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ANCIENT EGYPT 
 
 UNDER THE PHARAOHS 
 
 By JOHN KENRICK, M.A. 
 
 'Apiirpeireuv ytvoi dvSpuiv 
 Ot TTpMroi Ptdroio 6uarfiiravTO keXcoBovs, 
 Tipujroi 6' ifiepoevTOS iittipr](savTo dp6rpov f 
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 QvfiC) (fipacaafievoi \o£ov dpofiov tieX'ioio. 
 
 Dionysii Periegesis, 
 
 N TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 REDFIELD, 
 
 CLINTON HALL, NEW 
 1 352. 
 
 YORK. 
 
CONTESTS. 
 
 vii 
 
 Page 
 
 order of succession. — Amosis, 173. — Amenophis L, 174. — Thoth- 
 mes L, 177.— Thothmes IL, 180.— Thothmes IIL, 181.— Ameno- 
 phis It, 196.— Thothmes IV., 197.— Amenophis III., 197.— 
 Horus, 208. — Rameses I, 212. — Setei-Menephthah, 215. — Rame- 
 ses IL, 226.— Rameses III, (Sesostris), 228.— Monephthah ft., 
 246.— Setei-Menephthah IL, 249.— Chronology of the eigh- 
 teenth dynasty, 250 . . 167-250 
 
 The Nineteenth Dynasty. 
 
 Suspicions of its identity with the latter part of the eighteenth. — 
 The Pheron and Polybus of the Greeks. — Reflections on the 
 history of Egypt under the eighteenth dynasty. — Extension of 
 dominion to Asia. — Importance of Palestine and Syria to 
 Egypt. — Historical character of the Egyptian monuments. — Con- 
 nexion between Egypt and Greece. — The Exodus of the Israel- 
 
 ites. — Date of their going down into Egypt — Manetho's account 
 
 of their expulsion 250-272 
 
 The Twentieth Dynasty. 
 
 Rameses IY., 273. — Rameses Y.-XIY., 282, — Relations of Egypt 
 
 and Assyria. — Decline of art 273-285 
 
 The Twenty-first Dynasty. 
 
 Antiquity of Tanis. — Deficiency of monuments. — Relations of 
 
 Judaea and Egypt 285-289 
 
 The Twenty-second Dynasty. 
 
 Bubastis — its description by - Herodotus. — Sheshonk, Sesonchis, 
 the Shishak of Scripture, 291. — Osorthon (Zerach), 296. — 
 Takellothis 289-299 
 
 The Twenty-third Dynasty 299-301 
 
Vlll CONTENJS. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Twenty-fourth Dynasty. 
 Sais. — Settlement of the Greeks in Egypt. — Reign of Bocchoris . 301-304 
 
 The Twenty -fifth Dynasty. 
 
 The Ethiopians of the 8th century B.C. — Sabaco, 308. — Sevechus, 
 
 310.— Tirhkah, 310.— Invasion of Sennacherib . . . 305-316 
 
 The Twenty-sixth Dynasty. 
 
 The Dodecarchia, — Psammitichus, 323. — Neco, 335. — Psammiti- 
 chus II. (Psammis), 344. — Uaphris (Apries, Hophra), 347. — 
 Amasis, 359. — Psaminenitus * 316-373 
 
 The Twenty-seventh Dynasty. 
 
 Cambyses, 374. — Darius, 400. — Xerxes the Great, 404. — Artaba- 
 nus, 406. — Artaxerxes Longimanus, 406. — Xerxes II. — Sogdia- 
 nus. — Darius Xothus, 412 374-412 
 
 The Twenty-eighth Dynasty. 
 Amyrtaeus 412-414 
 
 The Twenty-ninth Dynasty. 
 
 Isepherites, 416. — Achoris, 418. — Psammuthis, 419. — Xepherites, 
 
 419 . 414^19 
 
 The Thirtieth Dynasty. 
 
 Nectanebus (Nectanebus L), 419. — Teos (Tachos), 423. — Nectane- 
 
 bus II., 428.— His flight into Ethiopia 419-432 
 
 Reconquest of Egypt by Darius Ochus, 432. — Final conquest by 
 Alexander the Great, 433. — Division of Alexander's empire and 
 establishment of the dynasty of the Ptolemies . . . 432-435 
 
 Index 
 
 437 
 
ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 Among the marks of an excessive superstition which characterized 
 the ancient Egyptians, nothing struck the traveller of another 
 nation more than the honors paid to brute animals, and their 
 employment as representatives of their deities. The representation 
 of the gods under such forms had ceased among the Greeks ; the 
 legends of Io and the Minotaur prove that their practice- had once 
 been partially influenced by that of the Egyptians and Phoenicians ; 
 but the mythic explanations which had been framed of these sym- 
 bols at Argos and in Crete, show how remote must have been the 
 aera of their introduction, and how repugnant the worship to which 
 they belong to the refined taste of the later Greeks. A slight mix- 
 ture of the animal with the human form, and that in the person of 
 an inferior deity — a Faun, a Centaur, or Medusa — was the utmost 
 that it could tolerate. In poetry, art and divination certain ani- 
 mals were appropriated to the different gods, — the eagle to Jupi- 
 ter, the raven to Apollo, the goat to Pan, the bull in later times to 
 Bacchus ; but they were not kept within their temples or approached 
 with divine rites, as their visible representatives ; much less was the 
 whole race consecrated to them, and the life of every individual 
 protected by law or popular superstition. Herds of cattle, exempt 
 vol. h. 1 
 
2 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 from the yoke and from all profane uses, fed in the groves and 
 pastures included within the sacred precincts of the temples ; but 
 though consecrated to the divinity, they were not considered as his 
 emblems, and their inviolability was their only sanctity. The ser- 
 pent of the temple of Epidaurus, who was sacred to ^Esculapius, 
 and seems in some measure to have been considered as the god 
 himself, is the nearest approach that we find in Greece to the 
 veneration paid to the sacred animals of Egypt 2 . 
 
 As some of the gods of Egypt were held in equal honor through- 
 out the whole country, while others enjoyed supreme rank in some 
 one nome, and held only a subordinate place elsewhere, so some 
 animals were partially, others universally worshipped. The ox, the 
 dog and the cat, the ibis and the hawk, the fishes lepidotus and 
 oxyrrynchus were held in reverence throughout the land ; the sheep 
 only in the Thebau and Saitic nomes, the wolf at Lycopolis, the 
 cynocephalus at Hermopolis, the Cepus (an animal of the ape tribe) 
 at Babylon near Memphis, the eagle at Thebes, the lion at Leon- 
 topolis, the goat at Mendes, the shrewmouse at Athribis, and 
 others elsewhere 3 . According to Herodotus 4 , all the animals 
 which the country produced, whether wild or domestic, were sacred, 
 and with a few unimportant exceptions this appears to be true. To 
 every one of them curators male and female were appointed, pro- 
 bably of the sacerdotal order, whose office descended by inheritance. 
 A portion of land was assigned for their maintenance, and the 
 superstition of the multitude provided other means of supply. 
 Parents made vows to the gods, to whom they were respectively 
 
 1 The serpent was taken to Rome A.U.C. 462, after a pestilence. "Quura 
 civitas pestilenlia laboraret, missi legati, ut iEsculapii signum Romara ab 
 Epidauro transferrent, anguem, qui se in nayem eorum contulerat, in quo 
 ipsum numen esse constabat, deportavere." — Li v. Epit, lib. 11. 
 
 2 Plutarch, Isid. et Osir. p. 379 D, points out the difference between the 
 Greek consecration of animals to the gods and the Egyptian worship of 
 them. 
 
 •Strabo, 17,812, 813. * 2, 35. 
 
AMMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 3 
 
 sacred, for the health of their children, especially if they were sick, 
 and the vow was discharged by expending on food for the sac-fed 
 animals a weight of silver equal to that of the children's hair 1 . 
 Their ordinary residence was within the precincts of the temple, and 
 in its most sacred recess. " Among the Egyptians," says Clemens 
 Alexandrinus 2 , " the temples are surrounded with groves and con- 
 secrated pastures; they are furnished with propylaea, and their 
 courts are encircled with an infinite number of columns ; their walls 
 glitter with foreign marbles and paintings of the highest art ; the 
 naos is resplendent with gold and silver and electrum, and variegated 
 stones from India and Ethiopia ; the adytum is veiled by a curtain 
 wrought with gold. But if you pass beyond into the remotest part 
 of the enclosure, hastening to behold something yet more excellent, 
 and seek for the image which dwells in the temple, a pastophorus 
 or some one else of those who minister in sacred things, with a 
 pompous air singing a Paean in the Egyptian tongue, draws aside 
 a small portion of the curtain, as if about to show us the god ; and 
 makes us burst into a loud laugh. For no god is found within, but 
 a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent sprung from the soil, or some 
 such brute animal ; the Egyptian deity appears a beast rolling 
 himself on a purple coverlet." " The temples of Egypt are most 
 beautiful," says Diodorus ; " but if you seek within, you find an 
 ape, or ibis, a goat, or a cat." The choicest food was placed before 
 them, cakes of fine flour, steeped in milk or smeared with honey ; 
 the flesh of geese, roasted or boiled, and that of birds and fish 
 uncooked for the carnivorous class. They were placed in warm 
 baths and anointed with costly perfumes ; and everything was sup- 
 plied to them which could gratify their appetites 6 . This charge 
 was thought so honorable, that their curators, when they went 
 abroad, wore certain insignia by which their office might be dis- 
 1 Her. 2, 65. Diod. 1, 83. ' Psedag. 3, 2, p. 253, Potter. 
 
 8 'OjiotpvXovi Ori^tias «arrrw tmv ^w<jv raj cveiScotolto. j aWTf>t<povoiv t 8s naWaKiSas 
 irpooayopcvovoi. Diod. 1, 84. 
 
4 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 criminated even at a distance, and were received with genuflexions 
 antJ. other marks of honor. When any of the sacred animals died, 
 it was embalmed, swathed, and buried in a consecrated depository 
 near the temple of its god ; if a cat died even in a private house, 
 the inmates clipped off the hair from their brows in sign of mourn- 
 ing ; if a dog, from the head and body. Voluntarily to kill any 
 one of the consecrated animals was a capital offence ; involuntarily 
 it entailed a penalty fixed at the discretion of the priests : but 
 voluntarily or involuntarily to kill an ibis or a hawk, the saovd 
 birds of Thoth and Horus, was capital ; and the enraged multitude 
 did not wait for the slow process of law, but put the offender to 
 death with their own hands. On the part of native Egyptians it 
 was an almost unheard-of crime ; and so great was the dread of 
 being suspected of it, that those who accidentally saw one of the 
 sacred animals lying dead, stood aloof, protesting with lamentations 
 that they had found it dead. Diodorus himself was witness to 
 such a movement of popular fanaticism : a Roman had uninten- 
 tionally killed a cat ; the king Ptolemy Auletes had not yet been 
 received into the friendship of the Romans, and it was an object of 
 great importance, both to him and to the Egyptian nation, to give 
 them no umbrage ; yet neither the terror of the Roman people nor 
 the efforts of the king, who sent one of his chief officers to inter- 
 cede, could save the unfortunate man from death. Even in times 
 of famine, when they were driven to consume human flesh 1 , the 
 Egyptians were never known to use the sacred animals for food. 
 Antiquarian researches have confirmed the statements of ancient 
 authors respecting the veneration paid to them ; the embalmed 
 bodies of bulls, cows, and sheep, dogs and cats, hawks and ibises, 
 serpents and beetles, and in short, nearly the whole zoology of 
 Egypt, except the horse and the ass, have been found in excava- 
 tions 2 . The numerous figures of these animals also, of all sizes and 
 
 1 See vol. I. p. ft 
 
 2 Wilkinson, 5, 100, 103. Pettigrew on Mummies, 183-226. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 5 
 
 materials, from the colossal ram or lion of basalt or granite, to the 
 portable image of bronze, wood or porcelain 1 , were probably devoted 
 to religious purposes, tbe larger having been placed in temples or 
 dromoi, the smaller used in private devotion, as amulets and sacred 
 ornaments, or deposited for good omen along with human mum- 
 mies. 
 
 The origin of this characteristic superstition was the subject of 
 various explanations by the Egyptians themselves, and by the 
 Greeks and Romans. Manetho attributed the establishment -of the 
 worship of Apis and Mnevis and the Mendesian goat to the reign of 
 Caiechos, the second king of his second dynasty. But specific dates 
 of national religious usages are never much to be depended upon, 
 and we seek some more general cause than the enactment of a legis- 
 lator for a practice which had taken such deep roots among a whole 
 people. In the age of Diodorus' 2 the Egyptian priests alleged, that 
 Isis had commanded them to consecrate some animal from among 
 those which the country produced, to Osiris ; to pay to it the same 
 honor as to the god, during its life, and bestow the same care 
 upon it after its death. This explanation has evidently been pro- 
 duced in an age when the worship of Osiris had become predomi- 
 nant over all others, and the rest of the gods were .-regarded as 
 only different manifestations of him. The bulls Apis and Mnevis, 
 however, were said to be specially consecrated to him, and honored 
 by all the Egyptians without exception, in consequence of the ser- 
 vice of the ox in agriculture, which Osiris taught mankind. Such, 
 was the sacerdotal account: the popular explanations were three- 
 fold 3 ; according to the first, which Diodorus pronounces to be 
 altogether fabulous, and savoring of antique simplicity, the original 
 gods, being few in number, and no match for the iniquities and 
 violence of men, took the shape of animals to escape from them, 
 and afterwards, when they became masters of the whole world, 
 
 1 Birch. Gall, of Antiq. p. 49-60. 2 Diod. 1, 21. 
 
 * Ot ttoXXoi tuv AiyvKTiuv rceis airin; rubric iw»iiiSn (Diod. 1, 86). 
 
6 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 consecrated and appropriated these animals to themselves, in gra- 
 titude. According to the second, the images of animals fixed on 
 spears having been used as ensigns to distinguish the corps of the 
 army and prevent confusion, victory followed, and the animals 
 became objects of worship 1 . This explanation evidently inverts 
 the order of cause and effect ; the animals were used as ensigns, 
 because they had previously been associated with the gods. The 
 third reason is the only one which has any plausibility, or even 
 partially attains the truth — that animals were consecrated on 
 account of the benefit which mankind derived from them 2 ; the 
 bull and cow from their services in agriculture and in supplying 
 man with nourishment; the sheep from its rapid multiplication 
 and the utility of its fleece, its milk and its cheese ; the dog, for its 
 use in hunting ; the cat, because it destroys asps and other veno- 
 mous reptiles; the ichneumon, because it sucks the eggs of the 
 crocodile, and even destroys the animal itself, by creeping into its 
 mouth and gnawing its intestines ; the ibis and the hawk, because 
 they destroy snakes and vermin. Till metaphysical reasons w r ere 
 devised, this seems to have been the explanation most generally 
 received by the ancients ; but it does not solve the whole problem. 
 If the ichneumon or the hawk were worshipped because they 
 destroyed serpents and crocodiles, why the serpent and the croco- 
 dile ? Or if the ibis was worshipped because it devours snakes and 
 vermin, why was it specially consecrated to Thoth, the god of 
 letters ? 
 
 Diodorus has elsewhere given a still more improbable explana- 
 tion than any that we have mentioned 3 . He says that one of the 
 kings of Egypt, more sagacious than the rest, seeing that the 
 people frequently conspired against their rulers, established a 
 separate worship in every nome, in order that, being alienated 
 from each other by their religious usages and fanatical zeal, they 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 85. See vol. i. p. 193. Rosellini, M. Civ. pi. cxxi. vol. 3, p. 229. 
 8 Cic. N. D. 1, 29 ; Tusc. Qusest. 5, 21. 3 1, 89. Plut. Is. et Os. 380. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 7 
 
 might never be able to unite for the overthrow of the government. 
 This explanation marks an age in which men not only theorized 
 on the institutions of past times, but transferred to them the maxims 
 of a vicious policy with which they were themselves familiar. 
 
 The hypothesis which Lucian proposes in his Astrologia 1 , that 
 the objects of adoration among the Egyptians were the asterisms 
 of the zodiac, the Bull, the Ram, the Goat, the Fish, is sufficiently 
 refuted by the circumstance that many of their sacred animals are 
 not found in the heavens, as the ibis, the cat, the crocodile. It is 
 known too that all monuments of Egypt on which figures of ani- 
 mals appear in the zodiac, are of the Greek and Roman times. 
 Porphyry 2 , in his Treatise on Abstaining from Animal Food, says 
 that " the Egyptians had learnt by practice and familiarity with 
 the divinity, that the godhead pervades not man alone, nor does a 
 soul make its only dwelling-place on the earth in him, but goes 
 through all animals, with little difference of nature ; and that hence, 
 in making representations of their gods, they joined indiscrimi- 
 nately portions of the bodies of men and of brute animals, indi- 
 cating that, according to the purpose of the gods, there is a certain 
 community even between these. And for the same reason the 
 Lion was worshiped at Leontopolis, and other animals at other 
 places; for they worshiped the power that is over all, which each 
 of the gods exhibited, by means of the animals which shared the 
 same nomes with them 3 ." That in the age of Porphyry anim.-tl 
 worship was explained and justified by the Egyptians on this 
 ground is not doubtful 4 ; but it by no means follows that it origin- 
 ated in a conception which Porphyry himself says they had 
 
 1 Lucian, Op. ed. Bip. 5, p. 215, foil 2 Euseb. Praep. Ev. 3, 4. 
 
 3 Aia rtov avwofiuv fuui/. This is an unusual sense of ovvvjii • , but seems to 
 be required by the connexion. 
 
 * He elsewhere says that the Egyptians worshiped animals because they 
 believed them to be endowed with a rational principle and the knowledge 
 of futurity. 
 
8 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 attained by means of practice and familiarity with the divinity 1 . 
 Plutarch having enumerated various opinions respecting the motive 
 of the Egyptian worship of animals, concludes by saying that he 
 approves most of those who honored not the animals themselves, 
 but the divinity through them. It is undoubtedly a natural 
 impulse to assimilate our own intellectual principle to that of the 
 Deity, and to attribute the imperfect reason of the brute animals 
 to the possession of the same principle. " Wherever there appeared 
 singular excellence among beasts or birds, there was to the Indian j 
 the presence of a divinity 2 ." It is not, however, any Egyptian 
 writer, but Heraclitus 3 , whom Plutarch quotes as maintaining 
 "that a nature which lives and sees, and has a principle of motion 
 in itself, and knowledge of what is congenial or alien to it, has 
 snatched an efflux and particle from that which devises the govern- 
 ment of the universe." This therefore is probably also a refinement 
 of philosophy. The doctrine of the Metempsychosis has been sup- 
 posed to have had an influence in producing animal worship ; but 
 Sir Gardner Wilkinson has justly observed, that human souls, 
 undergoing transmigration, were in prison and in purgatory 4 , and 
 therefore they were not likely to have procured divine honors for 
 the animals in which they dwelt. 
 
 Since, then, it is evident that all which the ancients have left us 
 in explanation of this subject, is only hypothesis more or less pro- 
 bable, we are at liberty to seek a solution for ourselves, either in 
 analogies derived from other nations, or in the general principles 
 of human nature. Such analogies are indeed chiefly valuable, as 
 proving that the practice has a foundation in human nature. 
 India is the land which in this respect most closely resembles 
 Egypt ; the cow is there an object of adoration, and no devotee of 
 Isis or Athor could have regarded its slaughter for food with 
 
 1 ' A.vo ravrris bpficofisvoi r/}j avKfiarus ko.1 -fjs ~pds to Qciuv oixeidjaecos, 
 9 Bancroft, Hist, of United States, 3, p. 285. 
 
 • Is. et Os. p. 382. 4 Mann, and Oust. 5, 112. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 9 
 
 greater horror than a Hindoo. Annual worship is paid to her on 
 the day on which she was created along with the Bramins ; and 
 those who are more than commonly religious worship her daily, 
 feeding her with fresh grass, and walking thrice or seven times 
 round her, making obeisance. The ape, under the name of Hanu- 
 man, has his images in temples and private houses, to which daily 
 homage is offered. A statue of the jackal is seen in many temples, 
 where it is regularly worshiped ; when a Hindoo meets the animal 
 on his way, he bows reverentially to it ; and food, regarded as an 
 offering to the god, is daily placed in a part of the house to which 
 he resorts to consume it. Other animals, which are considered as 
 the emblems, or, as the Hindoos express it, the vehicles of their 
 gods, are worshiped on the days appropriated to these gods 1 . The 
 nelumbo and the ficus religiosa 2 are as sacred to the native of India, 
 as the lotus and the persea to the ancient Egyptian. Yet even if 
 we had historical ground for concluding that these religious ideas 
 and usages had been transplanted by colonization from India to 
 Egypt, we should only have removed one step further back the 
 difficulty which we seek to solve. In the same way, if we look to 
 Africa rather than India as the source of the Egyptian population, 
 and find that among the Negro races or the Kafirs of the South 3 , 
 traces of animal worship similar to that of Egypt prevail, we may 
 have obtained an ethnological argument for the African origin of 
 the people, but no explanation of the motive of their superstition. 
 The more wide indeed the diffusion of the same or similar customs, 
 the less reason have we to seek special explanations. The cause is 
 still to be sought, to whatever country the practice may be traced. 
 The sanctity of plants (it is said even of stones) among the 
 
 1 Ward's Hindoos, 1, 250. 
 
 2 The Pippul or aspen-leaved fig-tree. See Ritter, Geogr. Asien, 6, 681. 
 
 3 Prichard, Researches, 2, 289, ed. 3. "Invenio scarabanim taurum supra 
 dictum, in magno honore esse apud ultimos in Africa barbaros et velut 
 bonum gcniurn coli. Vide Rolben." (Zoega, Or. et Us. Obelise, p. 450.) 
 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 Egyptians is the best proof that this cause is to be found in some 
 simple, obvious, and general feeling, not in those metaphysical 
 refinements respecting God and the soul to which it has been attri- 
 buted. For it cannot be supposed that a custom so universal could 
 have sprung from a conception so far removed from the popular 
 apprehension, as that even a plant or a stone is informed by a por- 
 tion of the universal spirit. The rites and forms of worship origi- 
 nate in the disposition of man to assimilate the Deity to himself, 
 and appropriate to his god what gratifies his own sense of beauty, 
 or excites his imagination. The lotus which so constantly appears 
 in offerings to the Egyptian gods, the oak, the ivy, the olive, the 
 laurel, consecrated respectively to Jupiter and Bacchus, Minerva 
 and Apollo, are among the most beautiful of the vegetable produc- 
 tions of Egypt and Greece. It is not utility, in the vulgar sense of 
 the word, which influences the selection ; they would otherwise 
 have preferred grain or pulse. Many plants, it is true, appear to 
 have been selected as objects of superstitious reverence, both in the 
 countries which we have specified, and in others where the same 
 custom has prevailed, in which no special beauty appears. The 
 peculiarity of their form may have established an association with 
 some religious rite or doctrine, as the passion-flower has seemed to 
 the eye of Christian piety an emblem of the cross, or the persea- 
 fruit to the Egyptian to resemble a heart 1 ; or their unusual growth, 
 like that of the parasitic misletoe, may have afforded a slight 
 impulse to the fancy, which in connexion with religion especially, 
 suffices for the production of mystical feeling. Their real or exag- 
 gerated virtues in medicine may have led to their being regarded 
 as the choice gift of a beneficent deity ; their susceptibility to atmo- 
 spheric influence may have invested them with a prophetic virtue 
 in regard to changes of weather, and fruitful or sickly seasons, 
 which imagination has exalted into a divinatorial power. The 
 extraordinary longevity of trees may have caused them to be 
 1 Wilkinson, 4, 892. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 11 
 
 regarded as emblems of divine power and duration, and to be 
 invested with something of that mysterious awe which attaches to 
 everything that has witnessed ages and generations long passed 
 away. We do not pretend to analyse the ingredients of an imagi- 
 native superstition as if it were a conclusion of the understanding, 
 or to assign to every association of religious feeling with the vege- 
 table world even a fanciful cause. It is sufficient to point out that 
 everywhere certain of its productions do acquire a peculiar connex- 
 ion with religious feelings and ideas. It may be checked by phi- 
 losophy and die away before the progress of scientific observation ; 
 but it exists everywhere in human nature ; and if instead of being 
 discountenanced as in Christian countries, it were fostered by reli- 
 gion, it might easily attain the rank luxuriance of Egyptian super- 
 stition. It was said of this people in the times of the greatest cor- 
 ruption of their religion, that " gods grew in their gardens 1 ." This 
 however is a mere satirical exaggeration ; it does not appear that 
 anything which could be fairly called worship was ever paid by the 
 Egyptians to plants. Juvenal infers that onions were gods to them, 
 because it was a crime to eat them. Had this been the case, it 
 would seem to have been only a restriction of diet imposed on the 
 priests, or those who approached the gods as worshippers 2 . They 
 were not only commonly eaten as food, but were actually offered to 
 the gods 8 . As such they might be regarded sacred, and like any 
 other " gift on the altar," be the subject of an oath 4 , which, accord- 
 ing to Pliny 5 , was the case in Egypt. Lucian says the onion was 
 
 1 Porrum et csepe nefas violare et frangere morsu. 
 
 O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 
 Numina!— Juv. Sat. 15, 9. Comp. Diod. 1, 89. 
 
 a Sitim excitant et coraestae ingratum spirant odorem. G. J. Voss. Idol. 
 5, 12. It was a local custom to abstain from particular vegetables, as from 
 particular animals. Diod. 1, 89. 
 
 3 Wilkinson, M. C. 4, 234. 2, 373. Matt, xxiii. 19. 
 
 • N. H. 19, 32 (6). Gellius, N.A. 20, 8, who gives as a reason that it 
 grew as the moon waxed and shrunk as it waned. 
 
12 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 a god at Pelusium 1 . To swear by plants was a custom by no means 
 confined to the Egyptians 2 . Christianity does not allow of a divi- 
 sion of the godhead, nor consequently of such appropriation of 
 trees and flowers to special divinities as prevailed among the 
 heathen nations ; yet our trivial names show a connexion in the 
 popular mind with sacred or legendary history. It is not the reH 
 gious feelings only which seek an expression for themselves in sym- 
 bols and associations derived from the vegetable world; their 
 beauty, variety, and universal presence make them ready, pleasing, 
 and intelligible emblems of emotions which are striving for a sen- 
 sible expression. Love and joy, sorrow and despair, memory and 
 hope, all create to themselves a sympathetic relation with the form 
 and color, the structure and functions of plants and flowers ; and 
 the mind with difficulty guards itself against superstitious auguries 
 of its own impending destiny from their health or decay. 
 
 This disposition in man to connect himself and his feelings with 
 the objects of the world about him shows itself much more strongly 
 in regard to animals. With them he has really a community of 
 nature ; they can not only render him services, but can reciprocate 
 his kindness by marks of personal attachment. The absurd tales 
 which iElian relates concerning animals, show what licence man 
 has given to his imagination in attributing to them the passions, 
 thoughts, and even vices of humanity. Without having devised a 
 formal theory that the same divine intelligence pervades the highest 
 and the lowest of animated beings, he regards their instinct with 
 a mysterious feeling. In the certainty with which it foresees the 
 future, it surpasses his own reason ; and his imagination, always 
 prone to exaggerate, attributes to them a superhuman foreknow- 
 ledge. The Romans kept sacred chickens, from whose feeding 
 
 3 Jo v. Trag. 6, 2*75, ed. Bip. 
 
 a Multi per brassicam jurarunt ut Hipponax in Iajnbis, ac Ionicum id 
 fuisse juramentum Ananius, Teleclides et Eupolis prodiderunt. G. J. Voss, 
 ubi suvra. Zeno the stoic swore per capparim. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 13 
 
 thev derived omens of the issue of a battle. In all countries we 
 find certain animals singled out which are specially objects of inte- 
 rest and attachment to man, whose familiarity is invited, whose 
 lives are spared and protected, who are maintained, not for the 
 services which they render so much as for the feelings of affection 
 with which they are regarded, and whose death, if accidental, is 
 mourned, if intentional, is resented, with passionate vehemence. 
 Referring his own feelings to his divinities, it was natural that man 
 should appropriate some animal as a special favorite to each god, 
 and putting himself in his place, should cherish and honor it with 
 the same elaborate study, as his own animal favorites receive from 
 him. From pampering a brute animal with the choicest food, 
 providing it with a luxurious bed, addressing it in the language of 
 human affection, and mourning for its decease as if some human 
 life had been extinguished, to burning incense and reciting a litany 
 before it, is not so wide a step as it may seem 1 . Though the 
 Greeks and Romans did not worship animals as the Egyptians did, 
 they consecrated them, as we have before observed, to particular 
 divinities, and believed them to regard their whole species with a 
 discriminating favor 2 . Even the fanatical fury with which the 
 Egyptians punished the death of an ibis or a cat, is not without a 
 parallel at Athens, where the people condemned a man to death for 
 killing a sparrow sacred to ^Esculapius, and another for plucking 
 a branch from an ilex that grew in a grove sacred to a hero 8 . The 
 feelings with which the stork is regarded in Holland, or the wren, 
 the swallow and the lady-bird among ourselves, are such, that if 
 religion lent its sanction to popular superstition, they might easily 
 become as sacred as the ibis, the hawk and the beetle to the 
 
 1 Compare Her. 2, 69. The crocodile of Thebes and the lake Mceris was 
 treated like a favorite cat or lap-dog, and ornamented with earrings and 
 bracelets. 
 
 2 Comp. N. H. 12, 40, where several instances are given. 
 " JEl Var. H. 5, 17. 
 
14 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 Egyptians. The Lemnians venerated the crested lark on account 
 of its usefulness in destroying the eggs of the locust ; and to kill a 
 stork among the Thessalians was punished with banishment or 
 death, so highly was it valued for its services in destroying ser- 
 pents 1 . 
 
 We need not, therefore, seek elsewhere than in the feelings and 
 tendencies of human nature for the origin of a superstitious attach- 
 ment and reverence for animals in Egypt, or their appropriation to 
 the gods of the country. Nor shall we have much difficulty in 
 assigning causes why this disposition in Egypt attained an inten- 
 sity which rendered it a national characteristic. The power of the 
 sacerdotal order was greater there than in any country of the 
 ancient world, not excepting India, whose very extent produced a 
 variety which is a species of liberty. Hence every influence of 
 religion was carried in Egypt to the utmost possible degree ; and 
 everything connected with its doctrines and rites so arranged as to 
 make them most impressive to the public mind. The length 
 of time during which it remained without counteraction from 
 philosophy or contradiction from any rival faith, made every reli- 
 gious conception an inveterate prejudice. The multitude of tem- 
 ples, in each of which a special animal worship was established, 
 concentrated the affections of the people on an object constantly 
 within their view and within reach of their homage. The rivalry 
 of neighboring nomes, each jealous of the honor of its respective 
 deity, would increase the fanatical attachment to the animal who 
 was his type and visible representative 2 . It has been thought that 
 the use of hieroglyphical writing among the Egyptians tended to 
 produce animal worship. This could hardly be its origin, since the 
 
 1 Plut. Is. et Os. p. 380 F. Plin. N. H. 10, 31. 
 
 2 The Romans were compelled to employ an armed force to quell a civil 
 war between Cynopolis and Oxyrrynehus, occasioned by the one party 
 killing a dog, and the other eating the fish Oxyrrynehus (Plut. Is. et Os. 
 p. 380). 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 15 
 
 hieroglyphic signs of animals by no means correspond with the names 
 of the gods, and some of their representations fill a humble pho- 
 netic office in the system of writing. But it is not improbable that 
 the same habit of mind, that of expressing qualities symbolically 
 by means of visible objects, which has given its peculiar character 
 to the Egyptian mode of writing, had a share in producing the 
 practice of denoting the specific offices and attributes of the divini- 
 ties by means of living animals, kept in their temples and wor- 
 shiped as their symbols. 
 
 What those analogies were which the Egyptians found or fan- 
 cied between these attributes and the specific qualities of the ani- 
 mals concentrated to them, we can in general only guess. The 
 lordly bull, as a type at once of power and of production, seems a 
 natural symbol of the mighty god Osiris, who whether he repre- 
 sented originally the Earth, the Sun, or the Nile, was certainly 
 revered as the great source of life. The god of Mendes for a simi- 
 lar reason was fitly represented by a goat. The bright and pierc- 
 ing eye of the hawk made it an appropriate emblem of Horns, who 
 was also the Sun ; the crocodile might naturally be adopted as a 
 symbol of the Nile which it inhabits, or from its voracious habits 
 and hostility to man, might on the other hand symbolize Typhon, 
 the principle of evil. We may fancy that the Cynocephalus was 
 chosen to represent Thoth, the god of letters and science, from the 
 near approach which this animal makes to human reason. The 
 Oxyrrynchus 1 from his projecting snout may have suggested to the 
 imagination of a votary the peculiar emblem of the Osiris whom 
 Typhon destroyed, as the Hindu sees everywhere the sacred emblem 
 of creative power. But why was the ibis appropriated to the same 
 deity, or the cat to Pasht, or the ram to Kneph, or the vulture to 
 Isis ; or what made the scarabaeus one of the most sacred of all the 
 animal types of Egypt ? 
 
 1 The sacrediiess of the Oxyrrynchus was local ; at least, the paintings 
 represent it as being caught along with other fk-h (Wilkinson, M. and CL 
 6. 250.} 
 
1G 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 To these questions we can obtain only very unsatisfactory 
 answers. Herodotus gives no explanation of the reasons why par- 
 ticular animals were worshiped, except that he attributes the 
 worship of the ibis to its utility in destroying serpents, an office 
 which modern naturalists say that it is incapable of performing. 
 He gives a romantic account of the battle which took place between 
 the ibis and certain winged serpents which endeavored to invade 
 Egypt from Arabia in the spring 1 . The later writers, Plutarch, 
 Porphyry, Horapollo, account for everything, but it is evident that 
 their explanations are arbitrary and of no historical authority. 
 Thus Plutarch tells us that the ibis was consecrated to Thoth (or 
 the Moon), because the mixture of its black and white feathers bore 
 a resemblance to the gibbous moon ; besides which it forms an 
 equilateral triangle from the tip of its beak to the extremities of its 
 feet when extended in walking. Further it was consecrated to the 
 god of Medicine, because it had been observed to drink only of the 
 purest and most salubrious waters, and had given the first hint of 
 a useful practice in medicine 2 . A Platonist devised a still more 
 fanciful reason for the reverence in which it was held ; it has the 
 shape of a heart, and its feathers are black at the extremities, but 
 white elsewhere, indicating that truth is dark outwardly, but clear 
 within 3 . The crocodile, having no tongue, is a fit emblem of deity, 
 since the divine reason needs no utterance, but governs all in 
 silence. Its eye when in the water is covered with a membrane 
 through which it sees, but cannot be seen 4 , as the deity beholds all 
 things, being itself invisible. The scarabseus was an emblem of the 
 
 1 Her. 2, 1 5. Cuvier, Oss. Foss. Disc, sur les Revolutions du Globe, 
 1826, p. 175. Herodotus does not profess to have witnessed the combat; 
 he only saw the spines of the serpents. 
 
 2 Plin. X. H. 8, 41. Volucris in JEgvpto qua? vocatur ibis, rostri adunci- 
 tate per earn partem se perluit qua reddi ciborum onera maxime salu- 
 bre est. 
 
 8 Hermias ap. Wyttenb. Plut. Is. et Os. p. 381. 4 Plut. ibid. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 17 
 
 Sun, because no females being found in the species, the male 
 enclosed the new germ in a round ball, and then pushed it back- 
 wards, just as the sun seems to push the sphere of heaven back- 
 wards, while he really advances from west to east. The asp was 
 likened to the Sun, because it does not grow old, and moves rapidly 
 and smoothly without the aid of limbs. For the consecration of 
 the cat to the Moon two reasons were assigned ; the first, that this 
 animal brings forth first one, then two, and so on to seven, in the 
 whole twenty-eight, the number of the days of a lunation. This 
 Plutarch himself thought to border on the fabulous ; of the second 
 he seems to have judged more favorably — that the pupils of the 
 cat's eyes are round at the full moon, but grow contracted and dull 
 as she wanes. 
 
 These instances are given, out of a multitude of equally fanciful 
 explanations, to show that those from whom we derive our principal 
 knowledge of Egyptian antiquities knew no more than we do of 
 the real origin of the things which they undertook to explain. The 
 ignorance 1 of the history and habits of the animals in question 
 which they betray is not itself a proof that they are ill-founded; 
 for popular superstitions respecting animals are frequently caused 
 by ignorance, or at best partial knowledge ; but it is clear that they 
 are all conjectures ; and were we to venture on other explanations, 
 derived from a more accurate zoology, we should not approach any 
 nearer to historical truth. Xo doubt the cause of the appropriation 
 was in many cases quite fanciful, but this makes the attempt more 
 hopeless to ascertain what it was. It may also have been histo- 
 rical, and in this case the history not having been preserved, no 
 conjecture can recover it. 
 
 Of the animals which are described generally as sacred, some 
 
 1 The amount of this ignorance is astonishing, as it relates to animals 
 ■w hose habits are obvious. It was said, for example, that the cat 6th rwv <Zr<ov 
 co1\an0dvec rcfuT-net 61 tu (7tJ//uti. Plut Is. et Os. p. 381 with Wyttenbach'a 
 note. 
 
18 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 were held in a higher degree of reverence than others. It does not 
 appear that all were kept in temples, or received divine honors, and 
 we know that some which were deemed divinities in one nome 
 were treated as nuisances and destroyed in others. The worship 
 of Apis and Mnevis, the bulls consecrated to Osiris, exhibits per- 
 haps the very highest point to which this characteristic superstition 
 of Egypt reached. Apis was believed to be born from a ray which 
 darted from heaven (Plutarch says from the moon) on his mother, 
 who after his birth never brought forth again 1 . His color was 
 black, but he had a square spot of white upon his forehead ; on his 
 shoulders the resemblance of an eagle 2 , the mark of a scarabjeus on 
 his tongue, and the hairs were double in his tail. It may be easily 
 supposed that either some contrivance was used to produce such an 
 unusual combination of marks, or, as is more probable, that credu- 
 lity was satisfied with very general resemblances. It appears from 
 Herodotus that a considerable interval sometimes elapsed between 
 the appearance (ejAphaneia) of one Apis and the death of the other. 
 In Plutarch's time, on his death the priests immediately began the 
 search for another. Under the charge of the hierogrammats, who 
 repaired to the spot on the intelligence of his discovery, the sacred 
 calf was fed for four months on milk, in a house facing the East 3 . 
 At the end of this time he was transferred at the new moon, in a 
 covered boat with a gilded house, to Memphis, amidst the rejoicings 
 of the people. Psammitichus had built a hall, adjoining the temple 
 of Ptah, the chief deity of Memphis, in which Apis was kept. 
 There were two apartments, from one of which to the other he 
 passed, and in the front a magnificent peristyle court, supported 
 
 1 Herod. 3, 28. 
 
 2 Sir G. Wilkinson observes that the figures of Apis found in Egypt show 
 that it was a vulture, not an eagle, which was marked on the back of Apis. 
 (M. and C. 4, 349.) 
 
 8 Diodorus says that for forty days women only were allowed to see him, 
 who stood before him, dvacrvpa^tvai. (1, 85.) 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 19 
 
 instead of the usual columns by caryatides twelve cubits in height 
 His food was selected with the greatest care, and lest in his state 
 of confinement he should grow too fat, they abstained from giving 
 him the water of the Nile to drink. In Strabo's time he was 
 brought forth into his court to exhibit himself to curious strangers ; 
 in earlier times it is not probable that he was exposed to view 
 except on solemn festivals, when he was led through the city in 
 procession. Various modes of divination were practised by means 
 of Apis ; it was a good omen if he took food readily from 
 those who offered it to him ; but evil threatened them if he refused 
 it. Public prosperity or calamity was portended by his entering 
 one or the other of his two apartments. There were other methods 
 which they employed to obtain a more specific knowledge of the 
 future by his means. The children who walked before him in the 
 public procession were supposed to acquire from his breath a gift 
 of prophecy. Those who consulted him closed their ears after they 
 had propounded their question till they had quitted the precincts 
 of his temple, and the first words which they heard when they 
 opened them again were the answer of the god to their inquiry. 
 He was not allowed to live beyond a certain age, twenty-five years 
 according to Plutarch, when he was secretly drowned 1 . Whether 
 he died by the course of nature or by violence, his death was a 
 season of general mourning ; and his interment was accompanied 
 with most costly ceremonies. The funerals of all the sacred ani- 
 mals were performed in later times, when superstition had reached 
 its height, with a magnificence which sometimes proved ruinous to 
 the fortunes of the curators ; but that of Apis surpassed them all. 
 In the reign of the first Ptolemy, Diodorus relates, Apis having 
 died of old age, they not only expended on his funeral the large 
 sum appropriated to this purpose, but also borrowed fifty talents 
 from Ptolemy ; and in his own time a hundred talents was no 
 uncommon sum to be expended by the curators of the sacred ani- 
 1 See vol 1, p. 282. 
 
20 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 mals on the ceremony of their interment. The body of Apis was 
 afterwards embalmed, and mummies of bulls have been found in 
 several of the catacombs ; near Abousir eight chambers appear to 
 have been filled with them 1 . The catacombs contain mummies 
 also of most of the other animals which are known to have been 
 held sacred among the Egyptians 2 . Ihere are some indeed which 
 are not specifically mentioned as having been held sacred ; and 
 therefore it has been thought that sanitary, rather than religious 
 considerations, led to their embalmment ; but Herodotus says 3 that 
 all the animals of the country were holy — of course not all every- 
 where, but in some part or other. In regard to Apis, we are dis- 
 tinctly told that the Egyptians honored him as an image of the soul 
 of Osiris*, and that this soul was supposed to migrate from one Apis 
 to another in succession 5 . He was therefore to the Egyptians the 
 living and visible representative of their greatest and most univer- 
 sally honored deity. Even in this case, it appears that they did not 
 consider him as the god, but only as the living shrine in which the 
 divine nature had become incarnate. It is doubtful whether in the 
 age of Herodotus their belief had reached to this point of exal- 
 tation. 
 
 What was the precise amount of veneration paid to the other 
 animals which are ordinarily said to have been worshipped in 
 Egypt, it is impossible to define, from the loss of all record of the 
 sentiments of the people by means of literature. No standard could 
 be correct for all ages of the monarchy, or all minds. That it did 
 not amount to a belief in the divinity of the animal is evident from 
 the case of Apis ; and between the honors which he received, and 
 homage paid in outward forms as to the established symbol of divi- 
 nity, there is room for a long gradation, according to the more or 
 
 1 Pettigrew on Mummies, p. 201. 
 
 3 Sec the enumeration of them in Pettigrew, p. 178. 
 
 8 Ta iovra trtpi airavra Ipa vtvojiiarai (2, 65). 
 
 4 Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 359 B. ■ Diod. 1, 85. 
 
ANIMAL WORSHIP. 
 
 21 
 
 less enthusiastic character of the worshipper. For centuries the 
 two great divisions of the Christian Church have been unable to 
 agree in regard to the true nature of the use of images in religion, 
 which one pronounces to be a direct worship, while the other 
 declares it to be merely an act of reverence, worship being addressed 
 exclusively to the supreme God. We see therefore how impossible 
 it is to describe, in words of universal application, the sentiments 
 with which an Egyptian regarded his sacred animals. 
 
 In itself, animal worship has nothing more irrational than the 
 worship which the Scythians paid to a scimitar, or the Romans to 
 a spear 1 ; but there is more danger that gross minds should con- 
 found a living than a lifeless symbol with the god whom it repre- 
 sented ; it affords more scope to an anxious superstition, in watch- 
 ing«the indications of the future, afforded by the actions and state 
 of the consecrated animal. Multiplied as the objects of this wor- 
 ship were in Egypt, it met the devotee perpetually, and its power 
 was strengthened by the constant repetition of its rites. It is of a 
 nature peculiarly calculated to lay hold of the feelings in early life, 
 and thus preoccupy the mind with superstition, before reason has 
 acquired any counteractive power. The variety and opposition of 
 the rites of different nomes and cities produced a fierce and fanati- 
 cal hostility between the Egyptians themselves, of which we have 
 no example, among the other nations of the Gentile world. Many 
 causes contributed to degrade their character to the state to which 
 it had been reduced in the last age in which their native supersti- 
 tion remained, and which Christianity has done less to raise than 
 for any other civilized people which has embraced it ; but we cannot 
 hesitate to place animal worship among the most efficacious causes 
 of the narrowness and imbecility into which the Egyptian mind 
 degenerated. 
 
 1 Herod. 4, 62. Varro, Fragm. 1, p. 375, ed. Bipont. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF EGYPT. 
 
 In describing the constitution and laws of Egypt we labor under 
 this difficulty ; — that as the Egyptians have left us no history of 
 their own, and no code of their laws has been discovered among 
 the written remains which have come to light, we know not, except 
 by a few doubtful traditions, what changes they may have under- 
 gone. The fullest account is that given by Diodorus 1 , which he 
 professes to have derived from the records of the priests, and which 
 may be considered as representing the state of things during that 
 period of the native monarchy which succeeded the expulsion of 
 the Hyksos. 
 
 The whole of the land of Egypt was possessed by the king, the 
 priests, and the military order 2 . Such a possession, however, like 
 that of a feudal sovereign and aristocracy, cannot be exercised by 
 the persons who claim it. The husbandmen occupied the land 
 capable of cultivation, on payment of a small rent or proportion of 
 the produce. It appears from the Book of Genesis, that before the 
 time of Joseph, the mass of the people had been independent pos- 
 sessors of land, but parted with their rights to the crown, under 
 the pressure of continued famine 3 . They submitted in future to 
 pay a fifth part of the produce to the king, and were thus placed 
 n nearly the same condition as the people of India 4 , where all the 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 70 foil. 
 
 2 Diod. i, 74. 01 ycwpyoi fjiiKpov rivoi rr)v tcapTrnipopov j^topav tiji napn tov (iam- 
 \€ws toil Tiov 'icpt'jiv Kai rdif fia^tfiMv jxtaQoijitvoi itareXnxjai tov airavra y^povov neftl Tijv 
 Zpyaaiav own T fiS ^w'as. 
 
 s Gen. xlvii. 26. 4 Strabo, B. 15, p. 704. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 23 
 
 land belonged to the king, but was farmed on condition of paying 
 him a fourth part of the produce. The priests are expressly men- 
 tioned as retaining their property 1 ; of the military order nothing 
 is said, but from analogy we should conclude that they also retained 
 their rights, or speedily recovered them, as the account of Diodorus 
 before quoted implies. After the change of tenure, the proportion 
 of the produce did not exceed what had been taken by an act of 
 power in the seven years of plenty 2 . Even after this annihilation 
 of the rights of landed property, the condition of the peasantry in 
 Egypt was better than in India, and not very different from that 
 of the agricultural tenant among ourselves ; for it appears from the 
 evidence given before the Committees on the Corn Laws in 1814 
 and 1821, that rent is usually about a fourth part of the produce 3 . 
 
 It is probable that the priests occupied a portion of their own 
 land, and cultivated it by their hired laborers, as we know the 
 military class did. Diodorus, speaking of the different classes and 
 occupations of Athens, says, " The second class was that of the 
 geomoroi, whose duty it was to possess arms and serve in war on 
 behalf of the city, like those who are called husbandmen in Egypt, 
 and who furnish the righting men 4 ." Now as the continued and 
 personal cultivation of the soil would be inconsistent with military 
 duty, we must suppose that at least that portion of the warrior 
 caste which was in actual service, tilled their lands by hired labor- 
 ers. Herodotus appears also to have included the possessors of 
 land among the priests and the warrior caste, as he makes no men- 
 tion of husbandmen among his seven classes. 
 
 1 Gen. xlvii. 26. "Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this 
 day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part ; except the land of the priests 
 only, which became not Pharaoh's." 
 
 2 Gen. xli. 34. "Let Pharaoh do this, let him appoint officers over the 
 land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous 
 years." 
 
 8 Itickards on India, vol 1, p. 288 note. • 4 Diod. 1, 28. 
 
24 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 The king, the priest, and the warrior were the privileged orders 
 of Egypt ; the rest 1 , including the herdsmen of swine and cattle, 
 the artificers, the retail traders, the boatmen and pilots, and in later 
 times the interpreters, were excluded from all share of political 
 power. Yet there prevailed in Egypt no notion of an aristocracy of 
 descent ; the priest and the warrior were honored on account of the 
 higher functions which their birth assigned them, but not for a patri- 
 cian genealogy. In the funeral encomium no mention was made 
 of descent, all Egyptians being considered as equally well-born 2 . 
 
 Hereditary succession appears to have been the rule of the 
 Egyptian monarchy. Diodorus says (1, 43), that in ancient times, 
 according to the accounts which he received, kings were chosen for 
 public services, but this occurs in a part of the history in which he 
 is tracing the progress of society evidently according to a theory. 
 In many instances a sovereign is expressly said to have been suc- 
 ceeded by his son ; on the monuments a king sometimes declares 
 himself to be the son of his predecessor, and is found in the sculp- 
 tures of his reign in the character of a prince of the blood, serving 
 in the army or attending at a solemnity 3 . Females were not 
 excluded from the throne; a queen Nitocris occurs in the sixth 
 dynasty, Scemiophris in the twelfth, and other examples are found 
 in the sculptures 4 . If it were necessary to have recourse to elec- 
 tion, the king must be chosen from the priests or the soldiers; 
 Amasis was a plebeian, and was on that account despised, but the 
 monarchy was then approaching its termination. According to a 
 late authority (Synesius 5 ), the form of election represented all the 
 
 1 Strabo, B. 11, p. 78*7. Plato, Tim. iii. 24. Isoerates, Busiris, p. 161, ed, 
 Battie, arrange them variously. Herodotus, 2, 164, reckons priests, war- 
 riors, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters, steersmen. 
 
 2 Diod. 1, 92. Vol. 1, p. 419. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 283 ; Champollion, Lettres d'Egypte, p. 351. 
 
 4 Rosellini, M. St. iii. 1, 129. Comp. Lucan, Phars. 10, 92. 
 0 Quoted by Heeren, Ideen, 2, p. 335, Germ. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 25 
 
 elements of the community. The priests stood immediately around 
 the candidates, then the warriors, and outside of all the people- 
 But the priests possessed great prerogatives in voting ; the suffrage 
 of a prophetes counted for a hundred, that of a comastes 1 (one who 
 carried the sacred images in processions) for twenty, that of a neo- 
 coros* for ten, while that of a warrior counted but for one. The 
 common people probably enjoyed the same right as in the middle 
 ages — that of approving by their acclamations the choice of the 
 clergy and the military chiefs. If the election fell upon a soldier, 
 he was admitted into the sacerdotal order, and made acquainted 
 with their hidden wisdom 3 . This initiation is perhaps represented 
 in monuments, where the lau, the emblem of life and key of mys- 
 teries, is placed on the lips of the king 4 . To the shields of some of 
 the early kings the word " priest" is prefixed 5 . 
 
