with those 
 of the frontier tribes, and, under the command of King 
 
96 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Maroiy the son olDidi, entered the western Delta in the fifth 
 year of the new reign and advanced, plundering the coun- 
 try, as far as Per Bairo (Byblos, south of Bubastis). It 
 was their evident intention to settle here and, if need be, 
 to purchase the right to settle here with their blood. 
 King Mer-en-Ptah was notified of this invasion, but he 
 hesitated to take active measures. At last he got an 
 army together, but was deterred from accompanying it 
 by a dream. Meanwhile the enemy had advanced to Per- 
 Aru-Shepses, a town near Heliopolis, which city their 
 forces now threatened. At this place the Egyptian army 
 met them, and in the battle that ensued completely routed 
 and almost annihilated their forces. The Egyptians then 
 plundered and burned down the fortified camp of the ene- 
 my. This victory left in the hands of the Egyptian army 
 vast amounts of booty and a great number of prisoners. 
 Mer-en-Ptah was a great builder. On the Egypto-Syriac 
 frontier he erected two forts and continued the work be- 
 gun by his predecessors at Thebes, Tanis, and other 
 places. He died after a short reign of only eight years. 
 
 § 6. Close of the Nineteenth Dynasty {1211-1180 B. a). 
 
 Seti II (1211-1209 B. a), a son of Mer-en-Ptah, suc- 
 ceeded his father on the throne. Inscriptions and papyri 
 of his reign are constantly bragging about his great vic- 
 tories, but not one of these is ever specially mentioned, 
 nor do we know of any campaigns of this king. Evident- 
 ly these laudatory hymns are mere pieces of. meaningless 
 flattery. He died after a reign of only two years. A 
 period of anarchy followed on his death, during which 
 several usurpers succeeded in gaining the ascendency for 
 a short period. Of these monarchs we know only a few. 
 Amon-meses and Sa-Ptah, Mer-en-Ptah II, were in later 
 times regarded as illegitimate. Undoubtedly they were 
 usurpers. A Syrian, Arsu by name, succeeded in mak- 
 ing himself king for a short while, but whether he came 
 to the front as leader of one of the hostile factions or 
 was an invader we do not know. At last Set- nee ht, the 
 founder of Dynasty XX and father of Ramses III, suc- 
 ceeded in restoring order about 1 180 B. C. or perhaps a 
 few years earlier. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE NEW EMPIRE AND THE PERIOD 
 OF DECLINE— DYNASTIES XX, XXI, AND XXII— 
 ABOUT Il8o-8oO B.C. 
 
 § i. The Twentieth Dynasty and Close of the New Em- 
 pire (1 180-1050 B. C.). 
 
 With this dynasty closes the period called the " New 
 Empire," and begins the period of decline. The epoch 
 known as the New Empire had begun auspiciously, and 
 for several centuries the pharaohs of the eighteenth and 
 nineteenth dynasties had succeeded in making and keep- 
 ing Egypt the first power of the then known world. At 
 the close of each dynasty there had occurred periods of 
 anarchy, which were, however, of short duration, and en- 
 tailed no serious consequences. The kings had, never- 
 theless, made a number of serious blunders, and the effects 
 of these blunders began to show themselves in this pe- 
 riod. The first of these was the great power which had 
 been given the priests of Amon-Ra. after the suppression 
 of the reform movement. We have seen how the booty 
 won in the Asiatic wars poured chiefly into the coffers of 
 Amon-Ra. The moneys paid into his treasury were 
 managed by the priesthood — a fact that is very significant. 
 This priesthood was responsible apparently only to itself, 
 and consequently vastly enriched itself. Add to the power 
 of great wealth the control of vast estates and conse- 
 quently an immense patronage, and the enormous influ- 
 ence the priesthood generally has over the masses, and you 
 can readily see that sooner or later this priesthood must 
 become very dangerous to the state. In this dynasty 
 there must be added yet another factor — the vast influ- 
 ence the clergy gained over the weak and incompetent 
 kings that ruled after Ramses III. It is no wonder, then, 
 
98 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 that they should finally succeed in snatching the scepter 
 from the weak hands of the last Ramses. The second 
 serious blunder was their Libyan policy, which we have 
 outlined in Chapter VI, § 3. 
 
 Set-necht ruled only a very short while, but he ap- 
 pointed his son, Ramses, co-regent shortly before he died. 
 
 Ramses III (11 80-1 148 B. C)., the Rhampsinitos of 
 the classical authors, ascended the throne about 11 80 
 B. C. This pharaoh anxiously imitated Ramses II, even 
 giving his sons the same names as those borne by the sons 
 of his great predecessor, and appointing them to the same 
 offices the latter had held. He was not, however, the 
 equal of Ramses II in war, though he almost excelled 
 him in braggadocio. The " lists of conquered lands " are 
 just as untrustworthy as those of Ramses II, and must 
 be entirely disregarded in writing the history of this period. 
 The only authentic sources are the accounts of specific 
 campaigns, and on these alone is based the following ac- 
 count of his wars. The early part of this reign seems to 
 have been taken up by cares of state. The land had, it is 
 true, been pacified by Set-necht, but still the reorganiza- 
 tion of the state was by no means completed when Ramses 
 came to the throne. In one of his edicts this pharaoh 
 gives orders " To cleanse the temples of Upper Egypt 
 of all that the gods hate, to restore ' the truth ' (i. e., the 
 orthodox faith), and to destroy ' the lie ' (i. e., heterodoxy)." 
 It was owing to this unsettled state of the country that he 
 could not undertake his first campaign, which was an ex- 
 tremely important and absolutely necessary one before his 
 fifth year. 
 
 Meanwhile matters looked bad in the Delta. Libyan 
 hordes, under their princes, Didi, Mashaken, Tamar f 
 and Tjantmar, had entered the Delta possibly during the 
 period of anarchy which followed on the death of Seti II, 
 and had penetrated to the main stream of the Nile. Here 
 they occupied the banks of the river from Karbana to 
 Memphis. In the fifth year of his reign Ramses at last 
 had sufficiently settled the internal affairs of his kingdom 
 to allow of his turning his attention to foreign affairs, and 
 he accordingly marched against the Libyans. After some 
 hard fighting he succeeded in driving them out of the 
 country. 
 
 Some three years later the pharaoh was involved in a 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE NEW EMPIRE. 99 
 
 more serious war. The " Peoples of the Sea " — the Skar- 
 dana, Turusha, and Shakarusha, who in all probability 
 dwelt on the north coast of Africa, and seem to have been 
 great pirates — united with the Zakkqri,. Pursta, Da- 
 nauna, and Ouashouash, four other seafaring peoples, in a 
 grand raid on the Asiatic coast. They advanced down 
 the coast by land and water, bringing with them their 
 women and children and all their possessions on carts 
 drawn by oxen. All the Syrian people, the Cheta, the 
 Qedi, Karkemtsh, Aradus, and Aresa, were subdued, and 
 then the mighty stream poured into Palestine, which was 
 mercilessly devastated. Up to this time Ramses had 
 been looking on, an unconcerned spectator, rather re- 
 joiced than otherwise at the downfall of Egypt's old ene- 
 mies ; but as soon as Palestine was invaded, matters as- 
 sumed a different aspect. Palestine was an Egyptian 
 province, and could not be sacrificed. Accordingly, in the 
 eighth year of his reign, Ramses proceeded against the 
 pirates with a large army and a great fleet. The decisive 
 battle was fought on the coast of Syria, both on land and 
 on sea, and the enemy was utterly routed and almost an- 
 nihilated. Vast numbers of prisoners were taken. The 
 people concerned in this attack were all seafaring. The 
 Shardana, Turusha, and Shakarusha we have met be- 
 fore as allies of the Libyan tribes that attacked Egypt in 
 the times of Mer-en-Ptah. They dwelt most probably on 
 the north coast of Africa. That these tribes here appear 
 together with tribes coming most probably from Greece 
 and Asia Minor is no argument against this, for these 
 tribes were bold pirates, ready to join in any enterprise that 
 promised booty. Though we can state with a considerable 
 degree of certainty that the other four tribes came from 
 Greece and Asia Minor, we can not assign to each one its 
 proper home. That Greek tribes took part in this expe- 
 dition is made extremely probable when we remember 
 that the Odyssey mentions raids of this character made 
 by Greek pirates on the Egyptian coast. The threatened 
 invasion was thus happily averted, and the Egyptian domi- 
 nation over Palestine, Phoenicia, and southern Syria con- 
 siderably strengthened. In these countries the kings of 
 the preceding dynasty had erected and garrisoned forts in 
 order to keep the inhabitants under control. Ramses III 
 went one step further : he tried to force the Egyptian re- 
 
ioo HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ligion — or rather the religion of Amon-Ra — on the Asiat- 
 ics. A great temple was erected in this region to Amon- 
 Ra, to which, in the language of the official record, " all 
 the peoples of Chal (Syria) bring their tribute." Incident- 
 ally an expedition against the Shasu (Bedouins) of Seir 
 (Edom) is mentioned. 
 
 Three years after the great victory over the pirates, the 
 king was again compelled to march against the Libyans. 
 The Mashawasha, under their chief Mdshashar, united 
 with the Temhu and Lebu, and invaded the western Delta. 
 The pharaoh easily defeated them in a great battle fought 
 on the frontier ; large numbers of the enemy were killed, 
 numerous prisoners were taken, and rich booty was won. 
 
 These four wars seem to have been all that Ramses 
 was engaged in. We see that they were all defensive wars ; 
 and this is quite a change from the aggressive policy pur- 
 sued by the kings of Dynasties XVIII and XIX. After 
 the close of the second Libyan war, the kingdom was at 
 peace with the world. Aethiopia and Nubia remained 
 tranquil. The trade with Pewent was reopened, a fleet 
 sent there returned laden with the products of its tropical 
 coasts, and brought back with it ambassadors from the 
 various rulers of the region. The copper and malachite 
 mines of the Sinai were operated. The land seemed to 
 have arrived at the highest point of tranquillity and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 Thus, at least, the official inscriptions and Papyrus 
 Harris I, the official record of this reign, would have us 
 believe. In reality matters were not so pleasant. In the 
 immediate vicinity of the pharaoh's capital, in the necrop- 
 olis of Thebes, there was almost constant trouble with 
 the laborers. These men were in the government service, 
 and were to receive regular monthly rations ; but the pay- 
 ment was far from regular, and very often they had to 
 strike for them. Thus we know of one gang of laborers 
 that struck for their pay three times inside of half a year, 
 in the twenty-ninth year of this reign. On these occa- 
 sions they would leave the necropolis in a body with their 
 wives and children, and would not return until their de- 
 mands had been acceded to. The first strike lasted five 
 days, and, at one stage of the proceedings, matters as- 
 sumed so serious an aspect that the military had to be 
 called out. The men finally received their dues and re- 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE NEW EMPIRE. 101 
 
 turned to work. On the second strike, which occurred a 
 month later, the men marched to the gates of the city, 
 where the governor of Thebes met them, and after some 
 discussion paid them half of their dues, whereupon they 
 returned to the necropolis. Two months later they 
 struck again, but were soon pacified. This record, which 
 no doubt represents the experience of these unfortunates 
 not only during this half a year, but during the entire reign, 
 stands in strange contrast to the accounts given by the 
 official documents. 
 
 From another source, too, we learn something more of 
 the real condition of affairs. This is a papyrus giving the 
 minutes of a criminal procedure against several members 
 of the royal family and several high civil and military 
 officers for high treason. Several ladies belonging to the 
 royal harem, headed by Queen Tey, who had a son called 
 Pentaouer — as the minutes hint, he bore another name, 
 probably he was a son of the king ; — formed a conspiracy 
 against the pharaoh. In all probability the conspiracy 
 had for ultimate object the placing of this prince on 
 the throne after his father had been murdered. Most 
 of the harem officials were implicated, the M head over- 
 seer of the harem " even conducting the correspondence 
 for Tey. The commander of the troops stationed in 
 Aethiopia, whose sister was in the royal harem, was won 
 over and ordered to revolt against the pharaoh and invade 
 Egypt. Many other officials and army officers were im- 
 plicated. The conspiracy was, however, betrayed and 
 the conspirators were arrested. A special commission of 
 eleven, vested with extraordinary powers and even per- 
 mitted to pass sentence of death, was appointed to try 
 this conspiracy case. The commission began its labors, 
 but soon it was found that three of its members had been 
 corrupted, having attended a banquet given them by some 
 of the accused ladies. They were tried, found guilty, and 
 sentenced to have their ears and noses cut off. After this 
 unpleasant interlude, the commission succeeded in accom- 
 plishing its labors without further interruption. The con- 
 spirators were found guilty and sentenced to death, the 
 nobles being permitted to commit suicide, and the others 
 being executed. 
 
 In this reign the power of the priesthood greatly in- 
 creased. We have already touched on the causes of this, 
 10 
 
102 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 but there was no pharaoh who did more for the priests 
 and their temples than did Ramses III. The larger part 
 of the great papyrus Harris I is taken up with lists of 
 presents given the various temples. The temples of 
 Amon-Ra, of course, received the lion's share of these 
 rich gifts, and attained to an unheard-of wealth. Propor- 
 tionately with the wealth of their temple, the wealth and 
 influence of the priests- increased. This was the great 
 mistake of this reign ; but we must say in palliation that 
 Ramses was but carrying out the policy of his forefathers. 
 
 Ramses was a great builder. In all parts of Egypt 
 we find his name connected with the temples and other 
 monuments. His chief attention was directed to Thebes 
 and the Delta. At Thebes he made additions to the 
 great temple of Amon-Ra, and restored some of the 
 temples of the necropolis. Following the example of his 
 great namesake, Ramses II, he built in the necropolis a 
 temple dedicated to Amon-Ra, and commemorative of his 
 victories. Behind this temple were the vast treasury- 
 vaults, in which were stored up the great masses of gold, 
 silver, precious stones, copper, etc., dedicated to Amonr 
 Ra, and on the walls are inscribed the records of the im- 
 mense wealth here deposited. It is probable that these 
 treasures represent the state treasury, placed under the 
 protection of the god rather than the presents made him. 
 Before the gates of the temple stood a two-story house, 
 probably destined to be the residence of the pharaoh and 
 his attendants on his visits to this city of the dead. At 
 Tell-el-Yehuda, in the Delta, he built a temple of lime- 
 stone, alabaster, and granite. Many of the other temples 
 were repaired by him, and it seems to have required no 
 small amount of labor to keep the temples of Qemet in 
 constant repair. 
 
 The king died in the thirty-second year of his reign, 
 shortly after having proclaimed his son Ramses IV co- 
 regent. 
 
 The Successors of Ramses III (i 148-1050 
 B. a). — The late king had managed to keep Egypt on 
 much the same level as it had occupied under Ramses II, 
 but under his successors the prestige of the once all but 
 almighty ruler of the world rapidly declined. The follow- 
 ing pharaohs were all weaklings who could scarcely hold 
 their own at home, and dared not interfere in foreign af- 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE NEW EMPIRE. 103 
 
 fairs. Under them the priesthood that had been greatly 
 favored by Ramses III rose to a commanding position, and 
 the last kings of this line were mere puppets in the hands 
 of the Theban high priests. These rulers cover about a 
 century, but of all this time we have but few monuments 
 of historic value, and two of the most important docu- 
 ments we possess of this time show it in no pleasant light. 
 Ramses I V, VI, VII, and VIII were brothers ; Ramses 
 F was a usurper. The very fact that a usurper could 
 ascend the throne after the son of Ramses III shows that 
 there was something wrong somewhere. It is true that 
 we possess a stele on which Ramses IV (1 148-1 137 B. C.) 
 mentions the fact that the Syrians (Rutenu) brought trib- 
 ute ; but this is not significant, for southern Syria had 
 been for some time an integral part of the kingdom. 
 Ramses IV sent a great expedition to the Wadi Hamma- 
 mat quarries, in the third year of his reign, to quarry stone 
 for temples. He also worked the Sinai copper-mines. Of 
 his buildings but little remains. He seems to have been 
 a " man of promise," but, like most men of his character, 
 he did not keep his promises, and appears as one of the 
 weakest monarchs of his line. He died, or was dethroned, 
 after a reign of only eleven years. Ramses V (1 1 36-1 132 
 B. c), though strong enough to wrest the crown from its 
 legitimate holder, was not able long to retain the position 
 he owed to himself alone ; for he reigned but four years. 
 In about 1131 B. C. Ramses VI, one of the legitimate 
 heirs of Ramses III, succeeded in ousting the usurper; 
 but he was otherwise of little account — we do not even 
 know how long he reigned. Ramses VII and VIII were 
 alike unimportant. Of the latter, w T e know only that he 
 reigned about seven years ; of the former, we know noth- 
 ing. Ramses IX holds a rather unenviable prominence 
 among these rulers. Two papyri have come down to us 
 that show how utterly weak and corrupt the government 
 of Egypt was in those days. The first of these contains 
 the minutes of a criminal procedure against a desperate 
 band of robbers that invested the necropolis of Thebes, 
 dated from the nineteenth year of this reign. Some 
 knowledge of the robberies in the necropolis having come 
 to the ears of the governor of Thebes, he immediately, 
 with a view to injuring his enemy, the governor of the 
 necropolis, reported the case to the vizier. This official 
 
104 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 appointed a commission to investigate the charges. This 
 commission made an investigation, and reported that of 
 ten royal pyramids examined only one had been entered 
 and robbed, while all the private tombs had been broken 
 into and stripped of everything that had any value. 
 During the investigation one of the witnesses, a fellow 
 that bore a desperate character, confessed that he had 
 robbed the tomb of one of the wives of Ramses II, and 
 the investigation proved the truth of his story. Eight 
 robbers were tried and found guilty. Great was the joy 
 of the commissioners, who immediately made public the 
 results of their investigation. The governor of the city, 
 however, whose vague charges had in no way been sub- 
 stantiated, was not satisfied, but openly declared the en- 
 tire investigation a fraud, and threatened to bring the 
 matter before the pharaoh. After a judicial hearing, the 
 matter was hushed, both sides evidently fearing an official 
 investigation into the conduct of their offices. There was 
 evidently a good deal of crookedness ; the governor of the 
 necropolis was undoubtedly guilty at least of criminal neg- 
 ligence, and the commission did their work pretty careless- 
 ly, evidently not caring to expose their friend too much. 
 