 The monarch was so entirely under the influence and control of 
 the priests, that the hierarchy may be considered as in fact the 
 governing body in ordinary times. Unlike the sovereigns of the 
 East, he was not irresponsible master of his own actions. The 
 forms of public business and even his daily habits of life were sub- 
 ject to strict regulation. " It was his duty," says Diodorus, " when 
 he rose in the early morning, first of all to read the letters sent 
 from all parts, that he might transact all business with accurate 
 knowledge of what was being done everywhere in his kingdom. 
 Having bathed and arrayed himself in splendid robes and the insig- 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. 5, p. 671, Pott. 2 Vol. 1, p. 379. 
 
 3 Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 354 B ; Plat. Polit. ii. 290. Steph. 'Eat/ Tv X n *p6repov 
 t| a\\ov yevovs Qiaaaptvos, varepov dvayKaiov is tovto eioreXeicrOai. Plut. Is. et 
 Osir. C. 6. 01 PoutiXeTs Kal ficrprirdv enivov sk t&v lep&v ypa/jL/iaTUiv, wff 'EicaTaTot 
 l(TTopfiKei> y iepeig Svres. 
 
 4 Hieroglyphics of Egyptian Soc. pi. 94. 
 
 6 Wilkinson, M. and C. 3, 281. The shield of a king whose name is lost, 
 in the papyrus of Turin, but who belonged apparently to the Sebekotphs, 
 has a group of characters annexed to it, which have been read "chosen by 
 the soldiers." (Lesueur, Chronologic, pp. 236, 321.) 
 VOL. II. 2 
 
26 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 nia of sovereignty, he sacrificed to the God 1 . The victims being 
 placed beside the altar, the high-priest standing near the king 
 prayed with a loud voice, the people standing round, that the gods 
 would give health and all other blessings to the king, he observing 
 justice towards his subjects. It was the priest's office also to declare 
 his several virtues, saying that he showed piety towards the gods 
 and clemency towards men ; that he was temperate and magnani- 
 mous, truthful and liberal, and master of all his passions ; that he 
 inflicted on offenders punishments lighter than their misdeeds 
 deserved, and repaid benefits with more than a proportionate return. 
 After many similar prayers the priest pronounced an imprecation 
 respecting things done in ignorance, exempting the king from all 
 accusation, and fixing the injury and the penalty on those who had 
 been his ministers and had wrongfully instructed him." His plea- 
 sures and his exercise, the quality of his food, the quantity of his 
 wine, were all prescribed by a minute ceremonial, contained in one 
 of the Books of Hermes 2 . He was not allowed to be attended by 
 slaves ; sons of the priests, carefully educated till the age of twenty, 
 surrounded his person night and day. The hierogrammat or sacred 
 scribe then read from the sacred books precepts and histories of 
 eminent men calculated to inspire the monarch with the love of 
 virtue. His power over the lives and properties of his subjects was 
 strictly limited by law, and nothing left to caprice and passion 3 . 
 The right to enact new laws, however, resided with the sovereign : 
 Menes and Sasyches, Sesostris, Bocchoris and Amasis are all cele- 
 brated as legislators 4 . The king was also a judge in certain cases 
 which are not defined ; but the ordinary administration of justice 
 was lost to the tribunals. A singular kind of posthumous judge- 
 
 1 We find accordingly in the monuments the king leading processions, 
 pouring libations, dedicating temples, presenting offerings, and with his own 
 hand sacrificing victims. 
 
 9 Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, 4, p. 151, ed. Potter. 
 
 • Diod. 1, 70, 11. 4 Diod. 1, 94. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 27 
 
 ment was exercised on his government and character. Before the 
 embalmed body was placed in the sepulchre, any one who had an 
 accusation to prefer against him was allowed to bring it forward ; 
 while the priests set forth his merits, and the people by their mur- 
 murs or applause decided whether he should be allowed the honor 
 of sepulture or not. Diodorus assures us that there were many 
 instances of its being withheld 1 . On the other hand, an eminently 
 virtuous and popular prince received a kind of deification. Acts 
 of homage were performed to him in subsequent generations, and 
 his name was inscribed as a charm on amulets 2 . 
 
 The account which Diodorus gives of the influence of these laws 
 and customs in producing virtue and moderation in the kings of 
 Egypt, must be regarded as describing rather the effect designed 
 than the invariable result. The Jewish Lawgiver prescribed that 
 each sovereign should make a copy of the Law, " that it might be 
 with him, that he might read therein all the days of his life, and 
 learn to fear Jehovah his God, to keep all the words of the law and 
 to do them 3 ;" yet it is doubtful if a single king of Israel or Judah 
 complied with this injunction, and it is certain that even the living 
 voice of the prophets was unable to prevent them from " lifting up 
 their hearts above their brethren, and turning aside from the com- 
 mandments." The daily homily read to the Egyptian monarchs on 
 the duties of sovereignty would degenerate into a form. The praises 
 bestowed in public prayers on the virtues of a reigning sovereign are 
 mere customary complimenti. The details of Egyptian history 
 exhibit instances of tyranny ; and a king who could command the 
 military power might break through the restraints of morality and 
 religion. In both cases, however, it would be unjust to deny to the 
 legislation the merit of a noble aim, in framing a standard of duty 
 for the sovereign, and providing the means of its being constantly 
 held up before his eyes. The failure to produce conformity with the 
 
 1 Diod 1, 72, ad Jin. a Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 3, 79-84. 
 
 • Deut. xvii. 18. 
 
28 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 standard belongs to all codes, ethical or political. Yet the general 
 testimony of antiquity affirms that Egypt was distinguished among 
 ancient nations, not only for the wisdom of its laws, but the obe- 
 dience paid to them. The instances of internal revolution are few 
 and late. After we have retrenched some thousand years from its 
 history, for false and exaggerated chronology, the long duration of 
 the monarchy remains unexampled. The union of priestly sanc- 
 tity, military power and monarchical authority in one person, gave 
 the government a form of stability which could not belong to forms 
 of polity in which these powers were dissociated or hostile. At 
 the same time the influence of the sacerdotal order, who were 
 almost the sole possessors of knowledge, stamped it with a charac- 
 ter of mildness and humanity, as in the Middle Ages the influence 
 of the Church tempered the rigor of feudalism. It substituted 
 religious awe for constitutional checks and sanctions in the mind 
 of the monarch, and by this sentiment more effectually controlled 
 him, as long as religion and its ministers were respected. Had 
 the authority been exclusively in the hands of the priests, it might 
 have sunk into that imbecility to which a purely sacerdotal admi- 
 nistration tends ; but the intimate union of the civil power, the mili- 
 tary and the hierarchy, appears to have secured to the people a 
 government at once energetic, enlightened and humane. 
 
 The earliest account remaining of the Egyptian monarchy, in the 
 history of Joseph, exhibits a court and household with minute gra- 
 dations of rank and function, and the monuments have added a 
 long list of officers, who ministered to the state and luxury of the 
 sovereign. The king always appears surrounded by numerous 
 military and sacerdotal attendants. Men of high rank, and even 
 princes of the blood, formed his train, screening him from the heat, 
 or cooling him and chasing away the flies with a feather-fan. 
 Besides these personal attendants on the sovereign, there was a 
 numerous body of public functionaries, whose titles and duties have 
 been revealed to us by the inscriptions in their tombs. They show 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 29 
 
 that the government was thoroughly organized in its administrative 
 department, no branch of public service being without its chief. 
 The extent and magnificence of the palaces of Thebes attest the 
 splendor in which the monarch lived ; but as the royal state was 
 kept up and the expenditure in peace and war maintained out of 
 the produce of the land, a third of which was allotted to the ting, 
 the people do not appear to have been heavily taxed, if at all, in 
 the ordinary course of affairs 1 . It is not probable, however, that 
 such works as the building of the Great Pyramid could be carried 
 on, without levying oppressive taxes, as well as exacting forced 
 labor, and the sovereigns who engaged in them were the objects 
 of popular detestation 2 . The military expeditions would in modern 
 times have been the cause of enormous expense ; but ancient war- 
 fare supported itself by plunder and exaction, and large tributes 
 were paid by conquered nations. 
 
 Nowhere in the ancient world was the number of temples so 
 great as in Egypt, nor the revenue of the priests so ample, nor 
 their influence in the whole social system so predominant. Ail the 
 events of Egyptian life were intimately blended with religion, and 
 a series of festivals spread itself over the whole year. Every nome 
 had a tutelary god, whom it worshipped with especial honor ; 
 every city and town one or more temples. The Egyptians were 
 the authors, as the Greeks believed 3 , both of the doctrines and the 
 ritual of polytheism, and had carried both to the utmost limits of 
 refinement and subdivision. The priests lived in abundance and 
 
 1 The TrpocoSoi and iwoforf which Herodotus (2, 109) speaks of as imposed 
 by Sesostris in proportion to the land, appear to be only the rent for the 
 crown lands under another name. I'avs ii tor? , Sia ix rS» vpoaohmv evno- 
 
 ptaVj oil 0anri$ovGt rais eiafjpaii. (Diod. 1, 73.) 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 128. 
 
 ' Herod. 2, 50. H%c6dv iravra ra ovvSpara rwv 9cwv c£ Aiyvirrov cXrjXvde is rrjf 
 'EXXdJa. 58. HavrjyvpiS apa Kai tto^ttos *ai vpooayuiyas izpojroi dvdpwwwv AiyvsTiot 
 eiai oi voirfadfisvoi. 
 
30 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 luxury. The portion of the soil allotted to them, the largest in 
 the threefold division 1 , was subject to no taxes 2 ; and they were so 
 abundantly supplied with the means of subsistence that it was 
 unnecessary for them to expend their private property 3 . The 
 registers of the temples, of which some fragments have been pre- 
 served, show that contributions of various kinds were made to 
 them, though they are not sufficiently precise to enable us to say 
 whether they were dues or voluntary offerings. Their life 4 was the 
 reverse of ascetic. The shaving of the head and body every other 
 day, the cold ablution twice in every day and twice in every night, 
 the use of flax and papyrus instead of woollen and leather 6 , in the 
 climate of Egypt were luxuries, not penances and restrictions. 
 The endless variety of rites which they practised 6 served to fill up 
 their time, for which the majority of them, not being initiated into 
 science, would have little occupation. Their numbers were very 
 great ; instead of a single priest or priestess attached to each 
 temple, as among the Greeks, a long series of subordinate minis- 
 ters discharged those multiplied functions in which their religion 
 consisted. Herodotus declares that no female could fill a sacer- 
 dotal office 7 , though it is evident from his own accounts, as well as 
 
 1 Diod. 
 
 a This appears not to have been the case in the Ptolemaic times. See 
 the Inscription of Rosetta, in which the priests return thanks to the king 
 for decreeing that they should pay no more than in the first year of his 
 father's reign. (Line 16 of the Greek.) 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 37. 
 
 4 Occasionally they practised rigid abstinence (£i> rats ayveiais), and did 
 not even allow themselves salt as a provocative of appetite. (Plut Is. et 
 Osir. p. 352.) 
 
 5 Herod. 2, 37. 
 
 6 "AVX«s Gnrivkias iirire\eov<ri iivoiag cL? riireiv \6yu>. (Her. ibid.) 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 35. '\piirat yvvi] jtiv oviefiia ovre ipacvog Btvv ovre OtjXirjg. But hd 
 
 himself (2, 55) speaks of a femal« as d t <pnro\ev aav Ipdv Atdj. See vol. i p. 
 379. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 31 
 
 from the sculptures and documents 1 , that they might be engaged 
 in duties connected with the temples 2 . The office was strictly- 
 hereditary. In the temples of the principal gods there was a high- 
 priest, and if we take literally the statement made by the priests 
 of Vulcan to Hecataeus and Herodotus, the son had succeeded to 
 the father for 340 generations 3 . To the priests alone polygamy 
 was forbidden 4 , and this restriction is confirmed by the monuments. 
 
 The reverence in which the sacerdotal order was held was not 
 the result of their sacred character only, but of their superior 
 knowledge and education, which comprehended, besides divination 
 and augury, all the human sciences. Their superior skill in geo- 
 metry and arithmetic, so important in a country whose revenues 
 were raised by a tax on land proportioned to its extent 6 , and where 
 changes in the form and area of the fields were frequently pro- 
 duced by the action of the river, gave them a considerable control 
 over property. 
 
 It does not appear that the practice of medicine was confined to 
 them. The army was attended by physicians 6 , who can scarcely 
 have been priests. The general appearance and costume of the 
 physicians represented in the grottos of Benihassan 7 would lead 
 
 1 Champollion-Figeae, Egypte, L'Univers Pittoresque, 115. 
 
 * The priestesses mentioned in the Rosetta Stone belonged to the worship 
 of the deified Ptolemies, not the ancient gods of Egypt. 
 
 3 Herod. 2, 143, where however a-ndciKwaav naioa irarpos ZKaarov ccjvtuv 
 itvra can hardly express a literal fact, especially if we consider the mono- 
 gamy of the priests. Compare Her. 1, 7, where a similar expression only 
 denotes generally an hereditary succession. 
 
 * Diod. 1, 80. Comp. Her. 2, 92. 
 
 6 Herod. 2, 109. El TlVOg TOV K^rjpov b TTOTdflOf tc irapc\otTo f i\6u)V av irpds TOP 
 BaaiXia iartjiame to ytycvr\p.tvov' b 6e £T£/jrre roif iiziOKtrpojiivovg ical avafitrpfjo-ovTag 
 o'fffj i\aa<ru)v b X^pof ytyoie, SkcoS tov \oittov Kara \6yov rrjs TCrayfiEfrjS dvoQoprjg 
 
 Tt\t:>l. 
 
 6 Diod. 2, 82. 
 
 7 See vol. i. p. 290. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 3, 398. 
 
32 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 us to refer them to a low rank in society. No sepulchral inscrip- 
 tion has yet been found in which this profession is mentioned, nor 
 has the hieroglyphic character for physician been ascertained. 
 The embalmers were a part of the physicians 1 , but the priests, 
 whose profession required such scrupulous purity, cannot be sup- 
 posed to have defiled themselves with the touch of dead bodies ; 
 and the embalmers are expressly said by Herodotus 2 to have been 
 artisans who plied in public. But all medical practice was carried i 
 on in Egypt according to certain established formulas, contained 
 in ancient books. Six of the forty-two treatises attributed to 
 Hermes were devoted to medicine, and the pastophori, a special 
 but inferior order of the priests, studied them 3 . To the precepts 
 contained in these books the practitioners of medicine seem to 
 have been obliged to conform, and thus the sacerdotal order would 
 possess a complete control over the practical branches of the art. 
 So under the Jewish Law, the Levites had to decide on all medical 
 questions which had a bearing on religion 4 , such as leprosy, but do 
 not appear to have been in other respects the physicians of the 
 people. In Europe during the Middle Ages, the knowledge of 
 medicine was nearly confined to the clergy, if we except the Jews 
 on the one hand, and the leeches who practised upon the vulgar 
 on the other. The selection and examination of victims, the care 
 o:' the sacred animals, the rigorous attention to their own health 
 and purity which their oflSce imposed, could not fail to give the 
 Egyptian priests a considerable portion of medicinal knowledge, 
 besides what the books of Hermes contained. 
 
 The more mysterious doctrines of religion, as well as the know- 
 ledge of the hieroglyphic character, in later times were reserved to 
 the higher order of the priesthood 5 , and this was probably always 
 
 1 Gen. 1. 2. 
 
 2 Herod. 2, 86. Et'ffi SI oi irr' avrcj rourcj k ar e ar a i Kat rt-^yr\v l-^ovoi ravTrjv, 
 
 * Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, 4, p. 758, ed. Pott. 4 See Leviticus, xiii. xiv. 
 6 Clem. Alex. Strom. 5, p. 670, Pott Ov tois eititvxovoi dveridevTo ra pva- 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 33 
 
 the case, the functions of the lower ministers being of a practical 
 kind. 
 
 According to ^Elian 1 , the priests were originally judges, the 
 eldest of them presiding. This appears afterwards to have given 
 place to a select tribunal which we shall subsequently describe. 
 But as the ultimate authority must be the written law, and as 
 literature of every kind was in the custody of the priesthood, it is 
 probable that questions of nice interpretation would be referred to 
 them. So among the Jews, when a matter arose too hard for the 
 decision of the inferior judges, recourse was had to the priests and 
 Levites and the chief judge in the last resort 2 . In Europe in the 
 Middle Ages, the highest offices of the law were filled by ecclesias- 
 tics, who alone could read ancient writings and pen decrees. Sta- 
 tistical knowledge was carried to greater perfection in Egypt than 
 anywhere else in the ancient world. The whole country had been 
 geometrically measured ; every man's tax was fixed, every man's 
 occupation known 3 , and the topography of Egypt was the subject 
 of one of the sacred books 4 . 
 
 The military class formed, like the priesthood, an hereditary 
 caste 5 . They were divided into Calasirians and Hermotybians, 
 names the signification of which has not been ascertained 6 . Aecor- 
 
 rfipia dW 1) fjidvois y£ toi$ ^eXAovtri cnl /JacrtXtt'aj/ npo'Cevai teal tCjv lepewv tois KpiBtXaiv 
 
 sivai ioKifLtaraTots. 
 
 • 1 ^Elian. Var. Hist, 14, 34. 
 
 a Deut. xvii. 8. " If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, 
 then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy 
 God shall choose, and thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and the 
 judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show thee the 
 sentence of judgment." 
 
 3 Herod. 2, 177. He refers the law to the reign of Amasis. 
 * Clem Alex, ubi supra. 
 6 Herod. 2, 166. 
 
 6 Jablonsky (Voc. ^Egypt. p. 69, 101.) deduces Calasiris from Hehhiri, 
 Coptic for youth ; Herrnotybian, from armatoi oube, militare contra, and ha 
 
 2* 
 
34 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 ding to Herodotus, the Calasirians amounted, when their numbers 
 were largest, to 250,000 men, the Hermotybians to 160,000; and 
 if larger numbers are attributed to some of the armies of Egyptian 
 conquerors, we must remember that oriental armies are swollen by 
 a train of unmilitary followers. Each soldier had an allotment of 
 land, of about six acres, free from taxes. Their settlements were 
 almost exclusively in Lower Egypt 1 , each body having only one in 
 either Middle or Upper Egypt, namely the nomes of Chemmiss 
 and Thebes, while the Hermotybians were established in five 
 nomes of Lower Egypt and the Calasirians in eleven 2 . It was on 
 the side of Asia that the country was most exposed to attack, 
 Nubia having been completely subjugated during the flourishing 
 times of the monarchy ; and the abundance and fertility of land 
 in the Delta pointed out this as the part most suitable for the 
 settlement of the soldiery. The facility with which a large force 
 was collected for the pursuit of the Israelites 3 , shows that they 
 must have been quartered chiefly in Lower Egypt. All handicrafts 
 were forbidden to them, but in these agriculture was not included, 
 which was an honorable occupation even among those by whom 
 the mechanical arts were most despised 4 . In times of peace, a 
 portion of them discharged garrison-duty in the frontier towns of 
 Pelusium, Marea and Elephantine ; a detachment to the number 
 of a thousand of each acted as guards to the king, during the space 
 of a year 5 . To these were given, as a daily allowance, five minae 
 of baked bread or parched corn, two minae of beef and four arys- 
 ters, or nearly two pints, of wine. In the Egyptian monuments 
 we can distinguish such a body of men having peculiar arms, 
 clothing and ensigns, and specially engaged in attendance on the 
 
 supposes the latter to have been veterans to whom the defence of the coun- 
 try was chiefly entrusted. 
 
 1 Heeren, 2, 134. (2, 2, 51$ Germ.) 
 
 9 Herod, ubi supra. 4 Exod. xiv. 5-9. 
 
 4 Diod. 1, 28. 6 Her. 2, 168. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 35 
 
 king 1 . Perhaps other bodies might be stationed in some of the 
 principal towns, where it has been thought that traces of fortified 
 camps might be perceived 2 . 
 
 Such a class, trained and armed and possessed of property in 
 land, in the midst of a population of priests, agriculturists and 
 tradesmen, must have had a preponderant weight in the social 
 scale. Yet such was the harmony of the different members of the 
 Egyptian state, that we hear for many centuries of no usurpations 
 or rebellions by the soldiery. The military order was closely united 
 with the monarchy. We find in the monuments that the sons of 
 the kings held high posts in the army 3 , and this class generally 
 furnished a sovereign to the vacant throne. The Egyptian military 
 system, as it originally existed, was better calculated to preserve 
 order within the state and resist aggression, than the feudalism 
 of the Middle Ages or the universal soldiership of the Greeks. 
 The former was an instrument of oppression, the latter a constant 
 provocative to civil war. Egypt more resembled Rome, in the ages 
 in which the plebs was still devoted exclusively to agriculture and 
 furnished legionaries to the army. The commencement of her fall 
 was the encroachment made by the priests in the reign of Sethos, 
 and the king in that of Psammitichus, on the privileges of the mili- 
 tary class. 
 
 All the rest of the population may be regarded as forming one 
 class, inasmuch as they were excluded from the possession of land, 
 from the privileges of the priestly and military order, and from 
 every department of political life. Among themselves, however, 
 they were divided into a variety of trades and professions, about 
 the number of which the ancients are not agreed, nor is it proba- 
 ble that any one has enumerated them all. The land was culti- 
 vated by a peasantry, tenants to the king, the priests and the war- 
 
 1 Rosellini, Monuraenti Reali, tav. c. ciL cxxvL 
 a Champollion-Figeac, Egypte, p. 147. 
 * Rosellini, Mon. Civili, 3, p. 313. 
 
30 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 riors, whose traditionary knowledge and early training enabled 
 tliein to carry the art to a much higher degree of perfection than 
 any other nation 1 . The marshy districts of the Delta and the pas- 
 tures of the valleys, especially of the Arabian chain of hills, main- 
 tained large numbers of cattle, the charge of which created another 
 distinct class. The swineherds formed another — a Pariah-caste — 
 to whom alone, of all the Egyptians, access to the temples was 
 denied, and who could only intermarry among themselves 2 . The 
 artificers and the boatmen and steersmen of the Nile were each a 
 separate class. The monuments lead us to conclude that the navi- 
 gation of the sea was more common than had been previously sup- 
 posed, yet it hardly belonged to the habits of the nation and was 
 opposed to its religious ideas, according to which the sea-water, 
 swallowing up the Xile, was symbolized in Typhon destroying 
 Osiris. Even the navigators of the river were a disesteemed race 3 . 
 Huntsmen are mentioned in the enumeration of Plato, among 
 whom fowlers would be included 4 ; in a country so abundant in 
 streams and fish, fishermen must have been very numerous 5 , and 
 therefore probably a distinct class. On the establishment of the 
 Greeks in Egypt, in the reign of Psammitichus, an hereditary 
 body of interpreters was formed for the purpose of commercial 
 intercourse 6 , this being the only one of whose origin we have any 
 historical account, and we see that neither conquest nor religion 
 had anything to do with it, but the hereditary transmission of 
 exclusive knowledge. 
 
 1 Diodor. 1, 74. 
 
 2 Herod. 2, 47. Rosellini, Mon. Civ. 1, 266, mentions a herd of swine 
 belonging to a priest ; they were sometimes used in sacrifice as Herodotus 
 mentions. 
 
 3 Pint Is. et Osir. p. 363, c. 32. 4 Plat. Tim. iii. 24. 
 6 Herod. 2, 93. Diod. 1, 36. Isaiah xix. 8. 
 
 6 Herod. 2, 154. Ua^Sag 
 X'tSa yXduaav iKStSdaKeuOai' and Si rovrui/ iK^ia'^ovroiv rr)v yXucrcrav ol viv t« ; r)vit$ iv 
 AtyuTrro ytyoraai. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 37 
 
 There can be no doubt that a broad line of social distinction 
 separated all these classes from the three privileged orders. The 
 principle of caste would have been annihilated, if the children of an 
 artificer or a herdsman could have intermarried with those of a 
 priest, a warrior, or a judge. Religious feeling and esprit de corps 
 would no doubt close the sacerdotal or military class against a man 
 of low caste, and want of skill would exclude him from the higher 
 departments of art. We find some remarkable examples of the 
 hereditary descent of high public office. The long succession of 
 the high -priests of Memphis has been already mentioned. Lepsius 1 
 quotes an inscription in which a chief of the mining works declares 
 that twenty-three of his ancestors had filled the same office before him. 
 But there is no proof that all the sons of a priest became priests, or of a 
 military man soldiers. The higher professions appear to have been 
 open to all of the higher castes, and might even be united in one 
 person, and they might intermarry with each other ; so probably 
 might the lower, with the exception of the swine-herds. A monu- 
 ment in the Museum at Naples, to one who was himself a general 
 of infantry, records that his elder brother was a chief of public 
 works and at the same time a priest 2 . In India at the present day 
 no caste but the Brahminical is strictly preserved 3 , and this includes 
 not only the priesthood, but the higher civil professions. 
 
 The funeral monuments of Egypt, which have thrown light on 
 the relations of the privileged orders and shown that they were not 
 separated by such strict rules as had been supposed, give us no cor- 
 responding information respecting the lower castes. Priests, war- 
 riors, judges, architects, chiefs of districts and provinces, are nearly 
 the only ranks or classes which appear in the inscriptions ; we do 
 
 1 Lepsius, Tour to the Peninsula of Sinai, p. 4, Eng. Transl. 
 
 3 Ampere in Revue des deux Mondes, 1848, p. 410. He, as well as Rosel- 
 lini, u. s., has controverted the common opinion respecting the distinction 
 of castes, from the evidence of the monuments. 
 
 * Rickards, India, 1, 31. Elphinstone's India, 1, 103. 
 
38 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 not find the laborer, the agriculturist, the artist or the physician 
 receiving those funereal honors which consist in the representation 
 of the deceased as offering to the gods, and praying for their pro- 
 tection in another world 1 . And this shows the wide interval in 
 social estimation, by which the upper and lower classes in Egypt 
 were separated. 
 
 The Greeks, from whom we derive our earliest knowledge of 
 Egyptian institutions, were naturally struck with the rigid distinc- 
 tion of the different orders of society : it had once existed among 
 themselves 2 , but was nearly obliterated and forgotten. If it appear 
 to have been less exclusively a distinction of birth than we have 
 been accustomed to suppose, there can be no doubt that it was one 
 of the most important characteristics of Egyptian society. Perhaps 
 a Mohammedan traveller in Europe during the prevalence of feu- 
 dalism might have described its different orders and their relation 
 to each other in terms not very unlike those which Herodotus 
 applies to the genea of Egypt. Custom and sentiment had fixed a 
 nearly impassable barrier between the villain and burgher on one 
 side, and the military chief and feudal lord on the other. The 
 burghers themselves, arranged in crafts and guilds, the entrance to 
 which was jealously guarded, would have appeared to him rather 
 as an aggregate of separate communities than a uniform mass of 
 industrial population, such as our modern cities exhibit. A ple- 
 beian would have as iittle chance of obtaining a maiden of aristo- 
 cratic blood in marriage, as an Egyptian of low caste of marrying 
 the daughter of a priest or military chief ; the executioner or flayer 
 of cattle in Germany could no more have intermarried with a pea- 
 sant or a burgher, than the swineherd in Egypt. The difference 
 lies in the sanction by which the separation of ranks and professions 
 
 1 Ampere ubi supra. 
 
 2 The most natural explanation of the fourfold division of the Ionic popu- 
 lation of Attica (Herod. 5, 66) is that the names denote their different occu- 
 pations. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 39 
 
 was guarded ; in Egypt it was enforced by religion ; in Europe it 
 was counteracted by the genius of Christianity and the celibacy of 
 the clerical order, in which the humblest birth was no disqualifica- 
 tion for the highest dignity. 
 
 In a country so fertile as Egypt, in which manufactures, art and 
 internal commerce were carried on to such an extent, wealth must 
 have accumulated among those who were engaged in civil life, and 
 have given rise to a class of independent proprietors, not included in 
 any of the genea. On the other hand, we find that in large cities a 
 populace forms itself, depending on casual expedients for subsistence, 
 and, as having no definite occupation, equally excluded from the 
 list. Such a class in later times existed in Egypt ; Sethos employed 
 it in support of his usurpation 1 ; Amasis endeavored to check its 
 growth by compelling every man to declare his occupation before 
 the magistrate, under penalty of death, if he made a false statement 
 or followed an unlawful mode of life 2 . With the exceptions which 
 have been pointed out, there can be no question that the rule of 
 Egyptian society was 3 , that every man should be strictly limited to 
 his hereditary business 4 . The ancients generally admired this 
 limitation, and attributed to it the high perfection which agricul- 
 ture and art had attained. The father taught his son without 
 grudging whatever he himself knew ; the peasant and the artisan 
 followed their proper business without the distraction of politics 
 which engrossed the lower orders in republics. It was a maxim 
 that it was best for one man to do one thing 5 , which is undoubtedly 
 true, as far as the perfection of his work is concerned. The effect 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 141. 'Eticadai 6i ol tuiv ^a^i'pwv [iiv ovSeva dvSpuv, Ka-rrfjXovs 61 
 k a I ^£(flwcaj( raj k a I dyopaiovs d v 0 p co~ o v s. 
 
 2 Her. 2, 177. 8 Diod. 1, 74. 
 
 4 The law which Dicsearchus attributes to Sesostris is pn&tva KaraXmuv ri\v 
 narpcMV r^fi/i/. Schol. App. Rhod. 4, 272-276. 
 
 6 Aristot. Polit. 2, 8. "Ef v<p' c dj epyoi> npiuT diroTeXetrai* Set 8i fin irpoaT&TTtiv 
 tov avTdi> avXdv Kai gkvtoto^civ. 
 
40 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 of such a limitation on the character of the man, and therefore ulti- 
 mately on the progress of his art, had not been considered. 
 
 The great body of the Egyptian ' people appear to have had no 
 public duties whatever, neither political, judicial, nor military ; the 
 idea of a citizen was unknown among them. This exclusion of all 
 but priests and soldiers from political functions would ensure revo- 
 lution in any modern government ; but the privileged orders were 
 so firmly established by the threefold monopoly of knowledge, 
 sacred and secular, arras, and landed property, that we do not read 
 even of an attempt to disturb them, on the part of the excluded 
 millions, till the last century of the history of the Pharaohs. 
 
 The division of Egypt for administrative purposes was very 
 simple. The principal cities, with their environs, and a number of 
 villages dependent upon them, formed a nome, as the Greeks called 
 it, over which a prefect or nomarch appointed by the king presided, 
 to superintend the royal revenues and the details of government 1 . 
 The Delta contained ten of these nomes, the Thebaid ten ; the 
 intermediate country in later times sixteen, but originally only 
 seven 2 . This corresponds with the arrangement of the Labyrinth 3 , 
 which had, as Strabo saw it, twenty -seven halls. This division was 
 attributed to Sesostris, and it is probable that the boundaries of 
 each nome were definitely fixed, when that general survey of the 
 lands took place, which is said to have been made by this sove- 
 reign 4 . Commonly, however, authority only regulates and con- 
 firms divisions which have been determined by local and accidental 
 circumstances. Religion appears in Egypt to have furnished the 
 original principle of aggregation. Each of the larger cities was the 
 seat of the worship of a peculiar divinity 5 , which had been esta- 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 54. 2 Hence the name Heptan&mis. 
 
 8 Strabo, B. 17, p. 787, 811. Bunsen, ^Egypten's Stelle (1, 179, note). 
 
 4 According to Diodorus, 1, 95, Amasis ra nepl tjvs vofiapxas Sisra^s xal ra 
 ■rrepl av^izaaav oiKOPOfjiav r Aiyvitrov, but this cannot in either case relate 
 to the first establishment • Her. 2, 42. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 41 
 
 blished there by the inhabitants of the district, and the religious 
 usages which flowed from that worship were co-extensive with the 
 nome 1 . Thus throughout the nome of Thebes, of which the ram- 
 headed god was the chief divinity, goats were sacrificed, but not 
 sheep 2 ; while in the Mendesian nome, in reverence for the god to 
 whom the goat was sacred, sheep were sacrificed, and not goats. 
 The number of the nomes ultimately amounted to fifty-three, but 
 among them were reckoned the Greater and Lesser Oasis, and the 
 Oasis of Ammon. They were again subdivided into toparchies, of 
 whose extent we are not informed. Delegates from the nomes, 
 chosen according to station and character 3 , assembled at intervals at 
 the splendid palace of the Labyrinth, near the Lake Mceris. Each 
 delegation was accompanied by the priests and priestesses of its chief 
 temple, and was lodged in its appointed place, among the 3000 apart- 
 ments which the Labyrinth included. Sacrifices and gifts were made 
 to the gods, and doubtful questions of jurisdiction settled. If the halls 
 in the Labyrinth were, as Herodotus says 4 , only twelve in number, 
 only the larger nomes can have sent delegates, and some pre- 
 eminence on the part of twelve of them appears to be implied in 
 the establishment of a dodecarchia or government of twelve kings, 
 after the usurpation of Sethos. 
 
 We have no distinct information as to the modem which justice 
 was ordinarily administered in Egypt Probably the nomarch and 
 the toparch exercised a jurisdiction in matters of police and causes 
 of minor importance. To judge is also reckoned among the func- 
 tions of the king 5 . In the monarchies of the East it is an attribute 
 
 1 Heeren (2, 108, 112, Eng.) supposes that the temples were foundations 
 by priestly colonies from Meroe, and that they established the worship of 
 the local god in each district The language of Herodotus implies that the 
 people of the nome established the temple 
 
 2 Her. u. s. 
 
 8 Strabo, 17, p. 811, with Tyrwhitt's emendation of fywrivitp 
 4 Her. 2, 148. 6 Diodor. 1, 76. 
 
42 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 inseparable from royalty, and the authority of all inferior tribunals 
 is only a delegation from the prerogative of the Sovereign. Such 
 is indeed the theory, though not the origin, of our own judicial 
 system. The principal court of judicature was composed of thirty 
 persons, chosen for their merit from the three most celebrated cities 
 of the kingdom, Thebes, Memphis, and Heliopolis — ten from each. 
 As these cities were also the most remarkable for the number and 
 learning of the sacerdotal order, it has been generally taken for 
 granted that the judges belonged to this caste. That they were of 
 sacerdotal families appears, from what has been already said on the 
 subject of castes, very probable, but hardly ministering priests, 
 since each one had duties to perform in the temple to which he was 
 attached. ^Elian, by saying that originally* the judges were 
 priests, implies that in later times it was otherwise. These thirty 
 chose a president from among themselves, in whose place the city 
 by which he had been sent furnished another. Probably therefore 
 the original selection had been made by the cities. Their salaries 
 were paid by the king. All proceedings were carried on in writing, 
 that the decision might not be influenced by the arts of oratory, 
 nor the stern impartiality of law be overcome by personal supplica- 
 tion. A collection of the laws in eight volumes lay before the 
 judges; the plaintiff or accuser declared in writing how he had 
 been injured, cited the portion of the law on which he relied, and 
 laid the amount of his damages, or claimed the penalty which in 
 his view the law awarded. The culprit or defendant replied in 
 writing, point by point, denying the fact alleged, or showing that 
 his act had not been unlawful, or that the penalty claimed was 
 excessive. The plaintiff having rejoined, and the defendant replied 
 again, the judges deliberated among themselves. A chain of gold 
 and precious stones was worn by the president, to which an image 
 of Thmei, the goddess of Truth, was attached, and he pronounced 
 sentence by touching with this image the plaintiff's or defendant's 
 
 1 Var. Hist. 14, 34. AiKaaral to dp^aXov nap AiyvnTioti Upeis foav. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 43 
 
 pleadings 1 . We are not told how the facts were established, and 
 indeed the whole account suggests the idea of a Court of Appeal, 
 rather than of primary jurisdiction. 
 
 From the complex state of society in Egypt, more strikingly 
 evinced by its monuments than even by the accounts of ancient 
 writers, we may conclude that the laws were numerous. Yet few 
 of them have been handed down to us, and no document of this 
 kind has been hitherto deciphered from the remains of Egyptian 
 antiquity. The character of the legislation therefore must be 
 gathered from the general testimony of the ancient world, or by 
 analogy from a few specimens which remain. The tradition that 
 Lycurgus, Solon and Plato 2 , had borrowed from Egypt the laws 
 of their real or imaginary states, is a proof of the high estimation in 
 which they were held, whatever historical value it may possess. 
 Their wisdom and humanity may be inferred from the correspond- 
 ence which has been remarked between the Egyptian and the Jewish 
 institutions. If this be explained as by Spencer 3 , who thinks that 
 certain law r s and usages to which the Jews had become accustomed, 
 were adopted into the Mosaic Law, the highest sanction is given 
 to them. If, with his great opponent Witsius 4 , we believe that 
 they were copied by the Egyptians from Abraham, and from his 
 
 1 The resemblance of this ornament to the Urim and Thummim worn by 
 the Jewish high priest has been noticed by all writers on Jewish or Egyp- 
 tian antiquities. Yet the use was very different ; one was an official chain, 
 probably with a seal attached to it ; the other answered the purpose of an 
 oracle (Exod. xxxix. 10; Lev. viii. 8; Num. xxvii. 21). Nor is there any 
 etymological ground for deriving Thummim from the Egyptian TTimei, 
 although the Seventy may have been influenced by the Egyptian usage in 
 rendering it by 'A^nQeia. 
 
 2 Diod. 1, 69, 96, 98. 
 
 3 See hi3 great work De Legibus Hebrreorum, p. 903, "Monendum est 
 institutorum Mosaicorum partem multo maximam e consuetudine aliqua 
 quae apud JEgyptios aut alias e vicinia gentes inveteraverat dimanasse." 
 
 4 Witsii ^Egyptiaca, lib. 2, c. 1, § vii. 
 
44 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 descendants, subsequently to their expulsion and the giving of the 
 Law from Sinai (a much less probable supposition) 1 , the inference 
 as to their character will be the same. 
 
 The criminal law of Egypt was mild and equitable 2 . The wilfui 
 murder of a slave was punished with death, like that of a freeman ; 
 the exposure of infants was forbidden, nor was the mother allowed 
 to be executed with an unborn child. False accusation (we may 
 presume where a malicious purpose could be shown) was punished 
 with the same penalty as would have fallen on the accused if con- 
 victed ; and perjury with death. A thousand lashes were inflicted 
 on an adulterer, mutilation of the nose on an adulteress. A parent 
 who had killed his child was compelled to sit three days and three 
 nights, under the guard of a public officer, embracing its body. It 
 was a capital offence not to have assisted one who was slain by 
 violence, the legislator presuming complicity where there had been 
 no effort to prevent murder. Even the neglect to give information 
 of a robbery was punished by stripes and three days' imprisonment 
 without food. Some of their punishments however were cruel ; 
 others appear to us fantastic, from an attempt to carry out strictly 
 the lex tulionis. Such was the punishment inflicted on a violator 
 of female chastity : one who gave intelligence to an enemy had 
 his tongue cut out ; an adulterer of the standard currency 3 , a falsi- 
 fier of weights and measures, a public scribe who had forged or 
 mutilated public writings, had his hand cut off. A grave has been 
 found near Saccara, apparently of such criminals, as the hands and 
 feet have been cut off at the joints 4 . It is probable that in the 
 times of the Pharaohs 5 , as well as of the Ptolemies, the working 
 
 1 Uarpioiffi xpeconevoi- v6fioi(riv ol Aiyvnrioi SXXov ovScva hwcituvrat (Her. 2, 
 79, 91.) 
 
 2 Diod 1, 11, 1 . 
 
 8 The Egyptians had no stamped coin, but used rings of metal in ex- 
 change. 
 
 4 Perring in Vyse on the Pyramids, 3, 38. 
 
 6 Compare Agatharehides ap. Phot. cel. 11, p. 1342, whom Diodorus fol- 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 4.5 
 
 of the gold-mines of the Arabian Desert was one of the punish- 
 ments of criminals. The labor was cruelly severe, and was exacted 
 by the scourge ; in the low and winding passages in which they 
 wrought, the miners were compelled to assume painful and unna- 
 tural postures in order to carry on their work 1 . Their complaints 
 could excite no sympathy, for guards were placed over them who 
 did not understand their language. Children, women and old men 
 were employed in different operations, and neither infirmity nor 
 disease procured a respite, while there remained any strength which 
 blows could compel them to exert 2 . Sabaco the Ethiopian intro- 
 duced the practice of employing criminals on public works, instead 
 of putting them to death. 
 
 A singular law prevailed in regard to thieves 3 . They were 
 organized under a chief, with whom their names were enrolled, 
 and to whom everything stolen was brought. Those who had 
 been robbed applied to him, and obtained back their property on 
 payment of a fourth of the value. This amounts in fact to impu- 
 nity for any one who was willing to make restitution on payment 
 of one-fourth, and probably nowhere has stolen property been so 
 cheaply recovered. The law has been converted by later authori- 
 ties 4 into a general permission of theft in Eg^-pt. 
 
 The most sanguinary part of the Egyptian law was that which 
 protected the sacred animals, as already mentioned 5 . It is proba- 
 ble, however, that the fanaticism, of which Diodorus witnessed an 
 
 lows. He says that the mines had been wrought in the earliest times, but 
 the working had been interrupted by the incursions of the Ethiopians. 
 
 1 IloXXa^cJS irpds raj rijj Trerpaj io«<Sr»jra$ p.craaj(rip.aTi^ovT£s ru cwpa-u. (Diod. 
 8, 14.) 
 
 2 Ov rvy%avei uvyyvwuns 11 W aviatwi an-Xws ovk appoiaros, ov irtitjjpbipivoi ov yzyrj- 
 pa<cu>j, ov yvvaiicds doQzvtia. (Ibid.) 
 
 8 Diod. 1, 80. 
 
 4 Aulus Gellius, 11, 18, quoting " Aristo jureconsultus." 
 6 Herod. 2, 65. Cicero, BT. D. 1, 29, includes the dog and the crocodile 
 among the animals whom it was a capital crime to kill. (Diod. 1, *72.) 
 
46 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 example, was one mode of expressing national animosity, and that 
 it had not existed in such intensity before the Persian conquest. 
 The law of sacrilege in Christian countries has been equally severe 
 and inhuman ; nor would a Jew, suspected of an act of disrespect 
 towards the rites and emblems of the Church, have fared better at 
 the hands of the multitude, than the Roman who fell a victim to 
 the fury of an Egyptian mob. 
 
 The condition of females, according to Diodorus 1 , was singularly 
 favorable to the weaker sex, the prerogatives of a queen being 
 greater than those of a king, and the husband engaging in the 
 marriage contract to obey the wife in everything. These state- 
 ments are rendered suspicious by being connected with the mythic 
 sovereignty of Isis. The marriage of brothers and sisters was 
 allowed 2 . Herodotus, contrasting the manners and customs of 
 Egypt with those of other countries, remarks, that the women 
 went to market and carried on retail trades, while the men sat in 
 the house, occupied at the loom 3 . This, however, indicates no 
 superior privilege on the part of the Egyptian women ; it is only 
 a proof that weaving was in Egypt an art requiring great skill and 
 long practice 4 , not as in Greece a part of domestic economy. The 
 other circumstances which Herodotus mentions, as contrasts with 
 Greek customs, are rather proofs of the depressed condition of the 
 female sex. Women carried burthens on their shoulders, men on 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 21. 
 
 9 This custom was explained by the marriage of Isis with Osiris. (Diod. 
 ibid.) It is said to be confirmed by the monuments, but I doubt if sister 
 and cousin can be distinguished. 
 
 ' Herod. 2, 35. The Greeks, who despised manufactures, ridiculed the 
 habits of the Egyptians as effeminate (Soph. (Ed. Col. 337). The Ionian 
 women were peculiarly sedentary (Xen. Rap. Lac. 1, 3, with Haase's 
 note). 
 
 * Nam longe prsestat in arte, 
 
 Et solertius est multo genus omne virile. 
 
 Lucr. 5, 1354, speaking of weaving. 
 
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 
 
 47 
 
 their heads, the women of course bearing the heavier weights. 
 Women were excluded from all but menial offices about the tem- 
 ples ; to maintain their parents if in want was voluntary with sons, 
 compulsory with daughters. The monuments, as far as they have 
 hitherto been interpreted, afford no countenance to the statement 
 of Diodorus, though we cannot doubt that the condition of the 
 female sex in Egypt partook of the general character of humanity 
 and refinement which belonged to that country. Polygamy was 
 allowed except to the priests 1 , and all children, whether by wives 
 or concubines, were equally legitimate. But even where several 
 wives were taken, one of them, under the title of Lady of the 
 House, enjoyed a superiority in honor and authority over the rest 3 . 
 In the marshy districts of Lower Egypt monogamy prevailed, pro- 
 bably owing to the poverty of the inhabitants, as in Mohammedan 
 countries the lower and even middle classes have usually only one 
 wife. 
 
 Of the civil laws of the Egyptians very little is known. Most 
 of those which are specified are attributed to Bocchoris 3 , who is 
 supposed to be the Pehor of the monuments, and to have lived a 
 short time before the Ethiopian conquest. One of the most impor- 
 tant was, that the goods only of a debtor could be taken, and that 
 the arrest of the person was not allowed, on the ground that his 
 services, whether a soldier, a peasant, or an artisan, belonged to 
 the state. In this respect the Egyptian law was wiser and more 
 humane than that of most of the Grecian states, which secured to 
 a debtor the implements by which he gained his living, yet allowed 
 him by imprisonment to be deprived of the means of using them 4 . 
 Solon introduced the Egyptian practice into the law ol Athens. If 
 no w T ritten security had been given, a man might clear himself 
 from a claim by his oath — a proof how general was the use of 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 80. Herod. 1, 92. 
 * Diod. 1, 79, 94. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Civ. 3, 137. 
 
 4 Diod. ibid. 
 
48 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 writing for civil purposes among the Egyptians in later times, and 
 a salutary limitation of credit. The interest of a debt was never 
 allowed to amount to more than double the principal, — an ample 
 security for the lender's rights, and a preventive of those violent 
 infringements of the law of debtor and creditor, which, under the 
 names of Seisachtheia and Novce Tabulce, we meet with in Greek 
 and Roman history. By a singular law, passed at a time when 
 there was a great want of circulating medium 1 , a man was allowed 
 to pledge the mummies of his forefathers for debt, but was himself 
 deprived of sepulture if he omitted to redeem them before his 
 death. The prohibition appears to have included his descendants, 
 as long as the debt remained unpaid. 
 
 1 'Etti 'Acrv^ios PaaiXsvfv »r, iy^ns iovans nuWrjs ^p^/iarwi/. (Herod. 2, 136.) 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 AUTHORITIES FOR EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 
 SECT. I. GREEK "WRITERS. 
 
 The commencement of Grecian intercourse with Egypt is hidden 
 by the darkness of antehistoric times. The warlike expeditions of 
 the Egyptian kings no doubt included Ionia, but the coast of Asia 
 was not then inhabited by Greek settlers, and it is not alleged that 
 Sesostris carried his arms into Hellas proper 1 . The stories of Egyp- 
 tian colonization in Greece are generally of so late an origin, that 
 we cannot even infer from them the existence of a popular belief 2 . 
 There is, however, one exception. The story of Io, the Argive 
 princess, who was changed into a heifer, and after long wanderings 
 reached Egypt where she gave birth to a god, and herself was 
 worshipped as the goddess Isis, points clearly to the introduction 
 of the worship of Isis or Athor, under the symbol of the heifer, at 
 an early period into Argos. As the worship of the Moon under 
 this symbol appears to have prevailed in Phoenicia, as well as in 
 Egypt, it might have been doubted from which of these countries 
 it was transferred to Argos, but for the circumstance that Io is the 
 Coptic name of the Moon 3 , and the same term was preserved in 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 103. 
 
 2 Even Diodorus (1,29) acknowledges the vanity of these pretensions on 
 the part of the Egyptians. 
 
 8 Peyron, Lex. Copt. p. 59. 
 
52 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the dialect of Argos, without apparent affinity with any Greek 
 root 1 . The story of the migration of Danaus and ./Egyptus with 
 their fifty sons and daughters to Argos cannot be traced higher 
 than to the age of ^Eschylus and Herodotus ; but it was received 
 by the latter as historical, and the existence of the belief is hardly 
 to be explained, unless we admit the general fact of an Egyptian 
 colonization. 
 
 We are not sufficiently acquainted with the history of naviga- 
 tion among the Greeks, to assign with any probability the time 
 when they first visited the shores of Egypt. They regarded it as 
 at once a distant and a difficult voyage 2 . Even the life of a tra- 
 veller who fell into the hands of the savage people inhabiting the 
 marshes near the mouths of the Nile was not safe, for there was a 
 time when the harbor of Pharos was not opened for the admission 
 of strangers 3 . The sacrifice of ruddy-colored men appears to 
 have prevailed in Lower Egypt in the early ages of the monarchy 4 , 
 and the fair and yellow-haired Greeks would be especially the 
 objects of aversion and outrage from their Typhonian hue 6 . If 
 they visited Egypt, they appear to have confined themselves to the 
 Canopic mouth of the Nile. To this their mythic traditions reier. 
 Here was the Tower of Perseus 6 , and a little further to the east 
 the temple of Hercules, who on his return from Libya had encoun- 
 tered and slain the inhospitable Busiris 7 . Hither Paris had been 
 driven on his way from Sparta to Troy. Canopus itself was sup- 
 
 1 Ya^av 'lovrjv xaXovai Tives zvQa 0ovs nv lv dyaXjjiari rrjs 'Iafif rjroi Trie cs\fivtjs* 
 'Iw yap fi (rchjvri Kara r>jv twv 'Apyeiuv 8ia\£KTi>v. (Eust. ad Dionys. Perieg. V. 
 94.) 
 
 2 Od. 6', 483. 8 Eratosth. ap. Strab. p. 802. Diod. 1, 67. 
 4 Plut. p. 380. Porphyr. de Abst. p. 199. 
 
 6 r Ev Ticriv 'opraig t&v jilv dv8ou>Tra>v tovs iTBfJ/fotJS npoirrjXnKi^ovff^ Sia r<5 itvfipov 
 
 ytyovivai tov TvQtiva. (Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 362 F.) Busiris was one of the 
 places in which the Typhonian superstition prevailed. 
 
 8 Herod. 2, 15. 7 Strabo, p. 801. Diod. 4, 27. Her. 2, 113. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 53 
 
 posed to have derived its name from the pilot of Menelaus, who 
 had sailed thither on his return from Troy and been detained by 
 the anger of the gods 1 . The name of Thon, which appears in the 
 story of Menelaus, was derived from a town of that name, which 
 stood near the Canopic mouth 2 , and a place called Heleneius is 
 mentioned in the same locality 3 . The Canopic mouth was the 
 nearest to Greece and the coast of Asia Minor inhabited by Greeks ; 
 it gave the most ready access to the interior, and afforded, even in 
 the earliest times of Greek navigation, a deeper and safer anchor- 
 age than any of the other channels 4 . 
 
 The incidental mention of Egypt in the Homeric poems leads us 
 to suppose that the Greeks in general were but little acquainted 
 with it, and least of all with upper Egypt 5 . The island Pharos, 
 which must then as now have lain close to the coast, is placed by 
 the poet at the distance from it of a day's sail 6 . If this arose from 
 ignorance on his part, it proves that the coast was not much fr 
 quented by navigators ; if, as seems probable, it was designed in 
 order to afford a more appropriate scene for the "specious miracle" 
 of Proteus, it presumes ignorance of the true position on the part 
 of his auditors. With the exception of Thebes, only Lower Egypt 
 
 1 Od. 6', 83, 351. 2 Diod. 1, 19. 8 .Hecata?us apud Steph. Byz. s. voc. 
 4 "E^£i fiiv ovv elaaycoyas to. aTOfiara d\\' ovk £V(f>veTs, ovSe [icydXois tt\oiois d\\' 
 virripETiKoTs, Sta to (Sparta elvai koX i\u>6r]' fiaXiaTa pivrot rti Kavw/Juroj aTQ^.aTi e%- 
 pwvTo a>j £^7roj9('w. (Strabo, p. 801.) 
 
 6 The assertion of the Egyptian priests (Diod. 1, 96), that it was recorded 
 in their sacred books that Homer had visited Egypt, deserves no credit. 
 6 Nijao? ezeiTa tis tori ttoXvkXvo-tco evi novrco 
 
 A.iyvirrov irpo-rrdpoide (Qapov St i KiK\r\aKOvai) 
 Tdccov avevd' baaav re Travriptptr) y\a<pvpr) prjvs 
 "Hfwcv, rj \iyvs ovpos &TTiirvt'iT)oiv omodev. — Od. 6', 354. 
 
 No deposition of soil can have filled up this interval; nor is anything 
 gained by making Aiyv-nrrov here signify the river Nile, contrary to its 
 obvious meaning ; for Pharos is not trpondpoiOz any part of the river, and 
 much less than a day's sail from the nearest part of it In Virgil's time the 
 
54 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 is alluded to. Menelaus is said in the Odyssey 1 to have received 
 rich presents from Polybus, who dwelt in Thebes, and in aftertimes 
 this Polybus was converted into a king of the 19th dynasty. The 
 exaggerated description of Thebes, and its wealth 2 , indicates that 
 it was known from the boastful rumor of the natives rather than 
 from ocular inspection. Egypt's abundance in skilful physicians 
 and medicinal herbs is noticed in the Odyssey, but this too is 
 turned into a tale of 'wonder in the description of the virtues of 
 the Nepenthe*. Before the time of Psammitichus, Greeks were 
 not allowed to go beyond the coast of Lower Egypt, and the occa- 
 sional visits of traders to a single sea-port, inhabited by a people 
 whose language was utterly unknown to them, could furnish no 
 accurate knowledge of the interior, much less any insight into the 
 history of the country. 
 
 This state of things was entirely changed in the reign of Psam- 
 mitichus, who gained his kingdom by means of Ionian and Carian 
 mercenaries (670 b. c), took them permanently into his pay, and 
 established a body of interpreters, by whose means the Greeks 
 began to acquire an accurate knowledge of Egypt*. Amasis, 
 nearly a century and a half later, allowed them to settle at plea- 
 sure in Naucratis. Yet Pindar speaks of Mendes as being " near 
 a cliff of the sea," though there is no cliff on the coast, nor was 
 Mendes near it 5 . The state of Greek literature however has pre- 
 vented our deriving any benefit from this source, in the interval 
 between the reign of Psammitichus and the Persian conquest. 
 
 mouth of the ]S~ile was too well known to be the scene of a tale of wonder 
 and he transfers it to the Carpathian Sea. (Georg. 4, 387.) 
 
 1 Od. 6\ 126. 
 
 2 H t', 381. See vol. i. p. 150. 
 
 3 Od. 6', 220 seq. 
 
 4 Herod. 2, 154. Diod. 1, 67. 
 
 6 Tlapa Kpnjivdv QaXaaoas. (Frag. Boeckh. 215.) Comp. Fr. 50, where Egypt 
 is Called dy%tKpr)fjivos. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 55 
 
 During this time Thales and Pythagoras had visited Egypt, and 
 been initiated into the religion and science of the Egyptians 1 , but 
 we have only vague traditions of their travels ; for history had not 
 yet come into existence among the Greeks themselves. Still the 
 presence of intelligent foreigners controlled the propensity of the 
 natives to give a marvellous air to everything in their history, and 
 established a chronology moderate, credible and continuous for the 
 period subsequent to the reign of Psammitichus, while before that 
 time, in the works of Herodotus and Diodorus, the history is 
 mythical and extravagant, and the chronology exaggerated, uncer- 
 tain and fragmentary. 
 
 The overthrow of the monarchy of the Pharaohs by Cambyses, 
 coinciding with the commencement of prose history in Ionia, at 
 length laid Egypt completely open to the researches of the Greeks, 
 and preserved the record of them to succeeding times. The philo- 
 sophers who visited it while the hierarchy retained their power, 
 were probably compelled to purchase their initiation into the secrets 
 of science and the mysteries of religion 2 by humble entreaty, and 
 attain it through long preliminary forms 3 ; and the jealous sensi- 
 bility of the multitude, in everything which regarded their religion, 
 would co-operate with the spirit of secresy and monopoly in the 
 priesthood, to render free inquiry dangerous and difficult. The 
 Persian conquest made the professors of a different and hostile reli- 
 gion masters of the country, opened all its approaches, and enabled 
 the Greeks to visit every part of it. The reign of Darius established 
 order and peace throughout the whole extent of the monarchy ; 
 
 1 Antiphon ap. Porph. de Vita Pyth. Diog. Laert. 8, 3. According to this 
 author, the friendly relations between Polycrates and Amasis obtained for 
 Pythagoras admission first to the Heliopolitan, then to the Memphite, and 
 last of all the Theban Priests. 
 
 a Diod. 1, 98. 
 
 * UpoaTdyfjLara (XK'Xripa iral Kt^oipiafitva r/yf 'EXX»7vtic>7S aywy?K, Says Antipho of 
 
 the trials by which the patience of Pythagoras was tried. 
 
56 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 Egypt in particular felt the benefit of his firm but tolerant sway. 
 
 The earliest Greek descriptions of Egypt were probably written 
 during his reign 1 . Cadmus must have written on Egypt, since 
 Diodorus (1, 37) includes him among those who had given fabu- 
 lous accounts of the Nile. Hecataeus, like Cadmus, a native of 
 Miletus, a city which was the first school of Greek history and 
 geography, was a contemporary of Darius, and had included Egypt 
 among the countries which he described in his Periegeses or Peri- 
 odos 2 . Nothing has been quoted from this last work, by which we 
 can judge whether he gave its history, but the descriptive part must 
 have been minute, since Herodotus has been charged with almost 
 literally copying from him the passages in his second book relating 
 to the phoenix, the hippopotamus and the crocodile 3 . Hellanicus 
 of Lesbos, a few years before Herodotus, either wrote a work enti- 
 tled AlyvtfriuxcL*, or at all events introduced many particulars respect- 
 ing the productions, customs and dogmas of Egypt into some of 
 his voluminous writings. According to the judgment of Photius, 
 it contained much that was mythic and fictitious 6 , but it might 
 
 1 Hippys of Rhegium, who lived eni nov TLepcriKcov (Suid.), is reckoned by 
 Heyne among the writers on Egypt (De Font. Hist. Diod. xxviii.), but no 
 such work is ascribed to him, and he may have mentioned the antiquity of 
 the Egyptian people, and the purity of the air and water incidentally in his 
 other writings. Schol. ap. Rhod. 4, 262, where the name is written 'Imrwv 
 in Schol. Paris. 
 
 2 It was doubtful whether the works which were current under these 
 names in the time of Athenseus and Arrian were genuine. (Arr. 5, 6. 
 Athen. Epit. 2, p. 70 ) 
 
 3 Euseb. Praep. Evang 10. 3, quoting Porphyry nepl rov Kktnras thai rovg 
 
 * The title quoted by Athenaeus, p. 470 D. 679 R, is not decisive evidence 
 of the existence of a separate work so named, since we find the AiyvnrtaKa 
 of Herodotus quoted, evidently the Euterpe (Sturz, Hellan. p. 40). Plutarch 
 mentions Hellanicus as writing the name Osiris Usiris (Is. et Os. p. 364). 
 
 6 Cod. clxi. p. 339, /xu9t*o koX 7rAaa/iart*a ttoAAu. Two sources, however, are 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 57 
 
 nevertheless be a faithful account of what he had seen and heard. 
 Pherecydes, who was three years younger than Herodotus, but 
 published earlier, introduced the mention of Egypt into his 'Itfropfai, 
 in connexion with the attempt of Busiris to sacrifice Hercules 1 . But 
 it does not appear that he had visited this country, and the frag- 
 ments of his work indicate that he regarded the history of all other 
 nations from the Grecian point of view, and endeavored to inter- 
 weave it with the mythic history of the heroic age. 
 
 Probably none of these writers, not even Hecatseus, contained a 
 connected history and chronology of Egypt. We may regard these 
 as beginning with Herodotus. The Egyptians had revolted from 
 Persia at the close of the reign of Darius (486 b. c), but had been 
 brought into subjection early in that of Xerxes (484 b. a), and had 
 again revolted under Inaros king of Libya in 460 b. c. This revolt 
 lasted six years, and the Athenians had assisted the Egyptians with 
 a fleet, which at first was successful and took possession of Memphis, 
 but was subsequently destroyed by Megabyzus 2 . Whether Hero- 
 dotus visited Egypt during its temporary occupation by the Greeks, 
 or subsequently to the re-establishment of the Persian dominion in 
 455 b.c, is uncertain. It is evident from his history (2, 99) that 
 at the time when it was written they were in possession of it ; but 
 many years intervened between his travels, and the publication of 
 his Muses in their present form. In either case it is evident that 
 he was able to pass freely through the country to the borders of 
 Nubia 8 , and pursue eveiy investigation which his inquisitive mind 
 suggested. His residence, however, seems to have been chiefly 
 confined to Lower Egypt and Memphis ; he visited Thebes, but it 
 
 mentioned, Hellanieus and -<£lius Dionysius (or Dius), and it does not appear 
 what belonged to each. 
 
 Pherecydes, ed. Sturz, pp. 132, 13*7. Herodotus probably had him in 
 view (2, 45) when he charges the Greeks with repeating idle tales respecting 
 human sacrifices in Egypt. 
 
 * Thuc. 1, 104, 109. 3 Her. 2, 29. 
 
 3* 
 
58 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 was to ascertain whether its sacerdotal traditions agreed with those 
 which he had heard at Memphis, and the reader is surprised that 
 he should have passed over in profound silence its temples, palaces, 
 and sepulchres, as well as all the circumstances which give to Upper 
 Egypt a character so different from that of the Delta. Thebes had 
 suffered especially from the fury of Cambyses 1 , yet its buildings 
 remained, and even in its ruins it must have far surpassed every 
 other city of Egypt. He appears to have derived his materials 
 almost entirely from the accounts of the priests 2 and the Greeks 
 settled in the country : he never quotes as authorities the writers 
 who had preceded him, though he sometimes alludes to their mis- 
 takes 3 . The information which the priests gave him was commu- 
 nicated orally, except in one instance, in which they read to him 
 from a papyrus a list of 341 kings. In other passages 4 he men- 
 tions the purport of inscriptions which had been explained to him. 
 
 His history begins with Menes, the founder of the monarchy and 
 of Memphis, succeeded by 330 sovereigns, respecting whom, as 
 they had erected no monuments, the priests had nothing further 
 to relate than that eighteen among them were Ethiopians and one 
 a queen, Nitocris. The next name, and therefore the 331st from 
 Menes, is that of Mceris, the author of the remarkable excavation, 
 for so Herodotus considered it, in the district of Fyoum, which 
 received the overflowings of the Nile. The conqueror Sesostris 
 succeeds to Mceris, and to Sesostris his son Pheron. In the reign 
 of his successor, Proteus, is related the history of the adventures 
 of Paris, Menelaus and Helen in Egypt, followed by the reign of 
 Rhampsinitus the wealthy, with the anecdote of the thief who 
 robbed his treasury. After Rhampsinitus come the builders of the 
 pyramids — Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus, followed by Asychis 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 816. Diod. 1, 46. 
 
 8 2, 99, 100, 102, 107, 111, 113, 118, 124, 154. In 2, 142 he quotes as his 
 authorities Aiyiirriot ti koI o{ ipecs. 
 
 8 2, 16. 4 2, 125, 136, 141. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 59 
 
 and Anysis, in whose reign Sabaco the Ethiopian invaded Egypt 
 and kept possession of the throne for fifty years. His evacuation 
 of the kingdom made way for the elevation of Sethos, succeeded 
 by the Dodecarchia, or government of twelve chieftains, whose 
 power Psammitichus put down and consolidated the government 
 in his own hands. With Psammitichus, as we have already 
 observed, we reach a period of ascertained history and definite 
 chronology ; but the effect of the establishment of the Greeks in 
 Egypt is in some degree retrospective, and extends this period as 
 far back as the Ethiopian dominion. 
 
 In regard to all that precedes this age, the eighth century before 
 Christ, it is evident, from the inspection of the history of Herodo- 
 tus by itself, and without comparison with monuments or with any 
 other historical book, that it cannot be accepted as true, either in 
 its facts or its dates. Even the circumstance that after Menes 330 
 sovereigns are said to have succeeded to each other, without leaving 
 any memorial of themselves in public works, or legislation, or con- 
 quest, is sufficient to show that the kings and their chronology are 
 unhistorical. If we suppose, which is not improbable, that Hero- 
 dotus has mistaken the statement received from the priests, and 
 that the 330 kings were not represented by them as intervening 
 between Menes and Moeris, but are to be added to the eleven who 
 succeeded Mceris, and whose reigns are specially described by him, 
 making 341 for the whole number from Menes to the extinction 
 of the line of the Pharaohs in Sethos, this would not be sufficient 
 to make his history credible. The properly historical information, 
 from Menes to the Ethiopian invasion, is comprised in the single 
 reign of his Sesostris, who appears as a conqueror and a legislator. 
 All the other sovereigns serve only to explain the existence of pub- 
 lic works and monuments, or connect themselves with narrativos 
 which betray their origin in superstition or popular credulity ; 
 nothing is recorded of them analogous to the facts which authentic 
 history preserves respecting the real monarchs of powerful and 
 
60 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. 
 
 civilized countries, and which must certainly have "been contained 
 in the annals of the Egyptians, the most learned people in their 
 national antiquities 1 of any of the ancient world. 
 
 It is also obvious, that a considerable portion of this history has 
 been produced, since the establishment of the Greeks in Egypt, by 
 their earnest desire to connect their own mythic history with that 
 of Egypt. The Egyptian priests were ready to co-operate with them 
 for this purpose ; each party having also its separate aim, to exalt 
 the glory of their respective countries. The adventures of Menelaus 
 in Egypt, detailed even to the speeches, occupy about the same space 
 (2, 112—120) as the whole reign of Sesostris (102—111). The 
 Homeric mythe of Proteus, a marine divinity feeding his phocce on 
 the coast of Egypt, and endowed with the gift of prophecy, which 
 he will only exercise upon compulsion, is transformed into the his- 
 tory of a man of Memphis 2 , who succeeds to the throne of Egypt 
 on the death of Pheron, the son of Sesostris. This history Hero- 
 dotus received, and apparently in undoubting faith, from the priests 
 themselves, who, though they could furnish him nothing memorable 
 to record respecting 330 sovereigns, relate with the minuteness 
 of a contemporary journal the adventures of a Trojan prince, cast 
 upon their shores ; adventures trivial in themselves if they ever 
 happened, and little likely to have found a place in sacerdotal 
 annals. But while the Greeks were gratified to find a confirmation 
 of their own history in that of Egypt, the Egyptian priests rejoiced 
 
 1 2, 77. O" fiiv nepi r»> aTreipofiivrjv Aiyvxrov otxcovai, \ivr\pr\v dvdpujnuv ndvTWv 
 inaffKCoi'TCS fid^iaTa, Xoyiwrur Jt eiai ^HKfjio rcov eyco tig dtdnetpav dirtKOfiriv. \6yiog 
 
 is explained by Hesycliius as rrjs loropias l^eipoi. Clem. Alex. p. 757, Pot- 
 ter, will show how much even the priests had to commit to memory, al- 
 though they had a large number of written volumes. 
 
 2 Proteus was worshipped at Memphis, but in the quarter of the Tyrians 
 (Her. 2, 1 1 2), and he was connected with the temple of the Foreign Venus. 
 The story was transferred probably by Phoenician colonization, with the 
 worship of the Cabiri (Her. 3, 37) to Pallene (Virg. Georg. 4, 390). See 
 Kenrick's Egypt of Herodotus, p. 265. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 61 
 
 in the opportunity of exhibiting their ancient sovereigns as exercis- 
 ing justice and hospitality towards the Greeks. They had been 
 accused by the Greeks of putting strangers to death ; but according 
 to the account given by the priests to Herodotus, Menelaus seized 
 and sacrificed two Egyptian children to obtain favorable winds — 
 an evident allusion to the story of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. It is 
 also obvious that Egyptian mythology and popular anecdote have 
 furnished a considerable portion of what Herodotus has given us 
 for history. To the former class belong the stories of the descent 
 of Rhainpsinitus into Hades, and the grief of the daughter of Mv- 
 cerinus ; to the latter the pleasant tale of the thief who was caught 
 in the trap, when endeavoring to rob the treasure-house of Rhamp- 
 sinitus. Such being the general character of the history, even 
 those parts which do not bear on their face the marks of a mvthic 
 or fictitious origin, lose their historical evidence ; they are less 
 improbable than the rest, but not more certain. 
 
 From a history composed of such materials no chronologv can 
 be deduced. Herodotus makes Mceris to have preceded only by 
 900 years his own visit to Egypt ; but as we find in the ascent to 
 Mceris a person of such doubtful historical character as Proteus, we 
 can place no reliance on any portion of the chain. Herodotus 
 besides connects this date of the reign of Mceris with the assurance, 
 that in his time a rise of the Nile of eight cubits was sufficient to 
 inundate the Delta ; whereas in the historian's own day a rise of 
 sixteen cubits was necessary for this purpose. This however sup- 
 poses a rate of variation for the height of the soil and river so dif- 
 ferent from everything which has been ascertained, that if the fact 
 be admitted the date must be false ; and if the fact be incorrect, the 
 authority of those by whom it was related, and from whom the 
 whole chronology is derived, as given by Herodotus, is of no 
 ralue. 
 
 It is evident that a popular history had formed itself in Egypt in 
 the time of Herodotus, having very little connexion with written or 
 
62 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 monumental authority, of which the leading object had been to 
 satisfy the curiosity of travellers by furnishing, what they always 
 eagerly inquire for, the names of the authors of public works, and 
 some anecdotes respecting them. Had he derived his history from 
 a class of persons corresponding with those who in modern Europe 
 have the charge, and take on themselves the explanation of public 
 monuments, we should not have been surprised at the vagueness 
 of his chronology and the leaning to the marvellous in his narra- 
 tives. But he repeatedly appeals to the authority of the priests, 
 who as a body must in this age have retained the knowledge of the 
 hieroglyphical character and an ample religious and antiquarian 
 literature. I can only explain this by supposing that the priests with 
 whom he conversed were of a very subordinate rank and ignorant 
 of the antiquities of their country, who had framed for the use of 
 visitors such a history as would satisfy their curiosity and excite 
 their imagination, without overburthening their memory with 
 names 1 . From the account of Clemens Alexandrinus 2 , it should 
 seem that the interpretation of the hieroglyphic character was the 
 office only of the hierogrammateus, from whom the others learnt by 
 heart what it was necessary that they should know for the execu- 
 tion of their offices. This may help to account for the extraordi- 
 nary character which the history of Herodotus presents, considered 
 only by itself, and its still more extraordinary aspect, when con- 
 fronted with the monuments. 
 
 1 The account which the grammatistes of the temple of Sais gave to Hero- 
 dotus (2, 28) of the source of the iXile, which he describes as rising between. 
 Syene and Elephantine, and flowing half towards Egypt and half towards 
 Ethiopia, proves either that the Egyptians made experiments on the credu- 
 lity of the Greeks, or that an inhabitant of Lower Egypt, where the Greeks 
 chiefly collected their information, might be very ignorant of the geography 
 of Upper Egypt. The Greeks themselves very rarely reached the southera 
 frontier of the kingdom, much less did they venture into Ethiopia, (Diod. 
 Sic. 1, 37.) 
 
 'Strom. 6, p. 757. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 63 
 
 Egypt remained open to the Greeks, when they were not them- 
 selves in hostility with Persia. Philistus, the Syracusan, had pro- 
 bably visited this country, during his long exile, at the beginning 
 of the fourth century b.c. He wrote a work on Egypt in twelve 
 books, and on Egyptian theology in three books, besides a discourse 
 concerning Naucratis 1 . Democritus, about the same time, is said 
 to have spent five years in Egypt, and to have written on the sacred 
 characters of Meroe 2 ; but neither of his works nor those of Phi- 
 listus has more than the titles reached us. 
 
 If we are inclined to wonder at the vagueness and inaccuracy of 
 these Greek accounts of Egypt, we must remember, that the monu- 
 ments in general precede by many centuries the earliest of them, 
 and that a variance between them does not therefore necessarily 
 imply unfaithfulness on the part of the Greeks. Besides this, many 
 obstacles stood in the way of their obtaining accurate information. 
 Ignorant themselves of the language of the country, they had to 
 depend on Egyptian interpreters, who probably possessed only that 
 superficial knowledge of Greek which enabled them to carry on 
 intercourse on the common-place topics of commerce and conversa- 
 tion. The repugnance of the Egyptians for foreign religion and 
 manners must have made them unwilling to receive the Greeks into 
 intimacy, or give them information. Like our own countrymen, 
 they bore themselves towards barbarians with the air of conscious 
 superiority, which inflames dislike 3 . The priesthood in particular 
 appear to have endeavored to humble the national pride of 
 the Greeks, by representing everything in their civilization, even 
 their philosophy and science, as derived from Egypt. 
 
 The next great event in the history of Egypt is its conquest by 
 Ptolemy, the son of'Lagus, in the year 322 b.c, by which a Greek 
 dynasty was established there and in Ethiopia. Many of the 
 
 1 Suidas, s. v. $'i\httos. 8 Diog. Laert 9, 49. 
 
 8 See the observations of Sir G. Wilkinson, M. <fe C. 5, 466. 
 
04 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Greeks subsequently composed Egyptian histories ; but none of 
 them has been preserved, except by quotations in later authors. 
 From a fragment of Dicaearchus, who lived about 300 B.C., it 
 appears as if he had placed Sesonchosis or Sesostris at the com- 
 mencement of the monarchy, immediately after Horus, whom the 
 Greeks reckoned to have been the last of the gods 1 , and 2936 years 
 before the sera of the Olympiads. Such a position of Sesostris is 
 purely arbitrary, and must have been owing to his celebrity as a 
 conqueror — a proof that Egyptian history was still arranged 
 according to popular conception rather than documentary and 
 monumental evidence. Eratosthenes of Cyrene, the chief librarian 
 of the Alexandrian library, a man of extraordinary compass of lite- 
 rary and scientific attainments, had occupied himself with the 
 genealogy and succession of the Theban kings 2 in the reign of the 
 second Ptolemy ; but his labors appear to have had little influence 
 upon the popular history, which, as it is given by Diodorus, retains 
 the same general character as in Herodotus. 
 
 Diodorus visited Egypt in the 180th Olympiad, about 58 b.c. 8 
 From what source the portion of his history was derived which 
 differs from Herodotus, we do not know. He had seen Memphis, 
 and probably Thebes ; he had read the authors who had written 
 on Egypt in the times of the Ptolemies, and quotes, without pro- 
 fessing himself to have read, the annals of the priests. Although 
 not admitting that the Barbarians generally were older than the 
 Greeks, the reputed birth of the gods in Egypt, the high antiquity 
 of astronomical science there, and the fulness and importance of 
 its historical records, led him to begin his Universal History with 
 
 1 Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 4, 272. 
 
 2 Ti)v yvutaiv tpiqaiv b 'Eparoodivris \a@u)V AiyvnriaKoTs viro^ivfina<Ti Kai dvopaai Kara 
 vpoara^iv /3a<nXiA>/> ri) 'EWdSi (piovrj itapttypaotv ovrcos (Syncell. Chronog. p. 91. 
 
 171 Dind.) The same author says that Eratosthenes received the names e* 
 t<Hv iv A(og-7t<5A£i UpoypapnaTtu* (p. 147, 279 Dind.) 
 
 3 Hist 1, 46. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 65 
 
 that of Egypt, and prefix to it a speculation, in historical garb, on 
 the progress of civilization in that country, from the time when 
 the inhabitants lived on the spontaneous growth of the papyrus, 
 next on fish, then on the flesh of animals 1 , and lastly on lotus, till 
 a king and queen, Osiris and Isis, discovered the cultivation of 
 grain. 
 
 In the history of Diodorus we perceive two changes which had 
 taken place since the time of Herodotus. The father of history, 
 in accordance with the accounts given him by the priests, represents 
 the gods of Egypt as wholly distinct from men 2 . But in the 
 interval between Herodotus and Diodorus the opinion had sprung 
 up among the Greeks that the gods had been illustrious chiefs and 
 warriors, inventors and improvers of the arts and sciences, raised 
 to the rank of divinity through the admiration and gratitude of 
 mankind 3 . Osiris, therefore, who had been to Herodotus a god, 
 answering in the Egyptian pantheon to Dionysus in the Greek, 
 appears in Diodorus as a king of Egypt also, according to some 
 accounts the founder of Thebes, who with a large army traversed 
 the world, to diffuse the blessings of civilization 4 . Another change 
 is the endeavor to connect Egyptian history, not only with Greek 
 history generally, but with the country of the reigning dynasty. 
 Osiris is accompanied by his son Macedo, whom he leaves as king 
 of that region, a fiction by means of which Egyptian pride was 
 flattered with the belief that Egypt had been conquered by princes 
 of its own blood 5 . The celebrated wine of Maronea, or Ismarus 
 
 Hist. 1, 9. 43. 2 1, 143. See vol. i. p. 295. 
 
 8 The Egyptians combined the ancient with the modern doctrine, by the 
 supposition that each celestial god had a mortal representative mostly of 
 the same name (Diod. 1, 12, 13). 4 Diod. 1, 24, 28. 
 
 * Obvious as this is, the interpreters of hieroglyphics have ought for a 
 Macedo among the names of the ancient gods of Egypt (Wilkinson, pi. 44 ; 
 Young in Supp. to Encyclop. Brit.). Fortunately for the credit of their 
 science, they have not found him. 
 
66 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 in Thrace, which in this age was included in Macedonia 1 , was also 
 said to have derived its name from Maro, a follower of Osiris in 
 his Thracian expedition ; and Lycurgus, a name occurring in the 
 Iliad 2 , is represented as being slain in consequence of his resistance 
 to Osiris. In this age it had become known that beer, a common 
 beverage in Egypt, was used among the barbarous nations, whose 
 climate could not ripen grapes, and this also Osiris had taught 
 them to make 3 . 
 
 The properly human history of Diodorus begins, like that of 
 Herodotus, with Menes. The line of his insignificant successors, 
 of whom there was nothing to relate, extends only to fifty-two, 
 occupying a space of 1400 years. After this interval Busiris suc- 
 ceeds, and eight of his descendants, of whom the last, Busiris II., 
 founds the city which the Egyptians call the city of Zeus, and the 
 Greeks Thebes. At this point there is a break in the chronology. 
 Having mentioned the sumptuous temples and other works by 
 which the kings who succeeded Busiris II. had adorned Thebes, 
 he describes at great length the monument of Osymandyas 4 ; and 
 when he returns to his history and says that Uchoreus, eighth in 
 descent from this king, founded Memphis, it is uncertain whether 
 he means from Busiris or from Osymandyas, probably the former. 
 Mceris, the twelfth in descent from Uchoreus, excavated the lake 
 which bears his name, and erected in it two pyramids, on one of 
 which a statue of himself, on the other of his queen, was placed. 
 Seven generations later lived Sesoosis, whose history has so close 
 a resemblance with that of the Sesostris of Herodotus, as to leave 
 no doubt that they are the same persons. His son of the same name 
 succeeded him, and from the circumstances of his history appears 
 to be the Pheron of Herodotus. After him came, in many gene- 
 
 1 Strabo, Epit. 7, 6, 331. The Greeks on their side alleged that Marea, 
 near Alexandria (Georg. 2, 91), derived its name from the Homeric Maron. 
 (Od. t', 197. Eust. ib.) 
 
 • 184. 8 Her. 2, 77. Diod. 1, 20. 4 1, 47. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 67 
 
 rations, whose number is not specified, a succession of kings, who 
 performed nothing worthy of record. Amasis, the next named, 
 alienated the minds of his people by his tyranny, so that, being 
 invaded by Actisanes the king of Ethiopia, Egypt fell with little 
 resistance under his dominion. At his death the Egyptians reco- 
 vered their independence, and chose Mendes or Marus for their 
 king, who built the Labyrinth as a sepulchre for himself. An 
 anarchy which lasted five generations was ended by the election 
 of a man of the common people, called Cetes by the Egyptians, 
 Proteus by the Greeks. The variation in the names is perhaps 
 only apparent ; for though KsVtjs is said to be Egyptian, its ana- 
 logy to the Greek Kyrog 1 , whence the Latin cetus, cete, leads to the 
 suspicion that it represents the same idea as Proteus, a marine 
 deity, partaking of the form of a fish 2 . The reign of Cetes must 
 be considered in the chronology of Diodorus to answer to the time 
 of the Trojan war. The Remphis who succeeds to Cetes is evidently 
 the Rhampsinitus of Herodotus. In comparing the accounts of 
 these two kings, as given by Herodotus and Diodorus, we see an 
 attempt in the latter to give an historical air and historical proba- 
 bility to that which his predecessor had left in the vagueness of 
 mythe and tradition. The knowledge of the winds possessed by 
 Proteus is ascribed to his intimacy with the astronomers, who were 
 supposed to be capable of predicting the changes of the weather ; 
 his transformations, to the custom of the Egyptian rulers to put 
 on the heads of lions, bulls and serpents. Herodotus mentions, 
 but does not account for nor specify, the immense wealth of Rhamp- 
 
 1 We find the various readings of Kerva, Kcrnv, Kerrjva (Diod. 1, 62), but 
 none seems to represent a true Egyptian name. 
 
 2 The knowledge of the future was for some mythic reason, not necessary 
 to be here inquired into, supposed to belong especially to the marine deities. 
 (Hes. Theog. 233. Apoll. Rhod. 1, 310. Ov. Met. 12, 556. 8, 787.) K/?™ 
 in Hesiod u. s. is a daughter of Hdvroe and sister of Nereus ; Proto (ib. 243) 
 is a daughter of Nereus. 
 
cs 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 sinitus, which was probably connected with his supposed descent 
 into Hades 1 ; according to Diodorus he is a Henry VIL, rigid in 
 the exaction of his revenues and penurious in his expenditure 2 ; he 
 knows also the exact amount of treasure which he left behind him, 
 namely four hundred thousand talents of gold and silver. To 
 Remphis succeed for seven generations kings devoted to luxury 
 and indolence, in consequence of which the records related nothing 
 of them, except that from one of them, Xileus, the river, previously 
 called JEgyptus, took its later name. The cause of the change 
 was the great service which he rendered to his country by the 
 construction of canals, a work which Herodotus ascribes to Sesos- 
 tris. The seven faineans were succeeded by Chembes ; Chephres, 
 or Chabryis ; and Mycerinus or Mecherinos, the builders of the 
 pyramids, in regard to whom there is no remarkable difference 
 between Herodotus and Diodorus. After these kings comes Boc- 
 choris, son of Tnephactus, of mean person, but surpassing in talent 
 and wisdom all his predecessors. Long afterwards Sabaco the 
 Ethiopian reigned over Egypt, and on his retirement the anarchy 
 took place, which was ended by the establishment of the Dodecarchia, 
 and that after fifteen years by the sole reign of Psammitichus. 
 Incidentally Diodorus also mentions Mneves, the first king wdio gave 
 written laws to the people, which he professed to have received 
 from Hermes ; and Sasyches, who was not only a lawgiver, but the 
 inventor of geometry and astronomy 3 . 
 
 The variations between Herodotus and Diodorus are too great 
 to allow of their being explained by the causes which produce dif- 
 ferences in dates, successions and events, even in histories founded 
 upon documentary evidence. Little stress can be laid upon a want 
 of congruity in names, since we know that the sovereigns of Egypt 
 
 1 See vol. 1, p. 336. 
 
 2 AieTc\e(r£ iravra tov tov %rjv %povov i-rnfie\6 jievos tcSv irpocrdSoiv nai aoiptvoiv iravra- 
 %6dev tov tt\ovtov. (Diod. 1, 63.) 
 
 1 1, S2. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 GO 
 
 had two or even three 1 ; but the discrepancy here affects every ele- 
 ment of history. Sixty reigns at least intervene between Menes 
 the founder of Memphis, according to Herodotus, and Uchoreus, 
 to whom Diodorus attributes its foundation. Herodotus extends 
 the number of the obscure successors of Menes to 330 ; Diodorus 
 limits them to 52. Herodotus includes in these eighteen Ethio- 
 pians ; in Diodorus there is no mention of Ethiopian sovereignty 
 till the reign of Actisanes, which corresponds in part with the 
 second Ethiopian dominion in Herodotus, that of Sabaco. The 
 building of the Labyrinth, the reign of Remphis, the erection of the 
 Pyramids, are all placed by the two historians in different relative 
 positions ; the Labyrinth, which according to Diodorus was erected 
 five generations before the Trojan War, dates according to Hero- 
 dotus from the Dodecarchia. Diodorus makes the whole number 
 of native sovereigns of Egypt to have been 470 kings and 5 queens 2 . 
 Herodotus 3 makes them 341 from Menes to Sethos ; but as only 
 twenty native princes at most reigned from Sethos to Nectanebus, 
 the accounts cannot be reconciled. The duration of the native 
 monarchy was according to the Egyptians above 4700 years (Diod. 
 1, 69), according to the calculation of Herodotus (2, 142) 11,340. 
 These discrepancies are so enormous and so fundamental as to 
 preclude the idea that they can have been superinduced by lapse 
 of time and a variety of narrators on a history originally authentic. 
 Nor have we any ground for stamping one with the character of 
 authenticity to the exclusion of the other. Both appeal to the 
 same authority, the narratives of the priests : Diodorus, it is true, 
 with a more frequent allusion to written documents ; but as he 
 could not read them himself, he can give no evidence as to their 
 contents. Both of them appear to owe their origin to the same 
 cause, the desire to connect together a few leading facts in Egyp- 
 
 1 Aicovvjiui Kal Tpiwvvfioi no\\a%ov rdv A.lyvitrid)v ol ffeuriXtts evprjvrai. (SyncelL 
 p. 63 A. 117 Dind.) 
 
 9 1, 44. 8 2, 142. 
 
10 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tian history, and assign the most remarkable monuments to their 
 authors. In the age of Diodorus the remains of Thebes attracted 
 more attention than in that of Herodotus, and the history is 
 enlarged by explanations of their origin. Both authors were 
 ignorant of the invasion of the Shepherds; both misplaced the 
 aera of the erection of the Pyramids 1 , and by these two great errors 
 disturbed their whole chronology. By transposing Cheops, Che- 
 phren and Mycerinus to the blank spaces, which in both historians 
 precede Mceris, as suggested by Lepsius, we bring them into a 
 general agreement with the Egyptian authorities. Upon the whole, 
 the history of Diodorus has the more historical air ; its chronology 
 is more moderate, its narratives less mythic; not because it is 
 derived more immediately from historical sources, but from its 
 being accommodated to the taste of an age which by arbitrary 
 methods gave an historical character to that which was mythic in 
 its origin. 
 
 The variations between Herodotus and Diodorus may be con- 
 veniently exhibited in a tabular form 2 . 
 
 Herodotus. Diodorus. 
 
 Menes. Menes. 
 
 329 kings among whom are 18 52 kings, 1400 years. 
 Ethiopians and one queen, Busiris I. 
 
 Nitocris. 1 kings. 
 
 Busiris II founds Thebes. 
 
 7 kings. 
 TJehoreus founds Memphis. 
 ^Egyptus. 
 11 kings. 
 
 Moeris. Mceris. 
 
 6 kings. 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 63, says that some reckoned the pyramids to be above 3400 
 years old. This would not be very far from Manetho's reckoning. 
 a See Lepsius, Einleitung, 1, p. 259. 
 
GREEK WRITERS. 
 
 11 
 
 Herodotus. 
 
 Sesosfcris. 
 Pheron. 
 
 Proteus. 
 Rampsinitus. 
 
 Cheops. 
 
 Chephren. 
 
 Mycerinus. 
 
 Asychis. 
 
 Anysis. 
 
 Sabaco. 
 
 Sethos. 
 
 Dodecarchia. 
 
 Psammitichus. 
 
 Neco. 
 
 Psammis. 
 
 Apries. 
 
 Amasis. 
 
 DlODOEUS, 
 
 Sesoosis. 
 Sesoosis IL 
 
 Many generations. 
 Amasis. 
 Actisanes. 
 Marrus. 
 
 Five generations. 
 Anarchy. 
 Proteus or Ketes. 
 Remphis. 
 
 Seven generations. 
 Nileus. 
 Chembes. 
 Chephren. 
 Myeerinus. 
 Tnephactus. 
 Boechoris. 
 
 A long interval. 
 Sabaco. 
 
 Dodecarchia. 
 Psammitichus. 
 
 Three generations. 
 
 Apries. 
 Amasis. 
 
 The Greek history of Egypt, though it can no longer be received 
 as true, must always be studied. The substantial truth of those 
 parts which are not obviously fabulous was admitted till very recent 
 times. The names of the eminent persons mentioned in it passed 
 into history to the exclusion of those to whom this place belonged. 
 Everywhere in ancient and modern literature we meet with allu- 
 sions to it. The monuments must be consulted, that we may know 
 what the history of Egypt was ; the Greek writers, that we may 
 know what the world has till lately believed it to be. Perhaps 
 
72 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the reader who compares the imperfect skeleton of the authentic 
 Egyptian annals with the animated and flowing narrative of Hero- 
 dotus will regret that the age of simple faith is past 1 . 
 
 SECT. II. EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 It was impossible that those among the Egyptian priests who 
 were versed in their own history and antiquities, should be satis- 
 fied that they should be so imperfectly represented to the Grecian 
 world as by Herodotus, nor could the enlightened Greek sovereigns 
 of Egypt fail to perceive the inconsistency between his accounts, 
 and the facts which were before their eyes. The establishment of 
 the Greek dominion, therefore, by the conquest of Alexander, soon 
 produced a statement of the philosophy, religion and history of 
 Egypt, from one whose authority could not be called in question. 
 Manetho, the highpriest of the temple of Isis at Sebennytus in 
 Lower Egypt, in the reign of Ptolemy Lagi (322 — 284 B.C.), a 
 man of the highest reputation for wisdom 2 , and versed in Greek as 
 well as Egyptian lore 3 , published various works for the purpose of 
 informing the Greeks, and his History, as it should seem, specially 
 to correct the errors of Herodotus 4 . They have all perished 5 , but 
 
 1 Xfiptj 6' airtp atravra rev^ei to. ju'i\i^a Ovarois, 
 
 'Ji,iri<ptpoioa Tifiav Kal amcrTov kfif]aaTo ttkttov 
 "Epfjemi to TroWdxis. — Pind. 01. 1. 
 But Pindar was a philosopher as well as a poet, and he adds — 
 'A-ficpai 8' kiriXonzoi p.dpTvpss cxpcoraroi. 
 3 Zo<piat els aKpov tXijXa/cdra avSpa, (M\. Nat. Hist. 10, 16.) He was con- 
 sulted by Ptolemy respecting the introduction of the worship of Serapis. 
 (Plut Is. et Os. p. 362.) 
 
 3 Joseph. C. Apion., 1, 14. Tns 'RWqviKng fiZTca^riKuig iraiSciai. 
 
 4 Bustathu ad Iliad. X, 480, p. 857. 
 
 5 There exists under the name of Manetho an astrological poem, entitled 
 'A.ir)Tc\ctpaTiKa\ long admitted to be spurious, and a treatise Bi/3\os rfjs LwOeios, 
 which Syncellus quotes as genuine. It is however proved to be spurious 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 the respect with which he is spoken of by heathen, Jewish and 
 Christian writers, gives a high value to the fragments and inciden- 
 tal notices which alone remain. The longest and the most impor- 
 tant are those from his Egyptian History, which consisted of three 
 books. It was derived partly from the sacred books, and partly, 
 according to his own confession, from popular tradition, not war- 
 ranted by any written document 1 . Eusebius, in the Preface to his 
 second Book of the Evangelical Preparation 2 , speaks of Manetho's 
 works as copious, and this accords with the extracts in Josephus, 
 which relate the expulsion of the Shepherds and of the Jews so 
 much at length, that if the whole Egyptian history were treated 
 with the same fulness, it must have been very bulky — a circum- 
 stance which by preventing its transcription may have been the 
 cause of its reaching us only in extracts and quotations. Josephus 
 declares that he gave his extracts in the very words of Manetho, 
 and they show a ready command of Greek language ; they show 
 also the desire to establish a correspondence between Greek and 
 Egyptian history. In conformity with the Argive story, he makes 
 Sethos to be Egyptus and Armais to be Danaus, for « liich there 
 seems to have been no other ground than the hostile relation of 
 the brothers, the circumstances of the Egyptian history and the 
 Argive legend being in every other respect entirely different. 
 
 Although the History of Manetho is lost, we have his Dynasties 
 tolerably entire. As they consisted of three volumes, the same num- 
 ber with the Books of the History, it is probable that they formed 
 a part of it. They have reached us in a tabular form, but we know 
 
 by the epithet Ee/Jutt^, which the introductory Epistle gives to Ptolemy — 
 the translation of Augustus, and never found among the titles of the Ptole- 
 mies. It was probably the work of a Christian. 
 
 1 Joseph, c. Apion., 1, 14, 16, 26, where Manetho himself distinguishes 
 that which he relates ck t£>v nap' At y v it t t o i s y p a p n d rw v, and i < 
 tuv ddeairOTcof fivdo\oyovfiivd)v. 
 
 2 P. 44, e«l Viger. 
 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
74 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 not whether they were appended in this form to the continuous 
 history, or whether the Christian writers, by whom they have been 
 preserved to us, extracted and arranged them. The first of these 
 was Julius, a native of Africa, thence generally called Africanus, 
 bishop of Emmaus or Nicopolis in Judaea, a man of learning, 
 research and probity, who wrote in the beginning of the third cen- 
 tury 1 . His work consisted of five Books, to which he annexed a 
 Canon, or regular series of years, one by one, with the events of 
 each if any were known. His object was to establish synchronisms 
 between the history of the Bible and that of the heathen nations; 
 but especially of the Babylonians and Egyptians, with which the 
 history of the Jews is most closely connected. Had we a copy of 
 his work, of which unfortunately only a few fragments remain, we 
 should know very accurately the dynasties of Manetho 2 . But it 
 is not probable that he had read the historical work itself 3 ; the 
 notices of facte which he gives are very brief, and seem to have been 
 remarks, appended to a chronological table. His successors cer- 
 tainly knew Manetho only at second-hand, through the medium 
 of Africanus. 
 
 The first of these was Eusebius, the bishop of Csesarea, who, 
 about 100 years later than Africanus, undertook a more compre- 
 hensive work of the same kind, which owes all its real value as 
 Tegards Egyptian history to the use which he made of his prede- 
 cessor's materials. It consisted of two parts, the first of which was 
 a general introduction with extracts from older chronologers, the 
 
 1 Routh, Rel. Sac. 2, 221. He concluded his Chronicle with the Emperor 
 Macrinus, a.d. 217. Phot. Myriob. xxxiv. p. 19. ed. Hoesch. 
 
 2 He says of himself, when he was in Egypt, that he had procured a 
 sacred book by Suphis, king of the fourth dynasty and builder of the Great 
 Pyramid. The remains of Africanus have been collected by Routh, Reli- 
 quiae Sacra?, 2, 245, sec ed. alt. 
 
 9 Two different recensions of it appear to have existed. Kara tw hvTepav 
 t/cSoaiv 'AfpiKavov, Syncellus remarks, p. 56, 104, ed. Dind. Routh (2, 384) 
 doubts the fact of a second edition, at least of the whole Chronicle. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 15 
 
 second a Canon, such as that of Africanus. This Canon was trans- 
 lated by Jerome, and with the exception of fragments of the intro- 
 ductory part chiefly preserved by Syncellus, was all that was known 
 of it till the discovery of the Armenian version of the whole, in 
 the Library of the Convent of that nation at Venice, in 1820. 
 Eusebius carried much further than Africanus had done the attempt 
 to reduce the chronology of other nations to the standard of the 
 Jews, and to establish a general system of synchronisms for ancient 
 history — an undertaking which could be effected on no sound 
 principle for times preceding the Olympiads, and he appears not 
 to have scrupled arbitrary and even unfair expedients to attain 
 this end 1 . 
 
 In the interval between Eusebius and Syncellus, Egyptian chro- 
 nology had been handled by two monks of that country, Pano- 
 dorus and Anianus, in the same spirit, the scriptural chronology 
 being made the standard by which the other was corrected. Syn- 
 cellus, a Byzantine monk, of the beginning of the ninth century, 
 wrote a general chronology, which has come down to us in a 
 tolerably perfect state, and was executed with great labor, but little 
 sagacity, and with the same implicit deference to the Jewish author- 
 ity. He assumes 5500 b.c. as the aera of the Creation, and arran- 
 ges all his dates accordingly. He repeats with some variations the 
 dynasties of Manetho, not having before him, however, certainly, 
 the original work, but collating the lists of Africanus and Euse- 
 bius. Having mentioned the discrepancies between the names and 
 dates derived from Manetho by the ecclesiastical historians, espe- 
 cially in regard to the sovereign under whom Joseph ruled Egypt 
 and Moses led forth the people, he says, "I have therefore deemed 
 it necessary to extract and compare with one another the editions 
 
 1 Bunsen, ^gyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, 1, p. 118. Syncellus, 
 
 p. 62, 115, ed. Dind., says, o Etj<te/?ios npos tov oixtiov (tkottov tovs t>jj 
 ircvTEKai$CK&rr)s Svvavnlas napa ru ' A.<ppiKavci) tpepopivovs Kara tuv i^KaiitKarriv yzyovt- 
 
 vai \£ya. See also p 65 121 Dind. 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of two of the most celebrated men, Africanus and Eusebius 1 ." It 
 is thus at the third hand that we have Manetho's lists, and all that 
 criticism can attempt is, by the comparison of Eusebius and Syn- 
 cellus, to ascertain how they stood in the text of Africanus. 
 
 Comparing Manetho with Herodotus, we find that the latter dis- 
 tinctly excludes from the belief of the Egyptians all beings partak- 
 ing of a human and divine descent 2 , and passes from the gods to 
 the reign of the mortal Menes. But Manetho, after the reign of 
 Horus, the youngest of the gods, and before the reign of Menes, 
 the first of mortals, speaks of heroes and manes as exercising 
 dominion 3 . This seems au example of the reaction of Greek upon 
 Egyptian mythology. The Greeks interposed between gods and 
 the actual race of mortals — daemons, who were the men of the 
 golden age 4 ; manes, who were the men of the silver age; and 
 heroes or demigods, who united the divine and human nature ; and 
 the Egyptians were probably unwilling not to have a corresponding 
 period of mythic history. We find no trace of these two classes in 
 the Turin papyrus, nor is any hieroglyphic character answering to 
 them known. 
 
 The lists of Manetho comprehend, besides the period of gods, 
 1 R 53, 99, Dind. 
 
 3 Ov ccKOfUvoi and 6cjv yeviaOai dvBpwnov (2,143). No^u£ov<ri 6' w Aiyvrrrioi 
 ov6' ijpuxrt ovdcv (2, 50). Diodorus (1, 44) speaks of heroes, as reigning along 
 with the gods in a period of 16,000 years. 
 
 * Mera viicvag Kal roif rjpidiovg itp&Tr\ fiaoi\c.ia KarapiOpetTtii. (Dyn. 1.) 
 
 4 Hesiod, W. and D. 120, 140, 155:— 
 
 AvTap inei Ktv tovto yivos Kara yaTa Ka\vipev 
 
 Toi piv 6a i povt g £ i a i. 
 
 Of the men of the silver age : — 
 
 Toi piv viro^dovioi paKapeg 9vt}To\ KaXiovrat 
 
 AtVTtpOl. 
 
 Of the heroes : — 
 
 'A.v6paw h p w w v Oeiov yivos, oi KaXiovrai 
 
 'H/4t0£Oi. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 17 
 
 manes and heroes, thirty dynasties, from Menes downward to the 
 younger Nectanebus. In some of them the names of all the kings 
 are given, with the lengths of their reigns, in years, and the sums 
 of each dynasty ; in others the names do not now appear, but the 
 numbers of the kings and sum of their reigns are preserved. The 
 historical facts are very brief; of most of the kings nothing what- 
 ever is recorded, and the synchronisms noted appear to be due to 
 the Christian chronologers, rather than to Manetho himself. The 
 sum of all the dynasties varies according to our present sources 
 from 4685 to 5049 years 1 ; the number of kings from 300 to 350, 
 and even 500 2 . It is evidently impossible to found a chronology 
 on such a basis, but Syncellus tells us that the number of genera- 
 tions 3 included in the 30 dynasties was according to Manetho, and 
 to the old Egyptian Chronicle, 113; and the whole number of 
 years 3555*. This number falls much short of what the summa- 
 tion of the reigns would furnish according to any reading of the 
 numbers, but is nearly the same as 113 generations would produce, 
 at an average of 32 years to each 5 . 
 
 That Manetho would have access to all the documentary and 
 monumental evidence which the temples and public records sup- 
 plied, we cannot doubt ; but that from these it was practicable in 
 the third century before the Christian aera, to deduce a chronology 
 extending backward to the foundation of the monarchy, is by no 
 means probable 6 . The imputation of having wilfully forged names, 
 
 1 Boeckh, Manetho und die Hundssternperiode, p. 525. 
 a Bunsen, 1, p. 119. Germ. p. 83. 
 8 P. 52, 98, ed. Dindorf. 
 
 4 Lepsius (Einleitung, 1, 49V) adopts the number 3555, but rejects the 113 
 generations, which number he thinks to be derived only from the old 
 Chronicle. 
 
 6 Herodotus (2, 142) reckons a generation at thirty-three years and one- 
 third. 
 
 6 Boeckh has endeavored with great learning and ingenuity to show that 
 the chronology of Manetho is not historical but astronomical. Boeckh 
 
78 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 with which to fill out vacant spaces in the early history of Egypt, 
 has been refuted by the very close conformity between his lists and 
 the monuments, — a conformity which manifests itself at the early 
 period of the erection of the Pyramids. According to Lepsius, of 
 142 kings of the Old Monarchy, i. e. those who reigned before the 
 invasion of the Hyksos, 80 are found on the monuments. But we 
 may reasonably doubt, whether the means existed in his time to 
 fix the date of the reign of Menes, or carry the chronology over the 
 troubled period of the Hyksos ; and when we compare him with 
 the monuments, although there is sufficient accordance to vindicate 
 
 makes the sum of all the thirty dynasties to be 5366. This is just the sum 
 of three Sothiac periods, or 4383 years, plus 983, the years that had elapsed 
 between 1322 b.c, when the last Sothiac period began, and 339 B.C., the last 
 year of Nectanebus II. and the close of Mauetho's thirtieth dynasty. Hence 
 he concludes that Manetho had arbitrarily assumed the historical period of 
 Egypt to have begun with a Sothiac period, and accommodated his chro- 
 nology to that assumption. He argues the probability of this, from the fact 
 that the mythic age ends with the 17th Sothiac period (24,837 years), 
 whence the historical which succeeds it would naturally begin with ano- 
 ther, and the time between Menes and 1322 b.c. be so distributed as to fill 
 up two. But Manetho, as reported by Africanus and Eusebias, makes the 
 time before Menes 24,900 years, and says nothing of the reigns of the gods, 
 manes and heroes occupying a certain number of Sothiac periods. This is 
 derived from the Old Chronicle mentioned before ; and there is no evidence 
 that the high priest of Sebennytus admitted any such principle into his 
 ehronology of the mythic age. Consequently the presumption that lie did 
 so in the historic times falls to the ground. The number 5366 is not 
 obtained without many alterations, which, if not arbitrary, derive their 
 probability only from the supposition that the sum is right. Even were the 
 number certain, it might be merely an accidental coincidence that it 
 admitted of division into two Sothiac periods and 983 years. 
 