 The second of the above-mentioned papyri is the jour- 
 nal of a gang of laborers employed in the Theban ne- 
 cropolis. We learn from this document that these men 
 were paid in rations of fish, pulse, grain, beer, fat, and 
 fuel ; but these provisions were rarely issued on time, and 
 sometimes were not paid at all. In the latter case, the 
 men struck, or, as the Egyptian phrase goes, "lay at 
 home." The journal of this party contains the record of 
 two strikes. The first was peaceable ; on the second, 
 they marched to Thebes in a body and laid their com- 
 plaints before the authorities. Their request for pay was 
 granted, and they returned to work. These strikes give 
 proof of the corruption that was rife in the government. 
 The men's rations were withheld, not because the state 
 could not pay, but because the officials charged with the 
 distribution chose to let the rations disappear. The pha- 
 raoh died after a reign of a little more than eighteen years, 
 shortly after proclaiming his son Ramses X co-regent. 
 The last three kings of this line are very unimportant. In 
 the early part of the reign of Ramses X, sixty thieves, 
 among them a number of minor government officials and 
 
THE PERIOD OF DECLINE. 105 
 
 priests of lower grades, were arrested and punished for 
 desecrations and depredations committed in the necropo- 
 lis. But even the most stringent measures proved of no 
 avail. The great cemetery had grown so enormously that 
 the proper policing of this district was out of the ques- 
 tion ; and, besides, it would seem that the governor of the 
 necropolis and the chief of its police had a finger in the 
 pie and were not over-vigilant. Ramses X ruled eight 
 years, and was succeeded by Ramses XI, of whom we 
 know nothing. Ramses XII was the last king of this 
 house. Of him we know little more than that he ruled 
 about twenty-seven years. In his reign there lived a high- 
 priest of Amon and general of the army, Herihor, who 
 became the successor of Ramses. The king was a mere 
 puppet in the hands of the almighty high priest, and it is 
 not to be wondered at that Herlhor finally seized the 
 crown. One of these kings, which one we do not know, 
 was the contemporary of the mighty Assyrian king, Tig- 
 lathpilesar /, and sent him tribute about 11 10 B.C. — a 
 fact that is characteristic of the weakness of these kings. 
 
 § 2. The Twenty-first Dynasty — The Priest-Kings (iojo- 
 pjo B. C.). 
 
 We have here again a period that is very obscure. 
 There is some disagreement among historians about the 
 order of succession of the priest-kings ; and the fact that 
 Manetho states that the dynasty originated from Tanis 
 has induced some scholars to assume that a Tanitic king 
 had deposed Herfhor, the founder of the dynasty. Such 
 an assumption we consider utterly unwarranted, as it is . 
 not consonant with the facts of the case as represented on 
 the monuments. Herfhor and all his descendants were 
 high priests of Amon-Ra in Thebes, and a long line of 
 Herfhor's ancestors occupied the same position. We can 
 trace on the monuments the gradual rise of the high 
 priests of Amon-Ra. We find the high priests Rot, 
 Amonarnd, and Ramsesnecht mentioned together with 
 the kings on the walls of the temple of Karnak — a dis- 
 tinction enjoyed in the older times only by the co-regent. 
 Under Ramses IX the power of these priests seems to have 
 been still greater ; evidently the king was a mere puppet 
 in the hands of Ramsesnecht's son and successor, the 
 
ic6 HISTORY CF EGYPT. 
 
 high priest Amenhoteft. This dignitary no longer inscribed 
 his name with the name of the pharaoh, but declares in. 
 the inscriptions that he erected this or that building in the 
 name of the pharaoh, He rose to the high position of 
 manager of the temple estates, thus holding in his hands 
 all the wealth and influence of the great temples of 
 Amon-Ra. 
 
 Sa-Amon Herihor (1050-1034 B. c.) took the 
 deciding step about 1050 B. C. He had held high offices 
 of trust and honor under Ramses XII, being, to mention 
 only his most exalted offices, high priest of Amon-Ra, 
 chief architect to the pharaoh, general of the army, and 
 head of Upper and Lower Egypt. We see this man thus 
 combined the highest religious, military, and civil offices 
 of the land, and was virtually the ruler. No wonder, then, 
 that on Ramses's death he pushed aside that king's legiti- 
 mate heir and placed the double crown on his own head. 
 It would seem, however, that Egypt gained but little by 
 the change of rulers. The new king could do no more 
 than preserve the then boundaries of his kingdom ; and 
 when we read in his inscriptions that he " repulsed the 
 enemies," we must take this to refer to minor combats 
 with Bedouins, who were constantly prowling about the 
 borders. This pharaoh built chiefly in Karnak, restoring 
 the temple of Chunsu (the son of Amon-Ra) and deco- 
 rating its walls with long religious inscriptions. In one of 
 these inscriptions he had depicted his entire family, con- 
 sisting of his wife, Queen Netje?net> his nineteen sons and 
 grandsons, and five daughters. 
 
 The government seems to have remained quite as weak 
 and corrupt as it had been under the last Ramessides, 
 and no wonder, for Herihor was a descendant of- the high 
 priests who so long had governed the land in fact, and he 
 himself had actually ruled the country long before he 
 seized the scepter, so that it was but natural that the old 
 state of affairs continued. Thus the old depredations in 
 the necropolis, instead of ceasing or becoming less, be- 
 came worse and more desperate than ever. The police 
 of the necropolis were, it is true, not quite efficient, but 
 might have kept the desperadoes in some check had they 
 themselves not been implicated. Accordingly, Herihor 
 bethought himself of some means of protecting the mum- 
 mies of his predecessors. The mummies of King Ra- 
 
THE PERIOD OF DECLINE. 107 
 
 seqenen, Aahmes I, Amenhotep I, Thutmosis I, Thutmo- 
 sis II, Thutmosis III, Ramses I, Seti I, and Ramses II, 
 were for a while moved about from place to place, and 
 finally were hid in a shaft at Der-el-bahari, where they 
 could be better guarded. This shaft was opened in 1881 
 by Maspero and Brugsch-Bey, and in it were discovered, 
 besides the mummies already mentioned, those of the 
 early kings and queens of this dynasty. The mummy of 
 this pharaoh was not found here, either because it never 
 was deposited here, or because, like many other objects 
 found in the shaft, it is still in the hands of the Arabs who 
 discovered and to some extent plundered this improvised 
 tomb before the discovery was brought to the attention of 
 the government. The mummy of Queen Netjemet, cased 
 in a beautiful sarcophagus of gilt wood, was, however, 
 found here. Whether or not this king is identical with 
 a King Rd-nuter-choper-setep-en-Amon, Meri-Amon-sa- 
 Amon, whose name has hitherto been found only in the 
 Delta, is one of the vexed questions regarding this dynas- 
 ty. It may be that Herfhor used the title of high-priest 
 of Amon as coronation-name in Thebes only, while he 
 adopted another coronation-name for use in Lower Egypt ; 
 but such a course would seem void of sense. Still, we 
 have no cause to assume that tw r o kings, one of Upper 
 and one of Lower Egypt, ruled at the same time. The 
 whole matter must be laid over until further monuments 
 are discovered in proof of one or the other hypothesis. 
 Herlhor ruled about sixteen years. 
 
 Herihor's Successors (1033-945 B. c). — Pinet- 
 jem I, the grandson of Herlhor, ascended the throne about 
 1033 B. C. Pianchi, the father of this pharaoh, had been 
 high priest of Amon-Ra ; but he seems to have died be- 
 fore Herfhor, so that his right to the throne passed to his 
 son. This king had two wives, Queen Hathor-hent-taut 
 and Queen Md-ka-Rd, of which latter lady an inscription 
 distinctly says that Amon-Ra had given her the kingdom. 
 It would seem from this that Ma-ka-Ra was a Ramesside 
 princess whom Herlhor had compelled to wed his grand- 
 son in order to legalize his usurpation — a very common 
 measure of Egyptian usurpers. At all events, it is a very 
 curious fact that while the names of both queens are al- 
 ways inclosed in cartouches, that of Pinetjem is without 
 the cartouche in several inscriptions. Again, there ap- 
 
108 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 pears in a number of inscriptions the name of a King 
 Cheper-Chd-Rd Pinetjem, whose wife was Queen Hathor- 
 hent-taui. That Pinetjem, the high priest of Amon, and 
 this king are one and the same person there can be no 
 doubt. The mummy of Queen Md-ka-Rd was, like his 
 mummy and that of Hathor-hent-taui, found at D£r-el- 
 behari. At the feet of Md-ka-Rd was found the mummy 
 of a very young infant designated as " the princess, the 
 wife of the pharaoh, the lady of Both Lands, Mut-em-hat." 
 It would seem from this that the infant had been declared 
 the legitimate wife of its father immediately after its birth. 
 This precaution was taken to preclude the chance that 
 any usurper could base claims to the throne on a mar- 
 riage with this infant. The child and its mother died, 
 however, long before any such eventuality could arise. 
 Pinetjem reigned twenty-five years (1033- 1008 B. C). Rd- 
 da-ckeper-setep-en- Anion, Pasebckanu I, the successor of 
 Pinetjem, has left us but few monuments ; but from these 
 we see that like his predecessors he was both high priest 
 of Amon-Ra and King of Egypt. One of his sons named 
 Pinetjem was high priest of Amon-Ra under King Anion- 
 em-apet. Men-cheper-Rd is another priest-king of whom 
 we know nothing. The same is true of King Amon-em- 
 apet. Pasebckanu II has but little significance beyond 
 the fact that his daughter, Md-ka-Rd, became the wife of 
 Usarken I, the son of Sheshenq I, thus legalizing the 
 usurpation of that monarch. Pasebchanu has also some 
 interest for the biblical student. It was in all probability 
 this king who came into connection with King Solomon. 
 He gave Solomon his daughter in marriage, and as a 
 dowry captured for the Jewish king the city of Gaza. 
 There was instituted at this time also a commercial inter- 
 course between Egypt and Israel, the latter state facilitat- 
 ing the trade in horses and wagons between the Egyptians 
 and the Hethites and Aramaens. 
 
 § 3. The Twenty-second Dynasty. — The Libyan Kings 
 (945-800 B. C.). 
 
 The reader will no doubt remember what was said on 
 a former page concerning the Libyan wars of Seti I and 
 Ramses II, and concerning the ingress of Libyan mercena- 
 ries in these reigns. These mercenaries were called Ma, 
 
THE PERIOD OF DECLINE. 109 
 
 an abbreviation of the name of the Mashawasha tribe, and 
 their leaders bore the titles of Ouer-en-Ma — i. e. " Duke of 
 the Ma," and Ouer-da-en-Ma, u Grand Duke of the Ma." 
 They seemed to have settled in great numbers in the 
 western part of the Delta. The family of one of these 
 leaders, that lived in Bubastis, rose to great power, and 
 finally one of its members, Sheshenq I, succeeded in 
 wresting the scepter from the weak hands of Paseb- 
 chanu II the last of the priest-kings. The first member 
 of this family who migrated from Libya to Egypt was the 
 Tehen (Libyan) Buiwawa. He came in about the time 
 of Herfhor. His son Mausan already had the title of 
 ** Grand Duke of the Ma." In this position his son 
 Nebnesha and his grandson Patut succeeded him. Patut's 
 son, Sheshenq, was married to Princess Meht-em-oueret y 
 and their son, Nemart, married Tentespeh. This latter 
 couple lived about the time of King Pinetjem. Their son 
 was Sheshenq I, who on the death of Nemart succeeded 
 him in the offices of Grand Duke of the Ma and com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army. 
 
 Sheshenq I (945-924 B. d) (the Shishaq of the 
 Bible). — An inscription in Abydos shows how highly King 
 Pasebchanu esteemed Sheshenq and his family, for it tells 
 us this monarch kept in repair the tomb of the late Grand 
 Duke Nemart and prayed to Amon-Ra for the success of 
 Sheshenq's arms. Holding the entire power of the 
 land, the army, in his grasp, Sheshenq was the real ruler 
 of Egypt, and it was not at all unnatural that he at length, 
 about 945 B. C, either deposed King Pasebchanu or took 
 advantage of that king's death to become king in name 
 as well as in fact. Md-ka-Ra, the daughter of the late 
 king, was compelled to marry the crown prince Usarken, 
 so that he might have a legitimate claim to the throne. 
 That Egypt gained by this change of rulers is an undeni- 
 able fact. Immediately after ascending the throne, the 
 new pharaoh issued a stringent edict against all depreda- 
 tions on the property of the dead (the tombs and estates 
 set aside for payment of sacrificial offers were considered 
 the property of the dead) by priests or other persons. 
 This edict proved that he was determined not to tolerate 
 the state of affairs that had existed in the necropolis 
 under his predecessors. The edict in question prescribes 
 the funereal sacrifices for his father. The king expressly 
 
no HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 states that he had punished those priests that had stolen 
 from the funereal estate. This was no doubt a warning to 
 all inclined to go and do likewise, and seems to have, no 
 doubt backed by an effective police, had the desired effect, 
 for we hear of no further robberies in the Theban necropo- 
 lis in this and the following reigns. 
 
 Early in this reign Jeroboam had fled to his court, He 
 returned to Israel only after the death of Solomon, to be- 
 come king of the ten tribes. It may be that Sheshenq 
 assisted him to return and gain the throne, as he had mar- 
 ried the pharaoh's sister-in-law Ano. The most important 
 event of Sheshenq's reign was his Asiatic campaign. He 
 invaded Palestine, and, after overrunning and plundering 
 the country and taking its chief towns, he finally invested 
 and captured the city of Jerusalem in the fifth year of 
 King Rehoboam's reign. The Egyptians sacked the town 
 and carried off, among other things, the treasure Solomon 
 had deposited in the temple. The city is designated as 
 Yudha Melek, "the royal Jewish city,"* in the Egyptian 
 inscription treating of tjiis raid. 
 
 The king appointed his son Aauput high-priest of 
 Amon-Ra, the fattest office in his gift, thus uniting in his 
 family the highest civil, military, and religious powers of 
 the realm. This pharaoh built chiefly in Thebes. At 
 Karnak he began the so-called " Hall of the Bubastides," 
 which was completed by his successors. He died after a 
 reign of about twenty-one years, and Usarken, his son by 
 Queen Kerdma, succeeded him. 
 
 Sheshenq's Successors. — Usarken I (Osarcon) 
 ascended the throne about 923 B. C. He was an unim- 
 portant ruler. All we know of him is that he continued 
 the work begun by his father at Karnak, and that his 
 wife, Md-ka-Rd, conveyed all her rights and domains to 
 her family — i.e., her husband and his sons. In considera- 
 tion of this, her son Sheshenq was proclaimed co-regent and 
 appointed governor of the South, but he never ascended 
 the throne, having in all probability died before Usarken. 
 How long this pharaoh ruled we do not know. On his 
 
 * I may mention here that Max Mtiller, in a recent article, de- 
 clares that this interpretation of the name is erroneous, and reads 
 Jad-hamelek, " Hand of the King," and would find in it the name 
 of a Jewish fort. I do not quite agree with him, and would retain 
 the explanation given in the text. 
 
THE PERIOD OF DECLINE. in 
 
 death, Takelot I y son of Queen Ta-meh-Chunsu, ascended 
 the throne. Of him we know only that he was married 
 to Queen Kaftes, and that his son by this lady, Usarken f 
 succeeded him. Usarken II ruled twenty-three years, 
 and built at Karnak, Bubastis, and other places. The 
 following king, Takelot II, was a little more important. 
 In his reign occurred two rebellions, which are, unfortu- 
 nately, not described in detail. In the eleventh year of his 
 reign a rebellion broke out, where he does not tell us in 
 his . inscription, which was subdued. Four years after- 
 ward, another text states, " the children of the rebels " 
 attacked Egpyt from the ^iorth and from the south, but 
 were repulsed after a long struggle, whereupon they fell 
 into internal dissensions. Unfortunately, these texts do. 
 not inform us who these " rebels " and " children of the 
 rebels " were. Possibly we find in these rebellions the 
 beginning of the disintegration of Egypt which was com- 
 pleted at the time the Aethiopian king Pianchi invaded 
 the country. Takelot seems to have been strong enough, 
 however, to keep the land together. In the course of the 
 latter text there is a notice that on a certain date the sky 
 had become unrecognizable and the moon had assumed a 
 terrible aspect. After a reign of over fifteen years the 
 king died, and his son Sheshenq III succeeded him. This 
 pharaoh was the last of this line whose name appears in the 
 inscriptions of Karnak. It would seem that either he or 
 his next successor had been driven out of the capital. He 
 reigned fifty-two years. The last kings of this dynasty — 
 Pirn at, Sheshenq IV, and Usarken III — were in all prob- 
 ability confined to the Delta. At the time of Pianchfs 
 invasion, Usarken III was King of Bubastis merely, or 
 perhaps divided the Delta with Aanfiet, King of Clysma. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE AETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT— DY- 
 NASTIES XXIII, XXIV, AND XXV— 80O-645 B - c - 
 
 § I. Dynasty XXIII — The Disintegration of Egypt, and 
 the First Aethiopian Invasion, 
 
 Already under Sheshenq III Thebes seems to have 
 been lost to the Libyan dynasty. The last monument that 
 mentions any king of the twenty-second dynasty in Karnak 
 is dated from the twenty-ninth year of Sheshenq's reign ; 
 and after the loss of Thebes these kings were confined to 
 the Delta. Four " kings " are mentioned in the inscrip- 
 tion of King Pianchi, but we know little of any one of 
 them. They are Usarhen of Bitbastis, probably the same 
 man as Usarken III, the last of the Bubastides, Aaupet 
 of Clysrna, Nemart of Chmunu (Hermopolis), and Pef- 
 dedbast of Chenensnten (Heracleopolis). Manetho states 
 that Pefdedbast, whom he calls Petubastis, reigned forty 
 years. A notice preserved by Ammian, to the effect that 
 in his time the Phoenicians had suddenlv attacked and 
 taken Thebes, is probably a faint recollection of the 
 Aethiopian invasion. At all events, the inscription of 
 Pianchi, which mentions besides these four "kings " six- 
 teen rulers of smaller districts, amply proves that Egypt 
 was at this time completely disintegrated. 
 