 The recent work of Lesueur (Chronologie des Rois d'Egypte, 1848), 
 crowned by the French Academy, assumes as its basis the Old Chronicle, 
 which I think Lepsius has satisfactorily shown to be an arbitrary adapta- 
 tion of Manetho's true dates, at once to the Sothiac period and the Hebrew 
 chronology. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 19 
 
 his integrity, there is also sufficient discrepancy to prevent implicit 
 reliance in the absence of monuments. Had the series of monu- 
 ments, indeed, inscribed with the names pf the kings and years of 
 their reigns been ever so complete, it could not alone have fur- 
 nished a chronology, because the Egyptians do not appear at any 
 time to have reckoned in their public monuments, by an (era, like 
 that of the Olympiads, but only to have dated events, as we date 
 acts of parliament, by the years of the king's reign. 
 
 Syncellus 1 quotes an old Chronicle, which he says was in vogue 
 among the Egyptians, in which the period before the 16th dynasty 
 of Manetho is allotted to the gods and demigods with 15 genera- 
 tions of the Cynic circle. It was designed to bring the work of the 
 historical Manetho into conformity with the Sothiac or Cynic 
 period, and comprehends 36,525 years, or 25 of these periods, 
 which were each of 1451 years. The number 25 was the length 
 of the life of Apis 2 . The Laterculus, as it is called, of Syncellus, is 
 another arbitrary arrangement of Egyptian chronology, and the 
 Sothis, which professes to be the work of Manetho, is manifestly 
 spurious. 
 
 If we suppose that an accurate record of the successive reigns 
 and the length of each was preserved from the very commencement 
 of the monarchy, we might easily deduce the chronology of the 
 whole interval from Menes to Xectanebus, by adding together the 
 lengths of all the reigns. But this implies that all the reigns were 
 consecutive ; that there either were no joint or rival sovereignties, 
 or that if they existed, only one was fixed on as the legitimate 
 monarch, and his years alone entered in the succession. A history 
 of Great Britain in which the years of the kings of England and 
 Scotland before the Union of the Crowns, or the Stuart and the 
 
 1 P. 51, 95, Dind. 
 
 3 See vol. i. p. 282. Lepsius has very fully investigated the relation in 
 which the spurious works, the Sothis, and the Old Chronicle, stand to the 
 genuine work of Manetho (Einleituug, 1, p. 413-460). 
 
80 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Brunswick princes since the Revolution, were added together, would 
 present a very false chronology. To deduce an Egyptian chrono- 
 logy, therefore, from the lists of Manetho, we must be assured that 
 his reigns are all strictly consecutive, and that no period has been 
 reckoned twice over. Eusebius in the Armenian version of his 
 Chronicle having urged that it is reasonable to reduce the 20,000 
 years claimed by the Egyptians to as many months, in order to 
 make them suit with the Hebrew chronology, thus proceeds : " If 
 the length of time is still in excess, we should carefully consider 
 that perhaps several Egyptian kings existed in one and the same 
 age ; for they say that Thinites and Memphites reigned, and Saites 
 and Ethiopians and others, at the same time. Other kings also 
 appear to have reigned in other places, and these dynasties to have 
 confined themselves each to its own nome ; so that single kings did 
 not reign successively, but one in one place, another in another at 
 the same time." As this is introduced as a last resource for the 
 avowed purpose of reducing the Egyptian to the Hebrew chrono- 
 logy, we cannot regard it as of any authority. No other ancient 
 author gives us reason to suppose, that after the time of Menes, 
 Egypt was divided, except under extraordinary circumstances, the 
 mention of which confirms the belief that unity was the rule of the 
 monarchy. The Greek and Roman writers do not even notice the 
 remarkable exception of the period of the Shepherd Kings, when, 
 according to Manetho, a tributary dynasty (the seventeenth) existed 
 at Thebes, contemporaneous with the Shepherd dynasty which 
 exercised sovereignty at Memphis. In Scripture, also, we find one 
 Pharaoh spoken of as ruling in Egypt, whether in the early age of 
 Abraham, during the oppression of the Jews, in the reign of Solo- 
 mon, or in the time of the later prophets. It is also difficult to 
 conceive that independent dynasties could co-exist without civil war, 
 or subordinate dynasties without rebellion, neither of which can be 
 traced in the Egyptian annals 1 . Notwithstanding these difficulties, 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, p. 98. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 81 
 
 we cannot avoid the conclusion that some great error exists in the 
 numbers of Manetho as they now stand, since the summation of 
 the reigns of his kings exceeds by nearly 1500 years the duration 
 assigued to them. 
 
 Eratosthenes, whom we have already mentioned, drew up in the 
 reign of the second Ptolemy 1 a catalogue of Theban kings, which 
 Syncellus has incorporated in his work. According to Apollo- 
 dorus, from whom Syncellus immediately derived his information, 
 Eratosthenes had received their names from the priests or hiero- 
 grammats of Thebes, and at the command of the king had 
 expressed their meaning in Greek. These Theban kings are 38 in 
 number, and their united reigns amounted to 1076 years. The 
 name of Theban is that by which he designates them collectively 
 and individually, without any distinction of dynasty, though he 
 notices of the first that he was a Thinite, and of the sixth that he 
 was a Memphite. The Greek interpretations of the Egyptian names 
 have a general conformity with the Coptic language, but the cor- 
 ruption which they have suffered in transcription makes it often 
 impossible to trace it. It appears most probable that the list of 
 Eratosthenes was constructed, though more scientifically, yet upon 
 the same principle as those of Herodotus and Diodorus, that of 
 assigning authors to the most remarkable monuments, and intro- 
 ducing the names of remarkable personages. Thus it includes 
 Menes the founder of the monarchy, the builders of the Pyramids, 
 Apappus who lived 100 years, Nitocris the only queen, Ammene- 
 mes the author of the Labyrinth, Mares or Maris, the Moeris of the 
 other Greeks ; Phrouro or Neilos, the author of the name of the 
 river. The name of Theban kings seems equivalent to earliest, the 
 Greeks believing that Egypt was once confined to Thebes 2 . Whence 
 
 1 Eratosthenes was born 2*5 b.c. See Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, sub 
 anno. 
 
 3 To 6' u>v iraXai alQfj.^ai AiyvnTos £K<i\eiTO (Her. 2. 15). 'Ap^aiov f) Atyvrrroj 
 Qt~i,8ai KaX.viievai (Arist Meteor. 1, 14). 
 
 4* 
 
82 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the other names were derived it is difficult to say ; they do not 
 appear to be of Greek invention. When we contrast the catalogue 
 of Eratosthenes with the dynasties of Manetho, they appear to have 
 had a common or kindred origin. Both begin with Menes the 
 Thinite, to whom his son Athothis succeeds ; the names in Mane- 
 tho, Suphis Suphis (builder of the Great Pyramid), Mencheres, are 
 in Eratosthenes Saophis, Saophis II. and Moscheres ; though Erato- 
 sthenes takes no notice of the erection of the Pyramids. Phiops 
 according to Manetho, Apappus according to Eratosthenes, reigns 
 100 years ; in each we have a solitary example of a queen Nito- 
 cris, who succeeds at the interval of a single reign the centenarian 
 Phiops or Apappus. The names of Siam?nenemes, Sistosis, 3fares, 
 towards the end of the list of Eratosthenes, do not differ so widely 
 from the Ammene?nes, Sesostris, Lamares or Ameres of the twelfth 
 dynasty of Manetho, but that the variation may be explained by 
 the corruptions of transcribers and the difficulty of representing 
 Egyptian names in Greek orthography. 
 
 It was acutely observed by Bunsen, that where a correspondence 
 exists between the names of Eratosthenes and those of Manetho, 
 it is always in the dynasties which the latter calls Theban or Mem- 
 phite ; and that where the names are lost, the numbers show that 
 there has been no such correspondence in the others. And hence 
 he infers that only those who belonged to the two ancient capitals 
 of Egypt were the true sovereigns of the country, whose reigns 
 give its real chronology ; while the others (the Elephantinites, 
 Heracleopolites, Xoites), though called kings, never exercised a 
 real supremacy, and being contemporaneous with the Thebans or 
 Memphites, do not enter into the chronological reckoning. Not- 
 withstanding the ability with which this attempt to reconcile 
 Eratosthenes and Manetho is supported, we cannot feel such confi- 
 dence in its soundness as to make it the basis of a history. We 
 shall therefore treat the dynasties of the latter as being, what he 
 evidently considered them to be, successive, unless where there is 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 83 
 
 some internal or independent evidence of error ; admitting at the 
 same time that no great reliance can be placed on a chronology 
 which professes to ascend to the very commencement of the reign 
 of mortal kings in Egypt. But there appears no evidence that 
 Manetho wilfully tampered with facts known to him, to favor 
 either an astronomical or an historical theory ; his system may be 
 baseless, but it is not fictitious. 
 
 The authority of all that was written in the Ptolemaic age, or 
 subsequently, whether by natives or foreigners, respecting Egyp- 
 tian history and chronology, must depend very much on the num- 
 ber and quality of the ancient writings which were extant at that 
 period. Herodotus speaks only of a papyrus, from which the 
 names of 330 kings were read to him by the priests ; but it does 
 not appear whether the historical facts which they detailed to him 
 in connexion with some of these names were derived from the 
 same source 1 . The Egyptians were celebrated among ancient 
 nations for their historical knowledge 2 , the natural consequence of 
 the number and antiquity of their monuments, the early possession 
 and wide diffusion of the art of writing, and the unchanging, tra- 
 ditionary character of all their usages and institutions. According 
 to Diodorus 3 it had been the practice of the priests, from ancient 
 times, to record and hand down to their successors the stature and 
 qualities of their kings and the events of each reign. "We have 
 seen that such records existed in the time of Herodotus ; they 
 escaped the devastation of Egypt by Cambyses; for Diodorus* 
 mentions that Artaxerxes, when he recovered the dominion of the 
 
 1 2, 142. He quotes "the Egyptians and the priests" as joint authorities 
 for these details. 
 
 2 Her. 2, 77. Prisca doctrina pollentes -^Egyptii. Apuleius, Metam. xi. 
 p. 764. 
 
 s 1, 44. 
 
 4 16, 51. 'hvay(>a<pai is the title by which the historical annals are usually 
 spoken of. See Bunsen, 1, p. 27. Diod. u. s. 
 
84 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 country from Nectanebus, carried off the records from the ancient 
 temples, which the priests redeemed from Bagoas by the payment 
 of a large sum ; and nothing had occurred from this time to the 
 age of Manetho and Eratosthenes, to occasion any violent and 
 general destruction of them. Of their absolute age we can have 
 no evidence ; it is hardly to be supposed that contemporaneous 
 documents from the foundation or first reigns of the monarchy 
 existed in the Ptolemaic age ; what was read to Herodotus was 
 evidently an historical and genealogical table, not a record. And 
 analogy would lead us to suppose, that from time to time the 
 information contained in obsolete and perishing documents would 
 be transcribed and incorporated in new ones, and thus the chain 
 of evidence be prolonged from age to age. In this way it is not 
 incredible, that our historical knowledge of Egypt may be carried 
 far up towards the commencement of the monarchy, allowance 
 being made, first for the gaps which time and periods of internal 
 confusion may have produced, and next for the changes which 
 might take place in the process of transcription. The means of 
 preserving such records were not wanting in the very earliest times ; 
 the hieroglyphic character was in use at the erection of the Pyra- 
 mids, and the reed-pen and inkstand, and scribes employed in 
 writing, appear among the sculptures in the tombs of Gizeh, which 
 are contemporaneous with the Pyramids themselves 1 . 
 
 Recently among the papyri in the hieratic character, several 
 properly historical documents have been found ; one of the most 
 remarkable is the papyrus of Sallier, which appears to contain a 
 narrative of the wars of Rameses-Sesostris, and to be of the same 
 age. Other fragments of an historical nature relate to the reigns 
 of Rameses IX., and Thothmes III., and Lepsius conjectures that 
 one, from its archaic style, may even belong to the Old Monarchy. 
 None of them have been fully read, but they are received as evi- 
 
 1 See Lepsius, Denkmaler, Abth. ii. B. 1, 19. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 85 
 
 dence by those most competent to judge, and may hereafter 
 furnish valuable materials for history 1 . 
 
 It is probable that the priests of Memphis and Thebes differed 
 in their representations of early history, and that each sought to 
 extol the glory of their own city. How otherwise can we account 
 for it, that while Herodotus makes Menes to be the founder of 
 Memphis, and consequently this capital to be coaeval with the 
 monarchy, Diodorus attributes its foundation to Uchoreus, eighth 
 in descent from Osymandyas or Busiris II. ? The history of Hero- 
 dotus turns about Memphis as a centre ; he mentions Thebes only 
 incidentally, and does not describe or allude to one of its monu- 
 ments. Diodorus, on the contrary, is full in his description of 
 Thebes, and says little of Memphis. Herodotus went to Thebes, 
 to ascertain whether the accounts of the priests corresponded with 
 what he had heard at Memphis, and he seems to have been satis- 
 fied with the agreement ; but his visit must have been short and his 
 inquiries superficial, or he would have described Thebes more fully. 
 
 Besides properly historical documents, which appear to have 
 been the work of the priests and preserved in the temples, there 
 were others, called in a peculiar sense sacred books, from which 
 many materials for illustrating and completing history might be 
 derived. They are enumerated in a passage of Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus 2 ; — " In the sacred ceremonies of the Egyptians," says he, 
 " first of all the Singer comes forth, bearing one of the instruments 
 of music. He must know by heart 3 two of the books of Hermes, 
 one of which contains the hymns of the gods, the other the allot- 
 ment of the king's life 4 . Xext to the singer comes the Horoscojjus, 
 
 1 Lepsius, Einleitung, 1, 53. Select Papyri in the hieratic character from 
 the collection in the British Museum, Lonl. 1844. 
 
 3 Strom. 6, 4, p. 756. ed. Potter. 
 
 * 'AvciXr,(f>ivai. See Plut. Agesil. C 24. Aoyov dvayvovs iv /?i'/?Aw Sv fyeAAs 
 Xeytiv dv a\a(3 <ov * AvaavSpos iv roi oinx-K 
 
 4 'Fji\oyiGjiov 0aGt\iKov fiiov. There is no authority for rendering WXoyiauSs 
 
86 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 who carries in his hand a horologium 1 and a palm-branch, symbols 
 of astronomy. He, they say, must always have at his tongue's 
 end those of the books of Hermes which are astronomical, being 
 four in number ; one of which relates to the arrangement of the 
 stars which appear to be fixed ; one respecting the conjunctions of 
 the sun and moon, and her illuminations; the remaining one 
 respecting the risings of the heavenly bodies. Next comes forth 
 the Hierogrammat, having feathers on his head and a book in his 
 hand, with a rectangular case (xavwv) in which is contained writ- 
 ing-ink and the reed with which they write. He must know the 
 hieroglyphics, as they are called, and what relates to cosmography 
 and geography, the order of the sun and moon and the five 
 planets, and the topography of Egypt and the description of the 
 Nile ; and the enumeration of the furniture of the temples and the 
 lands that have been dedicated to them ; and concerning the 
 measures and the sacred utensils. After those already mentioned 
 comes the Stolistes, having the cubit of justice 2 and the vessel for 
 pouring libations. He knows all the books which relate to educa- 
 tion and to the slaughter of victims. There are ten which have 
 reference to the honor paid to their gods, and comprehend the 
 Egyptian religion, e. gr. of sacrifices, first fruits, hymns, prayers, 
 processions, festivals and the like. After all these comes forth the 
 Propketes 3 , carrying openly in his bosom the vessel of water, fol- 
 
 distribution, yet this seems to be the code by which the occupations of the 
 sovereign were regulated. See Diod. 1, 70. Ov n6vov tov xpw aTl ^ clv xpiveiv 
 
 rjv Kaipds u}ptff[xevos } d\\a Kal tov ntpnrarriaai Kal \ovaaaBai Kal KOifjrjdrjvat [icto. ri/J 
 yvvaiKOS Kal kclB6\ov twi> Kara tov pirn Trparrojieviov cnravTOiv. 
 
 1 'Qn >\6yiov is generally rendered Sun-dial (see vol. i. p. 276); but may it 
 not mean a list of the hours of the day with the influences of the constella- 
 tions during each (see vol. i. p. 292), according to the analogy of unvoXoyiov, 
 an almanac of the month ? 
 
 3 The standard measure of length, like the "Shekel of the Sanctuary," 
 the standard of weight among the Jews. (Exod. xxx. 13. See vol. i. p. 290.) 
 
 8 UpuipfiT^s in Greek has no reference to prediction, as we might suppose 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 87 
 
 lowed by those who carried the loaves which were brought forth 1 . 
 The prophetes, as being the president of the temple, gets by heart 
 the ten books which arc called hieratic ; they contain what relates 
 to the laws and the gods, and the whole education of the priests ; 
 for the prophetes among the Egyptians presides also over the dis- 
 tribution of the revenues. The books of Hermes therefore which 
 are absolutely necessary are forty-two ; of which the persons already 
 mentioned learn thirty -six by heart, containing the whole philoso- 
 phy of the Egyptians. The remaining six the Pastophori 2 learn by 
 heart, being medical, respecting the structure of the body, and 
 diseases, and instruments, and drugs, and the eyes, and finally 
 female diseases 3 ." There is not one among these works, however 
 remote its subject may appear from history, which might not inci- 
 dentally furnish historical illustration, especially the description of 
 Egypt and the Nile, and the account of religion and the laws con- 
 nected with it. Since they appear to have been in existence in the 
 age of Clemens, at the beginning of the third century after Christ, 
 it is not beyond hope that a portion of them may yet be found 
 among the many unexamined papyri which have been brought 
 from Egypt, or among the treasures of some hitherto unopened 
 grave. As the names of many of their legislators were preserved 4 , 
 
 from our own use of prophet. It was his office to give forth the declarations 
 of the god, which might be prophetic or otherwise. (Her. 8, 135.) 
 
 1 01 rrjv tK-rcfixpiv rwv apruiv 0a<rrd$ovT£s. Offerings of loaves or cakes to the 
 gods are common on the monuments. (Rosellini, Mon. del Culto, tav. xxxiii. 
 2.) Compare the aproi rfc Trpoafjpas, 1 Kings, vii. 48, of the Jewish Sanc- 
 tuary. 
 
 9 The Pastophori were an inferior order of priests, whose duty it was to 
 carry about the shrines (raarot) or images of the gods on a bari or a feretrum 
 in solemn processions. 
 
 3 The necessity of learning so much by heart, notwithstanding the 
 copiousness of written books, will explain what Herodotus says of the Egyp- 
 tians, fivrtfthv iiraoKtavoi li/Opdnun iravruv /*dWru. (2, 77.) 
 
 4 Diod. 1, 94. 
 
88 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 historical facts and anecdotes must have been handed down along 
 with them. 
 
 The Hieratical Canon of Turin is a chronological rather than an 
 historical document 1 . As already mentioned it begins with the 
 dynasties of the gods, to whom years are assigned by tens of thou- 
 sands, and from them comes down to Menes the founder of the 
 monarchy. It contained probably the titular shields of 250 kings* 
 in its entire state, and those of 119 are still more or less legible. 
 The difficulty which the discrepancy between Manetho and Erato- 
 sthenes has occasioned is not removed, but increased, by the dis- 
 covery of this document, and from its mutilated state its arrange- 
 ment is doubtful. There exist also fragments of papyri contain- 
 ing accounts of receipt and expenditure of the date of the 18th 
 and 19th dynasties, which from the occurrence of the names of 
 reigning sovereigns, and the years of their reigns, are valuable as 
 subsidiary to history 3 . The majority of the papyri, however, which 
 have been preserved relate to the theology of the Egyptians, describ- 
 ing the state and changes of the soul after death, for which reason 
 they were so commonly placed in tombs and the cases of the mum- 
 mies. Even though they contain no properly historical informa- 
 tion, by their early date, and the proof which they exhibit of the 
 existence of a theological system in Egypt, fully developed and 
 generally received, they give collateral evidence to the accounts of 
 the high antiquity of its arts and institutions. There appear also 
 to be collections of hymns, from which when deciphered light may 
 be thrown on history as well as theology 
 
 1 It has been published according to his own arrangement of the frag- 
 ments by Lepsius in his Auswahl. The names are given in the hiero- 
 glyphic character in Lesueur's Chronologie, with facsimiles of the original. 
 
 3 Bunsen's Egypt. Eng. p. 50. Birch, Tr. Roy. Soc. Lit. 1, 201. 
 
 * Champollion, Lettre a M. le Due de Blacas, 2, pp. 80, 81, 85, 95. 
 
 4 Lepsius, Einleitung, 1, p. 49, speaks of a collection of such hymns of the 
 age of Rameses IX. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 89 
 
 A passage in Diodorus proves that the Egyptians had popular 
 poetry in which the exploits of their kings were celebrated. Speak- 
 ing of the reign of Sesoosis, he says, " that not only did the Greek 
 historians differ among themselves respecting him, but even in 
 Egypt the priests and those who celebrated him in song did not 
 agree 1 ." As a distinction is here made between the priestly and 
 the poetical literature, these songs must have been something dif- 
 ferent from those which Clemens describes the ^PJos or singer as 
 repeating, and several of the circumstances which Diodorus goes 
 on to mention have the air of being such exaggerations as a popu- 
 lar poetical literature deals in. Rosellini has suggested, that in the 
 papyrus of Sallier we have a poetical account of the military 
 exploits of Sesostris ; and that the long inscription relating to 
 Rameses IV. at Medinet Aboo is rather a song than an historical 
 narrative 2 . 
 
 No nation has left in its inscribed monuments such ample materials 
 for history as the Egyptians ; the statues of their kings are generally 
 inscribed with their names ; the walls of their palaces exhibit their 
 exploits, commonly accompanied with the year of their reigns; 
 works of art executed for private individuals and the tombs of pub- 
 lic functionaries frequently contain the name of the reigning sove- 
 reign. But we commonly derive no information from these sources 
 as to the succession and relative position of the sovereigns, or their 
 absolute place in a general system of chronology. There are two 
 remarkable monuments, however, Avhich appear to give a certain 
 number of kings in the order of their succession, the Tablet of 
 Abydos 3 and the Tablet of Karnak 4 . The building to which the 
 former belonged was built or repaired by Rameses the Great (III.), 
 and he is represented on the monument sitting on his throne and 
 contemplating a double series of twenty-six shields of his predeces- 
 
 1 2, 53. K-.ii t 5i* KaT Aiyvirroy o" rt IspcTg Kat oi 6ia j dSfjs airdy 
 2yK6jfua£oi>r£;, oiy b^o\oyovfieva ^eyov&iv. 
 
 3 Motu Stor. iv. 91. ' See voL i. p. 38. 4 Vol. i. p. 146. 
 
90 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 sors. The lowest line of the monument contains only a repetition of 
 his own name and titles. The conclusion which was at first drawn 
 from this monument, that it exhibited a regnal succession of fifty- 
 two monarchs anterior to Rameses the Great, has not indeed been 
 realized, nor has the anticipated correspondence been established 
 between the tablet and the lists of Manetho, except for a few reigns 
 in the later part. Still its information is most important for 
 Egyptian history. The tablet of Karnak is a representation of 
 Thothmes III. offering gifts to a series of sixty -one kings, disposed 
 in four lines around the walls. This sovereign himself is the forty- 
 fourth of the tablet of Abydos, and it might have been expected 
 that we should find here his predecessors on that tablet, which, how- 
 ever, is not the case. But though we have been disappointed in 
 the hope of obtaining from the combination of these two monuments 
 an authentic regnal succession from Rameses the Great upwards, 
 and the tablet of Karnak, like that of Abydos, cannot be brought 
 into exact correspondence with Manetho, there are evidently materials 
 in these monuments for the construction of history, when their true 
 relation has been ascertained. The grottos of Benihassan and 
 Qoorneh contain some successions, corresponding with a part of the 
 tablet of Abydos, and other short successions are found at Thebes 1 , 
 but in none is a perfect correspondence discernible. At Tel Ainarna 
 and at Thebes is found a succession of several kings whose names 
 do not agree with any of the dynasties of Manetho, and who are 
 supposed, from their physiognomy and the emblems which accom- 
 pany them, to belong to a foreign race, professors of a peculiar 
 religion, apparently worshippers 2 of the Sun. 
 
 The earliest event in Egyptian history which can be connected 
 with a known date in that of any other country, is the invasion of 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. & 1, 205. 
 
 2 Wilkinson, Modern Egypt and Thebes, 2, 72, 216, 255. Trans. Roy. 
 Soc. Lit. 2nd series, 1, 140. 
 
EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 91 
 
 Judaea by Shishak or Sheshonk in the reign of Rehoboam. As the 
 chronology of the Jewish Scriptures is in this age definite and 
 authentic, we are able to fix the reign of Sheshonk in years before 
 the Christian sera. But this does not enable us to carry backward 
 an exact chronology through all the reigns of his predecessors, 
 owing to the uncertainty and interruption of the successions, both 
 in the MSS. and in the monuments ; and in the previous part of 
 the Jewish history, the sovereigns of Egypt are only mentione'd by 
 the common name of Pharaoh, which would not suffice for their 
 identification, even if the Jewish chronology itself were in early 
 ages certain. Could we, however, connect one of those astrono- 
 mical phaenomena, whose recurrence is invariable, to however 
 remote a period we ascend, with the reign of any of the old Egyp- 
 tian kings, we should have a fixed point in the flux of time from 
 which we might reckon upwards and downwards with considerable 
 security. Whether any such fixed point is to be found is a matter 
 for subsequent inquiry. 
 
 Syncellus, we have seen, assigns 3555 years as the duration of 
 Marretho's thirty dynasties. These being Egyptian years are equi- 
 valent to 3553 Julian years 1 , and added to 339 b.c, when his 30th 
 dynasty expired 2 , give 3892 b.c. as the commencement of the reign 
 of Menes. There is nothing incredible in such an antiquity of the 
 Egyptian monarchy ; but from what has been already said, and 
 from what will appear in our further investigations, it cannot be 
 regarded as historically proved. 
 
 The following history is divided into Three Books, each com- 
 prising a period designated respectively as the Old, the Middle, 
 and the Xew Monarchy. The first extends from the Foundation 
 of the Kingdom of Menes to the Invasion of the Hyksos. The 
 second, from the Conquest of Lower Egypt by the Ilvksos and the 
 Establishment of a dependent Kingdom at Thebes, to the Expulsion 
 1 Lep8ius, Einleittmg, 1, p. 499. 
 
 3 Boeckh, Manotho und die Hundssternperiode, Abschn. 2, § 18, 19. 
 
92 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of the Hyksos. The third, from the Re-establishment of the 
 Monarchy by Amosis to the Final Conquest by Persia 1 . The 
 Dynasties of Manetho have been employed as subdivisions, accord- 
 ing to the text of Africanus, because, however doubtful the reading 
 or the numbers may be, no better authority exists. 
 
 a These designations are due, I believe, to Bunsen and Lepsius. Heeren, 
 however (Ideen, 2, 2, p. 551, note, Germ.), had clearly distinguished the two 
 first periods; but he subdivides the third into the flourishing period 1500- 
 700 b.c, and the period of decline 700 b.c. to the Persian Conquest. 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE OLD MONARCHY. 
 
 Manetho, according to the Armenian version of Eusebius, having 
 enumerated the gods of Egypt, beginning with Vulcan and ending 
 with Horus 1 , says, " these first exercised power among the Egyp- 
 tians. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Next> the royal authority devolved by conti- 1 ( which are lunar, 
 
 nued succession to Bytit, in the space of j ( of 30 days each. 
 
 After the gods heroes reigned 1,255 
 
 Then other kings 1,817 
 
 Then 30 other kings of Memphis 1,790 
 
 Then 10 other kings of This 350 
 
 Then followed a dominion of manes and heroes 5,813 
 
 "The sum amounts to 11,000 years (11,025), which, however, 
 are lunar, of a month each." 
 
 Without attempting any other explanation of tnese successions 
 and numbers than what has been already given 2 , we pass to the 
 
 First Dynasty. 
 
 " After the manes and demigods, the first kingdom is reckoned 
 to have consisted of eight kings, of whom the first — 
 
 1 VoL i. p. 300. . s Vol. ii. p. 76, 80. 
 
04 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Menes the Thinite, reigned 1 62 
 
 He died, torn to pieces by a hippopotamus. 
 
 2. Athothis, his son, reigned 57 
 
 He built the palace at Memphis. He was a physician, and 
 anatomical books of his are in circulation. 
 
 3. Kexkenes, his son, reigned 31 
 
 4. Ouexephes, his son, reigned 23 
 
 Under him a great famine prevailed in Egypt. He erected 
 the pyramids near Cochome. 
 
 5. Usafhaidos (Usaphais), his son 20 
 
 6. Miebidos (Niebaes), his son 26 
 
 7. Semempses, his son 18 
 
 Under him a great pestilence prevailed in Egypt. 
 
 8. Biexxeches, his son 26" 
 
 In all . . . . 263 
 
 The summation of Africanus makes the total 253 ; that of Euse- 
 bius 252 in Syncellus, and the same in the Armenian, notwith- 
 standing the shortening of the reign of Menes. These discrepan- 
 cies will not be noticed in future, unless for some special reason. 
 
 The word Dynasty, which does not occur in the older writers on 
 Egyptian history, appears to be used by Manetho nearly in the 
 same sense as when we speak of the Carlovingian or the Capetian 
 dynasty, as an hereditary succession of sovereigns. On the failure 
 of the line, election was resorted to in Egypt. All the kings of the 
 first dynasty succeeded from father to son ; afterwards the mention 
 of their relation to each other is omitted, but the descent appears 
 to have been in the same line till the dynasty was changed. 
 
 That Menes of This was the first mortal king of Egypt, is one 
 of the very few points in which all the authorities — Herodotus, 
 Eratosthenes, Diodorus, Manetho — agree. This, or Thinis, was a 
 town in Upper Egypt, giving its name to the nome in which 
 
 1 Eusebius in the Armenian makes his reign 30 years. 
 
THE FIRST DYNASTY. 
 
 95 
 
 A bydos stood, and not far from that ancient and celebrated seat of 
 the Osirian worship 1 . We know little more of This, but Abydos 
 was next to Thebes in importance among the cities of Upper Egypt. 
 The agreement of the historians ends here ; for while Menes is to 
 Herodotus the founder of Memphis as well as of the monarchy, 
 Diodorus attributes to another monarch, living many centuries 
 later, the foundation of Memphis 2 and the performance of the great 
 works which were necessary to restrain the Nile, and obtain an area 
 for the site of the capital. Since their accounts so entirely differ, 
 and we have no decisive reason for preferring one to the other, we 
 may doubt if either of them rests on properly historical authority. 
 According to Herodotus a reign of the gods, according to Diodorus 
 of gods and heroes ; according to Manetho of gods, manes and heroes, 
 preceded the reign of Menes. This is in fact to confess that nothing 
 historical could be related of preceding times. It is indeed common 
 to say, that the reign of the gods means a reign of the priests, and 
 that a period of sacerdotal sway preceded the monarchical, which 
 Menes established. It is not in itself improbable ; but had it been 
 known as an historical fact to the ancients, it would have been 
 handed down to us as such, not concealed in this mode of expression 8 . 
 Besides, if the reign of the gods means a reign of the priests, what is 
 the historical equivalent of the reigns of the manes and the heroes ? 
 
 The entire uncertainty of all that precedes Menes may even 
 throw doubt on his own historical reality ; for we do not com- 
 
 1 Ptol. Geogr. B. iv. c. 5. Steph. Byz. de Urb. s. voc. Str.ibo, p. 813. 
 
 2 He says (1, 51) that Memphis was so called from the daughter of the 
 king who founded it. The river Nile, assuming the form of a bull, fell in 
 love with her, and her son, ^Egyptus, was a king remarkable for benevo- 
 lence, justice, and worth, from whom the whole country took its name. 
 There seems here some allusion to the worship of Apis. 
 
 ■ "On eroit que ces demidieux etaient des grands pretres, qui r£gnaient 
 au nom des dieux, dontils mettaient les images ou les momies sur le tr6ne." 
 (Lesueur, Chronologie des Hois d'Egypte, p. 309.) 
 
06 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 monly find the darkness of a mythic period succeeded at once by 
 light and certainty. The real founders of great cities in ancient 
 times being generally unknown, it was common to suppose one, 
 bearing the same name as the city itself; and as Menfis 1 (Coptic, 
 Menbe) appears to have been the orthography of the capital of 
 Lower Egypt, Menes was assumed as the founder. His name, 
 written Mena, is found in a solemn procession, in which the images 
 of the predecessors of Rameses the Great are exhibited 2 , on the 
 walls of the Rameseion at Thebes, and therefere, if fictitious, it is 
 of very ancient date. The monument, however, belongs to the 
 18th dynasty, so that many hundred years must have intervened 
 between the origin of the monarchy and the date of the inscrip- 
 tion. The same combination of characters occurs also in the 
 hieratic manuscript of Turin, and is thought with probability to 
 have stood at the commencement of the list of kings, which that 
 papyrus contains. This evidence also refers to the reign of Rameses 
 the Great 3 , and therefore establishes the fact of a belief that Menes 
 had been the founder of the monarchy — a predecessor not only of 
 Memphite but Theban kings 4 . 
 
 Menes has been considered as identical with Mizraim, who is 
 mentioned (Gen. x. 13) as the father of several African nations. 
 
 1 Tochon d'Annesy, Medailles des Nomes. Eratosthenes interprets the 
 name Menes Atovios. Jablonsky, in De Vignoles' Chronology, conjectures 
 Aiwffof, which Bunsen adopts, and refers to the root men, perpetuus. 
 (Egypten, B. 2, p. 45, Germ. See also his Coptic Vocabulary, 1, p. 573.) 
 Memphis is denoted by hieroglyphics which read Mennofre, " abode of good " 
 (Wilkinson, M. and C. 3, 2*78), or good abode, Sppov dyaQ&v. (Plut. Is. p 
 359.) 
 
 2 Champollion, Lettres d'Egyptc, p. 270. 
 
 3 Trans, of Roy. Soc. of Lit. 2nd series, 1, 206. 
 
 4 It deserves to be remarked, that the name of Mnevis, the bull of Heliopolia, 
 consecrated to the Sun and Osiris, is written hieroglyphically Mena (Lepsius, 
 Einleitung, 1, 261), and that Diodorus calls Mneves (1, 94) the first legis- 
 lator of Egypt. Pliny (36, 8, Sillig) speaks of a palace of Mnevis. 
 
THE FIRST DYNASTY. 
 
 97 
 
 The name Mestraia is hence given by the author of the Laterculus 
 to Egypt. The Old Chronicle speaks of three races as inhabit- 
 ing Egypt successively, the Auritae, the Mestraei, and the Egyptians. 
 The Auritae derive their name from Aeria, the Greek epithet for 
 Egypt, signifying dark 1 ; and neither name has any historical 
 authority. The termination of Mizraim, which is plural, or as 
 commonly pointed dual, is sufficient to show that no real person 
 was intended 5 , and that Mizraim stands in the genealo^rv only as 
 representative of the nation, and as indicative of the relation in 
 which the people of Semitic language considered the Egyptians 
 to stand, towards the common ancestor of the postdiluvian nations. 
 Mizraim therefore has an ethnological, not an historical signifi- 
 cance, denoting the origin of a people, not a monarchy. The 
 name itself is unknown to the Egyptians ; they called their land 
 Cham or Chemi 3 , an appellation which was also known to the 
 Semitic nations, since Mizraim is described as the son of Cham 
 (Gen. x. 6). To endeavor to combine in one historical statement 
 conceptions originating in different countries and from unconnected 
 sources, can lead to no satisfactory result. The name of Mizraim, 
 however, conveys to us important information, since in its dual form 
 it recognizes a double character in the Egyptian people. This 
 cannot have consisted in their living on both sides of the Nile ; 
 for that circumstance has never constituted a division in population, 
 language, manners, government or religion. Egypt is the country 
 which the Xile overflows ; Egyptians are the people, who, whether 
 on the eastern or western bank, below Elephantine, drink of its 
 waters*. But the distinction of Upper and Lower Egypt exists in 
 geological structure, in language, in religion, and in historical tradi- 
 tion ; and to this the dual form of Mizraim evidently alludes, prov- 
 
 ' Schol. Apoll. Rhod 1, 280. 
 
 a Misraitn non est nomen hominis ; id non patitur forma dualis. (Boeh. 
 Geogr. Sacra, lib. 4, c. 24.) 
 
 8 Plut Is. et Osir. p. 364 C. 4 Her. 2, 18 Vol. i. p. 4. 
 
 VOL. II. 5 
 
98 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ing its origin in times when the whole valley from Syene down- 
 wards was peopled. The name exists also in a singular form, 
 Metzur\ and from its derivation appears to allude to the narrow 
 and compressed shape of the greater part of the country, for 
 which reason Egypt is called by the prophet Isaiah (xviii. 2), " a 
 nation spread out in length 2 ." 
 
 The great works attributed to Menes, as the founder of Memphis, 
 are fully described by Herodotus 3 ; they were necessary prelimi- 
 naries to the establishment of a capital city in that place. To 
 build a temple and unite the people in the worship of a tutelary 
 god was as essential to their coalescence in a community, as in the 
 middle ages the erection of a church. Memphis is sometimes 
 designated 4 as Ptah-ei, " the abode of Ptah." The circumstances 
 added by Diodorus betray a later origin. Thus he says that the 
 Egyptians originally lived on herbs, then on fish, afterwards on the 
 flesh of cattle, and that Isis, or one of their ancient kings called 
 Menas, taught them the use of the lotus and grain 6 . This is not 
 in harmony with another account in the same author, that Menas 
 taught the Egyptians to worship the gods and perform sacrifices ; 
 and that he also introduced the use of tables and couches and 
 carpets, and the whole apparatus of civilized luxury. Tnephactus, 
 the father of Bocchoris the Wise, making an expedition into 
 Arabia, was compelled to live one day on the simple fare of the com- 
 mon people, and enjoyed his meal so much, that he denounced a 
 curse on the king who had first introduced luxury ; and caused it 
 *o be inscribed, in sacred characters, in the temple of Jupiter at 
 
 " It appears to have been an archaism of poetry, 2 Kings, xix. 24, where 
 . - •* rivers of besieged places " we should read " rivers of Egypt." (Is. 
 Xix. 6; Mich. vii. 12, where a similar correction should be made.) 
 
 ' TMfa ""Q- Comp. Boch. Geogr. Sacra, u. s. Strabo (17, p. 789) 
 compares it to a long sash or girdle. 
 
 » 2, 99. See Vol L p. 95. 
 
 4 Wilkinson, M. & C. 3, 278. • Diod. 1, 45. 
 
THE FIRST DYNASTY. 
 
 99 
 
 Thebes. This, adds the historian, is the principal reason why the 
 glory and honor of Menas have not remained to succeeding times. 
 In this account a double purpose is evident, to point a satire against 
 luxury, and to explain the obscurity in which the history of Menas 
 was involved. The founder of Memphis was certainly not the 
 person who introduced religion among the Egyptians, or taught 
 them the use of grain ; but popular tradition, or historical hypo- 
 thesis in every country, is prone to assume that the commencement 
 of its separate history is also the commencement of civilization, 
 and to disregard the law of development, by attributing the 
 changes of centuries to the life of one man 1 . 
 
 Eusebius adds to the information of Africanus, that Menes led 
 an army beyond the territories of Egypt, and acquired renown. 
 It does not appear from what source he derived his authority, 
 whether from Manetho or not. Under the first sovereign of the 
 third dynasty it is said that the Libyans revolted. These were 
 probably the border tribes on the east of the Canopic branch of 
 the Nile. They bore impatiently their incorporation with Egypt, 
 whose manners and religion were different from their own 2 . We 
 may suppose that their original conquest and annexation was the 
 work of Menes. In later times the Libyans seem to have assimilated 
 themselves to the Egyptians. The Oracle of Amun was estab- 
 lished in the Great Oasis, and animal worship prevailed among the 
 Libyans'. The Lehabim, who are said to owe their origin to 
 Mizraim (Gen. x. 13), are supposed to be the Libyans 4 , but this 
 mode of expression does not always indicate an historical descent. 
 
 On the whole, Menes seems to fill nearly the same place in regard 
 to Egyptian history as Romulus to the Roman. The monarchy 
 of Egypt, like that of Rome, must have had a founder ; whethei 
 
 1 Of the song of Maneros, said to be the son of the first king of Egypt^ 
 see vol. i p. 201. 
 
 3 Her. 2, 18. ■ Strabo, 16, p. 760. 
 
 4 Michaelis, Spie. Geogr. 1, 262. 
 
100 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 in either case bearing a name analogous to that of the capital of 
 the kingdom is doubtful. As Romulus was represented by later 
 historical hypothesis to have established the principal civil institu- 
 tions and religious rites of the Romans 1 , as if he and his people 
 had sprung out of the earth, instead of being a colony from the 
 civilized Latins, so Menes was said to have taught religion to the 
 Egyptians, and introduced the use of grain and even luxury among 
 them, though he came from This, the ancient seat of the worship 
 of Osiris, and began his reign over united Egypt by works which 
 certainly do not indicate the infancy of art. Romulus vanished by 
 a supernatural death, and was suspected to have been taken off 
 by a hostile political faction. Menes was said to have been torn 
 to pieces by a hippopotamus 2 , the emblem of crime in the Egyp- 
 tian mythology. Such disappearances may generally be taken as an 
 indication that fiction has been at work, and when they occur at 
 the very point where the confines of history and mythology meet, 
 throw a shade of doubt over the personality of their subject 3 . 
 
 The establishment of the capital of Egypt at Memphis was the 
 first step towards the nation's assuming a place in history. Insu- 
 lated in the Thebaid, it might have continued for ages without 
 any reciprocal action between it and the other great nations of the 
 world, without knowledge of the sea which lay beyond the 
 marshes in which the Nile appeared to be swallowed up, — without 
 
 1 Dion. Halic. Ant. Rom. 2, 7-29. 
 
 3 Phot. Bibl. Cod. CCxlii. p. 1047. '0|jV7ro7rdra/iOf kv rots Upoy'XvfiKOis ypanfia- 
 aiv aSiKtav 6ri>ot. It was consecrated to Typhon (Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 371 C.) 
 and denoted the Western horizon, as the abode of Darkness. Euseb. Praeb. 
 Evang. 3, 12. 
 
 3 This, however, affords no ground for an identification of Menes with 
 the Menu of the Indians and the Mannus of the Germans, as if he were 
 only another name for the human race. See Buttmann's Mythologus, 2, 
 239. Menes is not the first man, but only the first mortal king. Menu 
 and Mannus denote simply a human being, but Menes has no such sense in 
 Egyptian. 
 
THE FIRST DYNASTY. 
 
 101 
 
 means of contact with the civilization which was advancing from 
 Mesopotamia to the shores of the Mediterranean. In this sense 
 its history may be said to begin with Menes, although a long 
 period must have preceded his reign, in which the people was 
 acquiring the capacity of a natioual existence, and receiving the 
 impress of a national character. 
 
 Menes was succeeded by his son Athothis. A name which has 
 been read Athoth appears among the fragments of the Canon of 
 Turin, but the correctness of the reading is doubtful 1 . Of him we 
 are told, that he built the palace at Memphis ; that he was a phy- 
 sician, and that books of anatomy written by him were still extant, 
 whether in the time of Manetho or Africanus is doubtful 1 . It is 
 worthy of remark, in connexion with the fame of this early sove- 
 reign as a physician and anatomist, that not only was Egypt the 
 most celebrated country in the world for drugs and physicians 2 , 
 but that Memphis was the seat of the worship of ^Esculapius, and 
 therefore it may be presumed remarkable for the cultivation of the 
 art of Medicine 3 . Books on the various branches of the me lical 
 art formed part of the sacerdotal library of the Egyptians 4 , all of 
 which was attributed to Hermes or Thoth ; and it has been 
 conjectured that the name Athoth hides that of the god, from its 
 signifying " that belongs to Thoth 5 ." We seem therefore hardly 
 
 1 Trans, of Roy. Soc. of Literature, 2nd series, 1, 206. Lesueur, Chrono- 
 logie, pi. xii. xiii. The letter A is wanting, but it is often prefixed euphoni- 
 cally in Coptic, as in Greek. 
 
 9 Horn. Od. 6\ 228. Jerem. xlvi 11. Herod. 2, 84. See voL i. p. 291. 
 
 s Amm. Marcell. 22, 14. Memphim urbem frequentem, praesentiaque 
 numinis Jisculapii claram. The Mohammedans consider the subject of the 
 hieroglyphical inscriptions to be the charms and wonders of phvsie (Vyse, 
 2, 319). 
 
 4 See vol. i. p. 291. 
 
 6 Translated bv Eratosthenes 'Eppoyfiw. "The Christian Fathers often 
 cite a Hermetic book, in which the second Thoth instructs a scholar who is 
 sometimes called Tat, sometimes JSsculapius. See Cyrill. ady. Jul p. 83. 
 
102 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 yet to have quitted the domain of mythology. A great deal of 
 supposititious literature owed its origin to Egypt, and that a divine 
 and royal name should have been given to a work of the Ptolemaic 
 or Roman times would be much less wonderful than that a book 
 should have been preserved through so many centuries. 
 
 From the time of Athothis, who built a palace at Memphis, we 
 may consider it as the capital of the Old Monarchy. The occa- 
 sional residence of the sovereign may still have been in the cities 
 whence the several dynasties took their name, but the hills near 
 Memphis appear to have been their burial-place. He was suc- 
 ceeded, according to Eratosthenes, by another Athothis, according 
 to Manetho by Kenkenes, and here the accordance between the 
 two lists ceases. The reign of Kenkenes was marked by no events ; 
 in that of his son and successor, Uenephes, a great famine prevailed 
 in Egypt. Its entire dependence on the rise of the Nile makes 
 famine, when it occurs, more dreadful than in countries which have 
 a greater variety of surface, and derive their moisture from rain 
 and small streams. Egypt has indeed a remedy against famine, in 
 the exuberance of her harvests in fruitful years, and the power of 
 storing up the grain and pulse which are her chief productions, to 
 supply future deficiencies. Yet we see, from the history of Joseph, 
 that this policy had not been adopted before his time by the Egyp- 
 tian monarchs. Uenephes is also said to have built the pyramids 
 at Cochome. This mode of interment appears in Egypt not only 
 to have been exclusively royal, but exclusively Memphite, pyramids 
 being scarcely found in Upper Egypt 1 , and the great functionaries 
 who lie buried around the pyramids of Gizeh being all deposited 
 in excavations. A regal residence required a regal cemetery, but 
 
 Augustin. de Civ. Dei, viii. 23. Chron. Pasch. 65, 68. This Tat is placed 
 by Manetho " (rather the author of the spurious Sothis) " among those gods 
 to whom the sacred literature was attributed. He is probably the second 
 Egyptian king Athothis." (Movers, die Phonizier, 1, 527.) 
 1 Vol. i. p. 124. 
 
THE FIRST DYNASTY. 
 
 103 
 
 the pyramids were probably only of brick or rough stones ; for the 
 art of building with hewn stone was not introduced till the reign 
 of Tosorthrus of the third dynasty. The site of Cochome is 
 unknown. As all the known burial-places of the Memphite kings, 
 however, were in the Libyan hills, on the western side of the Nile, 
 it is here that we should look for the pyramids of Uenephes. His 
 monuments have yielded to the power of Time, which has been 
 unable to make any impression on the works of Cheops, Chephres, 
 and Mycerinus ; or they may have been among those numerous 
 ruined and nameless pyramids, whose existence the Prussian expe- 
 dition has ascertained. It is probable that the method of embalm- 
 ment was already practised ; Kos is the word used in the Coptic 
 version of Gen. 1. 2, for the embalmment of Jacob ; it is found in 
 several names of places 1 , and seems to have entered into the com- 
 position of KorJiome. Indeed the Armenian Eusebius reads " the 
 town (xwfjt.7)) of Cho 2 ." Athothis is said to have been a physician 
 and anatomist. Embalmment in early times was a branch of the 
 medical art; anatomy also does not seem in Egypt to have pro- 
 ceeded beyond such a knowledge of the internal structure as the 
 evisceration which accompanied embalmment would furnish. The 
 bodies of the predecessors of Uenephes having been preserved by 
 this art would be naturaily transferred to these receptacles ; for he 
 is said to have raised not one, but several pyramids. In the reign 
 of Semempses it is recorded that Egypt was afflicted with a pesti- 
 lence ; and Eusebius adds that many prodigies accompanied it ; 
 agreeably to the experience of all ages, that events unnoticed at 
 other times are understood as significant when the public mind is 
 rendered superstitious by alarm and suffering 3 . 
 
 1 Champollion, L'Egypte sous les Pharaons, 1, 220. 
 a See Bunsen, Urk. p. 9. 
 
 5 Tacit. Hist 4* 26. Quod in pace fors seu natura tunc fatum et ira dei 
 voeabatur. 
 
104 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Second Dynasty. Nine Thinite kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Boethos (Bochus, Euseb.) reigned 38 
 
 In his reign a great opening of the ground took place, and 
 many persons perished at Bubastos. 
 
 2. Kaiechos (CHOos,Euseb.) reigned 39 
 
 In his reign the bulls Apis at Memphis and Mnevis at Heli- 
 opolis, and the Mendesian goat, were established by law 
 as gods. 
 
 3. Binotiiris (Biopiiis, Euseb.) 47 
 
 In whose reign it was decided that women should have the 
 prerogative of royalty. 
 
 4. Tlas 17 
 
 5. Setuenes 41 
 
 o. ch aires 17 
 
 7. Xepiiercheres 25 
 
 In whose reign the Nile is fabled to have flowed eleven days, 
 mixed with honey. 
 
 8. Sesochris 48 
 
 Who was five cubits three palms in height. 
 
 9. Chxxeres 30 
 
 In all ... . 302 
 
 This dynasty, like the first, is called of Thinite kings, although 
 Memphis had become the capital. It is not said whose son the 
 founder of the second dynasty was ; probably he was descended 
 from a collateral branch. It is evident, however, that though called 
 Thinite, they were supposed to be kings of all Egypt : otherwise it 
 would have been absurd to have dated events, changes of religion 
 and political institutions by their reigns 1 . 
 
 The mention of the city of Bubastos or Bubastis, which is situ- 
 ated in the Delta, on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, below Heli- 
 
 1 Lepsius, however, (Einleitung, 1, p. 489) considers this dynasty con- 
 temporaneous with the first. 
 
THE SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 105 
 
 opolis 1 , as having in these early times a large population, shows 
 that when the priests told Herodotus 2 that in the days of Menes 
 all Egypt, except the Theban nome, was a marsh, and that below 
 the Lake of Mceris nothing had yet appeared above water, they 
 spoke entirely without historical authority. They saw, what Hero- 
 dotus says was evident to one who only used his own eyesight, and 
 had not been previously informed of it, that the Delta was 
 " acquired land, and the gift of the Nile 3 ." But being ignorant of 
 the rate at which such phenomena proceed, and conceiving the com- 
 mencement of their own special history to be the commencement 
 of everything, they made the formation of the Delta, and the whole 
 country below the Theban nome, the work of thousands of years, 
 to have begun with Menes. With the same ignorance of the rate 
 of progression, they represented to Herodotus that there had been 
 a rise of level in the soil of Egypt below Memphis equal to eight 
 cubits in 900 years 4 . The time of the changes by which the Delta 
 was elevated and laid dry stretches far beyond history, and Menes 
 did not found his capital that he might reign over a marsh. 
 
 Such an event as the sudden opening of a chasm in the ground, 
 and the consequent destruction of a great multitude of people, would 
 be regarded as a prodigy, and therefore be preserved in the Egyp- 
 tian annals, scanty as they are. Egypt is not very subject to earth- 
 quakes, and the- chasm is more probably to be attributed to the 
 undermining of a part of the city by the Nile, on the bank of 
 which it stood. A similar chasm in the Forum at Rome filled the 
 minds of the people with superstitious terror, and it was believed 
 that nothing less than the self-devotion of Curtius could have 
 averted the omen and closed the abyss 5 . Though the story of the 
 expiation may be false, the terror was real. 
 
 The reign of Kaiechos is distinguished by the establishment of 
 the worship of Apis at Memphis, Mnevis at Heliopolis, and the 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. 46. 2 Her. 2, 4. 8 Her. 2, 4, 5. 
 
 4 Her. 2, 13. 6 Li v. 7, 6. Plin. 15, 20. 
 
106 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYP.T. 
 
 Mendesian goat at the town of that name. We have here a more 
 decisive evidence that Lower Egypt, in the early times of the Old 
 Monarchy, was in a state not materially different from that in which 
 it was known to the Jews and the Greeks. Mendes stood not far 
 from the sea 1 ; the Delta therefore, even to its extremity, must 
 have been already firm and dry. It is not the introduction of ani- 
 mal worship among the Egyptians, as sometimes supposed, that is 
 here recorded ; that lies far beyond the commencement of history ; 
 but specially the establishment of the worship of the bull and the 
 goat in the three cities mentioned. Lower Egypt was the principal 
 seat of this superstition. Among other things attributed toMenes, 
 he was said to have introduced the worship of the bull 2 . Basis, 
 the sacred bull of Hermonthis in the Thebaid, is never mentioned 
 by the older writers, and appears to have been an object of merely 
 local reverence, while Apis was passionate!) worshipped by the 
 whole nation*. Every nome had its own animal type of divinity, 
 and abstained from using its flesh for food ; but we read of no such 
 extravagant and superstitious homage being paid to the ram at 
 Thebes as to the bull at Memphis. Next to the bull Apis, the cat 
 seems to have been the animal most Buperstitiously worshipped by 
 the Egyptians, and the chief temple of the goddess Pasht, to whom 
 it was consecrated, was at Bubastosin the Delta. 
 
 A shield has been found by Lepsius in a tomb near the pyra- 
 mids of Gizeh containing the name Ke-ke-ou, which, there can be 
 little doubt, answers to the Kaiechos of Manetho's list 3 . Sethenes, 
 Chaires and Nephercheres' have also been identified with some 
 probability 4 . The establishment of the prerogative of royalty on 
 behalf of women in the reign of Binothris, is not connected with 
 the mention of any female succession or claim. History knows 
 only of one queen, Nitocris, and she is not said to have succeeded 
 to the throne by a law of the kingdom, but to have been chosen 
 1 Strabo, 17, p. 802. a ^Elian, Hist. Anim. 11, 10 
 
 * Bunsen, B. 2, p. 106, Germ. 4 Lesueur, p. 270, 310. 
 
THE SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 107 
 
 by a special act of the people, who had put her brother to death 1 . 
 In the monuments only one female appears with the attributes of 
 royalty, Set Amen, Amense or Amesses of the 18th dynasty, who 
 probably reigned as guardian of her son or younger brother. In 
 the lists besides Nitocris, Scemiophris appears at the end of the 12 th 
 dynasty, the sister of Ammenemes ; and Acencheres of the 18th is 
 called by Joseph us daughter of Horus, neither of which is confirmed 
 by the monuments. The specialty of these cases makes us doubt 
 whether the words 2 imply female inheritance, since in such frequent 
 change of dynasty, had there been no Salic law, it is scarcely pos- 
 sible that we should not have found daughters succeeding to the 
 throne. The words " royal prerogatives " do not necessarily imply 
 more than the monuments exhibit — their exercising regal functions, 
 without being included in the list of sovereigns. Diodorus indeed 
 says, that the queen of Egypt enjoyed greater honors than the 
 king, attributing the distinction to the merits of Isis 3 ; in accord- 
 ance with the practice of a country which allotted greater respect 
 to the female than the male. This appears, however, if the fact 
 be correctly stated, to have been matter of courtesy and sentiment 
 rather than of legal right 4 . 
 
 In the reign of Nephercheres the Nile was fabled to have flowed 
 eleven days, mixed with honey. As rivers were esteemed divine 
 by the ancients 6 , their changes were noted with superstitious appre- 
 hension. Whatever affected the Nile, which physically as well as 
 religiously was of vast importance to the Egyptians, would be very 
 likely to be recorded. To have their sacred river changed into 
 
 1 Her. % 100. Tov dS&Qeov diroKrt'ivavTes »VT(d int'ivy drrc6o<rai' ri)v 0ao-i\r]ti}v. 
 
 * 'Eicpidri ra$ yvvaiicas (3aai\eia( yepas i^tiv. 
 
 * Diod. 1. 27. Aia ravras ras airiag (the merits of Isis) KaraSeixdnvai ftei^ovos 
 e£ovoias xal Tiprjs rvyj^aieiv rr)v 0aai\taaav tov /?aci>£wf. 
 
 4 See what Herodotus says (p. 46 of this vol.) of the inferiority of women 
 in Egypt 
 
 6 Athenag. adv. Gentes, quoted in Voss. de Idol, ii 78. 
 
108 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 blood was one of the humiliations which preceded their permission 
 to the Israelites to depart. Similar changes in rivers are among 
 the omens which have been handed down to us abundantly in the 
 Roman history 1 , and the fabulousness 2 of this account of the Nile's 
 flowing mixed with honey is no proof against the historical cha- 
 racter of the period and of the sovereigns. The great stature 
 ascribed to Sesochris we shall hereafter see, has probably been 
 transferred by later authors to Sesostris, whom Herodotus and 
 Eusebius celebrate for his size, though nothing of this kind is 
 asserted by Manetho of the Sesostris of his 12th dynasty. 
 
 Third Dynasty. Nine Memphite kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. ]Secherophes (ISecherochis, Euseb.) reigned 28 
 
 Under him the Libyans revolted from the Egyptians, and the 
 moon having increased in an extraordinary way, were 
 alarmed and surrendered. 
 
 2. Tosorthres (Sesorthos, Euseb.) 29 
 
 He was called iEsculapius by the Egyptians, in reference to 
 his medical art; and he invented building by means of 
 polished stones ( s f Mrwv XiQuiv): he also cultivated the art of 
 writing. [The remaining six did nothing worthy of being 
 recorded, Euseb.] 
 
 3. Tyreis 7 
 
 4. Mesochris 17 
 
 5. Souphis 16 
 
 6. Tosertasis 19 
 
 7. Aches 42 
 
 8. Sephoeris 30 
 
 9. KtRPHERES 26 
 
 Total . ... 214 
 
 According to Eusebius there were only eight kings in this dynasty, 
 
 1 See Bryant's observations on the Plagues of Egypt, p. 26. 
 3 The expression fivd ever ai rdv ISaAoi/ pcAm KtKpa^tvov pvrjvai must belong 
 to Africanus, not Manetho. 
 
THE THIRD DYNASTY. 
 
 109 
 
 and they reigned, not 214, but 197 years. He specifies the names 
 only of Necherochis and Sesorthus, for so he writes the two first. 
 The revolt of the Libyans, which occurred in the reign of Neche- 
 rophis, has been explained in speaking of the conquests of Menes ; 
 its termination by the terror excited through some unusual appear- 
 ance of the moon is quite in the character of ancient superstition 1 . 
 The reign of Sesorthos or Tosorthrus, briefly as its events are 
 summed up, was evidently one marked by great improvements in 
 Egypt ; he held the same place in the history of medicine in that 
 country as ^Esculapius in Greece 2 ; and he introduced the use of 
 squared and polished stones in architecture, instead of the rough 
 surfaces and irregular angles of their previous mode of building. 
 The improvement or more extensive practice of the art of writing 
 is naturally connected with this change in building. Writing in 
 its earliest stage in Egypt was hieroglyphic engraving, which could 
 not be practised with facility except on the surface of smoothed 
 stones. And this may have been the reason why both are attri- 
 buted to the same sovereign. 
 
 There is no certain correspondence between the monuments and 
 the names in this dynasty. A shield which has been read Chufu 
 has been found in the grotto of Benihassan, and has been supposed 
 to be the Souphis who stands fifth in the list ; it contains, how- 
 ever, one character (the arm and scourge) not commonly found in 
 Chufu, and if it belong at all to this dynasty seems rather to answer 
 to Sephouris, the eighth. A name resembling Tosorthrus or 
 Sesorthus occurs in the necropolis of Memphis, and another which 
 has been read Aches 3 . 
 
 1 Her. 1, 74, of the eclipse which put an end to the war between the 
 Lydians and the Medes. 
 
 5 The expression A2y«jrrf«c$ Kara tt>v iarfwcriv vtvofiiarat must be that of 
 Africanus, not Manetho, though there is no reason to doubt that the infor- 
 mation came from his annals. 
 
 * Lesueur, p. 311. Lepsius says (Einleitung, 1, 551) that only a few dates 
 of months are known to him of this dynasty. 
 
110 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Fourth Dynasty 1 , 
 
 Eight Memphite kings of another family (seventeen, Euseb.) 
 reigned 284 years (448 Euseb.) 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Soris 29 
 
 2. Suphis 63 
 
 He raised the largest pyramid, which Herodotus says was built 
 by Cheops; he was even a contemner of the gods and 
 [having repented, Euseb.] wrote the sacred book, " which 
 I acquired when I was in Egypt as a very valuable thing," 
 Africanus [" which the Egyptians cherish as a very valua- 
 ble thing," Eusebius, who adds, " and of the rest nothing 
 worth mention has been recorded"]. 
 
 3. Southis 66 
 
 4. Mkncheres 63 
 
 5. Ratoises 25 
 
 6. Bicheris 22 
 
 7. Sebercheres 7 
 
 8. Thamphthis ... 9 
 
 Total .... 284 
 
 We may congratulate ourselves that we have at length reached 
 the period of undoubted contemporaneous monuments in Egyptian 
 history. The pyramids and the sepulchres near them still remain 
 to assure us that we are not walking in a land of shadows, but 
 among a populous and powerful nation far advanced in the arts of 
 life. And as a people can only progressively attain to such a sta- 
 
 1 According to Bunsen, after 190 years the kingdom of Menes was divided, 
 one branch reigning in Upper, the other in Lower Egypt, the Memphite 
 constituting what he calls the imperial dynasty, alone recognised in the 
 chronology of Eratosthenes. Each of these dynasties came to an end at the 
 same time, 224 years after their establishment, and the kingdom was re- 
 united, 414 years after Menes, under the fourth dynasty. (B. 2, vol. 2, p, 
 65 foil., Germ.) 
 
THE FOURTH DYNASTY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 tion, the light of historical certainty is reflected back from this aera 
 to the ages which precede it. There is, however, extraordinary 
 variance among the ancient authorities, nor is the evidence of the 
 monuments altogether free from difficulty. 
 
 We see that Manetho declares Souphis to have been the builder of 
 the Great Pyramid, taking no notice of the building of the Second ; 
 and we shall find hereafter that he attributes to Xitocris, a queen 
 of his sixth dynasty, the erection of the third. Eratosthenes gives 
 in immediate succession Saophis, Saophis II. and Moscheres, but 
 says nothing of the building of the pyramids, as indeed throughout 
 his lists he mentions nothing either of the works or the exploits of 
 the kings. Herodotus says that Cheops built the Great Pyramid, 
 his brother Chephren the Second, and Mycerinus the Third : Dio- 
 dorus that Chembes or Chemmis built the Great Pyramid, Kephren 
 his brother, or Chabryis his son, the Second, and Mecherinus or 
 Mencherinus the Third. Pliny, after quoting the names of twelve 
 authors who had written on the pyramids, declares that the build- 
 ers of them were unknown. Till very lately they seemed to give 
 no evidence on behalf of their founders. No inscriptions appeared 
 either within or without ; it had grown into one of the common- 
 places of morality, that the builders of these stupendous works had 
 been deprived of the fame which they coveted 1 . The Great Pyra- 
 mid had long been open, and the central chamber contained a 
 sarcophagus, but without a name ; Belzoni succeeded in opening 
 the Second, and found a sarcophagus beneath it ; but that also 
 was without an inscription. At length Colonel Vyse in the course 
 of his researches found a way into the chambers already described 
 over the king's chamber, and in two of them discovered shields in 
 
 1 X. EL 36, 12 (17). Qui de his scripserunt sunt Herodotus, Euhemerus, 
 Duris Saniius, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Alexander Polyhistor, 
 Butorides, Antisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles, Apion. Inter omnes eos non 
 constat a quibus facte sint, justissimo casu obliteratis tant« vanitatis 
 auctoribus. 
 
112 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the common phonetic character 1 . They are drawn with red paint 
 on the calcareous blocks which form the sides, alonp; with various 
 other marks, supposed to be those of the quarry-men or masons. 
 One of these shields contains four characters which it is agreed 
 should be pronounced Chnfa or Shu/a; another is mutilated, but 
 has evidently ended in fa, and therefore probably contained the 
 same name. Another chamber contains a shield with the same 
 group 2 , but prefixed to it the jug and ram which are found with 
 the figures of the ram-headed god of Thebes, commonly called 
 Kneph, Neph, Cnuphis, Chnoum, or Num. Chufu is without vio- 
 lence made to answer to the Souphis of Manetho, the Saophis of 
 Eratosthenes, and the Cheops of Herodotus 3 . And as it is impro- 
 bable that the same king should be designated in two different 
 ways in the same monument, it has been concluded that there were 
 two of the name of Chufu, one being distinguished by the addi- 
 tional characters of the jug and the ram 4 . Herodotus speaks 
 indeed only of one Cheops ; but Eratosthenes mentions a second 
 Saophis, and Manetho a second Souphis. The name of the second 
 has been read Kneph-Chufu, or Chnoum-Chufu, and it is possible 
 that this additional syllable may have given rise to the name 
 Chembes, which Diodorus attributes to the builder of the Great 
 Pyramid. 
 
 It will be seen by recurring to the description of this struc- 
 ture (vol. i. p. 100), that a long straight descent conducts from 
 the opening to a subterranean chamber, in which, however, 
 no sarcophagus or inscription has been found. Now from 
 the analogy of all the other pyramids, we are led to conclude 
 
 1 Vyse on the Pyramids, 1, 2*79. Vol. i. of this work, p. 106. 
 
 8 Lepsius (Denkm. taf. vii.) gives a drawing of an alabaster vase with the 
 banner of a king, the same as Ricci found at Wadi Magara, connected with 
 the name of Chufu. (Rosell. Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 3.) 
 
 3 The final u is sometimes omitted in the shield of this king. 
 
 4 See PI. III. C. 3, at the end of vol. 1. 
 
THE FOURTH DYNASTY. 
 
 113 
 
 that this was the place in which the interment was originally 
 designed to be made. To this the passage from the opening 
 leads directly. Why it was abandoned, and two chambers con- 
 structed in the heart of the pyramid itself, we are not informed, 
 nor can we form any probable conjecture. The lower of these two 
 •is traditionally called the Queen's Chamber, but there is nothing 
 which marks it as destined for such a purpose ; and it was not the 
 usual practice of the Egyptians to inter kings and queens in the 
 same monument. It should seem that Herodotus had the subter 
 ranean apartment in view, when he spoke of a canal which Cheops 
 introduced from the Nile, by which he insulated his own grave. 
 The actual depth of this apartment below the ground in which 
 the pyramid stands is ninety feet ; and though this is still con- 
 siderably above the highest level of the Nile 1 , in the absence of 
 accurate measurements, it might be easily supposed practicable to 
 bring in a canal from the river ; but this would have been too 
 obviously absurd, if meant of the King's Chamber in the centre 
 of the pyramid, 138 feet above the ground 2 . Diodorus also 
 speaks of (Chembes) Cheops as not being interred in his pyramid, 
 but in some secret place, that his body might not be exposed to 
 the insults of the oppressed people 3 . Now we know that in the 
 time of Strabo, the Great Pyramid was open 4 ; probably therefore 
 in the time of Diodorus. But these authors seem to have known 
 nothing of any sepulchral vault except the subterranean ; the way 
 to that was open, from the mouth in the side of the pyramid ; but 
 all access to the Queen's and King's Chambers was barred by the 
 block of granite which closed the place at which the passage to 
 them diverges ; nor do they appear ever to have been seen till a 
 forced passage was made by the Caliphs 5 . The subterranean vault 
 
 1 "On the 23d of October, 1838, the level of the river (it being High 
 Kile) was 137 feet 3 inches below the base of the Great Pyramid." (Vyse, 
 2,148.) 2 Vyse, 2, 111. 8 1, 64. 
 
 4 Lib. 1*7, p. 808. 6 Abdollatif in Col. Howard Yyse, 2, 340. 
 
114 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 being empty, the tradition of Diodorus had a natural origin. It 
 seems then not improbable that Cheops or Chufu, abandoning his 
 original intention to construct himself a monument beneath a 
 pyramid, began the structure which now exists, and that his sarco- 
 phagus was placed in what we call the Queen's Chamber. It cer- 
 tainly contained a sarcophagus when this part of the pyramid was 
 opened under the Caliphs 1 . It is in the very centre of the struc- 
 ture, which may originally not have been carried much higher. 
 His successor, the second Chufu, distinguished by the addition of 
 the ram and jug, appears to have continued his work and con- 
 structed for himself the King's Chamber, in which his sarcophagus 
 still remains. The mixture of stones containing the names of the 
 two Chufus in the vacant spaces over the King's Chamber, may 
 be explained by the supposition that the second used some mate- 
 rials which his predecessor had prepared, and which had been 
 marked by his name. It is not surprising, that as both bore the 
 same name, Herodotus and Diodorus should have considered them 
 as one. 
 
 The Second Pyramid contains no name in any part of it ; 
 but in the adjacent tombs 2 the shield of a king whose name 
 reads Shafre* has been found, and the figure of a pyramid. In 
 him we recognize without difficulty the Chephren of Herodotus 
 and Diodorus, though there is no corresponding name either in 
 
 1 Edrisi quoted in Vyse, 2, 335. "The alley is ascended until a door is 
 reached near a block of stone by which one ascends towards another sloping 
 alley. — By this door a square room is entered with an empty vessel in it. — 
 Returning hence to the place through which one enters, the second alley is 
 ascended. Another square room is then reached — an empty vessel is seen 
 here similar to the former." 
 
 2 The tomb was that of his chief architect, who calls his master, " the 
 great one of the Pyramid." (See Lepsius, Denkmaler, taf. viii. D.) The 
 pyramid is here always represented with a square base, projecting beyond 
 the pyramidal part. 
 
 3 Birch in Yyse, 2, 98. 
 
THE FOURTH DYNASTY. 
 
 115 
 
 Manetho or Eratosthenes. Diodorus mentions a tradition that he 
 was not the brother, as Herodotus represented him, but the son of 
 Cheops, and that his name was not Kephren,*but Chabryis 1 . As 
 there were two Chufus, he might be the son of one and brother 
 of the other ; and the difference between Shafre and Chabryis is 
 not so great as to decide that they were not the same person. 
 Herodotus in his account of the Second Pyramid says, that it was 
 inferior to the first in other respects, and also in not containing 
 any subterranean chambers 2 . In fact, however, its only known 
 chamber is subterranean. 
 
 The Third Pyramid is assigned by Herodotus and Diodorus to 
 Mycerinus, Mecherinus or Mencherinus 3 . In Manetho, Mencheres 
 immediately follows the second Suphis, but is not mentioned by 
 him as the builder of the Pyramid. All doubt on this subject has 
 been removed by the discovery of the coffin*, inscribed with the 
 name of Menkera. Herodotus calls him the son of Cheops, which 
 is not very probable, if according to his statement the brother of 
 Cheops, Chephren, had reigned after Cheops fifty-six years. The 
 accounts of this king are very inconsistent. According to Hero- 
 dotus he was a mild and humane monarch, who opened the 
 temples which had been closed for 106 years, and relieved the 
 people of their burdens. And yet he built a pyramid, which, 
 though it fell short of both the others in dimensions, exceeded 
 them in costliness of material and execution 5 . His justice was 
 such that he was more extolled by the Egyptians than any of their 
 kings 6 ; yet he was said to have indulged an unnatural passion for 
 his own daughter, who died of grief at the outrage which he 
 offered to her. He was remarkable for his piety, and yet endea- 
 vored to make the oracle of Buto " a liar 7 ." These things excite 
 
 1 1, 64. a Herod. 2, 127. 
 
 • Tivis piv Xtor^of leg. Mtv-^Epivov. (Diod. 1, 64. Bockh, Manetho, p. 597.) 
 4 Vol i. p. 111. 6 Her. 2, 129. 6 Diod. 1, 64. 
 
 * BtXwv to pavTTjioi iptvSoptvov diroSt£ai. (Herod. 2, 133.) 
 
116 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 a suspicion that two kings of the same name, but very different 
 characters, have been blended in one tradition 1 . In the tablet of 
 Abydos, which here first begins to be legible, we have in the 
 fifteenth shield the evident traces of the name of Menkera ; the 
 fourteenth appears to have contained the same name, though little 
 of it i# now left ; with the addition of the hatchet, which signifies 
 god 1 . It had been observed by Lepsius, that the name of Menkera 
 occurs in the Ritual of the Dead 3 as a deceased king, and that it 
 is frequently found on scarabaei which had been used as amulets, 
 and which from the style of their workmanship must have been 
 executed long after his death. This clearly points to a deifica- 
 tion of Menkera, or to some cause for which his name was held 
 in special reverence. The same group of characters which is 
 found on the mummy-case in the Third Pyramid is inscribed in 
 red paint on a slab in one of the smaller pyramids of Gizeh, tradi- 
 tionally supposed to be the tombs of queens. The sarcophagus 
 which it contains has no sculpture, and the mummy-case which 
 it once contained has been reduced to dust ; but from its small 
 size and the appearance of a tooth which was found in it, it has 
 been concluded that it had received the body of a young female — 
 the wife or daughter of Menkera 4 . 
 
 The 106 years occupied by the reigns of Chufu and Shafre were 
 regarded, by the Egyptians as a period of national oppression and 
 suffering. The people were worn out by forced labors in the 
 quarries and at the pyramids, and the temples were closed, that 
 the celebration of the sacred rites, which occupied so large a portion 
 
 1 Lepsius, Einleitung, 1, p. 309, observes that Psammitichus has the 
 addition Menkera in his shield, and supposes that he has been mixed up 
 with Mencheres the builder of the Third Pyramid. 
 
 2 See Wilkinson's copy in the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptian Society, PI. 98. 
 
 3 It is written in the Ritual (Das Todtenbuch, col. 64), as on the tablet of 
 Abydos, with a single character, he, for " offering ;" on the coffin this cha- 
 racter is thrice repeated, making the plural keu. 4 Yyse, 2, 48. 
 
THE FOURTH DYNASTY. 
 
 117 
 
 of the, Egyptian year, might not draw off the people from their 
 work. So strong was the hatred with which their memory was 
 regarded, that the common Egyptian was unwilling even to name 
 them, and would gladly have thrown the odium of their erection 
 on a foreign race. In concluding his account, Herodotus observes, 
 that the Egyptians alleged them to have been built by the shep- 
 herd Philition, who then fed his flocks in this district. Nowhere 
 else is such a person mentioned, and it has been supposed that in 
 this obscure passage we have an allusion to the Palestinian Shep- 
 herds 1 , who, under the name of Hyksos, appear subsequently in 
 Egyptian history, oppressing the people for several hundred years, 
 and destroying their temples. The builder of the Great Pyramid 
 was specially the object of popular dislike, which embodied itself 
 in the Greek tale of his compelling his own daughter to prostitu- 
 tion, in order to obtain funds for his work 2 . Manetho admits the 
 impiety of his Souphis 3 , but represents him to have also composed 
 " the sacred book," the subject of which is unknown. 
 
 Soris, the king whose name stands at the head of this dynasty, 
 is thought to be the same with the Shoure, whose shield has been 
 discovered in the necropolis of Memphis 4 . In the present state of 
 our knowledge, however, little reliance can be placed on these 
 insulated identifications. What is more important is, that the 
 dominion of Egypt, in the aera of the building of the Pyramids, 
 extended to the northern part of the Arabian peninsula. The 
 motive of the Egyptian kings for establishing themselves here was 
 evidently to obtain possession of the copper-mines, which have been 
 
 1 Kenrick's Egypt of Herodotus, p. 167. 2 Her. 2, 126. 
 
 3 Possibly the idea of impiety may have been connected with the erec- 
 tion of a building so lofty that it seemed to invade the skies. Comp. Gen. 
 xi. 4. "Let us make us a tower whose top may reach to heaven." 
 
 4 Lesueur, Chronol. p. 271, 311. Birch (Vyse, 3, 22), gives the name 
 Shoure to a king whose shield is found at Abouseir, and read by Lepsius 
 Arachura (Bunsen, B. 2, 99). 
 
118 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 already described 1 . The whole land was called in hieroglyphics 
 Mafkat, or the Copper Land 2 , and the principal mines wore at 
 Wadi Magara and Sarabit el Kadira. Large mounds of ore, and 
 masses of scoriae, attest the extent of the ancient operations. 
 Numerous stelae record the names of the kings in whose reigns the 
 mines were wrought. Those at Wadi Magara are the oldest. 
 Both the Chufus, Shoure, and a king whose name is found in the 
 Pyramid of Reega, and read Ousrenre or Ranseser 3 , are seen in acts 
 of adoration, with dates of their respective reigns. Shoure is 
 represented as in the act of smiting a captive whose hair he grasps, 
 and therefore probably made conquests in this region. 
 
 The seventh king in Manetho's libt is Sebercheres ; this has been 
 corrected by Lepsius into Nephercheres 4 , and identifiec^with the 
 Nefrukera whose name occurs in the necropolis of Memphis, and 
 on the tablet of Abydos follows that of Menkera. A Nepher- 
 cheres, however, is actually found in the fifth dynasty of Manetho, 
 who may seem to have a preferable claim. 
 
 The glimpse which we thus obtain of the condition of Egypt, in 
 the fifth century after Menes, according to the lowest computation, 
 is far from satisfying our desire for details, but on the other hand 
 it reveals to us some general facts which lead to important infer- 
 ences. In all its great characteristics it was the same as the Egypt 
 of a thousand years later. It was a well-organized monarchy ; 
 the tombs of Gizeh preserve the names and offices of various 
 public functionaries, military and civil. Its religious system was 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 51. 
 
 8 See Lepsius, Tour to the Peniusula of Sinai. Comp. Hieroglyph, of the 
 Eg. Society, pi. 41 Xo. 
 
 3 Birch, in Vyse, 3, 12. 2, 5. The block on which the name is found at 
 Reega appears to have been taken from some other monument. Among 
 the hieroglyphics is the figure of an obelisk. 
 
 4 The pramomen Neferkera has been found also on the cover of a small 
 ivory box, now in the Louvre, but it is not probable that it is of such high 
 antiquity (Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 15). 
 
THE FOURTH DYNASTY. 119 
 
 already elaborated and extended throughout the country; the 
 Memphite sovereign, the second Chufu, takes for his difference the 
 hieroglyphic of the tutelary god of Thebes and Elephantine. On 
 the coffin of Menkera we see the same formulary phrases which are 
 familiar to us in so many later funereal inscriptions 1 . The deceased 
 king is identified with Osiris ; his regal dignity is indicated by the 
 bee and branch prefixed ; the same epithet, " living for ever," is 
 given him, which is assigned to Ptolemy on the Rosetta stone. 
 The system of hieroglyphic writing was the same, in all its leading 
 peculiarities, as it continued to the end of the monarchy of the 
 Pharaohs. We possess no contemporary manuscripts, but the 
 inscriptions in the pyramids show that the linear hieroglyphic had 
 been already introduced, which prepared the way for the hieratic. 
 As the character of the inkstand and reed-pen is seen in these, we 
 cannot doubt that linen or papyrus was already used as a writing 
 material. We have no statuary of this age, but the hieroglyphics 
 in the tombs are cut with great force and precision. While the 
 present surface only of the pyramids was examined, they might 
 seem a barbarous monument of wasted labor rather than of skill ; 
 but the accurate finishing of the masonry with which the passages 
 and even the exterior were lined and cased, and the precise orien- 
 tation of the whole, show that both art and science had attained 
 to considerable perfection 2 . 
 
 The relation of the Memphian monarchy to Upper Egypt remains 
 obscure. No mention is even incidentally made of Thebes; a city 
 may have existed there, but not of sufficient importance to be the seat 
 
 1 Birch in Vyse, 2, 96. 
 
 a These inferences are fully supported by the drawings from 'he tombs 
 near the Pyramids contained in the "Denkmaler aus JEgypten und /Ethi- 
 opien," the fruit of the Prussian expedition under Lepsius; of which the 
 First Part has appeared while this work was passing through the press. 
 The opinion expressed in vol. i. p. 229, of the inferiority of art in this age, 
 must now be somewhat modified. 
 
120 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of a rival power to Memphis. Hitherto no trace of the dominion of 
 the Memphian kings has been found at Thebes or elsewhere in Upper 
 Egypt, except some alabaster vases from Abydos, bearing the stand- 
 ard of Chufu ; and portable antiquities afford no decisive evidence. 
 But this is no proof of Theban independence, since the fixed monu- 
 ments of this age are entirely sepulchral ; and the Memphian kings 
 and their great officers would be buried near their own capital. If 
 Thebes has no monuments of Memphian dominion, neither has it 
 any of its own, and it appears probable that till the 12th dynasty 
 of Manetho it continued to be a place of little account. 
 
 Fifth Dynasty. 
 
 Eight kings from Elephantine 1 . (Thirty-one, Euseb.) 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Usercheres reigned 28 
 
 2. Sephres 13 
 
 3. Nephercheres 20 
 
 4. SlSIRES 7 
 
 5. Cheres 20 
 
 6. Rathures 44 
 
 7. Mexcheres 9 
 
 8. Tancheres 44 
 
 9. Onnos 33 
 
 Total .... 218 
 
 Although the heading says eight kings, nine are mentioned, and 
 the sum agrees with the separate numbers 2 . 
 
 1 Eusebius has transferred here by mistake the names of Othoes and 
 Phiops from the 6th dynasty. 
 
 2 Bunsen, 2, 190 (Germ ), would remove Onnos to the beginning of the 
 6th dynasty, and supposes that Othoes stands there by a false reading of 
 the transcribers. Onnos, it is true, has 33 years and Othoes 30, but thia 
 hut number is assigned to Onnos in the Turin papyrus. 
 
THE FIFTH DYXASTY. 
 
 121 
 
 The supposition that some of the dynasties of Manetho are col- 
 lateral, is nowhere more probable than in regard to this dynasty of 
 Elephantine kings. No one fact is recorded concerning them. 
 They appear, however, to be a branch of the Memphite dynasty, as 
 the names Sephres, Nephercheres, Mencheres, bear a close analogy 
 to those which we have already found in use among them. Use- 
 serkef has been found by Lepsius 1 among the tombs of Gizeh, and 
 he seems to be the Usercheres of Manetho. Although lie stands 
 at the head of this dynasty, yet if it were a derivative and depend- 
 ent line, he might be interred among his ancestors of the Mem- 
 phite dynasty. Snephres (Snefru), which we may suppose Mane- 
 tho to have written, instead of Sephres, has also been found at 
 Gizeh 2 and Karnak ; and Nephercheres, the third in his list, fol- 
 lows Menkera on the tablet of Abydos, and has been found on 
 alabaster vases from Abydos 3 . The tablet of Abydos, however, 
 does not agree with Manetho ; the shields which follow that of 
 Mencheres exhibit different names from his 4 , yet names combined 
 out of similar elements, so as to favor the supposition that they 
 contain another derivative, though not royal line 5 . Sesienre would 
 be the reading, according to Lepsius, of the name usually read 
 Ousrenre (see vol. i. p. 262), and this would answer to Sisires, 
 No. 4. Unas or Onas is found in a fragment of the Royal List of 
 Turin, and appears to be the Onnos of Manetho 6 . The phonetic 
 value of some of the characters in these early shields is uncertain. 
 
 1 Bunsen, B. 2, p. 180, Germ. Lesueur, p. 312. 
 
 2 Denkmaler aus ^Egypten und JEthiopien, altes Reich. Abth. iL Bl. 2. 
 
 3 Bunsen, 2, 186. He observes that the name is written with a different 
 character from the earlier Xephercheres. 
 
 4 See Wilkinson's copy in Hierogl. of the Egyptian Society, pi. 47. Some 
 of them are no longer legible on the tablet in the British Museum. 
 
 6 Bunsen, u. s. p. 188. 
 
 • Bunsen, 184. He supposes a name beginning with the sign of Thoth to 
 be Tatkeres, which he conjecturally substitutes for Tancheres, eighth in the 
 list This king is supposed by others to be represented by an inscription at 
 
 VOL. II. 6 
 
122 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 If Othoes were the same as Onnos, it would appear that this 
 Elephantine dynasty was brought to a close by a conspiracy of his 
 life-guards, by whom he was murdered, and a new Memphite 
 dynasty succeeded. If, however, the Elephantine was not a sove- 
 reign, but a collateral dynasty, then the kings whose names are 
 about to be enumerated must be regarded as the immediate suc- 
 cessors of the fourth dynasty, in which the builders of pyramids 
 were included. It is possible that these Elephantine kings maybe 
 the Ethiopians of whom Herodotus speaks 1 , Elephantine being on 
 the boundary of that country, but the number, eighteen, does not 
 agree. 
 
 Sixth Dynasty. Six Memphite kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Othoes reigned 30 
 
 He was killed by his life-guards. 
 
 2. Phios 53 
 
 3. Methosuphis 7 
 
 4. Phiops. Beginning to reign at six years old, he con- 
 
 tinued to 100 
 
 6. MENTHESUPHI8 1 
 
 6. Nitocris, the most spirited and beautiful woman of her 
 time, of a ruddy complexion. She erected the Third 
 Pyramid, and reigned 12 
 
 203 
 
 Saccarah, read thus : " The king (Tankera), son of the Sun (Assa)." One 
 character in the first shield, however, is doubtful, and according to analogy, 
 Assa should be the proper name (Lesueur, Chronologie, p. 312). 
 
 1 2, 100. " The priests read to me a list of 330 other kings, and in so 
 many generations 18 were Ethiopians." Lepsius considers both the 5th and 
 6th dynasty as Ethiopian (Einl. 1, 255), and makes them amount together to 
 15, to which are to be added the three Ethiopian kings of the 25th dynasty. 
 The evidence for these arrangements has not yet been published, nor that 
 on the ground of which he pronounces (517) that the 5th dynasty was not 
 collateral. 
 
THE SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 123 
 
 Eusebius gives only Nitocris by name, but the number of years 
 is the same. The similarity of the names Phios and Methosuphis 
 and Phiops and Menthesuphis in this list, has given rise to a sus- 
 picion that they are really the same. We find in Eratosthenes the 
 following succession : — 
 
 Years. 
 
 Apappus 100 within an hour. 
 
 A nameless king 1 
 
 Nitocris, instead of her husband 6 
 
 It would be against all probability that such coincidences should 
 be accidental 1 . The names Apappus and Phiops do not indeed in 
 their actual form appear the same. The hieroglyphics of the king 
 whose name is read Pepi may however be read Apap, and if we 
 retrench the final * from Phiops, which was an addition made to 
 give it a Greek termination, we have a name also not very remote 
 from Pepi. The shields of Pepi have been found at Chenoboscion 
 and elsewhere in much greater numbers than those of any preced- 
 ing king, though not with dates which confirm the account of his 
 extraordinary long reign 2 , the sixteenth year being the highest; 
 nor has any yet been found in Lower Egypt 3 , a singular circum- 
 stance, as the dynasty is called Memphite. The identification of 
 Pepi with Phiops and Apappus must therefore be considered as 
 still problematical. Xo other name belonging to this dynasty has 
 been identified hitherto on the monuments. There is a group 
 which reads Mentopt or Mentuotep, twice occurring, one of which 
 Bunsen 4 refers to Mentkeophis, his correction of the Menthesuphis 
 of the lists, and the other to the eighth dynasty. They may belong 
 to the Middle monarchy or to the eleventh dynasty. A fragment of 
 
 1 1 have already explained (p. 82 of this vol.) the principle on which I 
 believe the list of Eratosthenes to have been compiled. 
 
 2 The long life of Phiops i3 not more incredible than that of Gorgias of 
 Leontini, who is said (Cic. Sen. 5) to have lived to 107. 
 
 " Lepsius, EinL 1, 265. * B. 2, 194. Ark. p. 64, note. 
 
124 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the Canon of Turin contains, without a name, the number 90 years 
 as the duration of a reign 1 , and from its length there can be little 
 doubt that it refers to Phiops. It is followed by a date of 1 year 
 1 month, which appears to be that of Menthesuphis. 
 
 The figure of Pepi is found in a singular combination with that 
 of another, whose name is read Remai, or Maire. The two princes 
 appear seated on their thrones in the Hall of Assembly, wearing 
 one the crown of the upper, the other that of the lower country ; 
 whence Wilkinson concludes 2 that either they were contemporary 
 sovereigns, one ruling at Thebes and the other at Memphis, or that 
 Pepi was the phonetic name of Remai, and that they were the 
 same monarch. This distinction of the names becomes hencefor- 
 ward important and will require to be explained. 
 
 In the oldest monuments, as those of the pyramids and tombs 
 of Gizeh, the names of the Egyptian kings are enclosed in oval 
 rings or shields, and each king has only one. The characters 
 included in the shield are phonetic, and express the name of the 
 king as it was pronounced, Mena, Chufu, Shafre, &c. In later 
 times, however, each king has usually two shields ; over the first 
 'are placed a bee and a branch of a plant 3 ; over the second the 
 figure of a vulpanser and the disk of the sun, which are read Son 
 of the Sun. Where two shields are found, the second always con- 
 tains the name of the sovereign in phonetic characters; thus in the 
 eighteenth and succeeding dynasties it is the name in the second 
 shield which corresponds to the lists of Manetho. The first shield, 
 if there are two, contains always the disk of the Sun or Re, and 
 joined to this two or more characters. Champollion considered 
 the signs included in these shields as symbolical titles, rather than 
 names of the kings ; and they are not alphabetical letters, like 
 those of the second shields. They are, however, in one sense pho- 
 netic ; for the objects and ideas which they represent had of course 
 
 1 Lesueur, p. 266. 2 Manners and Customs, 3, 282. 
 
 ■ See PL IL vol. 1, Nos. 11, 12, and p. 270. 
 
THE SIXTH DYNASTY, 
 
 i25 
 
 names in the old Egyptian language, and these, if pronounced, 
 would become a compound name. Thus the two shields in Plate 
 II. 11, 12, read, "The king (Re-seser-Tmei, Sun, Guardian of the 
 Truth), Son of the Sun (Amunmai Rameses)." Each king had a 
 combination of these signs, by which he is as readily distinguished 
 from all others as by his phonetic shield ; but those of the same 
 family usually preserved a general similarity in their signs. In the 
 case of the two royal figures on the monument of the Cosseir road, 
 the shield on the left, if they are considered to be distinct persons, 
 will be read Remai or Maire ; but if the same, then it will be con- 
 sidered as a title of Papi, and explained " beloved of Re," which is 
 the meaning of the word Remai. Such a title, it has been thought, 
 might give rise to second names, as we sometimes call the Ptole- 
 mies simply Philadelphus or Epiphanes. Lepsius, however, has 
 observed 1 that he has not found a single indisputable example of 
 the titular shield passing into a proper name 2 ; and its phonetic 
 reading is in most cases conjectural. 
 
 There is a third way in which the kings of Egypt were distin- 
 guished. Each had a standard 3 on which a group of characters is 
 represented, sometimes placed beside the shields, and which serves, 
 to discriminate them in the absence of these. On the obelisks, 
 where all their titles are usually set forth, the standard is found 
 immediately under the pyramidion ; over it is represented the 
 hawk of Horus, sometimes crowned with the pschent, and accom- 
 panied by the uraeus or royal serpent and the disk of the sun ; 
 the standard itself contains a group of symbolical characters not 
 strictly phonetic, but like those of the titular shield capable of 
 passing into a name, by the pronunciation of the words answering 
 
 1 Einleitung, 1, p. 255. 
 
 a Bunsen supposes, though with little probability, that Papi, or Phiops 
 Apappus, with the title Maire, is the Moeris of the Greeks, the author of the 
 great works in the Fyoum, B. 2, 209. 
 
 • Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, 156. 
 
126 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to the objects delineated. An example of this may be seen in 
 PI. II. No. 15, where the standard of Rameses III. is given. It is 
 surmounted by the hawk of Horus crowned, with the uraeus and 
 disk ; the banner itself reads, " The strong bull, beloved of Truth." 
 The hawk sometimes appears (ib. 15) as an emblem of royalty, 
 with the character for gold, and is called " the golden Horus." 
 
 The standard and the titular shield were assumed no doubt by 
 the king on his accession ; the phonetic name belonged to him as 
 an individual, but when he ascended the throne he enclosed it 
 within a shield as a mark of royalty. The standard or the titular 
 shield alone is sufficient to distinguish one king from another ; 
 and the phonetic shield is not found on the tablet of Karnak, nor 
 that of Abydos, except in the case of the king by whom it was 
 erected ; but it is the phonetic shield which connects them with 
 history. So the armorial bearings of a modern sovereign discrimi- 
 nate him from others ; but it is only by the knowledge of his name 
 that his historical place is ascertained. 
 
 The sixth name in the list of Manetho is that of Nitocris, whom 
 he describes as a woman of great beauty and spirit, and the builder 
 # of the third pyramid. She is no doubt the same as the Nitocris 
 of Herodotus, if identity may be predicated of persons who agree in 
 name, but differ in almost everything else. The Nitocris of Hero- 
 dotus, after having drowned the Egyptians who had put her brother 
 to death, committed suicide by plunging herself into a pit full of 
 ashes — a mode of destruction common as a punishment among the 
 Persians, but unheard of among the Egyptians. The Nitocris of 
 Manetho is the builder of the third pyramid, a work not to be 
 accomplished in the short interval between her accession and her 
 suicide. Another difficulty is, that we have seen that Mencheres 
 was deposited in the third pyramid, and is therefore to be pre- 
 sumed to have been its builder. This difficulty has been partly 
 removed by the researches of Colonel H. Vyse, and the ingenious 
 combinations of Bunsen. By a reference to the description already 
 
THE SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 127 
 
 given of this pyramid 1 , it will be seen, that in a large chamber, 
 which is nearly under its centre, a sarcophagus of red granite had 
 been placed, the fragments of which are strewed about*. The sar- 
 cophagus of Mencheres was in an interior and lower chamber, to 
 which a passage led from the larger. This larger chamber, besides 
 the passage by which it is now entered from the exterior, has 
 another going off at the same angle, but which never reaches the 
 exterior. The upper passage had been worked by the chisel from 
 the north or exterior, the lower from the interior ; whence Perring 
 concludes that the upper must have been formed first, and the 
 lower cut outward through the pyramid 3 . These appearances have 
 been explained by supposing that Mencheres built a pyramid of 
 much smaller size than the present, of which the entrance was the 
 passage which is now closed up. It would have reached the 
 exterior at about the same height above the ground as the pre- 
 sent passage, and the pyramid, if its angle of inclination were the 
 same as that of the present structure, would have a base of ISO 
 feet and a height of 145. In this state Mencheres left his pyramid ; 
 Nitocris enlarged it to its actual dimensions, cased it with red 
 granite, and designed at least that her body should be placed in it, 
 but was perhaps frustrated in this purpose by her own suicide or 
 the vengeance of the people. Thus the traditions which ascribed 
 it to Mencheres and to Nitocris would have each a portion of 
 truth. 
 
 Another story is related by Herodotus which at first appears 
 simply absurd — that this pyramid was built by a celebrated Gret-k 
 courtezan of Naucratis of the times of Amasis or Psammitichus, 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 110. 
 
 3 .So Bunsen says (B. 2, 168), perhaps from the personal communication 
 of Perring ; but Col. Vyse says (2, 81), that these pieces of the granite could 
 not have been fragments of a sarcophagus. The portcu lises were of this 
 material, which was also used in the passages. 
 
 * Howard Vyse, 2, 79. See vol. i p. 110, of this work. 
 
128 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 respecting whom Strabo tells a tale very similar to that of Cinde- 
 rella and her slipper. As she was bathing, an eagle snatched her 
 shoe from the attendant, and carrying it to Memphis, dropped it in 
 the lap of the king, who was sitting in the open air to administer 
 justice. Charmed with the elegance of the shoe, the king sent 
 through the land to discover its owner, and having found her at 
 Naucratis, made her his queen, and after her death she received 
 the third pyramid as her burial-place 1 . It was acutely observed 
 by Zoega, however, that the courtezan, Rhodopis, had been created 
 by the interpreters out of the queen Nitocris 2 . Both were celebrat- 
 ed for their beauty, and the name Rhodopis or " rosy-faced " is 
 exactly descriptive of Nitocris, who is said to have been "ruddy in 
 complexion." 
 
 No such name as Nitocris has been found upon the monuments 
 of this age ; but it occurs, written Neitakreti, in the Canon of 
 Turin 3 . If we may venture to combine Herodotus with Manetho, 
 the husband whom she succeeded, and whose death she avenged, 
 was Menthesuphis, who reigned only one year. The following 
 dynasty points to some violent change in the government, to which 
 the death of Nitocris gave occasion. 
 
 Seventh Dynasty. 
 
 Seventy Memphite kings, who reigned seventy days ... 70 
 (Eusebius, Five Memphite kings who reigned 75 days. Arm. 
 75 years.) 
 
 Eighth Dynasty. 
 
 Twenty-eight Memphite kings, who reigned 
 
 (Eusebius, Five Memphite kings, who reigned 100 yeara) 
 
 1 Strabo, 17, p. 808. 
 
 a De Obelise, p. 390. See also Bunsen, 2, p. 236, Germ. 
 8 Lepsius, Einl. 1, 262. Lesueur, p. 313, places it in the eighth dynasty. 
 
 Years. 
 146 
 
NINTH TO ELEVENTH DYNASTIES. 129 
 
 Ninth Dynasty. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Nineteen Heracleopolitan kings, who reigned 409 
 
 (Eusebius, Four Heracleopolitan kings, who reigned 100 years.) 
 The first of whom, Achthoes, the most atrocious of all who 
 had preceded him, did much mischief to the people of all 
 Egypt, and afterwards fell into madness and was destroyed 
 
 by a crocodile. 
 
 Tenth Dynasty. 
 
 Nineteen Heeacxeopolttan kings, who reigned 185 
 
 Eleventh Dynasty, 
 
 Sixteen Diospolitan kings, who reigned 43 
 
 After whom Ammenemes 16 
 
 "Thus far Manetho brought his first volume, altogether 192 
 kings, 2300 years, 70 days." 
 
 The difficulties which this concluding portion of the first volume 
 of Manetho's dynasties offers are very great. The seventy Mem- 
 phite kings, who reigned seventy days, must have been a tempo- 
 rary government, formed of the chief men of the kingdom, and 
 ruling each for a day; for, as Herodotus (2, 147) observes, the 
 Egyptians could not exist without kingly government. The Roman 
 senators, on the death of Romulus, exercised authority each for five 
 days 1 . The number of seventy days is no doubt correct, for it 
 occurs again in the summation at the end, and can only have 
 arisen here, as the odd number of days is not elsewhere mentioned 
 in giving the length of each king's reign. Eusebius has made a 
 
 1 Liv. 1, 17. Rem inter se centum patres, decern decuriis factis, singu- 
 lisque in singulas decurias creatis qui summae rerum praeessent, consociant; 
 decern imperitabant, unus cum insignibus imperii et lictoribus erat: quin- 
 que dierum spatio finiebatur imperium ac perjomnes in orbem ibat. Comp. 
 Diod. 1, 66. 
 
 6* 
 
130 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 correction, but as it appears arbitrarily, arid reads, according to the 
 Armenian version, "five kings who reigned seventy-five years"; 
 but then it would be unexplained how seventy days should appear 
 in the sum of the first volume. Other corrections have been sug- 
 gested, but they are too arbitrary to be received 1 . 
 
 There were in Egypt two towns called Heracleopolis 2 . Hera- 
 cleopolis Magna was situated at the entrance of the valley of the 
 Fyoum, on an island, as the ancients called it, formed by the Nile, 
 the Bahr Jusuf, and a canal. After Memphis and Heliopolis it 
 was probably the most important place in Lower Egypt. Hera- 
 cleopolis Parva, which is only mentioned in later times, was near 
 Pelusium, in the Sethroite nome, and beyond the westernmost 
 branch of the Delta. If it existed under the old Monarchy, it was 
 quite insignificant, so that it is not likely its king Achthoes could 
 have inflicted much mischief upon all the inhabitants of Egypt. 
 But if a powerful state sprung up at Heracleopolis Magna, after a 
 revolution at Memphis, which left the government in a feeble con- 
 dition, it was well adapted by its position relatively to the Upper 
 and Lower country and the Fyoum, to domineer over them all. 
 With the eighth dynasty Memphis appears to have lost its pre- 
 eminence. It passed first to Heracleopolis, afterwards to Thebes, 
 finally to the towns of Lower Egypt, Tanis, Bubastis, Sais. We 
 hear nothing more of a Memphite dynasty. 
 
 The tyranny of the founder Achthoes is absolutely all we know 
 of these two Heracleopolitan dynasties. The text of Africanus 
 
 1 Bunsen would transplant twenty (K) from the number of reigns of the 
 eighth dynasty (KZ), which he thinks should be eight instead of twenty- 
 eight, and with Eusebius read five as the number of kings in the seventh. 
 The whole would then stand thus : 
 
 Seventh Dynasty. — Five Memphite kings, reigned 20 years *70 days. 
 