 The Rise of Aethiopia. — We have seen that for 
 many centuries Aethiopia was an Egyptian province, but 
 it would seem that at the close of the twenty-first dynasty 
 it gradually emancipated itself from Egypt. In the times 
 of the twenty-second dynasty Aethiopia was no longer un- 
 der Egyptian rule. Several historians have attempted to 
 bring into connection the fall of the twenty-first dynasty 
 and the establishment of the Aethiopian kingdom, by as- 
 suming that the heirs of Pasebchanu had fled before She- 
 
AETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT. 113 
 
 shenq I to that country early in the tenth century before 
 the common era, and had founded a theocratic govern- 
 ment there. This hypothesis is in some measure con- 
 firmed by the name of the first Aethiopian invader of 
 Egypt, Pianchi, a name that occurs also in the times of 
 the priest-kings. There is not, however, sufficient proof 
 to assert this as an established fact. Be that as it may, 
 we find that, about the time of the twenty-second dynasty, 
 Aethiopia had become an independent kingdom. The 
 capital was Napata, at the foot of the Gebel Barkal, where 
 Amenhotep III had erected a temple to Amon-Ra. The 
 centuries of dependence had firmly established Egyptian 
 civilization in Aethiopia. The religion was that of Amon- 
 Ra, though it was carried out to consequences unknown 
 in Egypt. The priests had an almost absolute power. 
 In the name of Amon the kings went out on their wars ; 
 they were entirely dependent on his prophecies and oracles 
 as interpreted by the priests ; they strictly observed the 
 laws regarding cleanliness and all the minute details of 
 the ritual. Thus they put into practice what had been 
 mere theory in Egypt. A long inscription relates how 
 the king was chosen directly through an oracle of Amon- 
 Ra, thus confirming the account given by Diodorus. The 
 priests had, moreover, the right to command the king, in 
 the name of Amon, to commit suicide, a pernicious prac- 
 tice that Ergamenes in the third century B. C. put a stop to. 
 It is, then, not to be wondered at that the Egyptian priests 
 described Aethiopia to the Greek tourists as a promised 
 land. The titulature of the kings was modeled after that 
 of the pharaohs. The official language of the realm was 
 the Egyptian, with some dialectic peculiarities ; the script 
 in the older inscriptions is hieroglyphic. Gradually the 
 language changed more and more, becoming surcharged 
 with Aethiopian elements, and at last it has changed to 
 such an extent as to be completely unintelligible. The 
 script also changed with time ; a cursive form known as 
 the " Meroitic-Demotic script " arose, which no one has yet 
 succeeded in deciphering. In this script most of the 
 Aethiopic inscriptions are written, and it is only after this 
 has been deciphered that we can give a clear picture of 
 the history of the new Aethiopian kingdom. Early in the 
 eighth century B. C. the new kingdom was strong enough 
 to attack Egypt. 
 
H4 HISTORY OF EGYPT. ■ 
 
 The disintegration of Egypt offered the then Aethio- 
 pian ruler, Pianchi, a fine opportunity of subduing the 
 country that had so long held his native land in subjuga- 
 tion. He invaded Egypt, and seems to have found but 
 little resistance. The inscription which treats of his Egyp- 
 tian campaign enumerates the twenty sovereigns who at 
 that time ruled Egypt : 
 
 i. Usarken, King of Per Bastet (Bubastis), in the 
 Delta. 
 
 2. Aaupet, King of Tenremu (Clysma), in the Delta. 
 
 3. Nemart, King of Chmunu (Hermopolis magna- 
 Ashumnein), in Upper Egypt. 
 
 4. Pefdedbast, King of Chenensuten (Heracleopolis 
 magna Ahnes), in Upper Egypt. 
 
 5. Tefnacht, Prince of Sa (Sais) and Mennefer (Mem- 
 phis). 
 
 6. Sheshenq, Chief of Mercenaries in Per- Uszri (Bu- 
 siris), in the Delta. 
 
 7. Tjed-A?non-aufdnek y Chief of Mercenaries in Per- 
 ba-neb-ded (Mendes), in the Delta. 
 
 8. Anch-Hor, Chief of Mercenaries in Per- Tkot-up- 
 ro-heh (Hermopolis). 
 
 9. Bek-en-nef, Hereditary Prince. 
 
 10. Nesnaketi, Chief of Mercenaries in the city of 
 Kaset (Chois), in the Delta. 
 
 11. Pedubast, Chief of Mercenaries in Het-heri-ab 
 (Athribis), in the Delta. 
 
 12. Patenf, Chief of Mercenaries in Per-Sopd, capital 
 of the twentieth Lower Egyptian nome. 
 
 13. Pa?na, Chief of Mercenaries in Pas-as-rek (?) (Bu- 
 siris). 
 
 14. Necht-Hor-nashenu, Chief of Mercenaries in Per- 
 Cher-Rer (?) (Phagroriopolis). 
 
 15. Pa-du-Hor-sam-taui, Priest of Horus in Sechem 
 (Setopolis). 
 
 16. Herobusa, Prince of Saiut (Siut) and Hesauz. 
 
 17. Tjet-Chian, Prince of the City of Chentfiefer. 
 
 18. Pabas, Prince of Cherchau (Babylon) and Per- 
 Hdpi (Nilopolis). 
 
 19. A Chief of Mercenaries in Tanis. 
 
 20. A Chief of Mercenaries in Ostracine. 
 
 These " kings " and princes seem to have offered but 
 little or no resistance to the Aethiopian invader, and to have 
 
AETHIOPIANSAND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT. 115 
 
 remained tranquil under his control for some time. But 
 the spirit of liberty was not dead in the land of Qemet. 
 In the twenty-first year of Pianchi's reign, an attempt was 
 made by Tefnacht, Prince of Sais and Memphis, who was 
 by far the mightiest of these petty sovereigns, to deliver 
 Egypt from the Aethiopian domination. He succeeded in 
 uniting the many petty rulers of Lower and Middle Egypt 
 under his leadership. Then he sailed up the Nile, and 
 everywhere the cities opened their gates to him. At 
 Chenensnten he met with the first resistance. King Pef- 
 dedbast seemed determined to maintain his separate sov- 
 ereignty under Pianchi's protection. The city was besieged 
 and taken, but Pefdedbast joined the alliance in only a half- 
 hearted manner. The allies now proceeded south, and at 
 Chmunu were joined by King Nemart, who became one 
 of the most useful members of the coalition. They then 
 went against Thebes. Matters were now becoming seri- 
 ous, and Pianchi, on hearing of what was going on, ordered 
 Pouarma and Rd-rner-sekni y his lord-lieutenants in Upper 
 Egypt to oppose the progress of the rebellion. They im- 
 mediately took active measures, and began the siege of 
 Chmunu. To aid in their operations the Aethiopian king 
 had sent an army north. As they approached Thebes on 
 their fleet, they encountered Tefnacht's fleet. A battle 
 ensued, in which the Egyptians were defeated. Leaving 
 JRd~iner~sekm' and Potiarma to take Chmunu, the Aethio- 
 pians pursued the fleeing Egyptians northward. The 
 Egyptians made a stand at Chenensuten, which city was 
 the key of the Fayoum. Here two battles occurred on 
 succeeding days. The first was fought on the Nile — 
 possibly the Egyptians sought to prevent the enemy from 
 landing — the second was fought on the river-bank at Per- 
 fiek, a town near Chenensuten. In both these battles the 
 patriots were defeated with heavy loss. Meanwhile 
 Chmunu had fallen, and Nemart, hearing of this, deter- 
 mined to retake his capital. Marching rapidly south, he 
 laid siege to the town, and, after defeating several sallies 
 made by the Aethiopian garrison, recaptured it. 
 
 Thus matters stood when Pianchi determined to come 
 north and conduct the campaign in person. Before he 
 started, however, his troops had gained some further ad- 
 vantages, taking several smaller fortresses, of which the 
 most important was Tatehen. This strong fort was taken 
 
n6 HISTORY OF EGYPT, 
 
 by storm after a most determined resistance ; among the 
 slain was one of Tefnacht's sons. Finally, the king came. 
 After celebrating a religious festival at Thebes he marched 
 against Chmunu. A regular siege was commenced; a 
 high wall was built around the town and a shower of 
 arrows and stones was thrown into the city. Three days 
 the town held out ; but finally Nemart was compelled to 
 surrender and pay tribute. Pefdedbast, of Chenensuten, 
 now came up the stream and paid homage to Pianchi, 
 bringing him costly presents. His ready submission proved 
 that he had joined Tefnacht much against his will, and in- 
 clined the king to be gracious. Pianchi now sailed down- 
 stream to Per - Sechem-cheper- Rd (Illahun), a strong 
 fortress in the^orthern part of the Fayoum, which was 
 surrendered on the first summons. Just north of this lay 
 the stronghold of Meri-Tum (Meydoum), which seemed 
 inclined to hold out. A peremptory summons, leaving 
 the city the choice between immediate surrender and a 
 massacre of its garrison in case of a storm, however, 
 brought the commandant to terms. At the northern 
 boundary of Upper Egypt there was a strongly fortified 
 city which was also surrendered x>n Pianchi's approach. 
 This left the way open to Memphis. The city was very 
 strongly fortified ; Tefnacht had laid in it a garrison of eight 
 thousand men, and then gone north, probably to collect 
 re-enforcements. The Aethiopian monarch hesitated about 
 storming the sacred city, and summoned it to surrender, 
 offering to enter the city peaceably, as his only desire in 
 coming to Memphis was to pay his homage to the gods. 
 But Memphis was the key of the Delta, and the garrison 
 was determined to hold out ; besides, Tefnacht's re-en- 
 forcements could be expected daily. The king, therefore, 
 ordered his soldiers to storm the town. They effected a 
 landing in the harbor of Memphis, and, scaling the walls, 
 were soon masters of the city. Many of the garrison 
 and of the citizens fell in the combat, and many others 
 were carried off as prisoners of war. The city was plun- 
 dered, but the temples were spared, a guard having been 
 set over them. Pianchi remained in Memphis several 
 days, partly to take part in several religious festivals and 
 partly to receive the tribute of several princes and grand 
 dukes of the Ma that came here to offer their submission. 
 He next advanced to An-Heh'opolis, where he attended 
 
AETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT. 117 
 
 some other religious festivals and received the submission 
 of a number of other princes, among them Usarken, King 
 of Bubastis. Then he went to Hat-heri-ab (Athribis), 
 where he received the submission of the remaining re- 
 bellious princes, except Tefnacht. This leader, deserted 
 by all his allies, determined to make a last stand for free- 
 dom. Razing the walls and burning down the treasury 
 building of Sais, he retired to the island city of Mesd in the 
 Nile, and strongly intrenched himself. Prince Pefdubast, 
 of Athribis, was sent against him with a strong detach- 
 ment. A battle ensued, in which Tefnacht was defeated 
 and his army annihilated. Tefnacht now sent messengers 
 to Pianchi, offering to surrender. The king sent him two 
 ambassadors, in whose presence he swore the oath of 
 allegiance. Two cities that had hitherto held out now 
 also surrendered — the rebellion was crushed. After hold- 
 ing a grand reception of the princes, Pianchi returned 
 home, his ships laden down with the tribute and booty 
 won in the war. 
 
 Pianchi reigned in all forty years, but he had no further 
 occasion to interfere in Egypt. This was owing to his 
 wise policy. He left all of the old princes in possession 
 of their lands, and thus bound them to his person as they 
 owed their sovereignty to his grace. Moreover, a disunited 
 Egypt was no menace to. him, and the bickerings among 
 the various petty kings could at any time furnish him a 
 pretext for invading the country. That he was determined 
 to prevent the union of these princes was proved by the 
 great campaign against Tefnacht and his allies. He had 
 no idea of holding the country, but retired after having 
 effectually checked Tefnacht's attempt to unite the various 
 petty states into a great kingdom. 
 
 § 2. The Twenty fourth Dynasty — Saitic (b. C. 734-728). 
 
 Bekenrenf, the only king of this dynasty, seems to 
 have succeeded in doing what Tefnacht had attempted 
 over nineteen years before. According to Diodorus, who 
 calls him Bokchoris, he was the son of Tnefachthos, who 
 is no doubt identical with Tefnacht. For about six years 
 he ruled undisturbed by the Aethiopians. All we know 
 of him from the monuments is, that he buried an Apis at 
 Memphis in the sixth year of his reign. 
 
n8 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 . In Aethiopia Kashta had succeeded Pianchi. This 
 monarch was married to Shep-en-apet, a daughter of 
 King- Usarken, of Bubastis. Their son, Shabaka, suc- 
 ceeded him, and immediately determined to conquer 
 Egypt. He could lay a certain claim to the Egyptian 
 throne, as his mother was a daughter of the last Bubastide 
 King. Invading the country, he defeated Bekenrenf — 
 Manetho states, that he burned him alive — and compelled 
 the various petty kings to acknowledge his sovereignty. 
 
 §3. The Twenty-fifth Dynasty — Aethiopians — The As- 
 syrian Invasions (72S-643 B. a). 
 
 Shabaka (the Sabdkon of the Greeks, SS of the Bible, 
 and Shade' of the Assyrians, 728-726 B. c), Herodotus 
 relates that Sabakon, the Aethiopian, had conquered 
 Egypt, and had left it after a reign of fifty years, in con- 
 sequence of a dream. Diodorus comes nearer the truth 
 when he states that four Aethiopian kings ruled Egypt for 
 thirty-six years. 
 
 Shabaka took the title of King of Upper and Lower 
 Egypt, but appointed his sister, Amenerdas, who was 
 married to a man named Pianchi, regent of the country. 
 The Greek authors praise this ruler highly. He is reputed 
 to have abolished capital punishment, substituting hard 
 labor for it. This pharaoh became mixed up in Asiatic 
 affairs. King Hosea, of Israel, had joined other Syrian 
 monarchs in a rebellion against Salmanassar IV, King of 
 Assyria, and the allies had sent to Shabaka, asking his 
 assistance. The plot was discovered, Hosea was called to 
 Assyria and thrown into prison. Salmanassar invested 
 Samaria about 725 B. c, but died before the city fell. 
 His successor, Sharrukinu (Sargon) II, continued the 
 siege, and took the city in 722 B. C. Shortly after a new 
 coalition was formed, at the head of which stood King 
 Ilubid, of Hamath. This coalition embraced, besides 
 Hamath, Arpad, Simyra, Damascus, Gaza, and Egypt. 
 Sargon was, however, too quick for the allies. Before 
 Shabaka could join them, Sargon met and routed their 
 forces at Karkar. He now moved southward, and met 
 Shabaka, who had meanwhile been joined by King 
 Hanno, of Gaza, at Raphia. The allies were badly de- 
 feated, and Hanno was taken prisoner (720 B. a). Sar- 
 
MAP OF 
 
 The Assyrio-Aetkiopic 
 Wars in Asia, 
 
 AND NEKAU'S CAMPAIGN. 
 
 .SCALE OF MILES 
 
 50 100 
 
AETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT. 119 
 
 gon could not follow up his victory and invade Egypt, as 
 events had meanwhile occurred in the north which called 
 him to the new seat of war ; but he had gained his pur- 
 pose. Shabaka was badly crippled, and even sent trib- 
 ute. This pharaoh died about 716 B. c. 
 
 Shabataka (715-703 b. a), the successor of Sha- 
 baka, is a king of whom we do not know much. Despite 
 the fact that he reigned twelve years, he seems to have 
 done little. In Asia he did not interfere. Probably the 
 defeat of Shabaka at Raphia had been so complete as 
 either to cripple Egypt for years, or at least to discourage 
 her rulers from attacking Assyria again. 
 