 Eighth Dynasty. — Eight Memphite kings, reigned 146 years. (B. 2, p. 
 248, Germ.) 
 
 8 Strabo, 17, p. 789, 809. Steph. Byz. s. v. Champollion, L'Egypte sous les 
 Pharaons, 1, 309, 2, 80. Ptolemy, Geog. 4, 5. 
 
NINTH TO ELEVENTH DYNASTIES. 
 
 131 
 
 assigns to them together the incredible length of 594 years ; that 
 of Eusebius 285. To a dynasty reigning here at the entrance of 
 the Fyoura, it seems most natural to assign the commencement of 
 those great works which tradition connected with the name of 
 Moeris. No king of that name has been found in the lists or the 
 monuments ; and therefore probably Moeris is the designation of the 
 natural collection of waters at the western side of the Fyoum, the 
 Birket-el-Kerun. The word Mou in Coptic signifies water, and 
 appears to be the first syllable of this word, which was variously 
 spelt Moiris or Muris by the Greeks. Joined to m 1 , which denotes 
 the south in the same language, it would naturally describe, in con- 
 trast with the Mediterranean, this great southern lake, which in its 
 extent, the quality of its waters and the form of its shores, so much 
 resembled the sea, as to suggest the idea that it had been originally 
 a portion of the Mediterranean 2 . The dimensions assigned by 
 Herodotus (2, 149) to the lake Moeris (3600 stadia) cannot have 
 belonged to an excavation in the centre of the Fyoum ; nor would 
 any one describe the length of a canal as the perimeter of a lake. 
 It is indeed impossible to reconcile all the accounts which the 
 ancients give us of the lake Moeris; but one circumstance appears 
 decisive : if the Birket-el-Kerun be not the lake Moeris of Hero- 
 dotus, Diodorus, and Strabo, these three eye-witnesses have passed 
 over one of the most remarkable objects in Egypt. There was no 
 doubt also an artificial reservoir in the centre of the Fyoum, which 
 retained the water of the inundation to be dispersed when it was 
 needed over the adjacent country ; and Linant has partially traced 
 its embankment. 8 That it was designed to render this service to 
 any other district than the Fyoum is not asserted by the ancients 
 and appears improbable. 
 
 1 The terminations res and ris are constantly interchanged. Thus we 
 have Uaphris, Sesostris, Seeochris, as well as Mencheres, Nephercheres, tho 
 origin of both forms being Re or Ra. 
 
 * Strabo, 1, 50. 11, 809. 8 See vol. i. p. 42. 
 
132 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 If the Fyoum was rendered habitable and fertile by the kings of 
 the Heracleopolitan dynasties, it will be explained how it becomes 
 of so much importance under the twelfth. Sesortasen erected an 
 obelisk and Ammenemes built the Labyrinth there ; previously to 
 this time we find no monument and no mention of it in history. 
 
 The name Achthoes is the only one preserved in the lists, between 
 Nitocris, the last of the sixth dynasty, and Ammenemes, the last 
 of the eleventh. There is therefore no room for any comparison 
 between the lists and the monuments. Eratosthenes has also no 
 name which corresponds with the monuments in this interval 1 . 
 
 Achthoes is said to have been killed by a crocodile. This cir- 
 cumstance may have been invented to explain the animosity which 
 the people of Heracleopolis nourished against the crocodile ; and 
 their worship of the ichneumon, which was believed not only to 
 destroy its eggs, but even to creep down its throat and eat away 
 its vitals 2 . The mention of this circumstance is an additional pre- 
 sumption that Heracleopolis Magna was the seat of this dynasty. 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME OF MAN'ETHO. 
 
 Twelfth Dynasty. Seven Diospolitan kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Sesonchosis, the son of Ammenemes, reigned 46 
 
 2. Ammenemes, who was killed by his own guards of the bed- 
 
 chamber 38 
 
 3. Sesostris 48 
 
 He subdued all Asia in nine years, and part of Europe as far 
 as Thrace (everywhere erecting memorials of his occupatipn 
 
 1 Comp. Bunsen, B. 2, p. 252 foil., who has proposed various corrections 
 of Eratosthenes. In his system the two Heracleopolitan dynasties are 
 collateral. 
 
 2 Strabo, 11, p. 812. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 133 
 
 Years. 
 
 of the nations, engraving masculine emblems on tablets 
 where the men had been yaliant, feminine where they had 
 been cowardly), so that he was esteemed by the Egyptians 
 first after Osiris. 
 (Eusebius adds, He is said to have been four cubits three 
 
 palms two fingers in height.) 
 
 4. Lachares (Lamaris, Eus., Lampares, Arm.) 8 
 
 He prepared the Labyrinth in the Arsinoite nome as a tomb 
 for himself. 
 
 5. 1 Ameties 8 
 
 6. Ammenemes 8 
 
 1. Scemiophris, his sister 4 
 
 160 
 
 Until a recent time, this dynasty, notwithstanding the complete- 
 ness of its list of names, appeared to have no confirmation from 
 the discoveries in hieroglyphics. Even its historical character, 
 though marked by so conspicuous a name in the Egyptian annals 
 as that of Sesostris, was hardly established ; for this conqueror is 
 known to us from Diodorus and Herodotus, who place him much 
 later in the history. The Labyrinth was another work which 
 might have rescued this dynasty from any doubt of its historical 
 existence, but its remains had not been explored, so as to ascertain 
 the name of its founder ; and Herodotus had referred its erection 
 to so late an age as that of the Dodecarchia. Several shields had 
 been discovered bearing the names of kings which began with the 
 letters A M N, but the other characters being unknown, they had 
 not been referred to the Ammenemes whose names recur so often 
 in this dynasty, but to some unknown kings. The monumental 
 evidence indeed seemed to fix them to a later dynasty. Champol- 
 lion had ascertained the names of several of the kings of the 18th 
 
 1 Instead of Ameres, Ammenemes and Scemiophris, Eusebius has after 
 Lamaris " his successors, years 42." 
 
134 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 dynasty, beginnipg with Ahraes or Amosis, whose titular shield is 
 the 40 th in the iablet of Abydos 1 . The 17 th dynasty consisted 
 of Shepherd kings, who could not be expected to be recorded on 
 an Egyptian monument. The five which preceded Ahmes, it was 
 natural therefore to conclude, must represent the five kings of the 
 16th dynasty, who were Thebans according to Eusebius. On the 
 obelisks of Heliopolis and the Fyoum, the latter of which bore 
 marks of antique workmanship in the bluntness of the pyramidion 
 and the unusual proportions of the height and breadth 2 , a name 
 had been read Osortasen, which from the titular shield connected 
 with it, appeared to belong to a sovereign whose name stood first 
 in a succession of four in one of the grottoes of Benihassan, and 
 the third and fourth of these were the same as the 35th and 36th 
 of the tablet of Abydos. The names corresponding to the 37th, 
 38th and 39th shields were afterwards discovered, and found to be 
 another Osortasen and two beginning with the letters A M N, 
 followed by the same unknown characters — evidently therefore 
 belonging to one royal family. 
 
 Major Felix, to whom, in conjunction with Lord Prudhoe, the 
 discovery of this succession is due, conjectured that these kings 
 were really those of Manetho's 12th dynasty, whose names ought 
 to have been given as those of the 17th, and made the immediate 
 predecessors of Amosis, founder of the 18th. Sir Gardner Wil- 
 kinson 3 considered the dynasties between the 13th and 18th to have 
 been interpolated or contemporary in Lower Egypt. Dr. Ilincks, 
 in the transactions of the Royal Irish Academy 4 , had also ad- 
 vanced the opinion, that the five names on the tablet of Abydos, 
 which precede the 18th dynasty, constituted the 12th dynasty of 
 Manetho, and that the five dynasties between the 12 th and the 
 
 1 Birch, Gall. Brit Mus. pi. 29. 
 
 a Bonomi, in Trans. Roy. Soc Lit. 8vo. 1, 169. 
 
 ' Manners and Customs, 1, 36. 4 Vol. 19, P. 2, p. 68. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 135 
 
 18th were either contemporaneous or imaginary. The names, read 
 as they were by the authors of these suppositions, Osortasen and 
 Ammoneith-Thote or Amun-m-gori, did not however answer to the 
 names of Manetho. Lepsius had been led, by the circumstance 
 that some of the work of the so-called Osortasen at Thebes had 
 been surrounded by a construction of the kings of the 18th dynasty 1 , 
 to conclude that a considerable period must have intervened between 
 this dynasty and that to which he belonged, and one of desolation 
 for Egypt; that consequently he could not have been of the 17th 
 dynasty, but probably lived before the invasion of the Shepherds. 
 The letters of uncertain sound in the shields of the three kings he 
 read het, and the whole name becoming thus Amun-em-het, there 
 could be little difficulty in identifying it with the Ammenemes of 
 Manetho. The authority for reading the first letter in the shield 
 of Osortasen 0 was very slight ; Lepsius considered it as an S, and 
 made the name Sesortasen. Thus he had obtained an ascending 
 series, going backward from Amosis 2 ; Ammenemes (IV.), Amme- 
 nemes (III.), Sesortasen (III.), Sesortasen (II.), Ammenemes (II.), 
 Sesortasen (I.), Ammenemes (I.), and the first five of these corre- 
 sponded to the five shields (39-35) on the tablet of Abydos, which 
 preceded that of Amosis. It seemed therefore impossible to avoid 
 the conclusion, that the tablet of Abydos passed over all the 
 dynasties intermediate between the 12th and the 18th, and con- 
 nected these immediately with each other. Into the reason for 
 this omission we shall have to inquire hereafter ; at present it is 
 sufficient to say, that the coincidences between the names of the 
 shields and those of Manetho's lists are such, that we must re- 
 nounce all attempt at identification if we do not admit them to 
 be the same. 
 
 As the lists now stand, however, the coincidence, though strik- 
 ing, is not complete. We have three Ammenemes, but instead of 
 
 1 See voL i. p. 146. 
 
 * Bunsen, B. 2, p. 287, Germ. 
 
136 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Sesortasen we have Sesonchosis and Sesostris. The latter name 
 does not differ so widely from Sesortasen, but that they may well 
 have been the same, allowance being made for the change which 
 an Egyptian name would undergo, in being adapted to Greek pro- 
 nunciation. In this case, as the name had become very celebrated 
 among the Greeks, the change to which it had been subjected 
 would be greater than ordinary, and Manetho, who wrote for the 
 Greeks, might adopt the form in which they would recognise the 
 well-known conqueror. The change of Sesonchosis into Sesortosis 
 would, perhaps, be improbable if it stood alone, but ceases to be 
 so amidst so many coincidences. The descending series thus 
 becomes — 
 
 1. Ammenemes I. . . . Last of the 11th dynasty. 
 
 2. Sesortosis L The Sesonchosis or Gesongosis of the MSS. 1 
 
 3. Ammenemes II. . . . Second of the 12th dynasty. 
 
 4. \ Sesostris or I H . Third of the same dynasty. 
 ( Sesortosis ) 
 
 Here we find again a variance between the monuments and 
 Manetho ; for while they furnish a third Ammenemes, his text 
 reads Lachares or Lamares, who is followed by Ameres. To this 
 Lamares 2 , called Labaris by Eusebius 3 , the building of the Laby- 
 rinth in the Arsinoite nome is attributed, but the unquestionable 
 evidence of the Labyrinth itself declares that Ammenemes was its 
 founder. In Eratosthenes we have Mares or Maris, as the thirty- 
 fifth king, m a position answering generally to the Lamares of 
 Manetho ; and according to Diodorus 4 , Marus was the name which 
 
 1 TESONrOEIE, the reading of one MS., does not differ very widely 
 from EEEOPTOEIE. See Bunsen, Urk. p. 22, Germ. 
 
 2 The titular shield of Ammenemes III. has been read Ra-n-mat, and it 
 has been supposed that this gave rise to the name Lameres, R and L being 
 interchangeable, but there is no clear example of the titular name finding 
 its way into the lists. 
 
 * Chron. Can. p. 15, ed. Scalig. * 1, 61. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 137 
 
 some assigned to the builder of the Labyrinth. All these names, 
 Marus, Maris, Ammeres, appear to owe their origin to an attempt 
 to connect the foundation of the Labyrinth with the creation of 
 the Lake Mceris. In the form Labaris preserved by Eusebius, and 
 assigned as the founder of the Labyrinth, we have apparently the 
 origin of Lamares, Lamparis, Lachares, and an evident attempt to 
 etymologize the Greek name. The Imandes or Maindes of Strabo 1 
 on the contrary appears to be a corruption of Ammenemes, and 
 so also the Mendes of Diodorus (u. s.). Dismissing Lamares and 
 Ammeres, we may substitute in their place the two Ammenemes 
 of the monuments. Three reigns, all of eight years, succeeding 
 each other, are certainly not very probable. 
 
 Continuing our list, therefore, we have after Sesostris — 
 
 5. Ammenemes III. substituted for Labaris and Ameres ; 
 
 6. Ammenemes IV., the Ammenemes of Manetho's list. 
 
 This arrangement is conformable to the Turin papyrus, in which 
 we have in succession the titular shields, which are ascertained to 
 belong to Ammenemes I., Sesortasen I., Ammenemes II., Sesor- 
 tasen II., Sesortasen III., Ammenemes III., Ammenemes IV 2 . 
 
 According to Manetho, Ammenemes (IV.) was succeeded by 
 his sister Scemiophris, reigning four years. No such person has 
 been discovered in the monuments ; but a king whose name is 
 read Sebeknofre, is found in the Turin papyrus after Ammenemes 
 IV., and on the Karnak Tablet, to whom a reign of .3 years 10 
 months 24 days is assigned, and it is a probable conjecture of 
 Lepsius that the queen Scemiophris is no other than this king, 
 supposed to be a female from the apparently feminine termination. 
 A third Sesortasen appears in the monuments, who is not men- 
 tioned by Manetho. He succeeded the second Sesortasen. Amme- 
 nemes, the father of Sesonchosis (Sesortosis L), was probably the 
 
 1 17, 811. Epit. p. 1312, Almel. 
 
 8 Bunsen, 2, 299. Lesueur, 316, 317, who give the lengths of the reigns. 
 
138 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 same as the Ammenemes who closes the eleventh dynasty. His 
 name is found in the grottoes of Benihassan, and on two tablets 
 of the Louvre it is conjoined with that of Sesortasen I. 1 , whence 
 their joint reign has been inferred. From the investigations of 
 Lepsius and Bunsen it also appears that after the death of Amme- 
 nemes I., Sesortasen I. reigned alone for several years, and that 
 in the latter part of his life Ammenemes II. was associated with 
 him in the government 2 . The reign of Sesortasen III. was pro- 
 bably included in that of Sesortasen II., the father having admitted 
 the son to share his power. If the father survived the son, and 
 consequently resumed the sole sovereignty, this would account for 
 the absence of the son's name in Manetho's list. 
 
 Of Ammenemes, whom, according to this arrangement, we are 
 to call the Second, it is only recorded that he was assassinated by 
 his own officers of the bed-chamber 3 . 
 
 Sesostris succeeded to Ammenemes II. The resemblance of the 
 names of several Egyptian sovereigns, and the more remarkable 
 coincidence, that three of these appear to have been conquerors, 
 have produced a confusion in the history of Sesostris, which till 
 lately it was impossible to clear up. Four kings of very distant 
 ages, — Seiochrh, the eighth of the second dynasty ; Sesostris, the 
 third of the twelfth ; Sethos-Sesoosis-Jiamcses, of the nineteenth ; 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, page 46. 
 
 2 Bunsen, B. 2, p. 293. A stele in the Museum at Leyden mentions the 
 43rd year of Sesortasen I. as being also the 2nd of Ammenemes II. 
 
 3 1 take the word iiv.v^t in its etymological sense. We have I think 
 no evidence of the prevalence in Ancient Egypt of the practice which pre- 
 vailed in Assyria and is now common throughout Egypt and Western Asia. 
 That its introduction was attributed to Semiramis is a presumption that it 
 was not an Egyptian custom (Her. 3, 92. Ammian. Marcell. 14, 6. Claud 
 Eutrop. 1, 339) Pliny's Nectabis (36, 13, 2) lived after the Persian con- 
 quest. The use of O'HD (Gen. xxxvii. 36) is no proof of the custom, the 
 name being used for a great officer, as 1 Sam. viii. 15. Rosellini (M. Civ. 
 iii 2, 137) thinks that real evirati appear in the monuments. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 139 
 
 Sesonchis, of the twenty-second, have all partially contributed to 
 the history of one king, who has been variously placed, according 
 to different hypotheses. The gigantic stature which Herodotus 
 assigns to Sesostris 1 is the historical attribute of Sesochris, who 
 was five cubits and four palms in height 2 . The erection of monu- 
 ments recording his own victories beyond the limits of Egypt 8 
 belongs, as far as we know, only to Sesoosis-Rameses, of whom 
 monumental tablets have been found at Nahr-el-Kelb, on the 
 Syrian coast. The erection of two obelisks at Heliopolis 4 again 
 belongs to Manetho's Sesostris, the Sesortasen II. of the monu- 
 ments, the Sesoosis II. of Diodorus, since the name of this sove- 
 reign appears on that which still remains, and they were usually 
 placed in pairs. Another form under which the name of this 
 sovereign and warrior has come down to us, is Sesonchosis, as it 
 stands first in the twelfth dynasty. Had it occurred only there, 
 we might have acquiesced in the correction of Sesortosis before 
 mentioned. But the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (4, 272) 
 says that " Sesonchosis, king of all Egypt after Orus, son of Isis 
 and Osiris, conquered all Asia and the greater part of Europe ;" 
 adding that Herodotus calls him Sesostris. It is not probable that 
 the same corruption of Sesortosis into Sesonchosis should have 
 taken place here, and therefore we are compelled to believe that 
 this passage exhibits a further confusion of Sheshonk or Sesonchis, 
 the Shishak of Scripture, with Sesostris. Sesonchis was really a 
 great foreign conqueror, and inscribed the palace of Karnak with 
 the representations of numerous sovereigns whom he had led 
 captive. To this Sesonchosis, Dicaearchus, whom the Scholiast 
 appears to follow, ascribes the institution of castes, and of the use 
 of horses for riding — a fresh illustration of the propensity to refer 
 the origin of customs lost in immemorial antiquity to some emi- 
 nent name. How little chronology was regarded in these matters 
 
 1 2, 106. Diod. 1, 55. 2 See page 104 of this volume. 
 
 • Herod. 2, 102. Diod. 1, 55. 4 Diod. 1, 59. 
 
140 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 is evident from the circumstance, that Dicsearchus makes this 
 Sesonchosis to be the successor of Orus, the last of the gods, con- 
 founding him with the Menes of the common story. It would be 
 lost labor to endeavor to reconcile such contradictions, and build 
 them up into a chronological system. 
 
 The account which is given by Africanus of the conquests of 
 Sesostris may seem to leave no doubt that he is really the hero of 
 the Grecian story. We have already seen, however, that Africanus 
 interposes remarks of his own among the names of the Manetho- 
 nian lists ; and what is said of Sesostris has such a close verbal 
 resemblance to Diodorus, that as Africanus does not appear ever 
 to have seen the work of Manetho, it is probable that he has copied 
 this notice from Diodorus 1 . 
 
 Since, therefore, the traditions of the Greeks respecting Sesostris 
 either belong to the historical Rameses, or are wholly vague, we 
 cannot venture to attribute to the Sesortasens of the monuments 
 anything which is recorded of Sesostris 2 . The monuments them- 
 selves, however, attest the power of the twelfth dynasty. Rosellini 
 dug up near the Second Cataract a stele, now preserved in llie 
 Florentine Museum 3 ; it stood in an edifice raised by Rameses L, 
 on the spot where Sesortasen I. had placed a memorial of his own 
 victories. He is represented upon it standing in the presence of a 
 hawk-headed deity, named Mandoo, who holds in his hand a cord 
 to which are attached shields whose edge represents the battle- 
 
 1 The error with regard to the significance of the emblems which he is 
 said to have inscribed on his stelce is much more likely to have originated 
 with the Greeks or their half-learned interpreters than with a high priest. 
 Such emblems do occur among the hieroglyphics, but in a widely different 
 sense from that attributed to them by Herodotus and Diodorus. 
 
 9 Bunsen (B. 2, p. 309, Germ.) considers Sesortasen II. as the great Sesos- 
 tris, and supposes him to have conquered Ethiopia as far as the shores of 
 the Rod Sep., and crossed into Arabia, and thence to the continent of Asia 
 (Strabo, 16, p. 769). 
 
 * Mon. Stor. iii. 1, p. 38. Mon. Reali, tav. xxv. 4. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 141 
 
 ments of a town, and which are surmounted by the upper half of 
 the human figure, with the hands bound behind. This is the way 
 in which, on the monuments of Egyptian conquerors, their van- 
 quished enemies are usually exhibited 1 . The nations thus led cap- 
 tive appear from the absence of beard to be African, though they 
 exhibit nothing of the negro physiognomy. Five are still extant 
 on the monument, and when perfect it must have exhibited several 
 others. The inscription on the base has not been fully made out, 
 but it appears to record a sacrifice or offering to Mnevis, the white 
 bull of Heliopolis. At Thebes Rosellini found a fragment of a 
 statue of Sesortasen L, which from the manner of its insertion 
 among later constructions, appeared to have been preserved as a 
 relic of some building raised by him, and afterwards destroyed in 
 the devastations of the Shepherds. The tombs of Benihassan are 
 memorials of this dynasty, and in one of them, where a chief of the 
 name of Ammenemes was buried, is an inscription to this king, 
 who is there called " ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt 2 ." The obe- 
 lisk of Heliopolis gives him the same title, along with others of a 
 more mystical kind, but records no historical fact. That of the 
 Fyoum is equally destitute of information, but adds the title 
 " beloved by Ptah." Several funeral tablets have been found in 
 the neighborhood of Memphis and of Abydos, dedicated to per- 
 sons who held office under him ; they bear various dates, from the 
 ninth year of his reign to the forty-fourth 3 . Manetho assigns 
 forty-six as the duration of the reign of his Sesonchosis, whom we 
 have supposed to represent Sesortosis L The occurrence of his 
 name at the copper-mines in the peninsula of Sinai 4 shows that this 
 region still remained in the possession of Egypt. 
 
 1 Rosellini reads the names Kas or Kos (which mny be the Cush of 
 Scripture), Shiameik, Soa and Shiat, with two not perfectly legible- 
 a Rosel-ini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 30. 
 
 3 Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 37. 
 
 4 Wilkinson. Mod. Eg. and Thebes, 2, 406 
 
142 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 There is in the grottoes of Benihassan a remarkable picture of 
 the age of Sesortasen II. or Sesostris 1 . The name of the occupant 
 of the tomb has been read Nevopth ; and his son, who like the 
 father was of the military caste, is represented as standing to 
 receive a procession of foreigners. They are preceded by a royal 
 scribe, who holds out a scroll, on which is written the sixth year of 
 Sesortasen II., and it is declared that the strangers having been 
 vanquished, they are brought hither to the number of thirty-seven. 
 Such at least appears to be the general sense of the inscription, but 
 the interpretation of the characters is by no means certain. Instead 
 of thirty-seven, only twelve adults and three children actually 
 appear in the procession, and none of them are bound. To the 
 royal scribe another Egyptian succeeds, and is followed by the king 
 of the strangers, who leads an ibex by the horn and bows reveren- 
 tially. He is uncovered, and wears a tunic of bright colors and an 
 elaborate pattern ; in his hand he carries a curved starT not unlike 
 that which is seen in the hand of Osiris. Another stranger fol- 
 lows, of humbler rank, leading an ibex. Four men, armed with a 
 kind of club or bow and spear, precede an ass, carrying two child- 
 ren in a pannier, along with an instrument whose use it is not easy 
 to define, but which appears to represent some kind of shield. A 
 boy on foot armed with a lance is followed by four females, and 
 these by another ass with panniers. The whole procession is 
 closed by two men, one of whom carries a lyre and a plectrum, the 
 other a bow and a club. The inscription contains apparently the 
 name of the strangers, but it has not been satisfactorily made out. 
 Their lighter color and their aquiline noses show that they are 
 neither Egyptians nor natives of a more southern country than 
 Egypt. As they bring no gift but the ibex, it is probable they 
 belong to a pastoral tribe 3 , Arabian or Palestinian. They have 
 
 2 See vol 1, pp. 40, 41. Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1. 48. M. R. Tav 
 xxvi.-xxviii. 
 
 a Compare Isaiah lx. 7. " The rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee." 
 
THE TWELFTH DFNASTY. 
 
 143 
 
 been thought to represent the migration of Jacob and his family, 
 and certainly the bringing of children in panniers looks like the 
 removal of a family, unless we suppose them to be hostages. But 
 the figure of a prisoner is inconsistent with this idea ; and the 
 most probable supposition is, that the picture represents the bring- 
 ing of tribute, by one of the nations bordering on the Asiatic fron- 
 tier of Egypt, whom Sesortasen had reduced 1 . Champollion 
 believed them to be Greeks, induced partly by their garments, on 
 which is seen the pattern which we call Greek, and find on the old 
 fictile vases. But nothing else recommends this conjecture, and 
 when we consider the close connexion of Greek with Phoenician 
 art, such a coincidence will not appear surprising. 
 
 These grottoes of Benihassan are the best record of the state 
 of manners and art in the flourishing period of the 12th dynasty, 
 when the prosperity of Egypt was about to receive a check by the 
 invasion of the Shepherds. We have already described the archi- 
 tecture of this age, so closely resembling the Doric 2 . The pictures 
 of Egyptian life testify to a state of civilization, in which both the 
 elegant and the useful arts had been carried to a high degree of 
 perfection. It may appear singular that as this dynasty as well 
 as the preceding is called Diospolitan, scarcely any trace of them 
 should be found at Thebes. The fragment of the statue of Sesor- 
 tasen which has been preserved, however, shows that it was 
 adorned by them. 
 
 Whether Sesortasen were the first who made conquests in 
 Nubia depends on the place which we allot to the kings who bear 
 the names of Sebekatep, or Sebekotph, and Nefruatep 3 , and are 
 found in the Tablet of Karnak and the Turin Papyrus. If they 
 
 1 Mr. Osburn (Egypt and her Testimony to the Truth of the Bible, pp. 38, 
 39) reads the namet Jebusites. 
 3 Vol. i. pp. 213, 214. 
 
 * Five Sebekateps and two Nefruateps may be distinguished in the monu- 
 ments. 
 
144 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 belong to the eleventh dynasty, which was Theban, Nubian con- 
 quest would seem to have begun with them, as the name of Sebe- 
 katep occurs at Semne, in the inscriptions which Lepsius supposes 
 to record the rise of the Nile, along with that of Ammenemes 1 . 
 Their place however is doubtful, and they have been reckoned 
 with the kings of the Middle Monarchy 2 . Three kings of the 
 name of Nantef have also been found, who from their place in the 
 Tablet of Karnak 3 and from their sepulture at Qoorneh appear to 
 have belonged to a Theban dynasty, probably the 11th. Sesor- 
 tasen I. certainly carried his arms into Nubia; under the 18th 
 dynasty when the monarchy revived in greater splendor than ever, 
 it seems to have been completely incorporated with Egypt, and 
 the banks of the Nile were covered with temples in which their 
 titles are recorded. These facts conclude very strongly against 
 the opinion that civilization descended, either with conquest or the 
 gradual spread of population, along the Nile from Meroe and 
 Nubia to Egypt. It has been supported by the claims of the 
 Theban priests which Diodorus admitted, by the unfounded opinion 
 of the superior antiquity of the remains of Meroe, and perhaps by 
 the fame of the poetical Ethiopians ; but is contradicted by the 
 monuments, which show us that Lower and Middle Egypt were 
 the seats of powerful governments before Thebes had attained to 
 any renown, and that Nubia had no civilization before her conquest 
 by Egypt, which began with the 11th or 12th dynasty. 
 
 The age of the Labyrinth and the name of the sovereign by 
 whom it was built have been most variously stated by the ancient 
 writers, and nothing but the evidence of the ruins themselves has 
 enabled us to assign with certainty Ammenemes as its founder. 
 Herodotus, we have seen, attributes the building to the twelve 
 
 Boeckh, Manetho und die Hnndssternperiode, p. 627, note 2 . 
 Bunsen, ^Egyptens Stelle, Mittleres Reich, pi. iv. 
 ' See Hierogl. of the Egyptian Society, pi. 96. Burch in Gliddon's Egyp- 
 tian Archaeology, p. 80. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 145 
 
 kings or chiefs who composed the Dodecarchia ; not only mating 
 no mention of any other, but expressiy calling them " the original 
 founders 1 ." This is in itself very improbable, if we consider how 
 vast was the work, surpassing, as Herodotus says, not only all the 
 works of Grecian architecture, but the Pyramids themselves. It 
 is also in the highest degree improbable that, though sfter the 
 Egyptian fashion each of these chiefs may have prepared a tomb 
 for himself during his lifetime, they should have been deposited 
 there after Psammitichus had dethroned them. Probably the cir- 
 cumstance that the number of the principal halls was twelve, led 
 to their erection being attributed to these twelve kings. Diodorus 
 gives a different account. He describes, as Herodotus does, the 
 twelve kings as designing to leave a common memorial of them- 
 selves in the place which they prepared with all imaginable art for 
 this purpose ; and he fixes very precisely on the spot on which the 
 Labyrinth actually stood — the entrance of the Canal into the Lake 
 of Mceris 2 ; but he does not call it the Labyrinth. On the con- 
 trary, he says 3 , that the Labyrinth was built by a much earlier king, 
 who lived long before the building of the Pyramids, by some 
 called Mendes, by others Marrus. Even here, however, we may 
 trace some analogy to the account of Herodotus ; Mendes or 
 Marrus was make king immediately after the termination of the 
 Ethiopian invasion under Actisanes ; and in Herodotus, the retreat 
 of the Ethiopians is followed by an interregnum of the priest 
 Sethos, and then by the builders of the Labyrinth. 
 
 Strabo describes the Labyrinth as standing upon a plateau, 
 about thirty or forty stadia from the entrance of the canal, and as 
 consisting of the same number of palaces as the nomes of Egypt 
 
 1 2, 148. ^ajjitvoi avr69i eivai rCsv tz ap-^rjv tov \a;3vptv0ov tivtov oixoSo- 
 pT)crantvo>v Patji'Xiuiv Ka\ rwv Uprov KpoKoSeiXuv. These kings can be no other 
 than those whom he has before mentioned — the Dodecarchs, who he says 
 determined to leave the Labyrinth as a memorial of themselves. 
 
 2 1, 66. 8 1, 61. 
 
 VOL. n. 1 
 
146 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 formerly amounted to 1 . What this number was he does not 
 specify, but from Herodotus and Pomponius Mela we learn that it 
 was twelve 2 . The establishment of an oligarchy of twelve, during 
 the temporary suspension of monarchy, points to such a territorial 
 division previously existing, and probably corresponding to that of 
 the temples of the gods of the second order. One stadium from x 
 the Labyrinth stood a pyramid, 400 feet square at the base and 
 of equal altitude, in which, says Strabo, a king named Imandes 
 (Maindes) lies buried. This is the pyramid of Howara, which 
 stands on a desert plain between the Bahr Jusuf and the ravine 
 called Bahr-be-la-ma, which runs down to the north-eastern end 
 of the Lake of Kerun. Its present height is about 106 feet, and 
 its base 300 3 . It is constructed of crude bricks, mixed with straw, 
 and has been originally cased with stone. The sepulchral chamber 
 has been explored by Lepsius, and the discovery of the name of 
 Ammenemes III. has removed all doubt respecting the time and 
 purpose of its erection. He is the same sovereign whose shield 
 occurs everywhere in the ruins of the Labyrinth. 
 
 These varying accounts may be partly reconciled by the obser- 
 vation that the pyramid and the labyrinth are sometimes spoken 
 of as having a common destination, and sometimes discriminated. 
 Strabo discriminates them ; the labyrinth was according to him a 
 collection of palaces 4 , the pyramid a place of sepulture. Herodo- 
 tus, on the authority of the inhabitants, speaks of the kings and 
 sacred crocodiles as being interred in the subterranean chambers 
 of the labyrinth ; Manetho (or Africanus) says Lamares built the 
 Labyrinth as a sepulchre for himself ; and Pliny, following Lyceas, 
 
 1 B. 16, p. 181, 811. 
 
 a Psammetichi opus Labyrinthus domos ter mille et regias duodeeim 
 amplexus. (Pomp. Mela, 1, 9, 65.) 
 
 • Perring on the Pyr. 3, 83. 
 
 * The Memnoneion of Abydos, which was a palace, was (Strabo, 11, 813) 
 a building in the style of the Labyrinth, only leas complex. 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 147 
 
 calls it the sepulchre of Moeris. It appears quite contrary to Egyp- 
 tian usages that the same building should be used as a palace and 
 a cemetery. Notwithstanding therefore the tradition of the neigh- 
 borhood recorded by Herodotus, the fact of the Labyrinth being 
 at all a place of royal sepulture is questionable. It is however not 
 unlikely that the embalmed crocodiles may have been deposited 
 in the vaults. The name Petesuchis, which Pliny gives to the 
 king who founded the Labyrinth 4600 years before his time 1 , evi- 
 dently alludes to this destination of the building ; for Suchos was 
 the tame crocodile of the Arsinoite nome, and Pet or Pet-n occurs 
 frequently in similar combinations 2 . It is not probable that the 
 Labyrinth was all built by a single sovereign ; Diodorus 3 speaks of 
 its being left unfinished by its founders, and we have seen reason to 
 conclude that the Pyramids, though attributed by the ancients to 
 a single reign, were not begun and concluded by the same person 4 . 
 
 The name Labyrinth appears to be of Greek origin, and we do 
 not know what word corresponded to it in the ancient Egyptian. 
 It originally denoted a complicated system of passages and gal- 
 leries 6 , such as are found in mines, catacombs and internal quarries. 
 As they were usually of unknown age, mythical personages were 
 assigned as their authors. Those at Nauplia were attributed to 
 the Cyclops 6 , that at Cnossus to Daedalus. The last-mentioned is 
 usually supposed to have been a building, like the Egyptian ; but 
 no one speaks, as an eye-witness of it ; and the story probably 
 originated from the existence of a real labyrinth, excavated in 
 times of unknown antiquity at Gortys in Crete 7 . The idea of per- 
 
 1 Cod. Bamb.Plin. 36, 19 (13). 
 
 * See vol. i. p. 323, note \ s 1, 66. 
 
 4 No name except that of Ammenemes III. appears to have been dis- 
 covered by the Prussian Expedition, but only the foundations are left. 
 
 ' Such a gallery was called by the Greeks Aavpa, from which, pronounced 
 AdFpa, Aa(Jpa, \a0vpivdus would be formed by a regular analogy. ("Words- 
 worth, Athens and Attica, p. 209. Hoeckh's Creta, vol. 1, p. 62.) 
 
 • Strabo, 8, p. 369. 7 Walpole's Travels, 2, 402. 
 
148 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 plexity which we associate with the name, and which the mythe 
 represents as the designed end of the construction, was the neces- 
 sary consequence, in the one case of the multitude of intersecting 
 passages, in the other of the endless succession of apartments, 
 repeating each other. Herodotus describes the Labyrinth of Egypt 
 as the palace of Versailles might be described by one who had 
 been led through it by a guide, and had been at once astonished 
 and bewildered by what he had seen. We can distinguish, how- 
 ever, in his description, hypostyle halls, which were roofed by 
 single blocks of stone 1 , rilling the whole space of the intercolumnia- 
 tions, closed apartments adjoining to these, and porticoes leading 
 to other roofed apartments. The multitude and similarity of these 
 buildings might well make it impracticable for a stranger to find 
 his way through them, especially as the majority of them had no 
 light 2 , llerodotus says they were in all 3000, 1500 above ground 
 and an equal number below. The exactness of this statement 
 rests of course on the fidelity of his guides, who delight in large and 
 round numbers, which are rendered more doubtful by the circum- 
 stance that the building was only one story high above the ground. 
 The ruins which have been explored by the Prussian Expedition, 
 show that the whole was a rectangle of 800 feet by 500. Pliny 
 speaks of this as well as the other Labyrinths as being arched, 
 fornicibus tecti ; but there is no trace of the use of the arch here 
 or in any other building of this age. It appears to have been 
 chiefly built of a hard white limestone, which has been mistaken 
 for Parian marble 8 ; but the fragments of granite which lie scat- 
 tered about show that this more costly material had also been used 
 for columns, shrines and statues. The white limestone was proba- 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 811. 
 
 3 Pliny, N. H. 36, 19 (13). Majore in parte transitus est per tenebras. 
 
 3 Plin. 36, 19, (13) 2. ^Egyptius labyrinthus (quod miror equidem) 
 introitu lapide e Pario, columnis reliquis e Syenite, molibus compositis, 
 quas diseolvere ne sajoula quidem possint 
 
THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 149 
 
 bly brought from the Gebel-el-Mokattam, where an inscription 
 records the working of a quarry of hard white stone, in the reign 
 of a sovereign of the name of Ammenemes, whose precise place in 
 the series cannot be ascertained, as his distinctive title does not 
 accompany his phonetic name 1 . 
 
 Manetho, according to Africanus, reckoned 2300 years from 
 Menes to Ammenemes I. (see p. 129). If to this we add 160 
 years for the 12th dynasty, we have 2460 years for the duration 
 of the Old Monarchy. That there is some great error of excess in 
 these numbers cannot be doubted, but they can be corrected only 
 by unauthorised conjecture. Bunsen, taking Eratosthenes for his 
 standard, reduces the Old Monarchy to 1076 years. The question 
 can be settled in no other way than by the discovery of some evi- 
 dence to show whether any and which of the dynasties of Mane- 
 tho were contemporaneous. 
 
 1 The cornice of the stele bears the date "48rd year," and the builder of 
 the Labyrinth reigned only twelve. But this date is no part of the inscrip- 
 tion, nor does it express the reign of Ammenemes. (Birch in Vyse, Pyra- 
 mids, 3, 94. Tourah Quarries. Tablet No. 1.) 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE MIDDLE MONARCHY. 
 
 Thirteenth Dynasty. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Sixty Diospolitan Kings, who reigned 453 
 
 Fourteenth Dynasty. 
 Seventy-sex Xoite Kings, who reigned 184 
 
 Fifteenth Dynasty. — Of Shepherds. 
 
 Six Foreign Phcenician Kings, who also took Memphis. They like- 
 wise founded a city in the Sethroite nome, advancing from which 
 they reduced the Egyptians into subjection. The first of these 
 
 who reigned was Saites 19 
 
 From him the Saitic nome was called. 
 
 2. Bnon 44 
 
 3. Pachnan 61 
 
 4 Staan 50 
 
 6. Archles 49 
 
 6. Athobis 61 
 
 284 
 
 Sixteenth Dynasty. 
 Thirty other Shepherd Kings, reigned 618 
 
 Seventeenth Dynasty. 
 
 Forty-three other Shepherd Kings, and Forty-three Theban Dios- 
 polites. Together the Shepherds and Thebans reigned .... 151 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 151 
 
 Eusebius gives these dynasties with very important variations. 
 
 Thirteenth Dynasty. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Sixty Diospolitan Kings, reigned 453 
 
 Fourteenth Dynasty. 
 
 Seventy-six Xoite Kings, reigned 184 
 
 [484 in another copy.] 
 Ann. 434. 
 
 Fifteenth Dynasty. 
 Diostolitan Kings, reigned 250 
 
 Sixteenth Dynasty. 
 Five Theban Kings, reigned 190 
 
 Seventeenth Dynasty. 
 
 (Four) Foreign Phoenician Shepherd Kings 1 (brothers), who also took 
 Memphis. 
 
 First, Saites reigned ' 19 
 
 From him the nome Satis was called. They founded a city in 
 the Sethroite nome, advancing from which they subdued 
 Egypt 
 
 2. Bnon 40 
 
 3. Aphophis 14 
 
 4. After him Archles 30 
 
 103 
 
 No name is preserved by Africanus or Syncellus from the thir- 
 
 1 For Woiftiiti ri<ray dic^fol (pounces we should probably read HE AN A (four) 
 $OINIKEL. Syncellus complains of the arbitrary manner in which 
 Eusebius had transposed the 15th Dynasty into the 17th ; his motive was 
 to adapt the Egyptian to the assumed Biblical chronology. (P. 62, 115 
 Dind) 
 
152 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 teentli and iburteenth dynasty ; consequently we are deprived of 
 the means of comparing them with the monuments. Xois was a 
 town of considerable size in Lower Egypt, lying near the centre of 
 the Delta, in an island formed by the Sebennytic and Phatnitic 
 branches of the Nile 1 . 
 
 The establishment of the Shepherd Kings at Memphis, which is 
 so briefly noticed in the extracts by Africanus, is fortunately related 
 at great length by Josephus in a passage quoted by him from 
 Manetho. Apion the Grammarian, one of those vain pedants 
 whom the school of Alexandria produced in such abundance 2 , had 
 attacked the Jews, who were very odious to the Egyptians, aud 
 especially to the Alexandrians, in a work on the Jewish history, in 
 which he gave a very reproachful account of the origin of their 
 nation. To this work Josephus replied. In a remarkable Intro- 
 duction he shows how late was the origin of Greek letters and his- 
 tory, compared with the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Phoenician, and 
 opposes to the unfavorable accounts of the Grasco-Egyptian Apion, 
 what he considers to be the honorable testimony to the Jewish 
 people, which Manetho had delivered from the Egyptian records. 
 Having described Manetho as a man well skilled in Grecian learn- 
 ing, and who had derived his materials, according to his own 
 declaration, from the sacred records of his country, he thus pro- 
 ceeds with his quotation from the second book of his ' Egyptiaca' 
 (Cont. Apion. 1, 14) : — 
 
 " We had once a king called Timasos, under whom, from some 
 cause unknown to me, the Deity was unfavorable to us, and there 
 
 1 Champollion, JEgypte sous les Fharaons, 2, p. 214, thinks its site was fit 
 Sakha, which is the Arabic equivnlent of the Coptic Xeos and the old Egyp- 
 tian Skhoon. The road from Rosetta to Cairo across the Delta passes 
 through it. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Strabo, 11, p. 802.) 
 
 2 " Apion Grammaticus, quem Tiberius Csesar cymbalum mundi voeabat, 
 quum publicse famae tympanum, potius videri posset, immortalitate donari a 
 se scripsit, ad quos aliqua componebat." ^Plin. Praef. H. N.) 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 153 
 
 came unexpectedly from the eastern parts a race of men of obscure 
 extraction, who confidently invaded the country and easily got 
 possession of it by force, without a battle. Having subdued those 
 who commanded in it, they proceeded savagely to burn the cities, 
 and razed the temples of the gods, inhumanly treating all the 
 natives, murdering some of them and carrying the wives and 
 children of others into slavery. In the end they also established 
 one of themselves as a king whose name was Salatu ; and he 
 took up his abode in Memphis, exacting tribute from both the 
 Upper and the Lower Country, and leaving garrisons in the 
 most suitable places. He especially strengthened the parts 
 towards the East, foreseeing that on the part of the Assyrians, 
 who were then powerful, there would be a desire to invade then 
 kingdom. Finding, therefore, in the Sethroite 1 nome a city very 
 conveniently placed, lying eastward of the Bubastic river, and 
 called from some old religious doctrine 2 Auaris [or Abaris], he 
 built it up and made it very strong with walls, settling there also 
 a great number of heavy-armed soldiers, to the amount of 240,000 
 men for a guard. Hither he used to come in the summer season, 
 partly to distribute the rations of corn and pay the troops 3 , partly 
 to exercise them carefully by musterings and reviews, in order to 
 inspire fear into foreign nations. He died after a reign of 19 
 years. After him another king called Bnon reigned 44 years ; 
 after him another, Apachnas, 36 years and 7 months ; then 
 Apophis 61 years, and Jannas 50 years and 1 month. Last of all 
 Asses 49 years and 2 months. And these six were their first 
 rulers, always carrying on war and desiring rather to extirpate the 
 Egyptians. Their whole nation was called Hyksos, that is Shep- 
 herd Kings ; for Hyk in the sacred language denotes King, and 
 
 1 Syneellus has preserved the true reading ; the MSS. and Sehol. Plat. 
 Tinweus read Saitp. 
 
 a 'A~o iisos do^aias Bco'Xoyiai, 
 
 8 HirufjiST pdi> KOI [iioQotpufiiav 7rap£^d/i£fOS. 
 
 1* 
 
154 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Sos is a Shepherd in the common dialect, and hence by composi- 
 tion Hyksos. But in another copy it is said, that not Shepherd 
 Kings but Captive Shepherds are designated by the word Hyk ; 
 for that on the contrary, Hyk or Hak with the aspirate distinctly 
 means Captives ; and this appears to me more credible, and 
 accordant with ancient history. The before-named kings, he says, 
 and their descendants, were masters of Egypt for 511 years. 
 
 " After this he says that a revolt of the kings of the Thebaid and 
 the rest of Egypt took place against the Shepherds, and a great 
 and prolonged war was carried on with them. Under a king whose 
 name was Misphragmuthosis, he says that the Shepherds were 
 expelled by him from the rest of Egypt after a defeat, and shut up 
 in a place having a circuit of 10,000 arutae. This place was called 
 Auaris. Manetho says that the Shepherds surrounded it entirely 
 with a large and strong wall, in order that they might have a 
 secure deposit for all their possessions and all their plunder. 
 Thuthmosis, the son of Misphragmuthosis, endeavored to take 
 the place by siege, attacking the walls with 480,000 men. 
 Despairing of taking it by siege, he made a treaty with them that 
 they should leave Egypt and withdraw, without injury, whitherso- 
 ever they pleased ; and in virtue of this agreement they withdrew 
 from Egypt with all their families and possessions to the number 
 of not fewer than 240,000, and traversed the desert into Syria. 
 Fearing the power of the Assyrians, who were at that time masters 
 of Asia, they built a city in that which is now called Judaea, which 
 should suffice for so many myriads of men, and called it Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 " And in a certain other book of his Egyptiaca, Manetho says 
 that this nation who are called Shepherds are described as Captives 
 in their sacred books. And he says rightly ; for the keeping of 
 sheep was the ancient habit of our forefathers, and they were not 
 unnaturally described as Captives by the Egyptians, since our fore- 
 father Joseph declares himself to the king of the Egyptians to be 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 155 
 
 a captive, and afterwards at the command of the king sent for his 
 brethren into Egypt. Into these things, however, I will inquire 
 hereafter more accurately." 
 
 This is the account which Josephus gives from Manetho of the 
 invasion, reign and expulsion of the Shepherd kings. If we except 
 some evident exaggerations of numbers, such as the host of 480,000 
 men besieging a city or fortified camp containing 240,000, there 
 is nothing in it which is not quite credible and natural. The 
 nomadic nations have always envied the wealth and luxury which 
 agriculture, commerce and art have procured for their more civi- 
 lized neighbors ; and when these have been weakened by the 
 neglect of military accomplishments, have found it easy to over- 
 turn their power and lay waste their country. Such has in fact 
 been the history of Asia ; and had it not been for the valor of 
 JEtius in the plains of Chalons, and Charles Martel at Tours, 
 Europe might have been subject for centuries to the sway of " men 
 of unknown extraction from the East, who razed her cities and 
 destroyed the temples of the gods, and carried her children into 
 captivity." If the Hyksos are, as some accounts represented, 
 Arabs, they belonged to the same race as that to which the Hindu, 
 the Parsee and the Christian have been obliged to yield up their 
 lands and their sanctuaries. 
 
 How long the war and consequent devastation of Egypt lasted, 
 before Salatis 1 established himself as king in Memphis, we are not 
 told. Africanus must have included in the nineteen years allotted 
 to Salatis the whole period both of his reign and the conquest, as 
 he reckons nothing for an interregnum, or for that of the last 
 king of the preceding dynasty. It seems to have been the maxim 
 of the Egyptian monarchy, that the sovereign never dies. From 
 
 1 The name Salatis, preserved by Josephus for Saites, is supposed to hear 
 an analogy to the Hebrew t^b"©' "to rule." It occurs Gen. xlii. 6, hut 
 the endeavor on the strength of this coincidence to identify Salatis with 
 Joseph is an example of overstraining evidence. 
 
156 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Menes to Nectanebus the throne appears in the chronological lists 
 always full. The struggle lasted during the reigns of the six first 
 Shepherd kings, after which the Egyptians appear to have made 
 no further attempts at resistance. 
 
 If we are to consider all the dynasties of Manetho as strictly 
 successive, and adopt the largest numbers, 93*7 years (453 4-484) 
 must have intervened between the 12th dynasty and the invasion 
 of the Shepherds; and again, 953 years (284 + 518 + 151) from 
 that invasion to their expulsion. There are, however, special 
 reasons in this case for admitting them to have been contempora- 
 neous. Manetho does not speak of one king as being at the head 
 of the Egyptians when the Shepherds invaded them, but of " those 
 "who commanded in the country 1 ," from which we may infer that 
 the unity of the monarchy was already dissolved. Again, when 
 the Shepherds are expelled, it is said that "the kings from the 
 Thebaid and the rest of Egypt rose up against them 2 ." It seems 
 probable, therefore, that before or in consequence of the invasion 
 of the Shepherds two separate kingdoms were formed, one at 
 Thebes, the other at Xois, which lasted through the whole of the 
 time that the Shepherds- maintained themselves in Egypt. Each 
 of them had peculiar local advantages for the establishment of a 
 kingdom, which the invaders might prefer to leave dependent and 
 tributary, rather than attempt to subdue. The Thebaid w T as 
 remote from Memphis where they fixed their capital, and by retir- 
 ing into Ethiopia, as Amenophis is said to have done on occasion 
 of a second inroad, the Egyptian kings could easily place them- 
 selves beyond the reach of invaders. Xois, on the other hand, 
 
 1 JZaraOaparfiaavTes M rrjv ^aipav ioTparcvaav Kai paSicJS dpa^rjri ravrrju Kara 
 Kpa.Tos£l\nv,Kai rcvg i]ytfiov£V(ravTag iv av 7-77 ^Eipuyaainvoi k. r. X. (Jos. 
 u. s. c. 14). 
 
 2 JUsra ravTa rciv ck rfjf Qr)0aidos k at rrjs a A A rj $ A t y v tt t 0 v 0 a a t A £ w v ycvtoQai 
 <pr]alv ht! rovi noi^ci/as iTravaaTaaiv Kai iro'Xzjiov uvtoTs ovppayniai pzyav Kai ttjAu ^pipiov. 
 
 (Jos. u. s.) 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 157 
 
 was protected by its position amidst the intersecting branches of 
 the Nile, which probably rendered it inapproachable by land forces. 
 When Sabaco and the Ethiopians invaded Egypt, Anysis took 
 refuge in the marshes, and maintained himself for fifty years in an 
 island which he made habitable by laying down ashes in the 
 muddy soil. When Inarus revolted from the Persians (460 b.c.) 
 they reduced without difficulty the rest of the country, but Amyr- 
 tseus kept possession of the marshes for several years, perhaps as 
 many as forty 1 . 
 
 The Theban dynasty lasted 453 years, the Xoite 484, and these 
 numbers are not very different from the 518 or 511 assigned to 
 the dominion of the Shepherds. Africanus indeed appears to 
 make the 16th dynasty last 518 years, besides the 284 of the 
 15th; but according to Josephus the six kings of the 15th and 
 their descendants 2 reigned 511 years. The 17th dynasty of Shep- 
 herds and Theban kings represents the period of the struggle, 
 described by Josephus as great and protracted. It lasted for 150 
 years. 
 
 The motive of the Shepherd kings for establishing their place of 
 arms at Abaris, in the Sethroitic norae, is stated, conjecturally, by 
 Manetho to have been the apprehension of invasion from the Assy- 
 rians, then predominant in Asia. Another obvious reason was to 
 maintain a connexion with the countries from which they came, 
 and secure a retreat in the event of the Egyptians recovering their 
 independence. The Sethroitic nome was a Typhonian region, and 
 probably the name itself was allusive to this divinity 3 . Manetho 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 140. 3, 15. Thueyd. 1, 110. 
 
 8 Tovtovs Si tovs irpoKaT(x)vona(r\ievovi (3aai\eas, tovs tcov iroipivoiv KaXovjitvLov^ 
 
 Kai tovs £s a'OTiov ytvo pevovs Kparrjaai rfjs A-iyvirrov (pqoiv lrr\ npos 
 tois -rrevTaKOcriois evSexa. (Jos. U. 8 ) 
 
 1 " Non spernendara censeo observationem viri doctissirai (Marsbami) 
 Buspicantis tractum ilium qui campos Pelusiacos comprehendit et ad lacum 
 usque Serbouidem extenditur, olim Setbroiten dictum, nomen boc acccpisse 
 
158 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 implies that the name Abaris or Auaris had a similar reference 1 , 
 but the Egyptian language affords no clue to such an ety- 
 mology. 
 
 Josephus says that in another book of the Egyptiaca, or in 
 another copy of the passage which we have already transcribed, 
 Manetho explains the name Hyksos as "captive shepherds," not 
 " shepherd kings." To this etymology also the Egyptian lan- 
 guage, as we are acquainted with it, gives no support. Indeed the 
 Jewish historian must have calculated upon very uncritical readers, 
 if he supposed that they would believe the Shepherds and his fore- 
 fathers to be the same. Except their Palestinian origin, and their 
 retreat into Palestine, everything in their history is different. The 
 children of Israel came on the invitation of Pharaoh, a handful of 
 men, into Egypt, and were placed in the land of Goshen, by his 
 appointment, to tend his cattle. When they subsequently multi- 
 plied so as to become an object of alarm to the Egyptians, they 
 were subject to cruel persecution and oppression, to which they 
 made no resistance, and even when they were encouraged by Moses 
 to quit the land of their bondage, they never ventured to fight for 
 their liberties. National vanity has often strangely perverted his- 
 tory, claiming conquests which have never been made; but if the 
 Israelites were really the Hyksos of Manetho, they must have fore- 
 gone the glory of being the conquerors of Egypt, in order to repre- 
 sent themselves as its bondsmen. 
 
 Manetho never represents the Hyksos as the same with the 
 Jews, although Josephus artfully slides in the words " our fore- 
 fathers" into the account which he gives, apparently on Manetho's 
 
 aTyphone, quem Egyptios lingua sua cognominasse Seth infra monebimus. 
 Addere possum rubicundum Egyptiis dioi ros, ex quo confieitur Sethros 
 commodissime significare Typhonem rufums* (Jablonsky, P. III. p. 65. 
 Comp. vol. i. p. 369.) 
 
 1 This word has been derived from "1 an< ^ connected with the 
 sojourning of the Hebrews. 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 159 
 
 authority 1 . It is true, Manetho says that the Hyksos, when they 
 retired by treaty from Egypt, established themselves in Judea and 
 built Jerusalem. But this . rather proves them not to have been 
 the Jews ; who, instead of building Jerusalem, did not even pos- 
 sess it till the time of David. At their entrance, under Joshua, 
 into Palestine, it was held by the Jebusites, a Canaanitic tribe 2 . 
 Their king was killed in battle ; but his people still held the upper 
 city, the place of strength, while the tribe of Judah and Benjamin 
 dwelt around the base. Manetho, therefore, identifies the Shep- 
 herds, not with the Jews, but the Jebusites ; and Josephus, who 
 had related the facts which I have just mentioned in his ' Antiqui- 
 ties 3 ,' cannot have been ignorant of the fallacy of his own argu- 
 ment. Theophilus Antiochenus and Tatian, in the second century 4 , 
 when they speak of the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt, follow, 
 not Manetho, but Josephus interpreting Manetho. It appears 
 therefore that the ancient and authentic records of Egypt made no 
 mention of the Jews, their coming into Egypt, their settlement 
 in Goshen, their bondage, or their Exodus. But these was a 
 popular and traditionary account of them 5 which Josephus has 
 quoted from Manetho, evidently formed under the influence of 
 those feelings of hatred and contempt of which the Jews were the 
 object on the part of their neighbors. It belongs, however, to 
 the history of the eighteenth dynasty, where it will be particularly 
 considered. 
 
 If we could find in the lists or the monuments, the Timceus 
 under whom, according to Manetho, the invasion of the Shepherds 
 
 1 He repeats the same unfair substitution in cap. 26, with the additional 
 circumstance that they built the Temple. 
 
 * Josh. x. 1, 23 ; xv. 63. Judges, i. 21 ; 2 Sam. v. 6. 
 » Ant 5, 2 ; 7, 3. 
 
 4 See the passages quoted in Bunsen's Urkendenbuch, v. vi. 
 ' Oi* ck ruiv nap' At'yi'Tteij ypanuxTttiv dAX' atrdj wpjAoyjjifev Ik rui 
 ad tenor a>s pv9o\oyoviicy<up (cap. 16). 
 
160 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 took place, we might connect this event with the previous history 
 of Egypt. Xo such name however is found. He is called Con- 
 charis in the Laterculus of Syncellus, a name equally unknown to 
 the monuments. The last king in the list of Eratosthenes is Amu- 
 thartaios, and it is probable that this list, as it begins with Menes, 
 the founder of the old monarchy, ends with the king who was 
 reigning when Salads established himself at Memphis ; but be- 
 tween this name and Timaios there is no resemblance 1 . None of 
 the six names of the Shepherd kings preserved by Manetho has 
 been found on the monuments 2 , nor is there any monumental or 
 architectural, or even sepulchral trace of the long period of their 
 occupation of Egypt. The 39th shield on the tablet of Abydos is 
 that of Ammenemes IV. ; the 40th, Aahmes or Amosis, whom 
 Mauetho places at the head of the 18th dynasty. So that the 
 whole interval of the Shepherd dominion appears to be passed over, 
 as one of usurpation. 
 
 Of the seventy-six tributary kings of Xois, no monuments remain 
 that can be referred to them on satisfactory evidence ; though it is 
 by no means improbable that among the many which have not 
 yet had a place assigned them in the series 8 , some may belong to 
 this dynasty. The tributary kings of Thebes, however, during the 
 same interval, have been supposed to have a record in the tablet of 
 Karnak and in the papyrus of Turin 4 . Five, as already mentioned, 
 
 1 Bunsen would correct ' AnovOapraios in Eratosthenes into 'AfiwrifiaToi, 
 which he substitutes conjecturally for fa (3atrtXtvs HMIN TTMAIOE in the 
 extract from Josephus. 
 
 2 A shield which reads Ases is the 4th in the tablet of Karnak, but from 
 its place cannot be Asses, the Hyksos king of Josephus. See p. 121, 122, 
 153 of this volume. 
 
 3 A long list of these may be seen in Leemans' Monumens Egyptiens por- 
 tans des Legendes royales, and subsequent.discoveries have much increased 
 their number. See Barucchi Oonologia Egizia. Turin, 1844. 
 
 4 Lepsius, Denkm. taf. i. 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 161 
 
 bore the name of Sebekaiep, and two of Nefruatep. Such repeti- 
 tions, resembling the Louises, Henries and Georges of modern 
 royal families, appear to have been very common among the Egyp- 
 tian dynasties. It seems upon the whole probable that the Sebe- 
 kateps lived in the beginning of the thirteenth dynasty, since a' 
 monument dated in the reign of one of them speaks of Ammene- 
 mes III. as deceased 1 . The whole number of shields is thirty in 
 the second half of the chamber of Karnak, but several are illegible. 
 As the kings of Thebes in the Hyksos period were more than 
 thirty, some cause, to us unknown, must have led to the selection 
 of these. The fragments of the Turin papyrus show some of the 
 same names as the chamber of Karnak 2 , and when entire, this 
 portion of the mauuscript appears to have contained sixty-five 
 shields. 
 
 The seventeenth dynasty, as it now stands, is apparently cor- 
 rupt ; at least it is improbable that there should be exactly forty- 
 three kings both of the Shepherds and the Thebans, and that in 
 both lines kings should reign on the average only three and a half 
 years. The error, however, appears to be in these numbers, not 
 in the duration of the dynasty. The kings of Thebes declared 
 themselves independent, and cast off their allegiance as tributaries 
 to the Shepherd kings of Memphis. A long and bloody war, or 
 succession of wars, ensued, for a century and a half, which ended 
 in the Hyksos being driven by Misphragmuthosis into Abaris. 
 
 Without the testimony of Manetho, we should have been wholly 
 ignorant of this most important event in the history of Egypt. 
 For neither Herodotus nor Diodorus, nor any of the Greek and 
 Latin historians, give any account of it. This is the more remark- 
 able, as the Egyptians had informed them of their subjugation by 
 
 1 Birch in Gliddon's Otia Egyptiaca, p. 82. 
 
 8 Lepsius, Denkm. taf. iv. v. vi. Bunsen's plate v. The names in the 
 shields, which in the papyrus are written in the hieratic character, are here 
 transcribed in the hieroglyphic. 
 
162 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the Ethiopians, so that national vanity did not carry them so far 
 as to suppress all facts inconsistent with the immemorial indepen- 
 dence of their nation. There is indeed a passage before referred 
 to in Herodotus, in which a trace of the invasion of the Hyksos 
 may be visible, but which could never have been so understood 
 without the explanation which Manetho affords. Speaking- of the 
 odium in which the memory of the builders of the pyramids was 
 held, he says 1 , " that the people did not much like to name them; 
 but even called them the pyramids of the shepherd Philition or 
 Philitis, who fed his flocks in this region at that time." Since the 
 pyramids have been explored, no doubt can remain that they are 
 the work of native kings, and of a much earlier time ; yet it is 
 possible that among the various traditions to which their high 
 antiquity had given birth, one may have connected them with the 
 obscurely remembered invasion of the Hyksos, and that the name 
 Philitis may represent Philistim. The scriptural writers cer- 
 tainly attribute a connection with Egypt to the Philistines 2 , who 
 in Amos ix. 7 are spoken of as an immigrant people, like the 
 Israelites themselves ; and the name, though confined in the Bible 
 to a small district, was used for the whole country, which thence 
 derived the name of Palestine. The account given by Apollodo- 
 rus (2, 1, 3), that iEgyptus the son of Belus brother of Agenor, 
 king of Phoenicia, came from Arabia and conquered Egypt, unhis- 
 torical as it is, may have had its origin in the invasion of the Hyk- 
 sos, who are called both Phoenicians and Arabians, and who settled 
 in Palestine on their expulsion from Egypt 3 . The connexion of 
 
 1 2, 128. 
 
 8 Gen. x. 14. The Caslukim there mentioned are probably the dwellers 
 about the Mons Canux, a part of that Typhonian region which the Hyksos 
 
 occupied. Aifivr) Htp0iovis «rai X^P a ne P l ^ v t a,Jl T ° v Tv0a3i»a Ktxpv^Qai, it\r)oiov 
 
 ovaav rov npos rai IlnXovaU) Kaaiov bpovi. (Eust ad Dion. Perieg. 248. Herod. 
 3, 5.) 
 
 * " In Agenoris ex ^Egypto in Phoenician! migratione videtur latere opinio 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 163 
 
 the mythe of Isis, Osiris and Typhon with Phoenicia, of the Tyrian 
 with the Egyptian Hercules 1 , and generally of Phoenician with 
 Egyptian civilization, will be best explained by the supposition 
 that the nomad tribes of Palestine were masters of Egypt for seve- 
 ral generations, and subsequently returned to the same country, 
 carrying with them the knowledge of letters and the arts, which they 
 were the instruments of diffusing over Asia Minor and Greece. 
 Phoenicia has evidently been the connecting link between these 
 countries and Egypt, which directly can have exercised only a very 
 slight and transient influence upon them. 
 
 The narrative of the invasion, the dominion and the expulsion 
 of the Hyksos contains nothing that is incredible ; but the dura- 
 tion which is assigned to their sway is certainly startling, not so 
 much because it requires a great extension of Egyptian chronology, 
 as because we do not find in Egypt the traces which we might 
 naturally expect of a dominion said to have lasted six centuries and 
 a half. There are no marks, at least none that have been ascer- 
 tained, of the city of Abaris, whose walls included a space more 
 than double that of Rome under Diocletian, and not much inferior 
 to that of London at the present day 2 . Although they occupied a 
 country in which pyramids, obelisks, temples, and palaces pre- 
 sented themselves on every side, they seem never to have employed 
 the art of their subjects in raising any corresponding memorial of 
 themselves. An equal degree of inertness must have seized on the 
 Egyptians themselves. Under the 12th dynasty, to judge from the 
 descriptions and remains of the Labyrinth, art and skill must have 
 been at a high point of elevation; under the 18th dynasty they 
 showed themselves in unimpaired perfection ; but not a single con- 
 temporaneous work of art has been found, from the 13 th to the 
 
 de communi nescio qua Phcenicum et JSgyptiorum credita origine." (Heyne 
 ad Apollod. 2, 1, 4. Kenrick, Egypt of Herod. 2, 182.) 
 1 Herod. 2, 44. 
 
 a Joseph, c. Ap. 1, 14, with Bunsen's note, Urkundenb. p. 44. 
 
164 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 18th dynasty. These things are not sufficient to make us doubt 
 the fact of the invasion and expulsion of the Hyksos; but they 
 may excite a suspicion that the chronology of this period of oppres- 
 sion and confusion is not to be relied on, and that as usual it has 
 been unduly extended 1 . 
 
 The occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos appears to have been 
 from first to last military. The fortified camp of Abaris, the pos- 
 session of Memphis and of various other places throughout Egypt 
 which were garrisoned by them, placed the whole country entirely 
 in their power ; but the difference of religion, language and insti- 
 tutions would prevent any amalgamation between them and a 
 people so peculiarly inflexible in all these relations as the Egyp- 
 tians were. Their monarchs took care to preserve the military dis- 
 cipline, on which the maintenance of their superiority depended : 
 from Memphis, where the seat of their government was established, 
 they visited Abaris every summer, and by military exercises and 
 reviews at once kept up the spirit of the soldiers and made an 
 imposing display of force in the eyes of the natives and foreigners. 
 During the first six reigns a policy of destruction and extermina- 
 tion was pursued ; afterwards it should seem that on payment of 
 tribute, the sovereigns of Thebes and Xois were allowed to exercise 
 the powers of royalty, and the people to pursue their labors in 
 peace. 
 
 Probably the condition of Greece under the Turks affords the 
 nearest historical parallel to that of the Egyptians under the 
 
 1 Bunsen extends the dominion of the Shepherds to 929 years (B. 3, p. 48, 
 Germ.), and supposes the fifty-three kings mentioned by Apollodorus 
 (Sync. p. 14*7. 279, ed. Dind.) to be the Theban kings contemporary with 
 the Shepherds. Lepsius (Einl. p. 520) supposes that Apollodorus began his 
 second list with Amosis, the head of the 18th dynasty and of the New 
 Monarchy, and ended it with Amasis the contemporary of Cambyses. Here 
 the Laterculus of Syncellus ends, and it comprehends in this interval just 
 fifty-three kings. 
 
THIRTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 165 
 
 Hyksos. In both cases a nomadic and military tribe have esta- 
 blished themselves among a sedentary and civilized people, whose 
 energies had been impaired ; in both, the repugnance occasioned 
 by difference of blood, language and religion has not only pre- 
 vented any fusion of the two races, but has preserved the hostile 
 feeling between them in undiminished strength, after the cessation 
 of a state of warfare. The Turks have been said to be only 
 encamped in Europe, and this was literally true of the Hyksos in 
 Egypt. The number of 240,000, said to have been collected within 
 the walls of Abaris, probably represents the average amount of the 
 Hyksos population, who living on the tribute paid by the Egyp- 
 tians, followed no other occupation than that of arms, and came in 
 succession to their fortified camp to undergo their military training. 
 The recovery of their country and their capital by the Greeks 
 seemed at one time imminent ; had it taken place, their language 
 and religion w r ould have been reinstated with no change from the 
 long predominance of the Turks ; the Mosch of the Sultan would 
 have become again the Church of St. Sophia, and the people have 
 re-appeared, after the oppression of four centuries, identical with 
 the subjects of the Palseologi, but regenerated in spirit by the 
 struggle by which their independence was purchased. In such a 
 case it is conceivable that their tables of royal succession might 
 omit all mention of the Mahmouds, Selims and Mustaphas, and pass 
 from the last Constantine to the first Otho. It is true, the period 
 of Turkish sway is not equal to the shortest time at which the 
 dominion of the Hyksos in Egypt has been reckoned. But no 
 nation has ever equalled the Egyptian in the fixedness of its cha- 
 racter and institutions. The relations of the Greeks to their Turk- 
 ish masters might have continued much longer unchanged, had 
 they both been as completely insulated from all foreign influences 
 and political combinations as the Egyptians were. 
 
 On the whole, though it is difficult to realize to ourselves a 
 dominion continuing for six centuries and a half, and then termi- 
 
166 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 nating with so few traces as the Hyksos left in Egypt, this diffi- 
 culty is not sufficient to justify us in rejecting the positive testi- 
 mony of Manetho to events which he could have no motive to 
 feign. We have indeed his testimony only at the second hand, 
 and that not of a wholly trustworthy witness. But though Jose- 
 phus has certainly perverted, we cannot believe that he invented, 
 his alleged quotation from Manetho. His learned adversary would 
 have easily detected such a fraud. 
 
 The confusion and destruction which attended the conquest of 
 the Hyksos, have rendered the chronology of this period of Egyp- 
 tian history quite uncertain, beyond the reigns of the six kings of 
 the 15th dynasty. We can place no reliance on the assigned 
 length of periods, which furnish us with neither names, nor facts, 
 nor monuments, because we have no control over the fictions or 
 the errors of historians. Until this deficiency is supplied, it must 
 remain a fruitless attempt to carry up a connected chain of authen- 
 tic chronology, through the Middle Monarchy to the termination, 
 and thence to the commencement of the Old, even if the chrono- 
 logy of the latter were better ascertained than it is. 
 
book in. 
 
 THE NEW MONARCHY. 
 
 Eighteenth Dynasty, according to Africanus. 
 (Sync. p. 62-72 ; 115-136, Dind.) 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Sixteen Diospolite kings, of whom the first was Amos 1 , 
 
 under whom Moses went out of Egypt, as we shall 
 show. 
 
 2. Chebkos, reigned 13 
 
 3. Amenophthis 24 
 
 4. Amersis 22 
 
 5. Misaphris 13 
 
 6. mlsphragmtjthosis 8 26 
 
 7. Touthmosis 9 
 
 8. Amexophis 31 
 
 This is he who is thought to be Memnon and the Speak- 
 ing Statue. 
 
 9. Horus 37 
 
 10. Acherres 32 
 
 11. Rathos 6 
 
 12. Chebres 12 
 
 13. Acherres 12 
 
 14. Armesses 5 
 
 15. Ramesses . 1 
 
 16. Amenophath 19 
 
 1 Amos should have headed the list of Africanus with the years of his 
 reign, but in consequence of the incidental mention of his name this seem3 
 to have been omitted. Syncellus calls his father Asaeth. 
 
 * By the general consent of critics, MIE^PArMOYeflSIS has been 
 substituted for AAIE^PArMOYGQILIi; in the text of Josephus from 
 Eusebius and Syncellus. 
 
168 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 According to Eusebius : — 
 
 Eighteenth Dynasty. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Fourteen Diospolite kings, of whom the first, Amosis, 
 
 reigned 25 
 
 2. Chebrox 13 
 
 3. Amexophis 21 
 
 4. Miphb.es 12 
 
 5. mlspiiragmuthosis 26 
 
 6. Toutiimosis 9 
 
 7. Amexophis 31 
 
 He is thought to be Memnon and the Speaking Statue. 
 
 8. Horus 36 [88] 
 
 9. achexcherses 16 [12] 
 
 Under him Moses led the Jews in their Exodus from 
 Egypt. 
 
 10. Acherb.es 8 
 
 11. Cherres 15 
 
 12. Armais, who is also Danaus 5 
 
 Afterwards being exiled from Egypt, and flying from 
 his brother iEgyptus, he comes into Greece, and 
 having made himself master of Argos, rules the 
 Argives. 
 
 13. Ramesses, who is also iEgyptus 68 
 
 14. Amexophis 40 
 
 From the Tablet of Abydos. 
 
 It has been already observed that this monument contains no 
 names of kings, except Ramses the Great, only the prenominal or 
 titular shields. The researches of Champollion, however, aided 
 and corrected by those of our countrymen and of Lepsius, have 
 ascertained the corresponding phonetic names, and thus we are 
 enabled to present the following series for comparison with the 
 lists of Manetho and Eusebius : — 
 
 1. Aahmes. 
 
 2. Amexoph (I.). 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 1G9 
 
 3. Thothmjes (L). 
 
 4. Thothmes (IL). 
 
 5. Thothmes (ILL). 
 
 6. Amenoph (II. ). 
 
 7. Thothmes (IV.). 
 
 8. Amenoph (IIL). 
 
 9. Hobus. 
 
 10. Ramses (I.). 
 
 11. MENEPHTnAH (I.). 
 
 12. Ramses (II. ). 
 
 13. Ramses (IIL), in whose reign the tablet of 
 
 Abydos was erected. 
 
 The discrepancies are obvious. The Amoses of the lists is evident- 
 ly the Aahmes of the tablet and monuments, but Chebros appears 
 neither on the tablet nor elsewhere. Amenoph, the second on the 
 tablet, is the third in the lists ; Miphres and Misphraginuthosis are 
 again not found on the tablet. Touthmosis of the lists answers to 
 Thothmes of the tablet ; but whereas the tablet gives three in succes- 
 sion of this name, the lists present only one. Amenophis TT. is found 
 in both, followed, however, on the tablet by a fourth Thothmes and 
 a third Amenoph. In Horus again they agree ; but his successor 
 on the tablet is Ramses, in the lists Achencherses or Acherres. 
 
 There can hardly be a question which authority is to be prefer- 
 red. No better evidence than that of a monument, erected by 
 public authority, can be produced in an historical inquiry. Its 
 testimony is liable to no corruption, such as written documents 
 may undergo, from accident or fraud, nor to the variations which 
 are inevitable in oral tradition. It represents the most authentic 
 knowledge of the age in which it was erected, and must therefore 
 take precedence of every other kind of document. It is true that 
 this age may have falsely believed itself possessed of certain know- 
 ledge, and such a belief could acquire no additional authority by 
 being recorded on stone. There is no room here, however, for this 
 distinction. The time of the erection of the mcnument was not 
 
 vol. ir. 8 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 much further removed from the reign of Amosis than the present 
 year from the Restoration, and it is incredible that the Egyptians, 
 so learned in their own history and antiquities, should have been 
 in error in regard to the succession of their sovereigns during this 
 period. That Manetho in the age of the Ptolemies, when the 
 tablet of Abydos was extant in its integrity, with the command of 
 numerous other documents, should commit an error on such a 
 point, is indeed strange, but less incredible than an error in the 
 tablet itself. There is in the Rameseion at Thebes a representation 
 of a procession in which the ancestors of Rameses the Great appear, 
 and their succession from Amenoph I. corresponds with that of 
 the tablet of Abydos 1 . Again, we find in a tomb of Qoorneh a 
 succession of four, from Thothmes III. to Amenophis III., in which 
 there is the same correspondence. A procession at Medinet Aboo, 
 similar to the first-mentioned, begins with Amenophis III. and 
 goes on to Ramses IV. This is beyond the limit of the tablet of 
 Abydos, but as far as they are co-extensive they agree 3 . 
 
 There are some indications of confusion of names in Manetho's 
 list. If we omit Chebros, a name without analogy among those 
 of this dynasty, Amosis is succeeded by Amenoph, according to 
 the tablet ; Misaphris, Mephres (Joseph.) or Miphres (Euseb.) and 
 Misphragmuthosis have the appearance of both originating from a 
 title and a phonetic name, Miphra-Touthmosis, or " Thothmes 
 beloved of Phre 8 ." These will be the Thothmes I. and II. of the 
 tablet ; and the Touthmosis of the lists will correspond with the 
 Thothmes III. of the tablet. Amenophis will then occupy the 
 same position in both. But here again occurs a discrepancy. 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, p. 204. 2 Rosellini, ibid. 
 
 8 Thothmes III. actually bears in the monuments the title of Met re, or 
 with the article Met phre, "beloved of Phre." (See Birch, Brit Mus. P. 2, 
 p. 80.) Although no indisputable example has been found of a title substi- 
 tuted for a name, Barneses- Meiamoun affords one of the title being incorpo- 
 rated with the name. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 m 
 
 Amenoph II., the vocal Menmon of the lists, is followed on the 
 tablet by Thothmes IV. ; but in the lists by Horus, who in the 
 tablet succeeds Amenophis III. After Horus the diversity becomes 
 still greater. He is followed on the tablet by Ramses I., in the 
 lists by Achencherses or Acherres, and the name of Rameses in 
 the shape of Armesses or Armais only appears after Rathos, Che- 
 bres, and Acherres. 
 
 There is a remarkable variation in the lists themselves. Accord- 
 ing to African us, Amenophis I. is succeeded by Amersis, or, accord- 
 ing to one MS. Amensis, who does not appear in Eusebius nor 
 on the tablet. Africanus seemed to have gained confirmation from 
 the discovery of a personage named Amense among the royal 
 monuments of the 18th dynasty, with this peculiarity, that the 
 inscriptions in which this figure appears have the feminine termi- 
 nation, article, and pronoun, and the title "Beneficent Goddess, 
 Lady of the World," while the dress, attributes, and insignia are 
 those of a male 1 . Hence Champollion devised the hypothesis that 
 Thothmes I. immediately succeeded to Amenophis I. ; that his son 
 Thothmes II. followed him and died without issue. His sister 
 Amense succeeded him and reigned twenty-one years ; her hus- 
 band, who was named Thothmes, exercised the rights of sove- 
 reignty in her name, and was the father of Thothmes III. Amense 
 survived her husband and married for a second, Amenenthes, who 
 also governed in her name, and was not only regent during the 
 minority of Thothmes III., but exercised sovereignty conjointly 
 with him for several years. The shields which contain the title of 
 this supposed Amenenthes have very generally been defaced, and 
 the legend of the second or third Thothmes substituted for them, 
 on a variety of monuments still existing at Thebes. This Cham- 
 pollion believed to have been the effect of the hatred which Thoth- 
 mes III. cherished towards his step-father, by whom he had been 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, p. 222, 223. Champollion, Lettres d'Egypte, xv 
 
172 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 oppressed during the years of his minority. The name which he 
 read Amenenhe or Amenenthes, is found, as well as that of 
 Amense, on the obelisk of Karnak, along with his image ; and if 
 Rosellini may be believed, it exhibits traits unlike those of the 
 sovereigns of this dynasty, and thus favors the supposition that ho 
 was a stranger in blood 1 . 
 
 This ingenious hypothesis has not stood the test of subsequent 
 research. The name Amenset (for such it is, not Amense) is read 
 by Lepsius Set amen; and Amenenthe, Nemt Amen (Hatusu). 
 This name has feminine affixes, and therefore appears to represent 
 a female sovereign, or at least regent, having the titles " Daughter 
 of the Sun, Beneficent Goddess, Lady of the Worlds." He thus 
 disposes of the relations of the first sovereigns of the 18th dynasty. 
 Amosis, the founder, was succeeded by his son Amenophis, who 
 had a sister, Set Amen, and a brother, Thothmes I. Thothmes I. 
 had a queen Aahmes, whose relation to the founder of the dynasty 
 is uncertain, and who exercised during his reign the functions of a 
 female regent. This Aahmes is the Amersis or Amensis of the 
 lists, the Amessis described by Josephus as the sister of Ameno- 
 phis, which would make her to be the daughter of Amosis. 
 Thothmes I. had two sons, who reigned successively under the 
 titles of Thothmes II. and Thothmes III. During the reigns of 
 both Thothmes II. and III., the regency was exercised by their 
 sister Nemt Amen. The succession then proceeds, without any 
 further interruption, from father to son, through Amenophis IL, 
 Thothmes IV., Amenophis III., and Horus, who appears to have 
 left no male child, as Acherres or Acencheres, the next in the lists, 
 is said by Josephus to have been his daughter 2 . Such is the com- 
 bination by which Lepsius and Bunsen have endeavored to recon- 
 cile the monuments with the lists. We may adopt it provisionally, 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, 228. 
 
 3 Bunsen, Dynasty xviil pi. vii. ^Egypten's Stelle, B. 3, p. 78. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 173 
 
 with a caution to the reader how uncertain are all such systems in 
 the present state of Egyptian history, and especially without a full 
 knowledge of the evidence on which it is founded. Any other 
 arrangement must be equally hypothetical. 
 
 Manetho, in the extracts of Josephus, makes no mention of 
 Amosis as bearing part in the long war which preceded the expul- 
 sion of the Hyksos and their blockade in Abaris, under Misphrag- 
 muthosis. His monuments, however, bear traces of his being 
 engaged in war. A funeral inscription of one of his naval officer?, 
 quoted by Champollion-Figeac 1 , relates that he entered into his 
 service while the king was residing at Tanis; that battles were 
 fought upon the water ; that a part of the troops were detached to 
 the South ; that these operations took place in the sixth year of 
 Amosis, and that in the following year he went to Ethiopia to 
 collect tribute. It is to be regretted that the author has not told 
 us where this monument exists, nor by whom it has been read, and 
 therefore we cannot cite it with perfect confidence. There r.re, 
 however, unquestionable records of his reign. At Semneh in Nubia 
 there is a tablet on the south front of the western temple, in hiero- 
 glyphics of an archaic character, over wdiich a subsequent inscrip- 
 tion has been cut. The title of Amosis occurs in it, along with 
 that of Thothmes IL, and it appears to commemorate the services 
 of one who had been an officer of Amosis 2 . Two tablets in the 
 Louvre contain similar records, extending through the reigns of 
 Amosis and his successors to Thothmes III. Though their import 
 is obscure, and it is scarcely possible that one individual can be 
 relating his own services and their rewards, through so long a 
 period, there appears to be mention made of prisoners taken in war 
 a the reign of Amosis 3 . The quarry of Masarah, in the Gebel-el- 
 
 1 L'Univers. TEgypte, p. 300. 
 Young, Hieroglyphics of Egyptian Society, pi. 91. Birch, Trans, of 
 . Soc. of Lit. 2nd series, 2, 325. 
 
 >Tr. Birch, to avoid the difficulty of supposing the same individual to 
 
174 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Mokattam, contains a stele, on which is a representation of a block 
 of stone, drawn on a sledge by three pair of oxen 1 . Above is an 
 inscription bearing the title of Amosite, along with his queen Nofre- 
 at-are or Nofre-are, and declaring that in the twenty-second year 
 of his reign, the quarries of hard white stone were worked for the 
 repair of the abode of Ptah, and the abode of Amun in Thebes. 
 Such repairs might be undertaken at any time ; but if we suppose 
 that the Hyksos had been recently driven into Lower Egypt, the 
 restoration of the temples of Memphis and Thebes, which had suf- 
 fered from their ravages, would be one of the first acts which a 
 pious sovereign would undertake. There is another inscription of 
 the same import, and of the same year of the reign of Amosis, but 
 less perfect, in the quarries of the Gebel-el-Mokattam 2 . 
 
 To Amosis succeeded, according to the tablet of Abydos and 
 the other lists which I have quoted, Amenophis I. He was unques- 
 tionably a warlike and victorious sovereign. The monument 
 already quoted speaks of captives made in the land of Kesh and 
 also in the North, among an unknown people called Kehak. If 
 these are an Asiatic nation, we may presume that the frontier land 
 of lower Egypt towards Palestine had been cleared of the Shep- 
 herds, as Amenophis could not otherwise have ventured to inarch 
 into Asia. His presence also in Ethiopia is recorded in a grotto 
 at Ibrim, near Aboosimbel, where he is represented sitting 3 in the 
 
 have been sixty four years in service, would reduce the lengths of these 
 kings' reigns; but neither the lists nor the monuments allow this short- 
 ening. 
 
 1 Vyse on the Pyramids, 3, 99. Masarah Quarries, Tablet No. 6. 
 
 51 Howard Vyse, Pyramids, vol. 3, p. 94. Masarah Quarries, Tablet No. 8. 
 
 3 Rosellini, M. R. tav. xxviii. 1. He calls the officers athlophori, as if the 
 fans were ensigns of victory; but from the mode of carrying them, they 
 appear evidently to be what Champollion called them, fly-flaps, 
 they ensigns of victory, it would be somewhat hasty to infer with Roselli... 
 that "they signify the victory wluch Amenophis had gained over the Hyk- 
 sos." (Mon. Stor. iii. L 74.) 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 175 
 
 middle of a small temple, attended by an officer of state, who 
 holds over him the feather-fan, and two others, fly-flaps. In the 
 collection of Egyptian antiquities made by Mr. Salt, and since 
 transferred to the Louvre, are found several small tablets, resembling 
 in shape the stele of an inscription, on which Amenophis L is repre- 
 sented, grasping captives by the hair, carrying them with their heads 
 downwards, and preparing to destroy them with the curved battle- 
 axe 1 . Some of these are clad in leopards' skins, and are natives 
 of the South ; others, from their ample drapery, plainly belong to 
 colder climates. Conventionally they represent the Ethiopian and 
 the Asiatic people, and we may conclude that Amenophis carried 
 on wars successfully against both. These tablets appear to have 
 been designed to be worn as ornaments on the breast ; and it is a 
 reasonable inference that a sovereign who w r as thus honored must 
 have 'acquired the affection of his people by some distinguished 
 service ; such as the recovery of the ancient dominion of the 
 Sesortasens and Amenemes over Ethiopia. On another of these 
 tablets the king appears grasping a lion by the tail, either sym- 
 bolically, or as a record of his prowess in 'hunting. One of the 
 wives of Amenophis (Aahmes) is always represented black 2 . She 
 appears beside her husband, along with another who is of a fair 
 complexion, on a tablet in the British Museum 3 . It is not indeed 
 absolutely certain that the dark lady was the wife of Amenophis ; 
 her name is the same as that of the wife of Ainosis, and the title 
 of "royal dame," which she bears, is consistent with her having 
 been the widow of the predecessor of Amenophis. In either case, 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 107. A similar tablet is in the British Museum, 
 and represents Amenophis in a war-chariot (Birch, Gall, of B. M. P. 2, pL 
 30). 
 
 • Rosellini, M. R. tav. xlv. 
 
 * Birch, Gall, of Ant 2, pi. 30. The fair-complexion ed wife whose name 
 was Aahotph, is also found with Amenophis in a tomb at Qoorneh (Rosel- 
 lini, Mon. Stor. 1, 212). 
 
176 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the renewal of relations between Egypt and Ethiopia is equally 
 evident. 
 
 Amenophis I. appears from various monuments to have been 
 the object of a kind of posthumous religious worship, different in 
 its kind from the honors which were sometimes paid to deceased 
 monarch? in Egypt. In one of the little chapels, excavated among 
 the quarries of Silsilis, in the reign of Menephthah, Amenoph L, along 
 with Atmoo and another Egyptian deity, receives an offering of 
 incense from the king, and in the tombs of private individuals at 
 Thebes, similar honors are paid to him on the part of the deceased 1 . 
 One of these tombs is of the age of Menephthah I., and it appears 
 from the inscriptions that a special priesthood was instituted to 
 pay these honors to Amenophis. In another inscription he is 
 joined with Amonre, Phre and Osiris, and receives a libation from 
 the priest Amenemoph. In a singular painting in a Theban tomb 2 , 
 he is represented with the attributes of Sokari, a character nearly 
 identical with the infernal Osiris, and therefore is painted black, 
 and in this character he is found depicted in the interior of coffins 3 . 
 In these posthumous honors his wife Aahmes-Nofreare is fre- 
 quently joined with him. All these circumstances combined lead 
 us to suppose, that the popular tradition in Egypt connected Ame- 
 nophis with some great service rendered to his country and its 
 religion. He may be regarded as a second founder of the monarchy, 
 having replaced it in the pre-eminence which it had lost by the 
 invasion of the Hyksos. 
 
 We have seen that in the lists Chebros is made the successor of 
 Amosis. It has been supposed that this name is the translation of 
 a titular shield, converted into a substantive person. Rosellini 4 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 82. 
 9 Ibid. iii. 1, 98. 
 
 3 Birch, Gallery of Brit. Mm 2, p. 7 5. 
 
 1 Mon. Stor. 1, p. 213, note (2). Sharpe refers to Chebros the last shield 
 in the lowest line of the central division of the chamber of Karnak, which 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 conjectures that it has originated from Shefre, the title of Thoth- 
 mes I. ; Bunsen 1 from Neb-rus-ra, the title of Amosis ; but neither 
 conjecture is satisfactory. 
 
 The next in succession on the monuments is Thothmes L With 
 him appears to have begun the construction of those splendid 
 edifices at Thebes, which still attest the power and civilization of 
 Egypt under the New Monarchy. We have seen that some trifling 
 remains are found there of the works of Sesortasen, who lived 
 near the end of the Old Monarchy ; but the great monuments of 
 Luxor, Karnak and Medinet Aboo date from the 18th dynasty. 
 It was natural that Thebes, which had been the refuge of the Pha- 
 raohs, while the Hyksos held their court at Memphis, or some 
 other town of Lower Egypt, should become the chief capital of 
 the restored race of native kings, the site of their temples, palaces 
 and tombs. Thothmes L began the construction of the immense 
 pile of the palace of Karnak. About the centre of the great 
 inclosure which comprehended the buildings in their final extension, 
 stood two obelisks, inscribed with the name of this king 2 . We 
 know from other instances that it was not the custom of the Egyp- 
 tians to place these monuments in open spaces, without connexion 
 with other objects ; they stood before the entrance of temples or 
 palaces, and therefore we may conclude that Thothmes, if he did 
 not erect, at least planned some edifice to which these obelisks 
 were an appendage. As far indeed as a plan can be made out, 
 amidst the ruins by which this whole space is encumbered, he 
 actually began a vast square of buildings which Thothmes III. 
 completed 3 . One of the obelisks is still standing, the other has 
 
 is commonly read Nebtura. See Hierog. of Eg. Soc. pi. 96. Sharpe, His- 
 tory of Egypt, plates, No. 43, 4, 5. 
 1 /Fgyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 82. 
 
 ■ See Wilkinson's great Plan of Thebes, Karnak, D., vol. i. p. 145 of this 
 work. 
 
 8 Rosolliui, M. Stor. hi 1, 113, 123. The obelisk is figured, If, R. tr.v. xxx 
 
 8* 
 
178 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 fallen, and is broken to pieces. They were in size rather inferior 
 to the obelisks of Luxor, but in workmanship nearly equal. Only 
 the central Hue of the inscription belongs to Thothmes I. ; the 
 lateral lines were added by liainses V., according to a practice 
 very common with the Egyptian monarchs. The inscription itself 
 contains no historical iuformation, beyond the fact of a victory 
 over the nations of the Nine Bows, who are commonly understood to 
 be the Libyans, and the erection of the two obelisks. The rest is 
 occupied by those pompous titles of divine affinity and dominion, 
 which disappoint the decipherer of hieroglyphics, when he hopes 
 to find on these immortal monuments some information worthy 
 of the pains bestowed in preserving their legends to posterity. 
 
 A memorial of Thothmes I. is also found on the western side 
 of the Nile at El-Assaseef, a valley lying to the north of the Rame- 
 seion 1 . A gate of red granite, of very fine execution, which is 
 still standing amidst the ruins, exhibits his name and title along 
 with those of his successors. Here he appears in conjunction with 
 an Aahmes, the name the same as that of the queen of Ameno- 
 phis, but apparently a different person. She is described as wife 
 and sister of a king, and as ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. It 
 has been conjectured that she was the sister of Amenophis, and 
 the Amessis of the lists, in which she immediately follows Ameno- 
 phis, and regent in the reign of Thothmes I 2 . 
 
 The monument already referred to as recording the services of 
 a military officer, who had served in several successive reigns, men- 
 tions wars of Thothmes I. in Ethiopia, and also in the land of 
 Naharaina?. This name occurs in other historical monuments of 
 the 18th dynasty. As Mesopotamia is called in Scripture 4 Aram 
 JVaharaim, " Syria of the two rivers," it is generally supposed, 
 that the Naharaina of the hieroglyphic inscriptions is Mesopotamia ; 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 132. 3 Bunsen, ^Egyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 79. 
 
 8 Transactions of Roy. Soc. of Lit 2nd Series, 2, 325. 
 4 Genes, xxiv. 10. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 179 
 
 and it is not incredible, that even in this early part of the 18th 
 dynasty, Egyptian sovereigns should have encountered the power 
 of the Assyrians on this field. It was through fear of the power 
 of the Assyrians, " who were then predominant in Asia," that the 
 Hyksos, when driven out of Egypt, established themselves in 
 Palestine. 1 The motive of their first king Salatis, for fortifying 
 the eastern frontier of Egypt was, that he foresaw the probability 
 of attacks on the part of the Assyrians. That the dominion of 
 Thothmes L extended as high up the Nile as the island of Argo 
 in Upper Nubia, appears from his name having been found 
 there 2 . 
 
 It has been already mentioned that, according to Lepsius, the 
 Amense of Rosellini and Champollion is to be read Set Amen, 
 and that she was a daughter of Amosis and sister of Amenophis 
 and Thothmes L According to the same author, after the death 
 of Thothmes L, the functions of royalty were exercised by 
 Nemt Amen, the sister of Thothmes EL, Nemt Amen being 
 the reading which he has adopted for the Amenenthe or Ame- 
 nenhe of Champollion and Rosellini. The singular circumstance 
 that at El-Assaseef 3 and elsewhere this personage is represented 
 with the dress and attributes of a male, yet that feminine prefixes 
 are used throughout the inscriptions, has been explained bv the 
 supposition that she exercised sovereignty in her brother's name. 
 That she was the daughter of Thothmes I. appears from the obe- 
 lisk before the granite sanctuary at Karnak 4 ; that she was the 
 sister of Thothmes III., among other evidence from a statue in 
 the British Museum, in which her name, or rather title, appears 
 to have existed, although subsequently chiselled out, and she is 
 designated as such 6 . The cause of this mutilation can only be 
 
 1 See before, p. 154. 3 Vol. L p. 16. 8 Vol. L p. 132. 
 
 4 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, 227 Birch, Gall. Brit. Mus. P. 2, p. 78. 
 6 The title exists, apparently without mutilatioD, on the pyramHion of 
 the fallen obelisk of Karnak, where Amunra appears, crowning Nemt 
 
ISO 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 conjectured ; the most plausible supposition is, that her regency 
 was either usurped or exercised with harshness, and her memory 
 obnoxious to her brother or to the Egyptian people. Sometimes the 
 name of Thothmes II., sometimes of Thothmes III., has been sub- 
 stituted for hers. 
 
 The dominion of Teiothmes II. appears to have been not less 
 extensive than that of his predecessor. His name has been found 
 at Gebel-el-Birkel, the Napata of the Romans 1 . In his reign we 
 first find mention of the Royal Son or Prince of Ethiopia, 
 which continues to appear on monuments till the reign of Setei- 
 Menephthah 2 , and from which we may infer that during this 
 period Ethiopia formed a viceregal government dependent upon 
 Egypt. The viceroy appears to have been of the blood royal of 
 Egypt. We have scarcely any record of the facts of Thothmes the 
 Second's reign. Of the state of the arts at this period, however, 
 there is extant a most remarkable specimen in the great obelisks 
 of Karnak. They were erected by Nemt Amen in the same cen- 
 tral court of that pile of buildings, in which the smaller obelisks of 
 Thothmes I. stood, but far surpass them in magnitude and beauty. 
 One of them is still standing ; it is of rose granite and ninety feet 
 in length. Of its execution Rosellini thus speaks 3 : — "All the 
 figures and the hieroglyphics are delineated with such purity and 
 freedom, cut with such art, and relieved within the excavated part 
 with such perfection and precision of outline, that we are lost in 
 astonishment in contemplating them, and wonder how it has been 
 possible to work this hardest of materials, so that every figure 
 seems rather to have been impressed with a seal than engraven 
 with a chisel. The fragments of the companion obelisk which are 
 lying on the ground may be handled ; those parts which represent 
 
 Amen, designated as a "daughter of the king." It probably escaped muti- 
 lation from its elevated position. Birch, Gall, of Brit. Mus. pi. 32. 
 
 1 Wilkinson, M. & 0. 1, 52, note. 2 Lepsius, Einl. 1, p. 820, nole \ 
 
 3 Rosellini, M. R. tav. xxxl-iv. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 181 
 
 animals in particular are treated with such accuracy of design and 
 finish of execution, as not to be surpassed by the finest cameos of 
 the Greeks." The pyramidion represents Amunre seated, and 
 placing his hand on the head of the king, whom he thus inaugu- 
 rates. 'Hi ere is a peculiarity in the arrangement of the hiero- 
 glyphic;!! inscriptions. The central column is occupied by the 
 customary form of the dedication ; but the two lateral columns, 
 which in some obelisks, as that of Heliopolis, are left vacant, in 
 others are filled by inscriptions of subsequent sovereigns, are here 
 occupied more than half way down, with repetitions of the figure 
 of Amnnre on one side, on the other of the dedicating sovereign, 
 who offers to the god wine, ointment, milk, perfumes and sacred 
 insignia. The dedication and offering are usually in the name of 
 Nemt Amen, but in some of the compartments the youthful 
 Thothmes III. appears, bringing an offering to the god. The 
 name of Thothmes I. is also found, but he is only referred to as 
 having begun the buildings near which the obelisks were erected. 
 Thothmes II. nowhere appears 1 , whence it seems probable that 
 Nemt Amen set them up during the time in which she exercised 
 the regency on behalf of her younger brother Thothmes III. The 
 name of a much later sovereign, Setei Menephthah, is twice found, 
 but the state of the stone plainly shows that it has been subsequently 
 introduced. The name of Nemt Amen has escaped the mutilation 
 which it has generally undergone, perhaps owing to the beauty of 
 the monument. The fallen obelisk closely resembles its com- 
 panion, in the subject of the inscription and the figures of the 
 lateral compartments. 
 
 The reign of Thothmes III. is one of the most glorious in the 
 annals of the 18th dynasty. The earliest part of it appears to 
 have been passed under the tutelage of Nemt Amen, whose name 
 is found on an inscription at Wadi Magara of the sixteenth year of 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 164. 
 
182 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 his reign 1 . The limits of the dominion of Egypt on the side of 
 Arabia were therefore not reduced; Surabit-el-Kadim, between 
 Ain Moosa and Mount Sinai, contains his name, along with those 
 of Cheops and others of the age of the Pyramids 2 . To the south 
 we find memorials of this monarch at Semneh, a little beyond the 
 Second Cataract. Semneh appears to have been in this age the 
 frontier town of the Egyptian dominions towards Ethiopia, and as 
 such to have been fortified with great care and skill 3 . In later 
 times, after the occupation of Egypt by the Ethiopians, Elephan- 
 tine became the frontier. The traces of the presence of sovereigns 
 of the 18th dynasty further to the south, as in the island of Argo 
 and at Napata, are only occasional, and do not prove a permanent 
 occupation ; but between the First and Second Cataracts the fre- 
 quent recurrence of temples and the remains of towns indicate that 
 this region formed virtually a part of the kingdom of Egypt. 
 Here too, as appears from inscriptions on the rocks, the earliest 
 rise of the Nile was watched and recorded 4 ; in later times this was 
 registered by the Nilometer of Elephantine, when that was the 
 beginning of Egypt. The remains at Semneh are partly of the 
 reign of Thothmes III. and partly of Amunoph II. and III., but 
 they exhibit only acts of adoration, and throw no light on political 
 events, except that the absence of the name of Nemt Amen leads 
 to the conclusion that these inscriptions belong to the later part 
 of his reign. 
 
 Following the course of the Nile downward from the Second 
 Cataract, we find frequent memorials of Thothmes III. The 
 temple of Amada was begun by him and completed by Amunoph 
 II. and Thothmes IV. He is represented in the act of dedicating 
 
 1 Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 2, 320. The earliest date of his reign, the fifth 
 year is found in a papyrus of the Museum of Turin, the oldest known with a 
 precise date. (Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, Egypte, p. 311.) 
 
 2 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. & Thebes, 2, 407. 
 
 8 VoL i. p. 194, note s . 4 Vol. i. p. 18, note 8 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 183 
 
 a temple and the lands annexed to it to the god Phre 1 . At Ombi 
 he appears on the lintels of a gateway, preserved when the temple 
 was rebuilt by the Ptolemies. He is dedicating the building to 
 the god Sebek or the crocodile, and Nenit Amen is joiued with 
 him in this act 2 . A fragment bearing his title was found by the 
 Tuscan Expedition at Edfoo, which is also of the Ptolemaic times. 
 At Eilithyia his name is also traced, and joined as at Ombi with 
 that of Nemt Amen. 
 
 His most magnificent works, however, were those which adorned 
 Thebes, many of which are still extant. There is a mutilated 
 obelisk in the Atmeidan or Hippodrome of Constantinople brought 
 from Egypt by one of the Byzantine emperors, and which is of the 
 reign of Thothmes III 3 . Probably it stood in the central court 
 of Karnak. At first sight the shields which enclose the royal titles 
 might seem to belong to some other sovereign or even sovereigns, 
 for the signs in all are different. But they all contain the three 
 elements 4 which form the title of Thothmes III. on the tablet of 
 Abydos and elsewhere — the disk, the crenellated parallelogram and 
 the scarabseus, and therefore it is probable that the additional 
 signs do not indicate a different sovereign, but only those variations 
 which we know to exist in the titles of kings whose identity is 
 unquestionable. There is only one circumstance which gives this 
 monument an historical significance ; among the usual lofty titles 
 of royalty, mention is twice made of the " Land of Naharaim 5 ," 
 and in the second instance the figure of a boat and the character 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. Stor. iil 1, p. 117. He calls this monarch throughout 
 Thothmes IV. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. di Culto, tav. xxviii. 
 
 8 It is figured from a drawing of Mr. Cory in the Transactions of the 
 Royal Society of Literature, 2, 228. 
 
 4 A fourth, the waving line or n, is often found, always according to 
 Champollion-Figeac (Univers, p. 309) in the hieratic writing. 
 