 Taharqa (702-662 B. a). — This king was in all 
 probability not of royal parentage, but came to the throne 
 by marrying Shabataka's widow. He was twenty years 
 of age when he ascended the throne. Young and active, 
 he was willing to restore to Egypt its former prestige. 
 Meanwhile Sargon had been assassinated, and his son, 
 Sin-ahi-erib (Sanherib), had ascended the Assyrian 
 throne (705 B. C). Immediately a new coalition was 
 formed against Assyria. Elulaeus of Tyre, Hezekiah of 
 Judah, and Zidkah of Asqalon, formed a league and called 
 upon Taharqa for assistance. Mardukballadin, the 
 Chaldean ruler of Babylon, was also drawn into the 
 league and conducted negotiations with Hezekiah. King 
 Pddz\ of Akkaron, who had refused to join the rebels, 
 was deposed and turned over to Hezekiah. This mighty 
 coalition if properly handled would have been a match for 
 the Assyrians ; but Sanherib was too quick for them. In 
 701 B. C. he entered Syria and subdued Elulaeus, then 
 going south he took Asqalon and Akkaron. At Altaqu 
 he met and defeated Taharqa, who had attempted to 
 check him. After taking Altaqu and some other towns, 
 Sanherib marched on Jerusalem. Hezekiah submitted, 
 and Padi was restored to his kingdom. The rebellion 
 was not, however, crushed as yet. Hezekiah continued 
 his negotiations with Taharqa, who had returned to Egypt 
 to collect a new army. Sanherib. hearing of this, accused 
 the Jewish king of treason and threatened him with de- 
 struction. Relying on Jehovah and the King of Egypt, 
 Hezekiah boldly held out. Jerusalem was besieged. 
 Meanwhile Taharqa was coming to the aid of his ally 
 with a new army. Sanherib advanced to meet him, but 
 
120 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 his army was so reduced by pestilence that he had to re- 
 tire without giving battle. The story of the Bible is "well 
 known. The angel of the Lord smote the Assyrian army 
 in the night and one hundred and eighty-five thousand 
 men died, whereupon Sanherib had to retire. Herodotus 
 has a somewhat different version of the affair. He relates 
 that after the Aethiopian Sabakon, a pious priest of Ptah 
 named Sethos ruled in Egypt. He denied his soldiers 
 certain privileges and thus gained their enmity. When 
 Sanacherib, "king of the Arabians and Assyrians," 
 marched against Egypt, they refused to fight, and Sethos 
 was placed in a sad predicament. He prayed to the gods 
 for aid, and they sent out mice that ate up the bows and 
 belts of the Assyrian army encamped about Pelusium 
 during the night, so that the Egyptian merchants and 
 mechanics could easily defeat them next day. 
 
 The First Assyrian Invasion. — Sanherib never 
 returned to Palestine. He was assassinated in 681 B. C, 
 and his son, Assarhaddon {Ashur-ah-iddiri), ascended 
 the throne. Trouble between him and Taharqa began in 
 672 B. C, when King Ba'al, of Tyre, relying on promises 
 of assistance from Taharqa, rebelled against Assyria. 
 Assarhaddon now determined to put an end to Egyptian 
 interference. A detachment of his army besieged Tyre, 
 while the main body marched against Egypt, The prince 
 of the Bedouins dwelling on the Egyptian border gladly 
 furnished camels and water, and thus the difficult march 
 from Raphia to Pelusium was accomplished without seri- 
 ous loss. Taharqa seems to have offered but little re- 
 sistance, for the Assyrian army entered Memphis, and 
 soon after Thebes also was taken and sacked. Taharqa 
 fled to Aethiopia. After these victories Assarhaddon styled 
 himself " King of Musur (Lower Egypt), Patrus (Upper 
 Egypt), and Kush (Aethiopia). The land itself was left 
 under the control of twenty independent petty sovereigns, 
 as follows : 
 
 1. Niku-11 (Nekau), of Mt-im-pi (Memphis), and Sa- 
 ai (Sais). 
 
 2. Sharru-la-da-ri, of Zi-i'nu. 
 
 3. Pi-sa-an-hn-u, of Na-at-hu (Natho). 
 
 4. Pa-ak-ru-ru, of Pi-shap-tu (Per-Sopd, the capital 
 of the Nomos Arabia, the twentieth Lower Egyptian 
 nome). 
 
AETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT. 121 
 
 5. Pu-uk-na-an-nz'-pz (Bekennef), of Ha-at-hz-rz-bi 
 (Hatheriab Athribis). 
 
 6. Na-ah-kz-z, of Chi-nen-shi (Chenensuten). 
 
 7. Pit-tu-bis-ti (Pedubast), of Za-a'-nu (Tanis). 
 
 8. U-na-mu-nu, of Na-at-hu. 
 
 9. Hor-sz-ja~z-shu, of Tam-mu-u-tz (Tjeb-nuter Seb- 
 benythos). 
 
 10. Pu-u-a-a-ma (Pimai), of Bz-zn-dz-dz (Per-ba-neb- 
 ded=Mendes). 
 
 11. Su-zz-z'n-ku (Sheshenq), of Pu-si-ri (Per-Usiri 
 Busiris). 
 
 12. Tap-na-ach-ti (Tefnacht), of Pu-nn-bu (Per-nub). 
 
 1 3. Pit-uk-ku-na-an-ni-i'-pi, of Ah-nz. 
 
 14. Ip-tz-har-dz-z-shu, of Pi-sa-at-tz-hu-ru-un-pi. 
 
 15. Na-ah-ti-hu-ru-an-zi-ni (Necht-Hor-na - shenu), 
 of Pz-shab-dz-nu-tz. 
 
 16. Bn-kur-nz-nz-zp, of Pa-ah-nu-ti. 
 
 17. Zi-ha-a, of Zi-ja-u-tu (Suit). 
 
 18. La-mi-in-tu, of Hi-mu-ni (Chinunu). 
 
 19. Ish-pi-ma-a-tu, of Ta-a-a-ni (Teni This). 
 
 20. Ma-an-ti-pi- an - chi {Mentu - em - hat) of A 7 "/' 
 (Thebes). 
 
 It is impossible for us to identify those of the Assyrian 
 names of Egyptian princes and cities, the Egyptian names 
 of which we have not given. The mightiest of these 
 princes was Nekau (Assyrian Niku-u, Greek Necho), 
 Prince of Memphis and Sais (according to Manetho, 671- 
 663 B. a). He was the favorite of Assarhaddon. At this 
 monarch's request Nekau changed, the name of Sais to 
 Kar-Bel-Matdti y "Garden of the Lord of Lands," and 
 gave his son Psemtek the Assyrian name Nabu-ashezib- 
 an-ni. Shortly after the conquest of Egypt Assarhaddon 
 resigned the crown in favor of his son Assurbanipal ^ (about 
 668 b. a). 
 
 The Second Assyrian Invasion.— This change 
 in the rulers of Assyria encouraged Taharqa to attempt 
 the delivery of Egypt from Assyrian rule. He advanced 
 on Thebes (Assyr. Nt*) and Mentnemhat (Assyr. Mantz- 
 pzanchz) received him with open arms, hailing him as a 
 deliverer. Memphis was taken soon after, and the Aethi- 
 opian proceeded to make himself at home in Egypt. 
 When Assurbanipal heard of this, he at once determined 
 to punish the Aethiopians. He advanced to Karbana, a 
 
122 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 town north of Memphis, where he met and utterly routed 
 Taharqa's forces. The king himself, who had remained 
 at Memphis, on hearing of this defeat, at once fled to 
 Thebes, which city he abandoned on the approach of the 
 Assyrian army without a battle (about 667 B. a). Mean- 
 while the Egyptian princes, under the leadership of Nekau 
 of Sais, Sharladari of Tanis, and Pakruru of Per-Sopd had 
 opened negotiations with Taharqa, inviting him to renew 
 his attack, and promising their support. Their letters 
 were, however, intercepted, and the conspirators were ar- 
 rested. Proof against them was not. wanting, but the As- 
 syrian king evidently thought it wise policy not to punish 
 them. They were left in possession of their holdings, but 
 had to swear allegiance to Assurbanipal. Nekau, the 
 favorite of his father, was sent home loaded down with 
 presents, and his son Nabu-ushezib-an-ni was appointed 
 governor-general of Egypt. Assurbanipal hoped to gain 
 a powerful ally in this manner, and he was not disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 In the Greek accounts Taharqa figures as a great hero 
 and conqueror. Strabo relates that he reached the Col- 
 umns of Hercules (the westernmost point of northern 
 Africa) on one of his campaigns, and, according to Megos- 
 thenes, he led his army to India and thence to the Pontus 
 and Thrace. In his inscriptions he poses as a mighty 
 conqueror; fourteen negro tribes are mentioned as sub- 
 dued in Aethiopia. The list of conquered nations he had 
 inscribed on the walls of the temple of Karnak, is copied 
 word for word, from that of Ramses II, and even men- 
 tions, among other states, Assur, while we know he was 
 several times whipped by the Assyrians. At Gebel Bar- 
 kal he built two temples, and at Karnak he repaired por- 
 tions of the great temple of Amon-Ra and of the temple 
 of Mut. He died about 664 B. c. 
 
 Tanuat-Amon and the Third Assyrian In- 
 vasion. — The step-son of Taharqa ascended the Aethi- 
 opian throne about 664 B. C. An inscription found at the 
 Gebel Barkal relates that this king had been encouraged, 
 by a dream that promised him the crown of Egypt, to in- 
 vade that country. Elephantine and Thebes hailed him 
 as a deliverer; Memphis resisted, but was taken after a 
 battle. It is very probable that Nekau, Prince of Mem- 
 phis and Sais, who died about this time (664 B. a), fell in 
 
AETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT. 123 
 
 one of the battles with Tanuat-Amon. While he was at 
 Memphis a deputation of Egyptian princes, headed by 
 Pakruru of Per-Sopd, offered their submission. The 
 others withdrew to their fortresses and refused to yield. 
 Tanuat-Amon evidently did not feel strong enough to at- 
 tack them, and preferred to return to Memphis, where he 
 had long theological arguments with those princes who 
 submitted. When Assurbanipal heard of this new Aethi- 
 opian invasion by Urdamdni (as the Assyrian inscriptions 
 call Tanuat-Amon), he sent an army against him. The 
 Aethiopians immediately withdrew before the approach of 
 the Assyrians, and fled to Aethiopia. Thus, about 662 
 B. c, was driven from Egypt the last Aethiopian king who 
 dared invade the country. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE— DYNASTY XXVI (645- 
 
 525 B. a). 
 § I. Psemtek I {645-610 B. C). 
 
 We have seen in the preceding chapter how the house 
 of Sais gradually rose in importance. The first ati — as 
 the Egyptians called the petty sovereigns of the preceding 
 epoch — of this line that succeeded in gaining supreme 
 power, even though for a short time only, was Tefnacht, 
 the contemporary of Usarken III, King of Bubastis, and 
 the great opponent of Pianchi. How his attempt at uni- 
 fying Egypt failed we have already seen. A descendant 
 of his was the Bekenrenf, who ruled at least in Lower 
 Egypt for six years (734-728 B. C). The next prince we 
 know is Nekau, the favorite of Assarhaddon and Assur- 
 banipal. As predecessors of this Nekau, Manetho men- 
 tions Stephanites (ruled seven years) and Nechepsos (ruled 
 six years), the Egyptian names of which princes are un- 
 known. This Nekau seems to have come to his death about 
 the time Tanuat- Amon invaded Egypt (664 B. C). Nekau 
 was succeeded by his son Psemtek, the Psametichos of the 
 Greeks, who was given the name of Nabu-ushezib-anni at 
 Assurbanipal's request. Psemtek seems to have been a 
 faithful ally of Assyria for quite some while, but he merely 
 waited a chance to gain his independence, He entered into 
 friendly relations with Tanuat-Amon, marrying one of his 
 relatives — the Aethiopian princess Shep-en-apet, a daugh- 
 ter of Queen Amonerdas, As Amonerdas had been Queen 
 of Egypt, Psemtek thus acquired a claim to the throne. 
 At length the right moment came, about 645 b. c. Aided 
 by mercenaries sent him by King Gyges, of Lydia, he suc- 
 ceeded in making himself independent from Assyria. It 
 is evident that he succeeded in this only after a struggle, 
 
THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE. 125 
 
 but we have no record of his combats with Assyria. His 
 next enemies were in Egypt itself. Though he was un- 
 doubtedly the rightful sovereign of the country, yet the 
 many petty rulers that divided the country among them- 
 selves did not submit without a struggle. Psemtek, how- 
 ever, succeeded in gaining the ascendency and uniting 
 Egypt under his scepter. Psemtek made Sais his capital. 
 This made Neit> the great goddess of Sais, the official 
 head of the national pantheon, and deposed Amon-Ra, 
 who had held this position, with some interruptions, for 
 about fifteen hundred years. Memphis, the oldest capital 
 of Egypt, and part of Psemtek's original principality, was 
 also highly favored, and many of the government offices 
 were located there. Thebes was falling into decay ; the 
 Assyrian wars had dealt the city a blow from which it 
 never recovered. True, Psemtek and some of his suc- 
 cessors built here and repaired the great temple of Amon, 
 but the city never again rose into prominence. Of the 
 city of Sais there remains to-day scarce a trace ; the cli- 
 mate and soil of the Delta are not favorable to the pres- 
 ervation of ruins, and after the city had once fallen into 
 decay all traces of it rapidly disappeared. 
 
 Mindful of the great debt he owed the Greek merce- 
 naries, Psemtek little by little increased them. By this 
 action he incensed the native mercenaries, who had hith- 
 erto ruled supreme in Egypt. According to Herodotus, 
 two hundred and forty thousand men of the warriors "who 
 stood on the left of the king " emigrated to Aethiopia in 
 this reign because they had not been relieved in their gar- 
 risons for three years. This story is assuredly untrue, but 
 it reflects the fact that the native troops were highly dis- 
 satisfied, and were no particular friends of Psemtek's. 
 
 The stories that the Greek authors tell us of his scien- 
 tific experiments to ascertain which people was the oldest 
 of the world, and those that they relate of his efforts to 
 find the source of the Nile, are all alike untrue and legend- 
 ary. The remark of Strabo that he was one of the great- 
 est conquerors of the world is also false. The king was 
 too much occupied with internal affairs to go in search of 
 foreign conquest. The real fact of the matter is, that 
 Psemtek was confined to Egypt proper. On the western 
 frontier he fortified Marea as a defense against Libya ; 
 on the Asiatic frontier he erected the strong fortress of 
 
126 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Daphnae near Pelusium, and on the Aethiopic frontier the 
 town of Souen (Assuan, Syene) was strongly fortified. 
 The fact that the three frontiers were thus put in a state 
 of defense proves that the king did not make any con- 
 quests. Herodotus relates that he conquered Asdod 
 after a siege of twenty-nine years, but there is no reason 
 to believe this. 
 
 The policy of this king and of all his successors was 
 to gain the friendship of the Greeks. He gave lands 
 along the banks of the Pelusian branch of the Nile, near 
 Bubastis, to the Ionians and Carians, and, in order that 
 they might come into communication with his subjects, he 
 gave them Egyptian boys whom they should teach Greek 
 and who were to serve as interpreters. The Milesians 
 soon after entered the Bolbitic arm of the Nile and settled 
 a fortified camp, which was called the Milesian camp. Tyr- 
 ian merchants settled possibly about the same time in 
 Memphis, and gave their name to the Tyrian quarter of 
 this city. The king died about 610 B. c, having been 
 Prince of Sais and Memphis from 664 B. c, and king from 
 645 B. C. on. 
 
 § 2. Nekau {Greek Necho and Nechao)— {610-594 B. C). 
 
 Nekau successfully continued the policy of his father. 
 Herodotus relates that he began the construction of a 
 canal which was to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, 
 and that, after a hundred and twenty thousand laborers 
 had perished, Nekau suddenly stopped the work, having 
 been warned by an oracle that he was working for the 
 barbarians. This story is very improbable. A canal 
 connecting the Nile with the Red Sea existed already in 
 the times of Seti I and Ramses II, about seven hundred 
 years before this time. This canal was mentioned in the 
 Assyrian inscriptions of the eighth century B. C, and it is 
 scarcely possible that it could have disappeared entirely in 
 less than a century. Nekau possibly cleared it of sand 
 and widened it. The story of the enormous number of 
 laborers who perished during the progress of the work 
 and that of the oracle are both utterly false. 
 
 Herodotus relates a story of a great maritime enter- 
 prise undertaken at this time which seems quite credible. 
 He states that Nekau sent out Phoenician ships from the 
 
THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE. 127 
 
 Red Sea to circumnavigate Africa, and that in the third 
 year of their journey they returned to the Mediterranean 
 through the Straits of Gibraltar. The very fact that 
 Herodotus questions — namely, that in circumnavigating 
 " Libya " (i. e., Africa) they had the sun on their right 
 hand — proves that they really did accomplish their task. 
 The same historian relates that Nekau kept fleets of 
 triremes in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. 
 
 Nekau felt himself strong enough to attempt the res- 
 toration of Egyptian supremacy in Asia. Great changes 
 had meanwhile taken place on this continent. Assurbani- 
 pal died the king of a great empire, but his successors 
 were not able to hold their own. About 608 B. C, Nabo- 
 pallassar, whom Assurbanipal had appointed Viceroy of 
 Babylon, threw off the Assyrian yoke and founded an in- 
 dependent Babylonian kingdom. Intent on crushing out 
 the Assyrian kingdom, he allied himself with King Kyax- 
 ares, of Media, and together they attacked and com- 
 pletely annihilated the Assyrian kingdom. The Medes 
 kept all the land east and north of the Tigris, the Baby- 
 lonians Mesopotamia and Syria. Nekau thought the time 
 had now come to intervene in Asia. Accordingly, in the 
 spring of the year 608 B. c, he invaded the continent.^ 
 He encountered no resistance until he reached Megiddo. 
 Here, at the very spot where, almost a thousand years be- 
 fore, Thutmosis III had defeated the Syrian coalition, 
 King Josia, of Judah, had drawn up his army ready to 
 dispute Nekau 's advance. The pharaoh, not wishing to 
 lose time in subduing the petty sovereigns of Syria and 
 Palestine, haughtily ordered the Jewish king to give way. 
 Josia refused, and was arranging his army for the coming 
 battle, when he was fatally wounded by an arrow. The 
 king was brought back to Jerusalem, where he died and 
 was buried amid the wailings of his people, over whom he 
 had ruled for thirty-nine years. Nekau continued his 
 march to Ribla, near Hamath, where he went into camp. 
 Meanwhile the Jews had elected Joachas, the son of Josia, 
 king, but Nekau was dissatisfied with their choice and 
 deposed him, giving the kingdom to his older brother 
 Jojaqim, and levying a heavy contribution on the land. 
 Excepting Judea, Gaza was the only state that offered 
 any resistance to the Egyptians. Up to the year 604 B. C. 
 Nekau seems to have had his own way in Asia, but in 
 
128 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 that year Nabopallassar was ready to meet him. He 
 himself was old and sick ; so he sent his son Nebuchadnez- 
 zar (Bab., Nabu-kudurri-uzzur) against the Egyptians. 
 At Karkemish, on the banks of the Euphrates, the two 
 armies met, and Nekau was utterly routed. His army 
 must have been completely annihilated, for he left Syria 
 to the victor, without daring to oppose him again. Nebu- 
 chadnezzar probably had the intention of invading Egypt, 
 but the death of his father compelled him to return to 
 Babylon. Nekau did not dare to interfere in Asia again. 
 Time and again the Jews begged him for assistance in 
 their repeated revolts against the Babylonians. At last 
 Jerusalem fell, about 596 B. C, and Nebuchadnezzar was 
 free to invade Egypt ; but it seems that he was called to 
 other parts of his kingdom, and the threatened invasion 
 did not come until much later. Nekau died in 594 B. C, 
 and was buried, like his father, in Sais. 
 
 § 3. Psemtek II (jp^-jSp B. c). 
 
 The only historical event of this short reign was an 
 invasion of Aethiopia. Both Herodotus and Aristeas 
 mention it, and an Egyptian inscription confirms their 
 report. Late in this reign General Nes-Hor was sent 
 against the Aethiopians, and the war was finally brought 
 to a close early in the following reign. It may be that 
 the trouble with Aethiopia had begun already in Nekau's 
 time, and this would account for his otherwise incom- 
 prehensible policy with regard to the Jewish rebellions. 
 The grafiti left on the colossi of Abu-Simbel by the Phoe- 
 nician and Greek mercenaries that marched with the 
 Egyptian army on this campaign, still further confirm the 
 report of Psemtek's war in this quarter. Despite his short 
 reign of only six years, this pharaoh was an active builder, 
 restoring and repairing temples in all parts of Egypt, from 
 the Delta to Nubia. 
 
 § 4. Ouahabra {Greek Aftrzes, jSp-j>64 B. a). 
 
 Early in this reign Nes-Hor brought to a successful 
 conclusion the Aethiopian war begun in the reign of 
 Psemtek II. Ouahabra thought matters in Asia favored 
 an intervention on his part. In Judea important changes 
 
THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE. 129 
 
 had taken place in the times of his predecessors. Jojaqim, 
 the king whom Nekau had appointed, was deposed in 597 
 B. C, after a reign of eleven years, and Jojachim, his son, 
 put in his place by Nebuchadnezzar. Soon after he also 
 was deposed, and Zedekiah put in his place. Zedekiah 
 (596-586 B. C.) was not the man the Babylonian king had 
 thought him. He determined, despite the warnings of the 
 prophets, to win the independence of his kingdom. Oua- 
 habra now came to his aid and began a war with Tyre. 
 Sidon was taken, and a Cypriote fleet that opposed him 
 was utterly defeated. Although thus far successful, the 
 pharaoh withdrew soon after, on the approach of the 
 Babylonians. Meanwhile Zedekiah had begun the war, 
 but Jerusalem was soon invested, and, after a spirited re- 
 sistance, was taken (July, 587 B. C), while Ouahabra did 
 nothing to assist his sorely beset ally. Zedekiah was de- 
 posed and blinded, and Gedalia was set on the throne. 
 He was assassinated by a descendant of the family of 
 Ishmael, who was soon after compelled to fly the country. 
 He and his friends went to Egypt, where Ouahabra re- 
 ceived them kindly. 
 
 Soon after Ouahabra began a war which promised 
 better results. A war had broken out between the Greek 
 city of Cyrene, which lay on the northern coast of Africa, 
 west of Egypt, and the Libyans. The Libyan king Adz- 
 kram placed himself under the protectorate of Egypt, and 
 an Egyptian army was immediately sent out to aid him. 
 At the town of Irsa, on the well of Thestis, a battle en- 
 sued, in which the Egyptian army was annihilated. This 
 account, taken from Herodotus, is probably correct, but 
 the rest of his account is certainly false. He relates that 
 the Egyptians were furious over the defeat, and declared 
 that Apries had sent out the native troops in order to 
 have them annihilated, so that his rule over the rest of the 
 Egyptians might be the more secure. This is entirely 
 unnatural. In Egypt the pharaoh was an absolute ruler ; 
 he was considered as the son of the god Ra. and the in- 
 carnation of the god Horus, and it would not have been 
 at all necessary for him to destroy the national troops in 
 order to strengthen his rule. The troops, according to 
 Herodotus, also murmured, and the king sent an officer 
 named Amasis (Egyptian, Aahmes) to quiet them. While 
 he was addressing them, a soldier, stepping behind him, 
 
130 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 placed a helmet on his head and proclaimed him king*. 
 The rest of the army shouted their assent, and Amasis, 
 gladly accepting the election, placed himself at their head 
 and marched against the pharaoh. A messenger sent by 
 Apries was sent back with a sarcastic reply. Apries now 
 prepared for battle, and, collecting his Greek mercenaries 
 to the number of thirty thousand, marched against his 
 rival. At Momemphis, on the Canopic branch of the 
 Nile, the armies met, and Apries was, after a well-con- 
 tested battle, defeated, captured, and brought to Mem- 
 phis, where he was kept in prison for a while, but was 
 finally delivered up to the angry populace and strangled* 
 This story is utterly false from beginning to end, as are 
 also the many anecdotes the Greek writers tell of Amasis. 
 
 We know, however, that Ouahabra, about six years 
 before his death, appointed Aahmes II co-regent. Aahmes 
 was wedded to Anchnes-nefer-ab-Ra> a daughter of Psem- 
 tek II, and to Nezt-aqert, a sister of Ouahabra. These 
 facts completely refute the Greek legends. Why Aahmes 
 was appointed co-regent we can not say ; possibly the king 
 had no male issue, and wished to keep the succession in 
 the family. 
 
 In the time of their joint reign fell Nebuchadnezzar's 
 invasion. This campaign was undertaken, according to 
 the Babylonian inscriptions, in the thirty-seventh year of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's reign — i. e., in 567 B. C. The Babyloni- 
 ans found little or no resistance, and easily succeeded in 
 overrunning and plundering the whole land as far as As- 
 suan, and then retired either voluntarily or after having 
 been defeated by Nes-Hor. Be that as it may, the Baby- 
 lonians never again entered Egypt. Ouahabra died in 
 564 B. C, after having ruled twenty-five years in all, nine- 
 teen alone and six in conjunction with his brother-in-law 
 and successor. < 
 
 § 5. Aahmes II (Amasis, 564-526 B. C.). 
 
 This pharaoh came into still closer connection with the 
 Greeks than any of his predecessors. The many anec- 
 dotes the Greek authors tell of his private life and family 
 relations are all untrustworthy, as are also the reports 
 that Pythagoras, Solon, and Thales visited Egypt in his 
 reign. Solon is even said to have copied from Amasis* 
 
THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE. 131 
 
 laws one of the laws he promulgated at Athens in 594 
 B. C, a statement that is of course absurd. Further, this 
 king- is said to have entered into friendly relations with 
 Cleobulus, Bias, and Pittacus, and to have foreseen the 
 downfall of Polycrates. All of these stories, which are, 
 by the by, chronologically impossible, have a direct tend- 
 ency, namely, to prove that all of the knowledge and 
 philosophy of Greece was derived from Egypt. Amasis 
 being the king best known to the Greeks, they placed the 
 Egyptian voyages of their sages in his reign. We have 
 already alluded to these traditions in the introduction. 
 
 More credible are the accounts the Greek writers give 
 us of his wars. He fought against the Arabians (i. e., the 
 Asiatics), and, in order to increase the valor of his troops, 
 he had the statues of the chief divinities set up behind 
 their ranks, so that the troops believed the gods them- 
 selves were observing them. He next sent out a fleet 
 against Cyprus that succeeded in subduing the Cypriote 
 cities, which remained Egyptian dependencies for some 
 time thereafter. This expedition was most probably un- 
 dertaken as part of Egypt's work in the great coalition 
 which had been formed for the purpose of checking, if 
 possible, the rise of the new Persian monarchy. This 
 coalition was joined by Egypt, Lydia, Babylon, and Sparta. 
 The object was to attack Persia from three sides at once, 
 and, had the allies acted in concert, and not wasted valu- 
 able time over their preparations, they might have crushed 
 Cyrus. As it was, Croesus moved before the others were 
 ready, and all the help he could get from his allies con- 
 sisted in a detachment of troops sent him by Aahmes. In 
 the spring of 546 B. C. he entered Cappadocia, devastated 
 the country, and captured the strong fortress of Pteria. 
 Now was the time for Aahmes and Nabunaid, King of 
 Babylon, to act ; but it was impossible for them to con- 
 centrate their forces and to co-operate properly. Cyrus 
 first .moved against Croesus, and soon had conquered 
 Lydia, taken its capital, and made the king a prisoner 
 (fall of 546 B. a). A Persian fleet sent against Cyprus 
 easily succeeded in dislodging the Egyptian garrisons. 
 Aahmes now, instead of coming to the aid of his ally, 
 Nabunaid, remained inactive while the Persians conquered 
 Babylon and took possession of Palestine and Syria as far 
 as the Egyptian frontier. The pharaoh evidently hoped 
 
132 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to pacify Cyrus by this inactivity ; but he had gone just 
 one step too far, and had incurred the determined enmity 
 of the Persians. That the invasion of Egypt did not fol- 
 low immediately on the occupation of Palestine was owing 
 to complications that had arisen on the eastern frontier. 
 In the wars fought here Cyrus lost his life ; but his suc- 
 cessor, Cambyses, soon punished Egypt for its share in 
 the coalition against Persia. 
 
 Aahmes thought it to his advantage to interfere in Cy- 
 renae. Here King Arkesilaus had been assassinated by 
 Learchus, who had ascended the throne, and, supported 
 by Egyptian mercenaries, had instituted a most tyrannical 
 rule. His misrule did not last long. He was assassinated 
 at the instigation of Polyarchus and his sister Eryxo, who 
 placed Battus, the son of Arkesilaus, on the throne. The 
 Egyptian mercenaries now called on Aahmes for aid, and 
 he determined to take advantage of these conditions to 
 subdue the city. Before he started on the expedition, 
 however, his mother died, and he was detained in Egypt 
 by the preparations for her interment. Polyarchus, ac- 
 companied by his mother Critola and his sister Eryxo, 
 now went to Egypt to propitiate the pharaoh. Aahmes 
 received them kindly, and praising the energy they had 
 shown, dismissed them, loaded with presents. He now 
 abandoned the expedition against Cyrenas, as he was evi- 
 dently satisfied with the recognition of his sovereignty. 
 The two nations hereafter remained at peace until the 
 downfall of Egypt. 
 
 Aahmes was confined entirely to Egypt. His expe- 
 dition against Cyprus, though at first successful, had 
 proved in the end a failure ; in Asia he dared not inter- 
 fere ; Aethiopia retained its independence, and his sov- 
 ereignty over Cyrenag was purely nominal. While the 
 kingdom thus did not extend its boundaries under Aah- 
 mes, still his reign was an epoch of great prosperity. 
 Agriculture and commerce flourished, and it is stated that 
 there were at this time twenty thousand inhabited places 
 in Egypt. 
 
 The Greeks were, of course, greatly favored; and 
 costly presents were made to their temples, among them 
 being a contribution of a thousand pounds of alum, one 
 of the most important raw products of Egypt, to the fund 
 the Amphictyons were collecting for rebuilding the Del- 
 
THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE. 133 
 
 phic temple. Greek immigration was greatly encouraged. 
 The Ionians and Carians, whom Psemtek I had settled on 
 the Pelusic branch of the Nile, were removed to Memphis 
 to serve as a body-guard to the pharaoh. In place of the 
 harbor thus lost to the Greeks, the king gave them the 
 city of Naucratis and its surroundings, in the neighbor- 
 hood of the present city of Alexandria. This new city 
 stood outside of the pale of Egyptian jurisdiction, and 
 was allowed to make its own laws. The result was, that 
 the inhabitants clung to their own Greek customs and in- 
 stitutions with the greatest tenacity, and went their way 
 entirely uninfluenced by their Egyptian neighbors. The 
 city being originally intended for Ionians from Teos, its 
 government was modeled after that of the latter city. 
 This town became the center of Greek activity in Egypt. 
 In it was erected the great sanctuary of the Greeks in 
 Egypt ; this was the Helleneion, which was built by sev- 
 eral Greek cities conjointly. These cities were Chios, Teos, 
 Phocaea, Clazomenae, Cnidos, Halicarnassus, Phaselis, and 
 Mytilene. The reason why so many cities helped to build 
 the Helleneion was, that all of the cities that took part in 
 this work had the privilege of sending to Naucratis a 
 " supervisor of trade," or, as we would put it, appointing 
 a member of the board of trade. Temples to Zeus, Hera, 
 and Apollo were also built by other cities, who thus 
 gained the same privilege as the builders of the Helle- 
 neion. Naucratis rose very rapidly, owing to certain laws 
 that gave her a complete monopoly of the trade with 
 Greece. The Greeks soon had colonies in all parts of 
 Egypt, even in the southern portions of the country. 
 The Milesians had a trading post at Abydos, and Samian 
 merchants even settled in the Great Oasis. 
 
 Being engaged in no great wars, this pharaoh was en- 
 abled to devote considerable attention to the temples of 
 the land. In all parts of Egypt, from the Delta to the 
 island of Bigeh, we find traces of his work. He died 526 
 B. C, after having been co-regent of his brother-in-law for 
 six years and sole ruler for thirty-eight years. 
 
134 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 § 6. Psemtek III and the Persian Conquest of Egypt 
 (J26-J2J B. a). 
 
 When Psemtek III ascended the throne of his fathers, 
 the catastrophe that had so long threatened the land at 
 length overwhelmed it. The account of this catastrophe 
 has been preserved to us by Herodotus. The stories that, 
 according to Greek traditions, impelled Cambyses to in- 
 vade Egypt are all untrustworthy, as they seek to bring 
 Cambyses into relationship with the Egyptian kings and 
 to find the cause of the war in this relationship, while 
 making Cambyses appear, at the same time, as the legiti- 
 mate pharaoh. The war, far from having any such cause 
 as the Greek historians would have us believe, had, in all 
 probability, been determined on already by Cyrus, who 
 was prevented from carrying out this part of his plan by 
 other matters. Cambyses was free to attack Egypt, and 
 he had ample cause for war in the fact that Egypt had 
 been the ally of his father's worst enemies, King Croesus 
 of Lydia and King Nabunaid of Babylon. 
 
 Accordingly, Cambyses began making active prepara- 
 tions for the war, and everything indicated that he was 
 going to have a hard time of it. The eastern frontier of 
 Egypt was protected by the Syrian Desert that skirted it, 
 to cross which was a task of no small difficulty. Recog- 
 nizing this fact, Aahmes had concentrated his forces at 
 Pelusium, hoping to gain an easy victory over the Persian 
 army, which no doubt would suffer terribly in the desert, 
 and reach the Egyptian border sadly used up. Cambyses 
 did not underrate the difficulty of the undertaking, and 
 made the most extensive preparations. A great fleet was 
 fitted out to attack Pelusium by sea, while the army at- 
 tacked it by land. Just as he was about to start, he re- 
 ceived unexpected and timely aid, In the Egyptian army 
 there was a Halicarnassian officer named Phanes, a bright 
 and able leader who had had some difficulty with Aahmes. 
 In consequence of this he had fled to the Persian monarch. 
 On the way he was overtaken by the king's favorite eu- 
 nuch, but managed to escape. Shortly after this event 
 Aahmes had died, and Psemtek III had succeeded him. 
 Phanes not only betrayed to the Persians all the secrets of 
 the state, but he also showed them the means of crossing 
 the desert without great loss. To accomplish this, envoys 
 
THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE. 135 
 
 were sent to all the Bedouin sheiks of the desert, and trea- 
 ties were concluded with them. They agreed to furnish 
 the army with camels and water, and thus the Persian 
 army was enabled to cross the desert and to reach Pelu- 
 sium with but little loss. The battle that ensued was 
 waged with great fury ; but, finally, after both sides had 
 lost heavily, the Persians were victorious, and the Egyp- 
 tians fled from the field. Pelusium surrendered soon after. 
 A ship was now sent to Memphis, whither the pharaoh 
 had fled, to demand the city's surrender. When it en- 
 tered the harbor of Memphis the garrison boarded it, 
 killed the crew, and destroyed the vessel. This breach 
 of international usage met with a severe but well-merited 
 punishment. Memphis was besieged and taken. Ten 
 days after the capture the punishment came : two thousand 
 sons of .the most respected citizens, among them the son 
 of King Psemtek, were executed, to atone for the death of 
 the two hundred men that had composed the crew of the 
 ill-fated vessel. The daughter of the pharaoh and the 
 noblest virgins were sold into slavery, and the fortunes of 
 the richest citizens and of the king's friends were confis- 
 cated, leaving their former owners beggars. The fate of 
 Psemtek was comparatively light, Cambyses even intending 
 to make him governor of Egypt, but he became involved 
 in a conspiracy against Cambyses, and was compelled to 
 take poison. Thus ended the last of the Psemteks. 
 
 As a result of the capture of Memphis, the Libyans 
 submitted voluntarily, and paid tribute. Cyrenas and Bar- 
 caea also sent tribute, but this the Persian monarch di- 
 vided among his soldiers, as he hoped to gain far more by 
 capturing these rich towns than he could ever get from 
 them as voluntary tribute. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FROM THE PERSIAN CONQUEST TO THE INVASION OF 
 ALEXANDER THE GREAT (525-33I B. C.). 
 
 § i . The Twenty-seventh Dynasty — Persians (525-414 
 B. a). 
 
 Cambyses (525-522 b. a). — The fall of Memphis 
 seems to have sealed the fate of Egypt. The rest of the 
 country in all probability submitted peaceably ; the very 
 fact that the Libyans, Barcasa, and Cyrenae offered their 
 submission and sent tribute right after the capture of 
 Memphis proves that from that time on the Persian mon- 
 arch was the undisputed ruler of Egypt. Cambyses ap- 
 pointed Aryandes satrap of Egypt, but seems not to have 
 changed any of the laws and institutions of the land. 
 
 Shortly after Memphis surrendered, the king paid a 
 visit to Sais, the then capital of Egypt. The stories that 
 Herodotus relates of outrages committed here by Cam- 
 byses are unhistorical, being utterly disproved by an in- 
 scription on the statue of the hereditary prince, Hor-utja- 
 suten-net, who had been keeper of the seal, chief scribe 
 of the palace, admiral of the fleet, chief physician, etc., 
 under Aahmes II and Psemtek III. This man relates 
 that Kembut (Cambyses) came to Egypt and ruled all the 
 land, remaining as King of Egypt, and taking the corona- 
 tion name of Mesut-Ra. Hor-utja-suten-net was appointed 
 by him chief physician and superintendent of the palace. 
 He initiated the king into the mysteries of the goddess 
 Neit, and described to him her temple. He now com- 
 plained of the Persian soldiery that had taken quarters in 
 the temple, and begged that they be removed so that the 
 temple might be clean again. The king ordered that the 
 temple be cleansed, that all of her servants be restored to 
 
THE PERSIANS IN EGYPT. 137 
 
 the goddess, and that her festivals be celebrated as of 
 yore. When the king came to Sais he went to the temple 
 of Neit, worshiped her, and sacrificed to her and all the 
 other gods of Sais ; in short, conducted all the sacred cere- 
 monies the same as every former king had done. He 
 also ordered Hor-utja-suten-net to prepare an inventory 
 of all the temple utensils, and to erect buildings for the 
 goddess. We see that the Persian monarch strove to ap- 
 pear as the successor of the pharaohs — a policy he pursued 
 until his understanding was clouded by insanity. 
 
 Cambyses now determined to conquer the rest of 
 Africa. Three expeditions were planned — one against 
 Carthage, another against the Oasis of Amon, and a third 
 against Aethiopia. The first of these expeditions was 
 never undertaken, as the Phoenicians, who made up the 
 greater part of the Persian fleet, refused to serve against 
 Carthage ; and Cambyses, owing to the fact that they had 
 joined him voluntarily, did not dare to force them. The 
 expedition against the Oasis of Amon proved a failure. 
 An army of fifty thousand men started from Thebes and 
 marched through the Sahara to the Greek town of Oasis. 
 After they left this smaller oasis no news of them ever 
 reached Egypt ; in all probability they perished in a sand- 
 storm. The expedition against Aethiopia was in the main 
 successful, although the Greek historians strove to give 
 the impression that it was a failure. Besides the half- 
 legendary account of Herodotus, according to which pro- 
 visions gave out on the march, and the men after eating 
 their beasts of burden were compelled to resort to canni- 
 balism, we have no full account of this campaign. But 
 the fact that Aethiopian troops fought against the Greeks 
 under Xerxes, and the mention by Ptolemy and Pliny of a 
 town, Cambyson Tamieia, in Aethiopia, prove that the 
 campaign was successful. Moreover, Strabo and others 
 relate that Cambyses captured the capital of Aethiopia, 
 and named it Meroe, after his sister. As the army was 
 returning, a sand-storm overtook it near the First Cataract, 
 and the greater part of the one hundred and fifty thousand 
 men perished. Only a fragment of the great army re- 
 turned to Egypt. Cambyses had, however, fully accom- 
 plished his object : he had thoroughly subdued Egypt, and 
 secured it against foreign invasion. 
 
 On his return from Aethiopia a great change came 
 
138 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 over the spirit of his reign. From early youth he had 
 been subject to epileptic fits, and now he became insane. 
 His insanity seems to have first broken out in Memphis, 
 at the festival of the enthroning of an Apis-steer. While 
 the king was warring in Aethiopia the old Apis-steer had 
 died, and shortly before his return a new one had been 
 found. As he entered Memphis he found, according to 
 Herodotus, the citizens celebrating a great festival. This 
 naturally angered him, as he supposed they were rejoicing 
 over the loss of his army. So he summoned the elders of 
 the city before him and asked them why the Egyptians 
 were celebrating a festival, now that he was returning after 
 meeting with so severe a loss, and had celebrated no fes- 
 tival when he first came. They replied that a god had 
 been born to the Egyptians, whose birth was always cele- 
 brated in this manner ; and the king had them executed 
 as liars. He then sent for the priests, and, on questioning 
 them, received the same answer. Now he made further 
 inquiries regarding the god, and finally ordered the sacred 
 steer to be brought before him. When the animal was 
 brought, the king drew his sword, intending to kill it, but 
 succeeded only in wounding it on the thigh. Then he 
 scoffed at the priests, telling them their god was only flesh 
 and blood, after all. He now had the priests scourged, 
 and had all persons who took part in the festival killed. 
 The Apis died of his wound soon afterward, and was se- 
 cretly interred by the priests. While this account is cer- 
 tainly overdrawn, we have no reason to doubt that the 
 killing of the Apis is historical, for this does not seem to 
 have been the only sacrilege the king was guilty of. He 
 is accused of having made fun of the statues of Ptah, 
 which represent the god as a dwarf, and of having robbed 
 temples and burned several statues of gods. These out- 
 rages were no doubt all committed after he had become 
 insane, for the inscription of Hor-utja-suten-net proves 
 that in the early part of his reign this king had everywhere 
 sought to imitate the pharaohs. The Greek historians 
 were naturally prejudiced against him, and strove to make 
 him appear as a wild, remorseless tyrant, in glaring con- 
 trast to-his father Cyrus, whom they depicted as an ideal 
 ruler. The whole history of Cambyses was written by He- 
 rodotus from an unhistorical standpoint. His object was 
 to make this reign a grand tragedy : the king was a wild, 
 
THE PERSIANS IN EGYPT. 139 
 
 insane tyrant, and his violent death was a punishment for 
 his many sins against the gods and men. This may be 
 tragedy, but it certainly is not history. 
 
 Persia itself suffered from the insanity of the king just 
 as much as did Egypt. Cambyses's greatest crime was the 
 murder of his brother Bardja, whom he had assassinated 
 by Prexaspes. He is also accused of having attempted 
 to murder Croesus, the old friend of his father, and of 
 having killed the son of Prexaspes while drunk. At last 
 the end came. Cambyses had for unknown reasons gone 
 to Syria. Here news of a revolt in Persia reached him. 
 He had before leaving Persia appointed Patizeithes, a 
 Magian, superintendent of the palace. This man knew of 
 the murder of Bardja, and determined to make use of his 
 knowledge. He had a brother named Gaumata, who 
 closely resembled the murdered prince. This brother he 
 placed on the throne, and proclaimed through all the land 
 that Bardja had ascended the throne of Persia. Cam- 
 byses easily convinced himself that this so-called Bardja 
 was a swindler, and determined to suppress the revolt. 
 As he was about to start out on this expedition, he acci- 
 dentally wounded himself — tradition asserts in the thigh, 
 the same place where he wounded the Apis— and of this 
 wound he died. Before his death, however, he assembled 
 his nobles about his bed, confessed the murder of Bardja, 
 and urged them to punish the Median usurper. 
 
 Darius I (Eg., Antliush, 521-485 B. a). — For a 
 while the Persian nobles remained inactive, fearing to di- 
 vulge the murder of Bardja; but finally, in 521 B. C, 
 Darius, the son of Hystaspes, who was the next heir to 
 the throne, Cambyses having died childless, with six com- 
 panions succeeded in slaying the usurper. As Hystaspes 
 declined the crown, Darius now became King of Persia. 
 The new king was compelled to combat with several 
 usurpers in Persia, but Egypt remained loyal. Aryandes, 
 the satrap appointed by Cambyses, had been left in office 
 by Darius. He felt sufficiently strong to attempt the ex- 
 tension of the Persian power in Africa. A fine oppor- 
 tunity to do this soon offered itself. When Cambyses 
 invaded Egypt, Cyrenas had voluntarily submitted and 
 paid tribute. King Arkesilaus III made about this time 
 a trip to Barcasa, after having appointed his mother, Phe- 
 retime, regent. Here he was murdered by some Cyre- 
 
140 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 nseic refugees. As soon as Pheretime heard of this she 
 went to Egypt and asked Aryandes to aid her in punish- 
 ing the murderers of her son. Aryandes gladly assented, 
 and sent an army under the Egyptian Aahmes and a fleet 
 under the Persian Badres against Barcasa. Pheretime 
 herself accompanied the army. The combined forces 
 reached the city without loss, and the extradition of Arke- 
 silaus's murderers was demanded but refused. The city 
 was hereupon beleaguered, but held out for nine months, 
 and was then captured only by stratagem. Pheretime's 
 revenge was terrible : her son's murderers were crucified 
 and their wives were cruelly mutilated. Part of the pris- 
 oners taken were handed over to Pheretime, part were 
 sent to Persia and settled in Bactria by Darius. The 
 army now advanced to Euhesperides, but soon began the 
 retreat. A wrangle between the commanders had led to 
 this retreat, and soon after they started a messenger came 
 from Aryandes ordering them home. On the retreat the 
 Libyans are said to have attacked and cut to pieces the 
 rear-guard. Aryandes had a definite object in recalling 
 the .army. He had planned the foundation of an inde- 
 pendent Egyptian empire. The details of his plan are 
 unknown, but he seems to have become dangerous, for he 
 was executed at the command of Darius. 
 
 Late in the year 517 B. C. Darius himself came to 
 Egypt. Shortly before his arrival, the Apis-steer which 
 had been enthroned in the reign of Cambyses died and 
 Darius offered a reward of one hundred talents to whom- 
 soever would find the new Apis. Darius thus returned to 
 the policy inaugurated by Cambyses when he first came 
 to Egypt. Early in his reign he ordered Hor-utja-suten- 
 net to fill the complement of temple scribes. This noble 
 accordingly established schools for the scribes and fitted 
 them out with everything that was needful, for Darius 
 well knew that this was the best way of preserving the 
 names of the gods, their temples and incomes forever. He 
 repaired the temple of Memphis and made valuable pres- 
 ents to the temple of Edfu ; but his chief work was the 
 building of the temple in the Oasis El-Kargeh. We see, 
 thus, that Darius posed everywhere as a pharaoh, and so 
 successfully did he carry out this policy that he complete- 
 ly won the hearts of his Egyptian subjects in a very short 
 while. 
 
THE PERSIANS IN EGYPT, 141 
 
 Like Nekau, Darius determined to re-establish the con- 
 nection between the Nile and the Red Sea that had ex- 
 isted in the times of Seti I and Ramses II. A stele bear- 
 ing on one side an inscription in hieroglyphics and on the 
 other side a translation of this in Median, Persian, and 
 Babylonian, recounts this fact. This inscription reads : " I 
 am a Persian. With the aid of Persia I conquered Egypt. 
 I gave orders to dig this canal from the river Nile which 
 flows in Egypt to the sea which is connected with Persia. 
 Then this canal was dug as I had ordered. But I said : 
 1 Now go and destroy half this canal from the city of Bira 
 to the sea, because such is my will.' " Why this last or- 
 der was given he does not say. Diodorus and Strabo, 
 however, relate that his engineers represented to him that 
 if the canal were completed the Red Sea, which lay higher 
 than Egypt, would flood the country. It is a curious fact 
 that Herodotus regarded the canal as completed, for he 
 says it was four days' journey long, and wide enough to 
 allow two triremes to pass in line. It is further note- 
 worthy that Cambyses had already founded a city, named 
 Cambyson, after him, near the route of the canal. Prob- 
 ably he had intended to undertake the work, but had died 
 before it was begun. 
 
 The most important act of his reign was that he 
 erected Egypt, together with Libya, Barcsea, and Cyrenas, 
 into the sixth satrapy. This satrapy had to pay an an- 
 nual tax of seven hundred talents, or eight hundred and 
 twenty-six thousand dollars. The fisheries of Lake Mceris 
 were declared to be the property of the crown. The 
 Egyptians had to furnish the Persian garrison of the cita- 
 del of Memphis one hundred and twenty thousand bush- 
 els of grain annually. Further, they had to furnish salt 
 and Nile water for the royal table. The income of the 
 city of Anthylla was given the Queen of Persia, according 
 to some accounts for her shoes, according to others for 
 her belts, or, as we would say, for pin-money. 
 
 Late in this reign, four years after the battle of Mara- 
 thon, the Egyptians made an effort to regain their inde- 
 pendence. They made a man named Chabbash king ; 
 but before Darius could march against the rebels he died, 
 485 B. C, in the thirty-sixth year of his reign. 
 
 Xerxes (Eg., Cheshzresh, 485-472 B. c). — When 
 Xerxes came to the throne of Persia, Chabbash had firmly 
 
142 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 established himself in Egypt. He assumed the corona- 
 tion-name of Senen- Tanen Setep-en-Ptah, and was exer- 
 cising all the functions of a legitimate pharaoh. In the 
 second year of his reign he interred an Apis, probably the 
 one that was enthroned in the thirty-first year of Darius's 
 reign. Several temples, among them that of Buto, were 
 given large tracts of land. The Egyptian king did not 
 neglect to prepare to meet an attack from Persia which 
 could be expected every day. The mouths of the Nile 
 were strongly fortified, and everything was put in readi- 
 ness to repel the expected attack. The rebel king could 
 not, however, hold out against Xerxes. The country was 
 again subdued, and Achaemenes, the king's brother, was 
 appointed satrap with orders to institute a very strict ri- 
 gime. Achaemenes kept his position all his life, and it 
 was probably his harsh rule that led to the revolt of Ina- 
 ros. In the war with Greece the Egyptians had to fit out 
 and man two hundred vessels, the crews of which were 
 afterward transferred to the land army and took part in 
 the battle of Plataea. 
 
 Artaxerxes (Eg., Artachsheshes) and the Re- 
 volt of Inaros (464-448 b. a). — After the assassina- 
 tion of Xerxes the country was for a while plunged into 
 anarchy and divided by wars for the succession, which 
 were finally brought to a close in 464 B. c. by the acces- 
 sion of Artaxerxes. During these wars the Persians lost 
 control over several provinces, among which was Egypt. 
 As they had taken advantage of the temporary weakness 
 of the Persians after their defeat at Marathon, the Egyp- 
 tians now took advantage of the anarchy existing in Per- 
 sia to make another fight for liberty. Cyrenas had during 
 the past reign gradually regained its independence, and 
 the Libyans seem to have been left pretty much to them- 
 selves since the revolt of Chabbash ; in fact, it would seem 
 that this rebel was a Libyan or of Libyan descent. His 
 name certainly is not Egyptian. 
 
 At the time Artaxerxes came to the throne, a sover- 
 eign named Inaros, the son of Psetntek, ruled over the 
 Libyan tribes that dwelt on the Egyptian border. This 
 chief determined to free Egypt from the Persian yoke, 
 and easily succeeded in inciting the greater part of the 
 country to revolt. The people chose him king, drove out 
 the Persian tax-collectors, and. raised an army. The first 
 
THE PERSIANS IN EGYPT, 143 
 
 object of the new pharaoh was to secure allies against 
 Persia. He easily succeeding in getting aid from Cyrenae. 
 He next turned to Athens, and the Athenians concluded 
 a treaty with him, and ordered their fleet of two hundred 
 sail, which lay at Cyprus, to proceed to Egypt. This fleet 
 forced its way up the Nile as far as Memphis, two thirds 
 of which city had already fallen into the hands of the 
 Egyptians. The citadel, however, was still held by the 
 Persians, and such Egyptians as had remained loyal to 
 Persia. This citadel the combined forces of the Egyptians 
 and Greeks beleaguered, but all attempts to reduce it 
 failed. Meanwhile Artaxerxes, hearing of the revolt, had 
 confirmed his uncle Achaemenes as satrap of Egypt, and 
 sent him an army of three hundred thousand men to put 
 down the rebellion. This army entered the Delta with- 
 out encountering any opposition. At Papremis they were 
 met by the combined forces of the Egyptians and Athe- 
 nians and utterly routed. They fled from the field, and 
 the Egyptians pursuing, a terrible massacre ensued ; only 
 a mere fragment of the vast army succeeded in getting 
 safely behind the walls of Memphis (462 B. c). Achae- 
 menes himself was mortally wounded, and died soon after 
 the battle. His body was sent to Artaxerxes. 
 
 The Persian king now began intriguing for the with- 
 drawal of the Athenian troops, offering the Spartans large 
 subsidies if they would attack Athens. Failing in this, he 
 at last fitted out a new army, and placed it under com- 
 mand of Artabanos and Megabyzos, two brave generals. 
 In 461 B. c. this new army of three hundred thousand 
 men marched into Cilicia. Here a halt was made, and 
 the Cilicians and Phoenicians were ordered to equip a 
 fleet. Three hundred triremes having been fitted out, 
 they were manned with the best troops in the army. The 
 land forces were put through a careful course of training. 
 Meanwhile the war had come to a standstill in Egypt. 
 The combined forces of the Egyptians and Athenians still 
 lay before the citadel of Memphis, but could not compel 
 its surrender. At length, in 460 B. C, the Persian army 
 began to move. Marching along the coast so as to keep 
 in constant communication with the fleet, the army at 
 length entered Egypt without having encountered any 
 opposition. The allies seem to have been utterly blind to 
 the threatening danger, deeming it improbable that the 
 
144 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Persians should again attack them after their terrible de- 
 feat at Papremis two years before. They were, however, 
 pretty rudely awakened when they suddenly found them- 
 selves face to face with the Persian army. They accepted 
 the proffered battle and were utterly routed. Memphis 
 was relieved, and the Athenians withdrew with their ships 
 to the island of Prosopitis, in the Nile. A year and a half 
 they held out here, until the Persians dammed the Nile, 
 and thus beached the Athenian ships. The Athenians 
 burning their vessels, intrenched themselves and prepared 
 to sell their lives dearly ; but the object of the Persians 
 was not to destroy them, but to render them useless as 
 allies of Inaros, and to drive them from Egypt. They 
 therefore concluded a treaty with the Athenians, guaran- 
 teeing them a safe retreat. In this manner part of the 
 Athenian army succeeded in reaching Athens by way of 
 Libya and Cyrenaa. Inaros was not so fortunate : wounded 
 and captured in an engagement, he was sent to Persia, his 
 life being spared. Here, at the instigation of Queen 
 Amestris, who desired to avenge Achasmenes, he was 
 crucified and his companions were beheaded. 
 
 The war was not, however, ended yet. The Athenians 
 had sent a fleet of fifty sail to re-enforce their fleet before 
 Memphis. It entered the Mendesian branch of the Nile, 
 where it was surprised by the Phoenicians, and almost 
 completely destroyed, only a few vessels escaping. For 
 several years Amyrtceus (Egyptian, Anienruf) succeeded 
 in holding his own in the Delta. Like his friend and ally 
 Inaros, he sent to Athens for aid, and sixty ships were 
 ordered by Cimon to proceed to Egypt from Cyprus ; but 
 these vessels were of no avail, for they returned to Athens 
 on hearing of Cimon's death (449 B. C). In 445 B. c. a 
 certain Psemtek (Greek, Psammetichos) seems to have 
 held an independent position in Egypt, for he sent thirty 
 thousand bushels of grain to Athens. 
 
 After the rebellion had been suppressed, Artabanos and 
 Megabyzos returned home, and Larsames was appointed 
 satrap. Thannyras, the son of Inaros, and Pauszris y 
 the son of Amyrtceus, were given their hereditary princi- 
 palities — the former probably Libya and the latter the 
 western part of the Delta. How long these princes reigned, 
 and in what relation they stood to Persia, we can not say. 
 Herodotus, who visited Egypt shortly after the suppression 
 
THE PERSIANS IN EGYPT. 145 
 
 of the revolt of Inaros, found Egypt tranquil under Per- 
 sian rule. There was then no trace of an independent 
 Egyptian kingdom, and the only traces of the late troubles 
 were the bleaching bones on the old battle-fields. Egypt 
 was again prosperous and happy, celebrating its old festi- 
 vals in the old manner — a striking proof of the elasticity of 
 the people. 
 
 The reigns of Xerxes II, Sogdianus, and Darius II, had 
 but little import for Egypt (448-414 B. c), except that in 
 the latter part of Darius's reign the Egyptians again re- 
 volted, and this time succeeded in gaining their independ- 
 ence, under the leadership of Amenrut. 
 
 § 2. The Twenty-eighth Dynasty (414-408 B. C). 
 
 Amenrut (Greek, Amyrtceos). — Late in the year 
 41 5 B. C. Amenrut, of Sais, succeeded, with the aid of 
 Greek mercenaries, in delivering* Egypt from the Persian 
 rule. No details of this successful revolt are known, but 
 it would seem that it stood in some connection with the 
 revolt of Pissuthnes in Lydia, which occurred at about 
 the same time, while that of Amorges in Caria (413-412 
 B. C.) kept the Persian kings busy at home, so that Amen- 
 rut was enabled to establish himself firmly on the Egyp- 
 tian throne. The whole of Egypt soon came under his 
 control, and it would even seem that he was able to take 
 the offensive against Persia. A remark of Thucydides 
 appears to point to the fact that he was allied with Athens 
 in 412 and 41 1 b. c. In 410 B. c, according to Diodorus, 
 he, together with the King of Arabia, threatened the Phoe- 
 nician seaboard, and the Persian king sent a fleet of three 
 hundred sail against them. Despite these successes, he 
 could not hold himself on the throne, but was deposed by 
 the mercenaries. His son was excluded from the succes- 
 sion, and Naif -da-rut elevated to the throne (408 B. C). 
 
 § 3. The Twenty-ninth Dynasty (408-386 B. c). 
 
 Naif-aa-rut I (Nepherites) (408-402 B. c). — The 
 first act of the new king was to appoint his son Necht- 
 Hor-heb (Nectanebus) co-regent ; but this act did not 
 please the people, and Prince Necht-Hor-heb was banished 
 to his city, from which he returned twenty-one years later 
 
146 HISTORY OF EGYPT, 
 
 as king. All that we know of this king is, that an Apis- 
 steer was buried in the second year of his reign. Some 
 blocks, bearing his name, found at Thebes, prove that he 
 built there. 
 
 Pa-sa-mut (Greek, Psamutkis) (402-401 B. a). — 
 According to the Demotic Chronicles, this pharaoh had 
 not served the gods well, and consequently had not been 
 generally recognized. This assertion is not well founded, 
 as the inscriptions prove. Numerous blocks of stone 
 bearing his name, Rd-oueser-setep-en-Rd Pa-sa-Mut> found 
 at Thebes, prove that he built at the temple of Amon. 
 \y^ Haker (Greek, Aeon's) (400-386 B. c.) ruled thir- 
 teen years. He had been, like his predecessor, placed on 
 the throne by the mercenaries, and, as he was just and 
 looked after the decaying temples, he was retained as king 
 as long as he lived. He was busy repairing temples in all 
 parts of Egypt. Diodorus relates that Haker became in- 
 volved in the wars between Greece and Persia. At this 
 time Sparta was at war with the common enemy, and 
 Agesilaos sent envoys to Egypt asking for aid. Haker 
 sent him timber for one hundred_trirejn£S and five hundred 
 thousand bushels of grain. These stores were forwarded 
 to Rhodos, which city had meanwhile deserted Sparta and 
 joined Persia, so that the present intended for that state 
 came to be used against it. We hear also, through Theo- 
 pompus, of a treaty of alliance which this king concluded 
 with the Pisidians, but we know not what came of this al- 
 liance. Possibly it stood in some connection with a war 
 between Egypt and Persia that lasted from 390-387 B. c, 
 and in which Isocrates says the three greatest Persian 
 generals — Abrokomas, Tethranes, and Pharnabazos — had 
 fought against Egypt for three years without accomplish- 
 ing anything, just before the beginning of the Cypriote 
 war. This war broke out in 386 B. C, King Euagoras of 
 Cyprus revolting against Persia, and calling on Haker for 
 aid. The pharaoh sent him troops, but before the war 
 was well begun he died (386 B. C). 
 
 Naif-aa-rut II (Greek, Nepherites) (386 B. a), the 
 son of Haker, succeeded his father on the throne with the 
 aid of the troops; but the people did not support him, 
 and consequently the soldiers deserted him and killed his 
 son. They hereupon " restored the right " — i. e., they 
 placed on the throne Necht-Hor-heb, the son of Naif -da- 
 
EGYPT AGAIN INDEPENDENT. 147 
 
 rut I, who had been banished and deprived of his right to 
 the succession. 
 
 § 4. The Thirtieth Dynasty (jS6-J4p B. a). 
 
 Necht-Hor-heb (Nectanebus I) (386-368 B. C.).— 
 The Egyptian monuments teach us nothing of this king's 
 reign. Diodorus has, however, luckily preserved an ac- 
 count of him which proves that he was the most impor- 
 tant Egyptian king of this entire period. In his reign 
 Egypt again took an influential place among the nations 
 of the world ; it could defy Persia, and could dare to as- 
 sert its influence in Asia. In this reign falls the Cypriote 
 war that began shortly before the death of Haker. The 
 war had dragged along for several years before Artaxerxes 
 saw the need of specially exerting 'himself to put an end 
 to it. He now raised an army of three hundred thousand 
 men, which was put under command of his son-in-law 
 Orontes, and fitted out a fleet of three hundred triremes, 
 the command of which was given to Teribazus. These 
 combined forces proceeded to Cyprus, and at once began 
 to push the war. Euagoras had also made extensive 
 preparations. Necht-Hor-heb sent him a goodly army; 
 Hecatombos, of Caria, sent money; several Phoenician 
 cities, among them Tyre, joined him ; the King of Arabia, 
 and other rulers hostile to Persia, sent troops. Thus he 
 managed to get together ninety ships and six thousand 
 native troops, besides the contingents of his allies. His 
 privateers succeeded in cutting off the grain transport 
 for the Persian army, and a mutiny broke out among the 
 troops. Glus, the newly appointed Persian admiral, con- 
 sequently had to go to Cilicia for grain before undertaking 
 anything. Euagoras received his provisions and large 
 amounts of money from Egypt. He was now enabled 
 to increase his fleet to two hundred sail, fifty ships hav- 
 ing been sent him from Egypt. With this fleet he at- 
 tacked the Persian ships, and, though at first successful, 
 was in the end defeated, after a hotly contested battle. 
 The Persians now began the siege of his capital, Salamis. 
 Though he had won a victory on land shortly before his 
 defeat at sea, Euagoras lost courage, and, after appointing 
 his son Pnytagoras commander in Salamis, he fled from 
 the island. Escorted by ten men-of-war, he went to Egypt 
 i4 
 
148 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to solicit further aid. Necht-Hor-heb gave him a sum of 
 money, somewhat less than he had expected, but sufficient 
 for his present purpose, and so he returned home (383 
 B. C). He found the siege of Salamis still going on, and, 
 as his allies were beginning to desert him, he offered his 
 submission. After a long delay the decision came that he 
 should remain King of Cyprus as a Persian vassal, and must 
 pay an annual tri bute.) 
 
 The war wit h~ Egypt continued. Glus, the Persian 
 admiral, revolted shortly after the surrender of Salamis, 
 and, allying himself with Egypt and Sparta, began a new 
 war against Persia. He was, however, assassinated soon 
 after, and thus his plans came to naught. Now that he 
 had brought the war in Cyprus to a successful close, the 
 Persian king determined to punish his inveterate enemy, 
 the King of Egypt. Necht-Hor-heb knew what was com- 
 ing, and made his preparations accordingly. He began 
 hiring mercenaries, and as he offered high pay and costly 
 presents, he soon had collected a fine army. As general 
 he called Chabrias, of Athens, who accepted the call with- 
 out first asking the permission of his government, and 
 going to Egypt conducted the preparations for the war 
 with great energy. Pharnabazos, the Persian commander- 
 in-chief, was also very busy with his preparations. He 
 sent envoys to Athens to accuse Chabrias of alienating 
 the good feelings of Persia from Athens, and to ask the 
 Athenians to send him Iphicrates as general. Chabrias 
 was accordingly recalled, and Iphicrates sent to Persia 
 (between 376 and 374 B. a). At length, 374 B. a, Phar- 
 nabazos was ready. He had collected an army of two 
 hundred thousand native troops and twenty thousand 
 Greek mercenaries, three hundred men-of-war, and a large 
 fleet of smaller craft. This force mustered at Ake", and 
 thence proceeded along the coast toward Egypt. Early 
 in the summer they reached the border, after several at- 
 tempts to betray the army had been detected and pre- 
 vented by Iphicrates. 
 
 Necht-Hor-heb had regular reports concerning the 
 strength and movements of the enemy. His plan of op- 
 erations was very simple : he relied on the natural bul- 
 warks of the land. All the border forts were greatly 
 strengthened and the mouths of the Nile were strongly 
 fortified, the strongest fortifications being erected on the 
 
EGYPT AGAIN INDEPENDENT. 149 
 
 Pelusian branch, the one nearest to Asia. When the 
 Persians approached this branch they found it too strong, 
 and determined to attempt some less strongly fortified 
 branch of the river. Consequently they put to sea, and 
 soon after appeared on the Mendesian branch, where they 
 landed three thousand men, who advanced on the fort. 
 An equal number of Egyptians sallied from the fort to 
 meet them ; but the enemy being constantly re-enforced 
 from their ships, the Egyptians were almost cut to pieces. 
 A small remnant of their force escaped to the fort, closely 
 pursued by Iphicrates's men, who entered the fort to- 
 gether with them. It fell, its walls were razed, and 
 the inhabitants were sold into slavery. Iphicrates, who 
 had found out from one of the prisoners that Memphis 
 was unprotected, advised an immediate advance on that 
 city. Pharnabazos replied that they had better await the 
 remainder of their army, so as to be sure of taking the 
 town. Iphicrates now proposed to go down with his 
 Greeks and take the city. This made the Persian sus- 
 picious, and he refused him permission. This quarrel 
 between the Persian leaders gave Necht-Hor-heb time to 
 collect an army at Memphis and to move with all his force 
 against the Persians in the Delta. Several combats took 
 place, in which the Egyptians were mostly successful, but 
 no decisive battle was fought. Meanwhile the Nile rose, 
 and soon the entire Delta was converted into a vast lake. 
 Hereupon the Persians, despairing of success, returned to 
 Asia. Iphicrates, who feared violence on account of his 
 quarrel with Pharnabazos, went straight to Athens. For 
 several years the army lay in Asia ready to renew the war 
 at any time, and in 372 B. C. Timotheos went to Asia to 
 offer his services to the Persian king. Nothing was done, 
 however, and the great campaign against Egypt, so pomp- 
 ously begun, proved in the end a dismal failure. 
 
 Despite the fact that he was almost constantly at war, 
 this pharaoh carefully kept the temples in repair. He 
 built at Edfu, Karnak, Medinet Habu, Abydos, Bubastis, 
 Memphis, and other places. After a busy and eventful 
 reign of eighteen years he died. 
 
 Teher (Greek, Tachos, 368-361 B C.).— It would 
 seem that after the death of Necht-Hor-heb, troubles re- 
 garding the succession broke out. The list of Manetho 
 gives Tachos (i. e., Teher) only two years and Nectane- 
 
150 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 bus II (Necht-nebef) eighteen years, while the accounts 
 given by the Greek authors go to prove that Tachos still 
 reigned in 361 B. c. It would seem, then, that Teher had 
 appointed Necht-nebef co-regent in 367 b. c, and that this 
 latter monarch had, in imitation of the older pharaohs, 
 dated his accession to the throne from the time he was 
 made co-regent. According to the Demotic Chronicles, 
 Teher was the son of Necht-Hor-heb ; according to the 
 Greek authors, he was that monarch's cousin. The Egyp- 
 tian inscriptions tell us nothing of this king, and from the 
 Greek historians we know only the events of the closing 
 year of his reign, 
 
 In 361 B. c. a great revolt against Persia broke out in 
 Asia, and Teher naturally assisted the rebels. He col- 
 lected a large army and fitted out a strong fleet. He also 
 hired great numbers of mercenaries in Greece and made a 
 treaty of alliance with Sparta. The strength of the coali- 
 tion thus formed against Persia would have been suffi- 
 cient for its purpose had it not been weakened by treachery; 
 Orontes, the commander-in-chief of the Asiatic rebels, was 
 the first to prove a traitor, and soon after Rheomithres, 
 who had received the aid furnished by Teher, five hundred 
 talents (twenty-eight thousand five hundred pounds) of 
 silver and fifty men-of war, followed his example. Not- 
 withstanding this defection the forces at the command of 
 the pharaoh were quite strong, consisting of two hundred 
 splendidly equipped men-of-war, eighty thousand native 
 troops, and ten thousand choice Greek mercenaries. The 
 command of the mercenaries devolved on King Agesilaos 
 of Sparta, who had come over with one thousand hoplites. 
 The Athenian Chabrias was given command of the fleet, 
 while Teher himself retained command of the native 
 troops. Chabrias was the special favorite of the pharaoh, 
 who is said even to have gone so far at his advice as to 
 levy a tax on the temple estates and on the exports and 
 imports of the country while the war lasted. Agesilaos 
 was less regarded. His coming had been looked forward 
 to with considerable expectation. Preparations had been 
 made for a grand reception, and valuable presents had 
 been ordered. When he did come he proved quite a dis- 
 appointment. His small stature and extreme plainness 
 awakened the scorn of the Egyptians, and a number of 
 jokes were circulated at his expense. This naturally en- 
 
EGYPT AGAIN INDEPENDENT. 151 
 
 raged him, and, though he did his full duty by Teher, 
 there was a coolness between the two kings which was 
 still further augmented by the fact that Teher, disregard- 
 ing the advice of the Spartan, proceeded to conduct the 
 war on his own plan. 
 
 Agesilaos had advised Teher to await the Persians in 
 Egypt, but the pharaoh was determined to take the offen- 
 sive and invade Syria. Phoenicia fell an easy prey to his 
 attack, and the king sent his cousin and co-regent, Necht- 
 nebef, to take the cities of Syria. These movements were 
 successful, and matters were assuming the most hopeful 
 aspect, when Teher, the general whom the pharaoh had ap- 
 pointed regent of Egypt for the time of his absence, revolted 
 and offered the crown to Necht-nebef. The latter assented, 
 and soon had won over the army and its officers and all 
 the people of Egypt. All he needed now was the support 
 of the Greek mercenaries. Accordingly, he sent envoys 
 to Agesilaos and Chabrias soliciting their support. Agesi- 
 laos despatched messengers to Sparta asking how he should 
 act, and, receiving the reply that he should do what he 
 deemed most advantageous for Sparta, he declared for 
 Necht-nebef. Chabrias, who had at first determined to 
 remain loyal to Teher, seeing his colleague desert that 
 monarch, and being unable to help him alone, followed 
 Agesilaos 's example. He left Egypt, however, soon after, 
 never to return. Teher fled first to Sidon and thence to 
 Artaxerxes, who not only forgave him his former enmity, but 
 even made him commander-in-chief of the army that was 
 preparing to invade Egypt. For a while he lived at the 
 Persian court, where he spent his time in wild orgies until 
 he finally died of dysentery. The command of the Per- 
 sian army he never actually took. This pharaoh reigned 
 two years alone, and six years in conjunction with Necht- 
 nebef. 
 
 Necht-nebef (Greek, Nectanebus II, 361-349 B. 
 C.). — In 361 B. C. the last native pharaoh ascended the 
 Egyptian throne. The first act of his reign was to give 
 up the conquests in Phoenicia and Syria and to withdraw 
 within the boundaries of Egypt. The reason for this step 
 was most probably that the internal dissensions had not 
 yet come to a close. A Mendesian had appeared as a 
 pretender to the crown, and had succeeded in gaining a 
 large following and raising an army. He even attempted 
 
152 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to gain over King Agesilaos, but he remained loyal to his 
 ally. Necht-nebef, carefully avoiding a battle, retired to a 
 fortified town, where his rival beleaguered him. Already the 
 besieged were beginning to lose heart, as their provisions 
 gave out, when Agesilaos saved them. Sallying from the 
 town, he broke the ranks of the besiegers and drew up 
 his troops in the plain so that both flanks rested on canals. 
 In the battle that ensued the bravery of the Greeks pre- 
 vailed over the superior numbers of the Egyptians. The 
 latter were completely routed, the greater part of their 
 number being slain and the rest flying from the field in 
 wild disorder. Necht-nebef was now undisputed ruler of 
 Egypt. Shortly after this victory Agesilaos determined to 
 return home. The grateful king loaded him with presents 
 — according to some authorities he gave him two hundred 
 and thirty talents, or about two hundred and seventy-one 
 thousand four hundred dollars — which he distributed 
 among his troops. On his way to Cyrenas he died. His 
 body was embalmed and sent to Sparta, where it was 
 buried with royal honors (360 B. c). 
 
 Meanwhile the Persians had completed their prepa- 
 rations, and Artaxerxes had appointed his son, Ockus, co- 
 regent. Ochus set out for Egypt, but, on hearing the 
 news of his father's death, in 359 B. C, he returned home. 
 Some time later Ochus attempted the subjugation of 
 Egypt, but was defeated by Necht-nebef, who was assisted 
 by two excellent generals, Diophantes of Athens and 
 Lamius of Sparta. This success of the Egyptians encour- 
 aged the Phoenicians and the King of Cyprus to strike a 
 blow for independence. They concluded treaties with 
 Necht-nebef and at once began extensive preparations. 
 At the head of the Phoenician towns stood Sidon, which 
 soon succeeded in collecting a large army and vast 
 amounts of military stores. Ochus had, however, not 
 been idle. He had collected an army of three hundred 
 thousand infantry and thirty thousand cavalry, and 
 had fitted out three hundred triremes and five hundred 
 transports. Then he started from Babylon. Before his 
 arrival two of his satraps, Belesys of Syria and Mazaeos of 
 Cilicia, had in vain attempted the reconquest of Phoenicia. 
 They were defeated and driven out of the country by 
 Tennes, the King of Sidon, assisted by four thousand 
 Greeks under Mentor, who had been sent him by Necht- 
 
THE PERSIAN CONQUEST. 153 
 
 nebef. Now came the news that Ochus was approaching, 
 and Tennes lost courage. He sent a trusty messenger to 
 Ochus, asking pardon for his revolt, and offering to aid 
 the king against Egypt. Ochus gladly promised full par- 
 don, even giving him costly presents^ and after some hesi- 
 tation pledged himself to this course. We shall presently 
 see how he kept his word. Ochus had, while advancing on 
 Sidon, despatched envoys to Greece asking the larger states 
 to join in the campaign against Egypt. Athens and Sparta 
 remained neutral. Thebes sent one thousand hoplites 
 under Lacrates, and Argos, three thousand men under 
 Nicostratus, whom Ochus had asked them to send him. 
 The Greek cities of Asia Minor furnished in all six thousand 
 men, making the total number of Greeks in the Persian 
 army aggregate ten thousand men. Ochus now laid siege 
 to Sidon, which was very strongly fortified, and would 
 never have yielded had it not been for the treachery of its 
 king. Tennes persuaded Mentor to join him, and together 
 they succeeded in admitting the Persians into the city. 
 When the Sidonians saw they were lost they destroyed 
 their fleet, locked themselves up in their houses, and set 
 fire to the city. Over forty thousand people are said to 
 have perished in the flames. This so enraged Ochus that 
 he had Tennes put to death. Mentor and his four thou- 
 sand joined the Persian army. The fall of Sidon was 
 disastrous to the allies, for all of the Phoenician cities, on 
 hearing of the dire news, surrendered at discretion. 
 
 About the same time Cyprus again fell into the hands 
 of the Persians. A detachment of eight thousand Greeks, 
 supported by forty triremes, under command of the Athe- 
 nian Phocion and ex- King Euagoras of Cyprus, succeeded 
 in subduing the island very quickly. Salamis alone held 
 out. Euagoras strained every nerve to capture the city, 
 as he hoped to be made king again. Charges were, how- 
 ever, preferred against him, and consequently Pnytagoras 
 was allowed to keep the city as a vassal of Persia. 
 
 The Persians now attacked Egypt. After having suf- 
 fered severe losses in the desert, they at length reached 
 Pelusium. The Persian troops were drawn up at some 
 distance from the strongly fortified town, while the Greeks 
 camped almost under its walls. The city was garrisoned 
 by five thousand men under Philophron. The first attack 
 was made by the Thebans, who waded the narrow canal 
 
154 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 that separated them from the town, and began a battle 
 which lasted far into the night, but was indecisive. The 
 forces of Necht-nebef were much inferior to those of the 
 Persians, consisting of twenty thousand Greeks, twenty 
 thousand Libyans, and sixty thousand Egyptians ; but he 
 possessed large numbers of river-boats, which could be 
 used to great advantage in any combat on the Nile ; and, 
 moreover, he had erected a string of strong forts along 
 the eastern bank of the Pelusic branch. He lacked, how- 
 ever, a good general. Proud of his previous victories over 
 the Persians, he had neglected to send to Greece for a 
 general, fhis mistake proved fatal. He had posted half 
 his force in the forts, and with the rest he opposed the 
 advance of the enemy. Before a decisive battle was 
 fought, Nicostratus succeeded in moving his men to a 
 point of vantage betrayed to him by an Egyptian, and 
 strongly intrenched himself. Seeing this, Clinias of Cos, 
 who was posted near by with seven thousand men, at- 
 tempted to dislodge him. The attack was repulsed ; 
 Clinias and five thousand of his men fell. This battle was 
 by no means decisive ; but now the want of a good gen- 
 eral showed itself in the Egyptian army. Instead of send- 
 ing a stronger force against Nicostratus, Necht-nebef, 
 fearing that the Persians would all cross the Nile as easily 
 as that commander had, lost courage, and, deserting his 
 forts, retreated to Memphis. Meanwhile, Pelusium was 
 being besieged by Lacrates, but it made a desperate re- 
 sistance for several days ; when the garrison heard of the 
 pharaoh's retreat, however, they offered to capitulate. La- 
 crates promised the Greek troops a safe retreat ; and 
 though Bagoas, who commanded the Persian division of 
 this corps, attempted to attack them, he was prevented 
 from doing so by his colleague. Mentor now marched 
 through the Delta, promising immunity to all who would 
 surrender at discretion, and threatening all who should re- 
 sist with the fate of Sidon. Consequently, the Greek and 
 Egyptian garrisons vied with one another in the rapidity 
 of their surrenders. Among others, the strong and im- 
 portant fortress of Bubastis surrendered at discretion, and 
 all the other fortresses of the Delta followed its example. 
 When Necht-nebef heard of these losses, he dared not 
 give battle, but, taking the greater part of the moneys in 
 the state coffers, he fled to Aethiopia. Thus, about 349 
 
THE PERSIAN CONQUEST. 155 
 
 B. C, Egypt, after an independence of sixty-five years, again 
 fell into the hands of the Persians, and from this time 
 forth it was destined to be governed by foreign rulers. 
 
 § 5. The Thirty-first Dynasty, and the Invasion of Alex- 
 ander (349-33 z B - c -)- 
 
 Of the last three Persian kings not one was of spe- 
 cial importance for Egypt. Ochus was a cruel tyrant, 
 whose acts reminded of the times of the insanity of 
 Cambyses. The Greek authors relate stories of his out- 
 rages against the Egyptian religion that accord well with 
 what we know of his character. They recount that the 
 people had once on a time nicknamed him " Onos," the 
 ass, and now he determined to have his revenge. The 
 sacred Apis-steer was butchered and eaten by the king 
 and his friends, and an ass was elevated to the position of 
 sacred animal in his stead. The sacred ram of Mendes 
 was likewise slaughtered at the king's command. The 
 walls of the principal cities were razed ; the temples were 
 plundered, and their treasures of gold and silver carried 
 off to Persia. Not content with plundering the temples, 
 Ochus stole the sacred writings from the sanctuaries, and 
 compelled the priests to repurchase them at exorbitant 
 prices. As satrap he appointed a Persian named Pheren- 
 dates, and then he returned home to Babylon loaded with 
 rich booty. Twelve years after the conquest of Egypt 
 Ochus was murdered by Bagoas, who placed the king's 
 son Arses on the throne, but he ruled only three years, 
 falling a victim to the same treacherous eunuch that had 
 murdered his father (334 B.C.). In the place of his last 
 victim Bagoas elevated a distant relative of the royal fam- 
 ily — his friend Darius — to the throne, and at his hands 
 finally met his merited reward. The king detected the 
 eunuch's plan against his life, and compelled the fellow to 
 swallow the draught intended for himself. Darius III did 
 not long retain the throne he owed to his friend's crime. 
 The Greek invasion, under Alexander's leadership, soon 
 deprived him of his crown. Egypt remained tranquil, al- 
 most an uninterested spectator, during the dread struggle 
 between Greece and Persia, even though all of the Persian 
 garrisons had been withdrawn. In the battle of Issus the 
 Egyptian contingent fought with the Persians under its 
 
156 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 satrap Sabaces. Their leader fell, and the troops fled 
 with Darius. In Egypt Mazaces succeeded Sabaces as 
 satrap, but he had no troops to support his authority. The 
 power of Persia was crushed, but Egypt did not strike the 
 one blow that would have sufficed to regain its freedom. 
 They had, however, sufficient spirit left to defend their 
 homes against robbers. After the defeat of the Persians 
 at Issus, Amytas, a Macedonian exile, who had joined 
 Darius, fled to Tripolis in Phoenicia, collected a fleet and 
 sailed to Cyprus, where he increased his land-forces. 
 Thence he sailed to Pelusium, effected a landing, and de- 
 clared he was the new satrap appointed by Darius. He 
 then marched through the Delta to Memphis, near which 
 city he defeated a body of Egyptians. After the victory 
 his bands dispersed to plunder the rich country seats lying 
 about the. city. While engaged in this work they were 
 surprised and cut to pieces by the citizens ; Amytas fell, 
 and not a man of his bands escaped. 
 
 After taking Tyre and Gaza, Alexander determined 
 to secure Egypt. He reached Pelusium after a seven 
 days' march without encountering any resistance. His 
 fleet awaited him in the harbor. Mazaces, having no 
 troops, and having no hope of assistance from his unfor- 
 tunate monarch, had no recourse but surrender. Alex- 
 ander garrisoned Pelusium and sent the fleet up the Nile 
 to Memphis. With the army he marched along the river- 
 bank to Heliopolis, and crossing the river at this point 
 soon entered Memphis. The great king entered the an- 
 cient capital, not in the character of a conqueror, but like 
 a pharaoh of old, observing all the old religious cere- 
 monies. He offered sacrifices to the gods, and instituted 
 athletic games and prize contests in the fine arts in which 
 celebrated Greek masters took part. The Egyptians were 
 naturally captivated by this conduct, which was so differ- 
 ent from that of the last Persian rulers, and it is not at all 
 surprising that a mystic romance was soon woven about 
 the person of the Macedonian king. According to this 
 romance, Necht-nebef had not fled to Aethiopia, but to 
 Macedonia. He was a great magician, and as such he 
 took the form of Jupiter-Amon, and in this form ap- 
 proached Queen Olympias, the wife of King Philip. Alex- 
 ander was thus, the story continues, the son of Necht- 
 nebef, and not of Philip. The romance thus made Alex- 
 
ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN EGYPT. 157 
 
 ander the legitimate heir of the old pharaohs, and the 
 avenger of his father Necht-nebef. It would seem that 
 Alexander rather favored the spread of this legend, as he 
 knew it would greatly strengthen his hold on the Egyptian 
 people. Sailing down the Nile from Memphis through 
 the Canopic branch, he went to sea from Canopus. Land- 
 ing at the outlet of Lake Maroetis, near the ancient town 
 of Rakote, he saw at a glance that the place offered un- 
 equaled harbor facilities. He therefore determined to 
 found a city here which should bear his name ; and thus 
 was founded the city of Alexandria, the most important 
 and most permanent of the many towns founded by this 
 king. This city soon became the great intellectual ex- 
 change between the nations of the Occident and the Ori- 
 ent, the mother of a new civilization. Here European and 
 Oriental philosophy, religion, and science met on a foot- 
 ing of equality, and views were exchanged and new sys- 
 tems inaugurated that completely revolutionized ideas. 
 The philosophy of Philo and the astronomical system of 
 Ptolemy were among the brilliant results of the new civili- 
 zation. A new art, the Hellenistic, resulted from the in- 
 terchange of Greek and Oriental — more especially Egyp- 
 tian — ideas on art. Doubtless, too, the spread of Chris- 
 tianity was much fostered by the cosmopolitan spirit in 
 regard to religious matters which emanated from this city. 
 From Alexandria the king pushed westward to the 
 famous oasis of Amon. With the assistance of the gods 
 he reached it in safety; the story goes that when the 
 water supply gave out rain fell and that messengers of 
 the god in the shape of ravens conducted the army to the 
 oasis. On the way he was met by a deputation from Cy- 
 renae which offered him a golden crown and costly pres- 
 ents. The city evidently apprehended an attack, and 
 thought it advisable to submit peaceably. As Alexander 
 entered the temple of Amon on the oasis, the high priest 
 hailed him as son of the god. Not knowing that it was 
 customary to designate the pharaohs as sons of Ra and 
 of Amon, the king laid great stress on this greeting. After 
 having made the temple rich presents, Alexander returned 
 to Memphis in safety. Here he instituted a great festival 
 in honor of Jupiter. He now turned his attention to the 
 reorganization of the Egyptian government. The civil 
 government was put into the hands of two Egyptian 
 
158 HISTORY OF EGYPT, 
 
 nomarchoi named Doloaspis and Petisis, and on the 
 resignation of the former the control of civil matters was 
 intrusted to the latter alone. The commanders of the 
 garrisons and of the various troops of mercenaries, as 
 well as the heads of the commissary departments, were 
 Greeks. Leaving a part of his army in Egypt, Alexander, 
 early in 331 B. c, left the country, never to return. He 
 had so delicately adjusted the government that the various 
 officials effectively held one another in check, and there 
 ^could be no chance of a revolt. After Alexander's death 
 his body was brought to Alexandria for interment. 
 
 With the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the history 
 of the country comes to a close. The Ptolemies who, 
 after the great king's death, again made Egypt independ- 
 ent, were a Greek family, and the civilization of their times 
 differed materially from that of the older epochs. Under 
 them the old religious traditions were fostered, it is true, 
 but they no longer possessed any vitality — there was no 
 longer a national religion as of old. The old religion and 
 language were known to the priests alone, and with every 
 generation they became less and less intelligible even to 
 this class of — well, let us call them official custodians of 
 the ancient traditions, until, with the coming of Christian- 
 ity in the first century A. D„ the old religion gradually 
 passed away. The Ptolemies themselves were Greeks ; 
 their capital, Alexandria, was a Greek city ; the civiliza- 
 tion of their epoch was partly Greek, partly Egyptian. 
 The history of Egypt after the conquest forms an integral 
 part, first of Greek, then of Roman, and, lastly, of Mo- 
 hammedan history. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSIT 
 
 OF 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 Mena unites Upper and Lower 
 
 Egypt, Not later than 3200 B. C 
 
 Snefru, the founder of the fourth 
 
 dynasty, " " 2830 
 
 Accession of Meri Ra Pepf, " " 2530 
 
 Transition Period, About 2400-2250 
 
 Accession of Amenemhat I, " 2130 
 
 Usertesen III, " 2013-1987 
 
 Amenemhat III, " 1 986-1 942 
 
 Hyksos Domination, " 1 780-1 530 
 
 Accession of Aahmes I, " 1530 
 
 Thutmosis III, u 1480-1427 
 
 Chuenaten, " 1376- 1364 
 
 Accession of Horemheb, " 1340 
 
 Seti I, " 1 31 6-1 289 
 
 Ramses II, " 1288-1221 
 
 Ramses III, " 11 80-1 148 
 Accession of Herihor, the first 
 
 Priest-King, " 1050 
 
 Sheshenq I, " 945-924 
 
 Pianchi's Invasion, 1 " 800 
 
 Accession of Shabaka, " 728 
 
 First Assyrian Invasion, " 672 
 
 Second Assyrian Invasion, *' 667 
 
 Tanuat Amon's Invasion, " 664 
 
 Third Assyrian Invasion, " 662 
 
 Psemtek I, 645-610 
 
 Nekau, 610-594 
 
 Battle of Karkemish, 604 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt, 567 
 
 Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, 525 
 
 Revolt of Chabbash, 486 
 
 Revolt of Inaros, 464-460 
 
 Amenrut frees Egypt from Persia, 414 
 
 Necht- Hor-heb, 386-368 
 
 Necht-nebef, 361-349 
 
 Conquest of Egypt by Ochus, 349 
 
 Conquest of Egypt by Alexander, 331 
 
 THE END. 
 
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