 6 CoL 1, bottom. Col. 3. 
 
184 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 for waters lead to the supposition that a naval expedition or a 
 naval combat is intended. The analysis of the hieroglyphics, how- 
 ever, is too imperfect to afford us exact information, and there is 
 little probability in the supposition that Thothmes TIL built a fleet 
 on the coast of the Indian Ocean, and so ascended the Euphrates 
 to attack the Babylonians 1 . The obelisk which Sixtus V. raised 
 up and placed before St. John Lateran at Rome, the loftiest and 
 most perfect in its execution of all that are extant, was set up in 
 the reign of Thothmes III., and in its central column of hiero- 
 glyphics bears only his titles ; Thothmes IV. added the lateral 
 columns. This act of the dedication of obelisks is represented on 
 one of the walls of the palace of Karnak, on such a scale that the 
 inscriptions on them can be read 2 . They are not identical with 
 those on any obelisk now known, but have a general analogy to 
 that of St. John Lateran. One records the erection of two, the 
 other of three, or it may be an indefinite number of obelisks, 
 which are said to be of granite and resplendent with gold ; from 
 which it has been concluded that the pyramidion may have been 
 surmounted with a golden ornament, or gilded as many portions 
 of Egyptian architecture are known to have been 3 . 
 
 One of the most instructive memorials of the reign of Thothmes 
 III. is a painting in a tomb at Qoorneh, copied by Mr. Hoskins in 
 hirs Travels in Ethiopia 4 . It represents four principal nations of the 
 earth, bringing their tribute to the king, who is seated on his 
 throne 5 . Two obelisks of red granite, beside which the various 
 
 1 Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 2, 223. 
 
 a They were first published by Mr. Burton and repeated from him by 
 Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 185, 187 ; Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. and Thebes, 2, 251. 
 
 3 Wilkinson, M. and C. 3, 237. 
 
 4 P. 327, foil. See also Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. and Thebes, 2, p. 234. Man- 
 ners and Customs, vol. 1, pi. iv. at the end of the volume. 
 
 6 Ipse, sedens niveo eandentis limine Phcebi, 
 
 Dona recognoscit populorum, aptatque superbis 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 185 
 
 objects are deposited by the bearers, and registered by the royal 
 scribes, probably mark the great court of the palace of Karnak as 
 the scene of the ceremony. The tribute-bearers are arranged in 
 five lines, the first and the third appearing to form part of one pro- 
 cession. A few negroes, having all the characteristic physiognomy 
 of the race, as well as a black color, are intermingled with men 
 of the same red-brown hue as the Egyptians. They bring only 
 natural productions 1 , blocks of ebony, tusks of ivory, strings of 
 colored stones, ostrich-eggs and feathers, a tree, gold and silver in 
 rings, bags and ingots, and a variety of animals — apes, leopards, 
 an oryx and'a giraffe, with cattle and dogs 2 . The name of their 
 land has been read Fount or Phunt, but this affords us no infor- 
 mation, as it corresponds with no known name in geography. 
 
 Postibus; incedunt victe longo ordine gentes, 
 Quam varise Unguis habitu tam vestis et armis. 
 Hie Nomadum genus et diseinctos Mulciber Afros 
 Finxerat. Euphrates ibat jam mollior undis, 
 Extremique hominum Morini, Rhenusqne bicornis, 
 Indomitique Dahse, et pontem indignatus Araxes. 
 
 Virg. JEn. viii. 720. 
 What had become in Virgil's time merely poetical ornament had been a 
 fact in the history of the Asiatic and Egyptian monarchies. The pomps of 
 the Ptolemies (Athen. lib. 5, 32) were an imitation of the real tribute-bear- 
 ing processions under the Pharaohs. 
 
 1 Her. 3, 97. A;dt»nes ol rrpoaovpoi A 
 ayivzovoi 6vo ^uivixas airvpov ^pvaiov koX 6ir)K0<s'ius (paXayyag ifi'ivov Kill irivrc xaiSas 
 
 AlBtorras *«i iXtyai/ros dSovras fteyaXovi tiKoai. The representation of the tri- 
 bute brought to the Great King at Persepolis, exhibits, besides vases, articles 
 of dress and ornaments, also horses, camels, oxen, mules and sheep. (Nie- 
 buhr, Voyage ii. plates 22, 23.) 
 
 a Among the objects brougbt in the procession described by Athenams, 
 v. were " 26 Indian cattle, 8 Ethiopian, a large white bear, 14 leopards, 
 16 panthers, 4 lynxes, 1 camelopard and 1 rhinoceros." There were also 
 2400 dogs, some Indian, some Hyrcanian, some Molossian, and of other 
 breeds. 
 
180 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Those of the third line are specifically called " Nations of the 
 South." From the products which they bring they are evidently 
 inhabitants of the African continent, and of a wide range of coun- 
 try, including the Libyans on the west, the Nubians on the south, 
 and the Ethiopians of the deeper interior. The color of the men 
 of the second line is not different from that of the Egyptians and 
 Libyans, but their hair is gathered iu curls on the front, and divided 
 into two long locks behind, one of which falls on the shoulder. 
 They wear, like the Libyans, only a short kilt round the middle; 
 but while the Libyan is white with a colored border, that of the 
 third line is of various checks and patterns, closely resembling the 
 drapery of the foreigners who are seen in the tomb of Nevothph 1 . 
 Their offerings are vases of silver and gold of graceful form and 
 elaborate workmanship, and others which resemble, if the repre- 
 sentations can be relied upon, the fictile vases of the Greeks and 
 Etruscans. Their name, which is written Kufa or Kafa, affords 
 little clue to their locality, but their resemblance to the Egyptians 
 in color and the advanced state of the arts among them, indicated 
 by the vases which they bring, lead us to conclude that they must 
 belong to the coast of Palestine, which received colonies at an 
 early age from Egypt 2 . The gold and silver vases would suit well 
 with the skill in the toreutic arts attributed by Homer to the Sido- 
 nians 3 . The Libyans, Egyptians and Ethiopians have naked feet, 
 but these have buskins, reaching half-way up the leg, of the same 
 pattern with their kilts. The third company of tribute-bearers, 
 forming the fourth line of the picture, are men of white complexion, 
 with reddish hair and beards. They wear long garments of white 
 cloth sleeved to the wrists, with the addition of gloves reaching to 
 the elbow ; their heads are covered with a close-fitting cap, and 
 
 1 P. 142 of this vol. 
 
 9 Gen. x. 14. But the resemblance of Kufa and Caphthor is too slight to 
 found an argument of identity. 
 8 II. ip. 741. Od. o. 424. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 187 
 
 everything indicates that they belong to a colder climate than any 
 of the others. Some of them are armed with bows and arrows, 
 and others lead a chariot and horses. Their tribute consists of 
 ring money of gold and silver, colored woods, precious stones and 
 vases, some of which resemble those brought by the Kufa, but 
 which are in general of less beautiful form and less elaborate work- 
 manship. Their name is Roi-n-no or Lud-u-nu, but this gives us 
 no precise information of their locality, all comparison with known 
 geographical names being merely conjectural, and it is difficult to 
 fix on any country whose products shall correspond with all the 
 articles of the tribute. The long garments and gloves, with the 
 chariot and horses 1 , would suit Northern Media, or the regions 
 near the southern shore of the Caspian ; but one of the men car- 
 ries a tusk of ivory, and leads an elephant and a bear. The range 
 of latitude in which the elephant can live has certainly ascended 
 higher to the north in ancient times than at present, but it is diffi- 
 cult to conceive that so great a change has taken place between 
 the times of Thothmes III. and that of the commencement of our 
 knowledge of the zoology of the ancient world, as that elephants 
 should be found in Asia Minor. In the fifth line women, both of 
 this nation and of the people of the South, are introduced, leading 
 their infant children, or carrying them in their arms, or on their 
 shoulders, or in a basket, fastened by a strap to the forehead, a 
 custom which still prevails among the tribes which border the Nile 2 . 
 
 If there could be any doubt that we have here the representation 
 of a real scene and the evidence of a dominion extending from 
 Nubia to Northern Asia, no such doubt can attach to the monu- 
 ment which is known as the Statistical Table of Karnak 3 . 
 
 1 Birch, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 2, 335, thinks they are the Cappadocians, 
 called also Leuco-Syrians or fair Syrians. This is not improbable. They 
 were Safinoves imroawauv (Dionys. Perieg. 974). 
 
 a Wilkinson, Mod. Egypt and Thebes, 2, 236, note. 
 
 8 Hieroglyphics of the Eg. Soc. 41. Lepsius, Auswahl, pi. xiii. I quote 
 
183 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 This document is of the reign of Thothmes III., and the inscrip- 
 tion placed above it declares its object to be to record the victories 
 of this sovereign. It divides itself into three distinct portions by 
 the dates 29th 1 , 30th, and 31st years. As it is mutilated near the 
 beginning, it is not clear in what land the monarch was when 
 the record of his exploits begins, but from the subsequent occur- 
 rence of the name of the Tahai 8 and the traces of the obliterated 
 name, it seems probable that they are the people first referred to. 
 It is conjectured that they are the Dahae, a nomad nation on the 
 northern frontier of Persia 3 , or the Taochi mentioned by Xenophon 4 
 as living between Armenia and Pontus, and maintaining them- 
 selves in independence of the Great King. In this case, however, 
 they cannot have brought tribute of frankincense ; and the sign 
 which has been so explained must represent some other object. 
 IToney and wine are also meutioned among their tributes, and we 
 know from Strabo 5 that the vine nourished even as far north as 
 Hyrcania, and that these countries were very productive of honey. 
 Their name occurs frequently in monuments recording the victories 
 and expeditions of the Egyptian kings. Two other nations, one 
 called Vava, the other Arutu, are mentioned in the same inscription, 
 and men, ingots of the precious metals, copper, iron and lead with 
 other metals which cannot be precisely ascertained, 618 bulls, 3636 
 goats, corn, are all enumerated among the spoils or tribute of the 
 land 6 . This expedition of the 29th year is called the 5th, in 
 
 the former for the facility of reference, as the column^ are numbered across 
 as well as vertically. The cony of Lepsius, however, is more exact. 
 1 Col. Z b. 2 Col. V x. 
 
 3 Herod. 1, 125. From their name Ajo<, that of Davus, borne by slaves, 
 is supposed to be derived, as Geta from another nomad tribe. 
 
 4 Xen. Anab. 4, 7, 1. 5, o, 17. From Steph. Byz. s. v. T.5 >ym, it seems 
 probable they were the same people as the Dai or Tiii. (Birch, Tr. Roy. 
 Soc. Lit. 2, 330.) 5 Geogr. B. 2, p. 73. 
 
 0 The cattle enumerated may be regarded as contributions for the use of 
 the army, while serving in the country. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 189 
 
 reference to some enumeration of which the earlier part is want- 
 ing. 
 
 In the 30th year of his reign 1 , and his sixth expedition, the king 
 is said to have been in the land of the Rotnno or Ludennu, the 
 same people who appear in the last line of the painting at Thebes 
 already described, and to have taken hostages of them and their 
 children. Now in the painting of the Theban tomb, we have seen 
 men and women of the Rotnno nation, led with their children into 
 the presence of the Egyptian scribes. The men are not armed, yet 
 they are not bound, and therefore it is probable that they came as 
 hostages, though it would be too much to infer that these are the 
 very hostages spoken of in the tablet. Forty-two chariots also, 
 " decorated with gold, silver, and painting 2 ," are among the spoil 
 of the Rotnno ; and in the procession in the tomb, we have already 
 described a richly adorned chariot, followed by a yoke of horses, 
 which may be considered as the representative of a larger number. 
 
 In the 31st year and on the 3rd day of the month Pachon 3 , 
 another expedition is recorded, in which mention is made of 490 
 captives, who were employed, as far as the imperfect interpretation 
 of the inscription enables us to judge, in felling and carrying tim- 
 ber, and seemed to have belonged to the same nation of the Rotnno. 
 The results of the expedition were also the capture, or payment in 
 tribute, of 104 cows, 172 bulls, 4622 goats, and masses of iron and 
 lead 4 . These contributions suit well the countries between the 
 Caspian and the Euxine, which abound in metallic products. The 
 wood might be carried to some branch of the Euphrates, and thence 
 floated to Mesopotamia or Babylonia. The north-eastern part of 
 Asia Minor is also rich in minerals, especially iron; but wood 
 would be conveyed thence with difficulty to any point at which it 
 could be serviceable to the Egyptians, who, as far as we know, 
 never launched a fleet upon the Euxine. 
 
 1 Col. S e. 2 Col. Q b, c d. 
 
 8 See voL i. p. 277. 4 CoL 0. 
 
190 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 The following lines on the tablet, owing to the mutilation of the 
 lower part, are very obscure. The 21st (Lepsius) begins with 
 " land of Nenii 1 " followed by the mention of setting up a stele in 
 Naharaina 2 . The form of this tablet, as represented in the inscrip- 
 tion, exactly corresponds with those cut on the rock at Nahr-el- 
 Kelb, bearing the image of Rameses III. The Assyrians continued 
 the same custom, and two of their kings placed a stele beside those 
 of Rameses at Nahr-el-Kelb. Darius left a similar record of his 
 expedition against the Scythians, on the shores of the Bosporus 3 . 
 Nenii is generally understood to be Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, 
 and the mention of Naharaina, which immediately follows, favors 
 this supposition. The further prosecution of the researches into 
 the remains discovered at Khorsabad and Nemroud may throw 
 light -on the relations between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Tablets 
 of ivory in Egyptian style have been found here 4 , one of them 
 inscribed with the name of an Egyptian king or god not known 
 from other sources. Such small and portable antiquities cannot be 
 received as proofs of the occupation of a country, and as far as we 
 can judge, they belong to a much later period of history than the 
 18th dynasty. 
 
 The next column 5 relates to the land of the Tahae, and makes 
 
 1 Hieroglyphics of Egyptian Society, 42, Col. X b. There is no letter 
 answering to u. 
 
 a The character for stele is hardly recognizable in Wilkinson's copy, but is 
 more distinct in Lepsius, taf. xii. 1. 21. 
 
 8 Her. 4, 87. Onriadf/evos Si xai tov Hoarropov crrfjXas t a r r\ a t Svo £t' aurcS 
 Xi'0iu Acvkui 1 , ii/rafiMv ypa^iara, eg piv riff ' Acaipia, is Si tijp 'KAXr/i/i<c«, hhti iravra 
 
 Soaxep riye. These stelce were not columns, as the commentators usually 
 render them, but tablets. Hence the use which the Byzantines made of 
 them to build an altar. I see no reason to suppose that such inscriptions 
 marked the frontiers of an empire exclusively. They were naturally placed 
 beside high roads that they might be conspicuous 
 
 4 Layard's Nineveh, Plates, 89. Birch, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit 2nd series, 
 vol. 3. The name is read Aubnu-ra. 6 V. PL 42. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 191 
 
 mention of 260 mares 1 , which had been brought thence with gold 
 and silver, both unwrought and in the shape of vases. That which 
 follows enumerates cattle, among the rest 5323 goats, and there- 
 fore, though the name of the people is not mentioned, they are 
 probably the same who in a preceding column are said to have 
 furnished a very large number of goats, namely the Rotnno. The 
 next column 3 introduces a people not hitherto mentioned, but 
 whose name frequently occurs in inscriptions. From the ambi- 
 guity of the first letter, which stands equally for L or R in the 
 phonetic alphabet, it is doubtful whether .it should be read Lema- 
 nen or Remanen. Those who adopt the former suppose the inha- 
 bitants of Lebanon to be meant, and derive an argument in favor 
 of their opinion from the circumstance that they are elsewhere 
 represented as felling trees 3 , supposed to be the cedars for which 
 this mountain was celebrated. There is nothing in the form of the 
 trees, however, which particularly refers them to the cedars of 
 Lebanon, and in the inscription given by Rosellini, mention seems 
 to be made of building boats on a river, which does not accord 
 with the geography of Lebanon. Nor do we know that Lebanon 
 was ever used as the name of a nation. Armenia, which has been 
 suggested, would suit the name if read Remanen, and also the 
 operation of felling the trees. The ample clothing of the Remanen 
 also indicates a more northern climate than that of Syria. The 
 following column 4 makes mention of the land of Sankar or Sankal, 
 and Babel or Baber 5 ; the former of which is supposed to mean 
 Singara, and Bebel, Babylon. Singara, Sinjar, is a town near 
 Edessa, inhabited by a tribe of Arabs, whom Pliny calls Raetavi or 
 Praetavi 6 . In connexion with both these countries a tribute is 
 
 1 Phonetically written sescm, with the determinative of the species. See 
 vol. i. p. 167. 
 
 2 Col. Ti. 8 Rosellini, M. R. tav. xlvi. « Col. S£ 
 6 Mutilated in Lepsius' copy, but preserved in Wilkinson's. 
 
 H. N. 5, 21. Steph. Byz, Liyyapa. 
 
192 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 spoken of, culled Chcsebt ; from the determinative character sub- 
 joined to it, it appears to be a metal, but Babylonia was not a 
 metalliferous region, and it cannot be one of the precious metals, 
 the hieroglyphics for which are well known 1 . The next column 3 
 contains the enumeration of contributions of gold and silver, in 
 vessels and in bulk, and near the bottom, of stone and wood. The 
 lower part of the column is mutilated, but as the next begins with 
 the word Naharaina, followed by the same group of characters as 
 in Col. X., it is thought that the stone and wood were designed 
 for the erection of a stele in Mesopotamia. The land of the Taha3 
 is again mentioned in Col. 0 ; in connexion with the 34th year of 
 the king and military operations in the land of Jukasa, conjectured 
 to be Oxiana 3 , a doubtful appropriation, since it does not appear 
 that Oxus is an Oriental name. 
 
 The remaining columns contain in the main only a repetition of 
 tribute similar to the preceding, with a mention of some articles 
 which it is difficult to identify. We find also a people called Asi, 
 conjectured to be those of Is, since they appear to bring bitumen, 
 which the springs of that place produce 4 . In others suits of armor 
 are mentioned, brought by the Kkaru, who appear from other 
 inscriptions to have inhabited Syria. When complete, the whole 
 has comprehended at least fifty-five columns. 
 
 There can be little doubt that this is the identical tablet which 
 the priests showed and expounded to Germanicus, when he visited 
 Thebes 6 . Having mentioned the record of the victorious expedi- 
 
 1 The character which Mr. Birch reads utcn and Dr. Hincks mn (rnna) 
 appears to nie to represent a coil of metallic rod or wire. The word chesebt 
 occurs thrice in this line, twice accompanied by this character, once, before 
 Beber or Bebel, without it This seems to indicate two different forms 
 under which it was contributed. 
 
 3 HierogL of Egypt. Soc. pi. 42, Col. R. Lepsius, 1. 26. In Ri Wilkinson's 
 copy lias 400, Lepsius 301. 
 
 3 Birch, u. s. p. 350. 4 Herod. 1, 179, 
 
 6 The expression "structis molibus" shows that obelisks were not meant. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 193 
 
 tions of Rameses, Tacitus proceeds : " There were also read the 
 tributes levied on the nations, the weight of gold and silver, the 
 number of arms and horses, ivory and perfumes as gifts to the 
 temples, and the stores of corn and other useful products which 
 each nation paid ; not less magnificent than are now enjoined by 
 Parthian violence or Roman power 1 ." The name of Thothmes is 
 not mentioned by Tacitus, and Rameses has been spoken of imme- 
 diately before ; but his words do not necessarily imply that the 
 tablet of tribute and the record of victories related to the same 
 sovereign. 
 
 The Tablet of Karnak is strictly an historical and statistical 
 document. It does not deal in vague ascriptions of a world-wide 
 dominion ; its dates are precise, including the month and the day 
 as well as the year of the king ; and though we may be unable to 
 identify the countries named, the exactness with which they are 
 enumerated, with the weights and numbers of the objects which 
 they bring, proves that we have before us an authentic record, at 
 least of the tribute enjoined upon the nations. 
 
 Another remarkable monument of the age of Thothmes III. is 
 the chamber, on the walls of which he is represented making offer- 
 ings to sixty of his predecessors. It has been already described 
 among the documents of Egyptian history, and it is certainly one 
 of the most important of them, though it has by no means received 
 a satisfactory explanation in all its parts. His name appears to 
 have been held in high veneration by posterity, and is found on a 
 great number of scarabaei and amulets, many of which were pro- 
 bably engraved in subsequent times 2 . Rosellini and others call 
 him Mceris, and suppose him to have been the author of tbe Lake 
 of Fyoum and the other works connected with it. The epithet 
 
 Strabo (p. 816) says these records were inscribed on obelisks, and moreover 
 places these obelisks among the royal sepulchres. 
 
 1 AnnaL 2, 60. 
 
 2 Wilkinson, M. and C. 1, 56, note. 
 vol. n. 9 
 
194 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Maire, beloved of Re, is found connected with his name ; but we 
 have seen reason to doubt whether the name of Moeris belongs 
 historically to any king of Egypt, and the works in the Fyoum 
 must be placed in the Old Monarchy. 
 
 Besides erecting monuments of stone, Thothmes III. appears to 
 have been the author of extensive constructions of bricks. Egypt 
 affords abundant material for this manufacture, and a few days' 
 exposure to the sun hardens them sufficiently, unless they are to 
 be subject to the action of water. Bricks bearing his titular shield, 
 the scarabaeus, the crenellated parallelogram and the disk of the 
 sun are more common than those of any other sovereign 1 . There 
 is a tomb at Thebes, the inscriptions of which show, that its occu- 
 pant, Itoschere, was " superintendent of the great buildings" in 
 the reign of Thothmes III. : on its walls the operation of brick- 
 making is represented 2 . Men are employed, some in working up 
 the clay with an instrument resembling the Egyptian hoe, others 
 in carrying loads of it on their shoulders, moulding it into bricks, 
 and transporting them, by means of a yoke laid across the 
 shoulders, to the place where they are to be laid out for drying in 
 the sun. The physiognomy and color of most of those who are 
 thus engaged show them to be foreigners, and their aquiline nose 
 and yellow complexion suggest the idea that they are Jews. Their 
 labor is evidently compulsory ; Egyptian taskmasters stand by 
 with sticks in their hands ; and though one or two native Egyp- 
 tians appear among them, we may easily suppose that they have 
 been condemned to hard labor for their crimes. As the foreigners 
 do not resemble any of the nations with whom Thothmes carried 
 on war, and who are well known from the paintings and reliefs of 
 subsequent monarchs, it is not probable that they are captives 
 taken in war. They can therefore hardly be any other than 
 
 1 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 2, 98. 
 * Rosellini, Mon. Civ. tav. xlix. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 195 
 
 the Israelites, whom we know from their own history to have been 
 employed in this drudgery. Their oppression began with the 
 accession of the 18th dynasty, and the expulsion of their kindred 
 Hyksos. It was a natural fear, that when any war fell out they 
 should join themselves to the enemies of Egypt and fight against 
 her. The kings of Egypt, therefore, while they endeavored by a 
 cruel expedient to prevent their increase, and by hard labor to 
 break their spirit, employed that labor to strengthen the frontier 
 on the side of Arabia and Palestine, whence their danger came. 
 The valley of Goshen, which was their place of settlement, was the 
 direct road from Palestine to Memphis 1 . By employing them to 
 build the two fortresses 2 , Raameses at the eastern 3 , and Pithom at 
 the western extremity of this valley 4 , the Ph&raohs provided at 
 once a barrier against future invasions and the means of keeping 
 the children of Israel in subjection. Both these objects were 
 important to a sovereign like Thothmes, who, during his Mesopo- 
 tamian expeditions, must have left his country exposed to his 
 neighbors, and whose long absences might tempt revolt. If Ros- 
 chere were the general superintendent of the great architectural 
 
 1 Gen. xlvi. 28. During the French occupation of Egypt this same valley, 
 Saba-byar, was assigned to three Arab tribes, driven from Syria. (Bois- 
 Ayme, Memoires, 8, 111.) 
 
 3 U6\eis o^vpdi, Sept. Exod. i. 11. The Egyptian king would hardly have 
 placed "treasure cities" in such a locality, whether we understand money 
 or corn to have been treasured up ; but they were excellently adapted for 
 military magaziues and garrisons (1 Kings, ix. 19 ; 2 Chron. viii. 4, Sept.). 
 
 8 See Lepsius, Einleitung, 1, p. 349, on the site of Raameses (Aboo- 
 Kescheib). He attaches, I think, too much importance to the name, as a 
 proof that it was built by Raameses II. A stone with his name has been 
 found there, but the district had the name before the city was built. See 
 Gen. xlvii. 11. 
 
 4 Without the article this would be Thorn, which in Coptic signifies to 
 close up. (Peyron, Lex p. 51.) It was not far from Bubastis, and is the 
 Thoum of the Itinerary of Antoninus. 
 
196 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 undertakings of Thothmes, and the first who employed the Israel- 
 ites upon them, it is very natural that we should find a record of 
 it in his tomb, although they may not have labored in the brick- 
 fields of Thebes. 
 
 Thirteen expeditions of Thothmes are referred to in the monu- 
 ment before described, and the thirty -fourth year of his reign ; 
 the thirty-fifth has been found by Lepsius. He was succeeded by 
 his son Amenophis II. The memorials of his reign are few, and 
 afford little materials for history. The obelisk at Alnwick Castle, 
 brought by Lord Prudhoe from the Thebaid, is inscribed with his 
 name, but it simply records the fact of his having erected two 
 obelisks in honor of the god Kneph 1 . He continued the buildings 
 at Amada, which Thothmes III. had begun, and appears to have 
 bestowed his labors chiefly on these and other works in Nubia. In 
 a speos or excavated chapel at Ibrim, he appears seated with two 
 princes or great officers. One of them, named Osorsate, presents 
 to him the animal productions of the southern regions, lions, 
 jackals and hares, an inscription above specifying their numbers 2 . 
 He also added to the erections of his predecessors at Thebes ; but 
 most of his works here have perished. There remains a represen- 
 tation of him, in the usual attitude of a conqueror, about to 
 immolate a band of captives whom he holds by the hair ; their 
 name however has not been satisfactorily explained. We have no 
 evidence in the monuments of the extent of his Asiatic dominion, 
 but his inscriptions are found at Surabit-el-Kadim, in the Peninsula 
 of Sinai 8 . 
 
 1 Trans. Roy. Soe. Lit 2nd series, 1, p. 171. The surface within the 
 sculptures is nearly flat, not in relief, which is uncommon in works of this 
 
 age. 
 
 2 Champollion, Lettres d'Egypte, p. 140. 
 
 1 Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 312. I find those of Amenophis UL, 
 but not the second mentioned at this place by Sir G. Wilkinson (Mod. Eg 
 and Thebes, 2, 406). 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 197 
 
 His son Thothmes IV. continued the works of his family at 
 Amada, and added a hypostyle hall, which stands in front of them 1 . 
 The hieroglyphical inscriptions, which are very beautifully executed, 
 record his victories over the people of Cush (Ethiopia), but give 
 no other information respecting the events of his reign. This 
 appears, however, not to have been his only war. A stele engra- 
 ven on a rock of granite, on the right bank of the Nile, opposite 
 to Philae, records a victory gained by him over the Libyans in the 
 7th year of his reign, and on the 8th day of the month Phamenoth 5 . 
 At Qoorneh, in a tomb of an officer of his court, the king himself 
 appears seated on a throne, on the base of which are nine foreigners, 
 bound by their necks and arms, in the manner in which captive 
 nations are usually represented on Egyptian monuments. Four 
 only of the nine names are legible ; they have not occurred before 
 in the records of Egyptian victories, but some of them are found 
 on later monuments ; and they appear all to belong to Asia. 
 From another of these tombs it has been inferred that he built 
 a palace at Thebes, and that it contained an edifice dedicated 
 to Amun-re ; but no traces of such a building are now to be 
 found 3 . 
 
 Amunoph, or Amenophis III., the son of Thothmes IV. and 
 his queen Mauthemva, is one of the most celebrated monarchs of 
 the 18th dynasty. We have hitherto found no traces of the per- 
 manent occupation of Nubia by the Egyptian kings, higher up 
 the Nile than Semneh, but the temple of Soleb, which stands a 
 degree further south, contains evidence that under Amunoph 
 III. the boundary of the empire extended at least thus far. The 
 remains of this edifice have been already described* ; thirty-eight, 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 205. 
 
 * Champollion-Figeac, p. 813. 
 
 • Rosellini, p. 212. The person who was buried he»*e had the charge of 
 the' sacred bari of Amun. See vol. i p. 385. 
 
 4 Vol. i. p. 16. 
 
193 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 or according to other accounts forty-three, conquered nations are 
 represented there ; they have not been exactly copied, but Mr. Hos- 
 kins informs us that on one of them he found the name of Meso- 
 potamia 1 . Probably they are chiefly the names of Ethiopian 
 tribes whom he had vanquished in the extension of his frontiers 
 to the South. . His name is found on a tablet at Toumbos near 
 the Third Cataract. The lion which now couches at the entrance 
 of the Egyptian Gallery in the British Museum is inscribed with 
 the name of Amunoph III., 2 but it does not appear on any of the 
 buildings there, and the lion may have been brought from Egypt 
 by Tirhakah, by whom the temple seems to have been erected. A 
 scarabseus inscribed with the name of Amenophis III. and his wife 
 Taia speaks of the land of Karoei or Kaloei as the southern boun- 
 dary of his dominion 3 . If this be Coloe, as has been supposed 4 , 
 his conquests must have been carried far to the East as well as the 
 South ; for Coloe was within five days' journey of Axum on the Red 
 Sea 6 . The way would thus be prepared for the expedition of 
 Rameses-Sesostris, who is said to have subdued the nations along 
 the Erythraean Sea and crossed the Straits into Arabia 6 . A more 
 full record of the conquests of Amenophis in Ethiopia is found 
 in a fragment of a monolithal granite statue which is now in the 
 Louvre 7 . The prisoners are negroes, and the lotus, which termi- 
 nates the cord by which they are bound, being the emblem of 
 Upper Egypt, characterizes on monuments all Southern races, as 
 the head of the papyrus, the growth of Lower Egypt, does all 
 nations living to the North of Egypt. There have been originally 
 
 1 Travels, p. 250. Birch (Gall. B. M. p. 84) gives also Sinjar in Mesopo- 
 tamia. 
 
 a Vol. i. p. 14. " Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 261. 
 
 4 Birch, Gall. B. M. p. 83. 
 
 6 Cellarius, Geogr. Antiq. iv. 8, 27. 
 
 6 Herod. 2, 102. Strabo, 17, p. 769. 
 
 T Birch in Archjeologia, 31, 489-^91. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY - . 
 
 199 
 
 twenty-six names, of which six are no longer legible and no 
 resemblance has been found between those which have been pre- 
 served and any modern or ancient names of this region, excep< 
 Kesh, the scriptural Cush. Amenophis may have inherited, as 
 well as conquered dominion over Ethiopia. Those who have com- 
 pared many of the representations of him affirm, that his own 
 features have something of an Ethiopian cast 1 . On the granite 
 rock of the little island of Beghe, near the Cataract, a figure car- 
 rying in his hand what Rosellini calls the ensign of victory, and 
 Champollion a fly-fan, appears doing homage to the titular or pre- 
 nominal shield of Amenophis III. : over his head is the inscription 
 " Royal Son of the land of Kush, MemesV It seems to have 
 been the custom to grant a virtual or titular governorship of towns 
 and districts to members of the royal family ; for we find in the 
 tombs at Suan (Eilithya), mention is made of " royal sons " of this 
 place, during the reigns of the five first kings of the 18th dynasty*. 
 The same scarabseus which has been already quoted gives Naha- 
 raina as the other limit of the dominions of Amenophis III., 
 agreeing in this respect with the inscription at Semneh. 
 
 The quarries of Siisilis, which have supplied the principal mate- 
 rials for the edifices of Egypt, were extensively wrought in the 
 reign of Amenophis IIL Two monuments still remain there, which 
 from some cause had not been removed to their destination ; they 
 are monolithal shrines, dedicated to Sebek, the crocodile-deity of 
 Ombi : one of them bears the date of the 27th year of the king's 
 reign. He did not continue the works of architecture at Thebes 
 begun by his predecessors of the 18th dynasty, but erected two 
 vast palaces, one on the eastern, the other on the western bank of 
 the Nile. By referring to the description of the remains of Thebes 
 
 1 Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, 317. He says that from the monuments, 
 Mauthemva, his mother, appears to have been an Ethiopian. 
 a See p. 180 of this vol. 
 8 Champollion, Lettres, p. 198. 
 
200 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 given in the former volume 1 , it will be seen that he began the 
 buildings at Luxor and erected the greater part of them. The 
 chambers which yet remain bear his legends, with the title " Paci- 
 ficator of Egypt " and " Vanquisher of the Mennahom," an unknown 
 people. In the same place is found a singular representation of 
 his birth, and subsequent education 2 . In the first picture of the 
 series his mother represented with the attributes of the god- 
 dess Athor, but identified by her name Mauthe?nva, stands in the 
 presence of the god Thoth, who holds a roll of papyrus in his 
 hand, and raises the other towards the queen with the action of 
 one who is addressing her. The purport of his address cannot be 
 ascertained, but from the connexion of this with the following 
 scenes, it is probable, that as the Egyptian Hermes he brings a 
 message to the queen from the god of Thebes, announcing her 
 own future maternity. In the second scene this event is near at 
 hand 3 , and the queen is led by the god Kneph and the goddess 
 Athor, who stretches the key of life towards her, to the puerperal 
 bed. The chamber in which this is prepared is called Ma-n-misi y 
 a name given to the apartment of a temple, in which the mystical 
 birth of the young god, the offspring of the principal deities, is 
 represented 4 . The queen, in the manner of Egyptian women, is 
 resting on the knees and toes, and the goddess Isis behind her 
 holds up her hands, in the attitude of one who is comforting and 
 supporting her. Two goddesses, seated opposite to the queen, are 
 suckling two male children ; their finger pointed towards their 
 mouth indicates their childish age 6 ; the lock of hair falling on the 
 1 Vol. i. p. 132, 145. 
 
 9 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, p. 223, tav. xxxviii.-xL 
 
 * "II profilo del ventre fu evidentamente incnrvato oltre il consneto, per 
 dimostrare la gravidanza. H disegnatore non indico forse tanto bene q nesta 
 cireostanza nella minor proporzione, come si vede chiara nelT origiuale." 
 (Rosellini, p. 225.) 
 
 4 Vol. i. p. 214. 
 
 6 Wilkinson, M. and C. 4, 405. Compare vol. 1, p. 354 of Harpocrates. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 201 
 
 right side of the head their assimilation to Horus and other youth- 
 ful deities who are thus characterized 1 . The two-fold number does 
 not indicate that Amenophis had a twin brother, but is common 
 where the birth of deities is represented 2 . Beneath the couch are 
 tjyo spotted cows, sacred to Athor 3 , who turn complacently round 
 towards the children who are sucking at their udders. In the 
 next scene, Amunre is seen standing and holding in his hand the 
 youthful Amenophis, whom a hawk-headed god has presented to 
 him ; he is addressing the child, and declares that he bestows upon 
 him life, stability, purity and happiness, magnanimity and domi- 
 nion on the throne of Horus 4 . Two figures appear behind carrying 
 the children ; they represent the Nile, in the dry season and at the 
 commencement of the inundation, the former being distinguished 
 by the blue color, the latter by the red-brown 6 . Their introduction 
 here may be only symbolical of the important relation in which 
 the Nile stood to the prosperity of Egypt, or it may be considered 
 as preparing the way for a subsequent representation, in which two 
 deities, Mandoo and Atmoo, appear pouring the water of the Nile 
 over the king. In the intervening scene we see the goddess Saf t 
 the wife of Thoth, and like him presiding over writing, painting 
 and language, to whom the children are presented. Before her 
 kneels a figure with a pot of paint, while the goddess holds a 
 brush or pen ; what she is preparing to write does not appear, per- 
 
 1 We see from the Rosetta Stone that the assimilation of a youthful sove- 
 reign to Horus was a common flattery. Ptolemy is there called " a god, 
 the son of a god and of a goddess, as Horus the son of Isis and Osiris." (Ros. 
 Inscr. line 10.) 
 
 2 The reader who consults Rosellinfs Plates must remember what has 
 been said (vol. L p. 226) of Egyptian drawing. The four legs of the couch 
 are all seen, and its horizontal seat is represented perpendicularly, so that 
 the queen and goddesses appear to be seated on its turned-up edge. 
 
 ■ Wilkinson, M. and C. 4, 489, Plates, 36. 
 * Rosellini, u. s. p. 228. 
 
 5 Here, as eltsu where, the figures of the Nile are androgynous. 
 9* 
 
202 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 haps the name and royal title of the child 1 , or as Rosellini supposes, 
 the number of years and panegyrics that he was to live. 
 
 The ceremony of the purification of the young king is prelimi- 
 nary to that of his inauguration ; hitherto he has appeared with 
 no emblem of royalty, but now he wears the ur?eus round his head ; 
 hitherto he has been naked, but now he has a short garment fast- 
 ened round this waist. With this head-dress and the crook and 
 scourge in his hands, he is next seen borne on a seat into the pre- 
 sence of Amunre. Having descended from his seat and exchanged 
 f the cap bound with the uraeus for the royal helmet, he stands 
 
 holding a bird 2 in his hand before the god, who has placed a collar 
 round his neck. In front of the god are two figures, one of whom 
 bears the red diadem which forms the outer part of the pseheitt, 
 and represents Lower Egypt ; the other the white conical cap which 
 represents Upper Egypt. Invested with these he enters into the 
 full prerogatives of sovereignty. They are, however, laid aside, 
 and the king appears with his helmet only, when he comes in a 
 subsequent scene, conducted by Phre, to kneel before Amunre and 
 receive his benediction 3 . His inauguration endowed him with a 
 sacred character, and he engages immediately after in the perform- 
 ance of solemn religious acts. Crowned with the lower part of the 
 psckent he appears running into the presence of Amunkhem 4 w th 
 a vessel of libation in either hand, and leads before the same divi- 
 
 1 In a subsequent scene Saf says, according to the interpretation of Rosel- 
 lini, " I establish thy twofold sculpture," i. e. thy twofold title, symbolical 
 and phonetic. (P. 238.) 
 
 2 A phoenix, according to Rosellini (p. 238), the emblem of a pure life. If 
 it be a phoenix, length of days, or immortality, would seem a more natural 
 signification. 
 
 3 Tav. xlL 1. 
 
 4 See also Wilkinson, pi. 79, 1. This action of running into the presence 
 of a god is explained by Rosellini as emblematic of the completion of a 
 temple (M. Stor. iii. 1, 171, 244), but this is not probable, since the objects 
 brought are very various in different representations. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 203 
 
 nity four living steers, one black, one white, one red and one pied, 
 his head being ornamented, not with a helmet or the pschent, but 
 with the insignia of Osiris-Sokari. The adjoining chambers of the 
 palace of Luxor contain other representations of Amenophis 
 engaged in performing sacred functions, but they do not appear to 
 belong so immediately to his inauguration into the royal and 
 sacerdotal office as those which have been just described. 
 
 Besides the palace of Luxor, the long dromos of crio-sphinxes 
 which joins it to Karnak 1 was the work of Amenophis III., whose 
 name can yet be traced upon their mouldering remains. But the 
 western bank of the Nile appears to have been adorned with even 
 more stupendous erections than those which we have already 
 described. Of the Amenophion 2 , as it has been called, the greater 
 part is a heap of ruins, but these are sufficient to prove its former 
 extent ; and if the two colossal statues 3 , which now appear in such 
 striking insulation in the plain of Thebes, once stood at the 
 entrance of a dromos leading to the Amenophion, it is difficult to 
 conceive a more impressive combination. 
 
 The northernmost of these statues has connected the name of 
 Amenophis with the Memnon slain by Achilles at the siege of 
 Troy. There is no reason to believe that the mythe of Memnon is 
 of Egyptian origin. In the Odyssey, where he is briefly men- 
 tioned*, for he does not appear in the Iliad, he is introduced only 
 as a hero remarkable for his beauty ; his eastern origin may be 
 alluded to in his being made the son of Aurora. He must early 
 have been considered as an Ethiopian, though not so called by 
 Homer ; the author of the Theogony (985) makes him king of that 
 country ; and Arctinus, one of the first of the Cyclic poets 6 , in his 
 AMioflrfc related his arrival at Troy, his death by the hand of Achil- 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. 145. 8 See voL i. p. 132. 
 
 * See vol. i. p. 132. 4 Od. 188. X', 521. 
 
 • Miiller, de Cyelo Grcecorum Epico, p. 44, quoting Proclus, Chresto- 
 mathia. 
 
204 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 les, and the immortality granted to him on the petition of Aurora. 
 As yet, however, Ethiopia appears to have been conceived of as an 
 eastern, not a southern region. Herodotus places the Memnonium 
 at Susa 1 ; ^Eschylus made the mother of Memnon a Cissian or 
 Susian : even in Strabo's time the royal palace there bore this 
 name 2 . But after the Greeks established themselves in Egypt> 
 Ethiopia became to them a definite geographical name, denoting 
 the valley of the Nile above Egypt to the island of Meroe, and 
 eastward to the Erythraean Sea. It was therefore natural that they 
 should seek among the kings of that country, either as ruling in 
 their proper territory or as sovereigns of Egypt, for the original of 
 their Memnon. He had not come alone to Troy ; he had led a 
 powerful army (so at least the Greeks believed 3 ) ; no sovereign of 
 Egypt therefore would have fulfilled the conditions of their hypo- 
 thesis, who had not made conquests in Asia. Now although we 
 have not, probably from accidental causes, the same monumental 
 evidence of campaigns carried on in Asia by Amenophis III. as the 
 tablet of Karnak furnishes respecting his father, we know that at 
 least as far as Mesopotamia the boundaries of his dominion extended ; 
 and from the analogy of other reigns we may conclude that this 
 dominion was not maintained without military expeditions. Tn 
 the passage in which Herodotus describes the tablet erected by 
 Sesostris at Nahr-el-Kelb, and those in Asia Minor on the road 
 from Ephesus to Phocaea, and from Sardis to Smyrna, he says that 
 some persons supposed that these figures represented Memnon, but 
 that they were in error. Whatever Herodotus himself might mean 
 by Memnon, those whose opinion he refutes probably meant 
 Amenophis-Memnon ; for the monument of Nahr-el-Kelb is so 
 completely Egyptian, that there could be no mistake on that point ; 
 but among those who could not read the Egyptian character a 
 
 1 ft, 53, 54: 1, 151. 
 
 • See Quintus Calaber, lib. 2. 
 
 2 Geogr. 15, p. 728. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 205 
 
 question might easily arise, whether Amenophis or Sesostris, both 
 Egyptian conquerors of Asia, were the special object of commemo- 
 ration on this monument. As some gave the monument of Nahr- 
 el-Kelb to Memnon, others gave the statue at Thebes to Sesostris, 
 a natural confusion between two illustrious names, in an age which 
 had not the means of critical judgement 1 . 
 
 The word Memnon appears to have been a name or epithet of 
 the Ethiopians. Stephanus of Byzantium says, " The Memnones 
 are an Ethiopian nation, a word which, according to Polyhistor, is 
 interpreted fierce or warlike and stern 2 ." Agathemerus 8 , enume- 
 rating the nations, who live along the Nile above Egypt, says 
 " After the Great Cataract westward of the Nile live the Euony- 
 mitce, the Sebridae, the Catoipi (Cadupi or Catadupi 4 , the people 
 of the region of the Cataracts ?), and the Memnones who lived 
 close to the island of Meroe, after whom come the Elephant-eating 
 Ethiopians." We conclude, therefore, that Memnones is a real and 
 geographical name ; and probably a name of Greek etymology, 
 since it enters into composition with other pure Greek words 5 , 
 denoting " the valiant or warlike," a name equally appropriate to 
 the nation and to their chief. Memnon is therefore equivalent 
 to an Ethiopian ; and as Ethiopian was a name given by the 
 Greeks to all whose complexions were darkened, whether by an 
 eastern or a southern sun, his mythic genealogy, which made 
 Aurora his mother, is easily accounted for. His pre-eminent 
 beauty, strange as it may seem to us, was also a consequence of 
 
 1 Pausanias, 1. 42, 2. "EL/covca 61 fjSf) Kai HeawoTpiv (pa/itvuv rival tovto ro 
 ayaXfia S Ka///?tj<7ijs iitKOipe. 
 
 * 'Aypbivs nvas >) //a^t//ovs Kai ^a\cnovs. Polyhistor in Steph. Byz. sub 
 voce bAzpvova. 
 
 * See note to the passage of Steph. Byz. in Berkelius' edition. 
 4 Pliny, N. H. 5, 10. 6, 35. 
 
 6 As BpaavitCfivwv, ' Ayafie/ivcov . Comp. Eust (ad IL e', 639), p. 591. AfjAor 
 wj kui rd axXoiv b fiifivuyv, Ka8a Kal b pivwv, avSpciovs vnoSt]\ov<ri, 
 
206 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 his Ethiopic extraction; for according to Herodotus (3, 114) the 
 Ethiopians were not only the tallest and most long-lived, but the 
 handsomest of the human race. 
 
 The fiction of a musical sound, issuing from the statue of Mern- 
 non at Thebes at sunrise, appears to be entirely Greek. To the 
 Egyptians it was never anything more than the statue of their king 
 Amenophis 1 ; all the inscriptions which record that the sound had 
 been heard are of the Roman times 2 ; the name Memnonium 
 was given to the quarter in which it stood, under the Ptolemies, 
 but no monument nor any passage in an author of that age alludes 
 to a vocal Memnon. Cambyses did not need the pretext of its 
 magic music to induce him to mutilate a statue reverenced by the 
 Thebans 8 . As the statue has been silent for centuries, we have 
 no means of ascertaining how the belief in its musical quali- 
 ties arose ; it probably originated in the poetical imagination of 
 the Greeks, favored by some slight or accidental cause, and the 
 eastward position of the face of the statue, and was humored by 
 the art of the Egyptian priests. 
 
 The identification of Memnon the Ethiopian with the Theban 
 statue naturally gave rise to historical hypotheses as well as poeti- 
 cal fable. According to Agatharchides 4 , the Ethiopians invaded 
 Egypt and garrisoned many of their towns, and by them the so- 
 called Memnonia were completed. Here a false hypothesis is 
 grounded on an historical fact ; for though the Ethiopians occupied 
 
 1 In Syncellus we have after the name of Amenophis Ouroj itmv b M^j/wv 
 tlvai voixi^Sfjie-.'os, koI (pOeyyofuvos Atfloj. "Lemma diversi esse scriptoris a Ma- 
 nethone probat silentium Josephi, ideoque ad Africanum adscribendum." 
 Routh ad Afric. Rel. Sac. 2, 396. The addition is found in the Armenian 
 Version of Eusebius. 
 
 1 See the full collection of them, with the commentary of Letronne, in 
 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Series i. vol. 1, part 2. 
 
 8 Syncellus. Pausanias mentions the fact, but not the motive. See the 
 passage from Polysenus, voL i. p. 135, note. 
 
 4 Apud Photium Bibl. p. 1342, ed. Hoesch. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 207 
 
 Egypt, perhaps more than once, it does not appear that they had 
 any share in erecting the buildings called Memnonia. This name 
 was given in the age of Strabo to the remains of a palace at Aby- 
 dos, and by some also to the Labyrinth 1 . The splendor of the real 
 palace of Amenophis seems to have rendered it a general appella- 
 tion for a royal building of great extent and magnificence. "We 
 know that the palace of Abydos was chiefly the work of Rameses 
 III., the Labyrinth of Ammenemes. The story of an Ethiopian 
 migration or invasion takes a still more definite form, in the state- 
 ment given in the Chronicon of Eusebius, that the Ethiopians, 
 removing from the river Indus, dwelt on the borders of Egypt 2 . 
 This event being placed under the reign of Amenophis, is evidently 
 intended to be considered as connecting the story of Memnon with 
 his reign, and the date of 1615 years before Christ is assigned 
 to it. 
 
 Like his ancestor Amenophis L, Amenophis-Memnon received 
 divine honors, and a special priesthood, called " the pastophori of 
 Amenophis in the Memnoneia," still existed in the Ptolemaic 
 times 3 . 
 
 The mother of Amenophis, Mautemva 4 , is represented on the 
 right side of the throne of his statue ; his wife, who is seen on the 
 left, was called Taia. Her name is joined with his, on the en- 
 graved scarabaei of a large size which are frequent in the collections 
 of Egyptian antiquities. One of these, according to the interpre- 
 tation of Rosellini, commemorates the marriage of the king in the 
 
 1 Strabo, 17, p. 813. All the buildings which passed by this name were 
 on the western side of the river. 
 
 3 " JSthiopes, ab Indo flumine eonsurgentes, juxta Egyptum consederunV 
 Chron. Hieronym. p. 72, ed. Scaliger. 
 
 8 See Papyr. v. vi. vii. in Peyron's Collection. 
 
 4 A monument in the British Museum (Birch, pi. 34) represents her 
 seated on a throne which is placed in an Egyptian boat or bari. Her name 
 Mautemva is expressed phonetically by a vulture, McuU, 
 
208 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 eleventh year of his reign ; it has been already quoted, as defining 
 the limits of his kingdom. The other, whose signification is 
 obscure, appears to refer to the performance of some public work 1 . 
 The conjunction of the name of the queen with that of the king on 
 these memorials, indicates a greater participation in the royal power 
 on her part than was common in the Egyptian monarchy. Ame- 
 nophis appears to have had other children besides Horus who suc- 
 ceeded him on the throne. A stele in the Museum of Florence 
 which bears his title mentions " a royal scribe of the house of the 
 royal daughter Amenset*" the comptroller, it should seem, of the 
 princess's household. 
 
 The tomb of Amenoph III. is the oldest royal sepulchre pre- 
 served in the Bab-el-Melook, but is not that which in the Roman 
 times was called the tomb of Memnon. It is of great length, 
 extending, though not in one line of direction, 352 feet, with seve- 
 ral lateral chambers 3 . Although now in a state of great decay, the 
 remains of painting on its walls indicate a good style of art. The 
 largest apartment represents a common funeral scene, the passage 
 of the Sun through the inferior hemisphere, the legends being 
 traced in linear hieroglyphics, which approach very nearly to the 
 hieratic character. The tomb of Amenoph III. in its perfect state 
 has been one of the most complete, and Amenophis-Memnon 
 reigned according to Manetho thirty-one years-; the thirty-sixth 4 
 has been found on his monuments, illustrating the remark of 
 Champollion 5 , that the most elaborate tombs are those of the 
 sovereigns who had the longest reigns. 
 
 lie was succeeded by his son, whose name in the lists is Horus, 
 
 1 Rosellini (Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 266) thinks the construction of a cistern, but 
 acknowledges the uncertainty of his own interpretation. 
 3 Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 319. 
 
 8 Wilkinson. Mod. Egypt and Thebes, 2, 215. Champollion, Lettres, 226. 
 * Bunsen, ^Egyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 78, Germ. 
 6 See vol. i. p. 141. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 209 
 
 phonetically expressed by tLe hawk, the emblem of the god, with 
 the addition of the character which denotes the panegyries or 
 solemn festivals 1 . His monuments commemorate victories obtained 
 over the African tribes. In a grotto near the Second Cataract 2 , 
 he is represented in the form of the youthful Horus, suckled by 
 the goddess Anouke 3 . The ram-headed god of Thebes, Kneph or 
 Noum*, stands by ; he, like Anouke, was an object of special vene- 
 ration between the First and Second Cataract. 
 
 The principal historical monuments of the reign of Horus, how- 
 ever, are in the quarries of Silsilis, which seem to have been exten- 
 sively wrought for the public works then carried on. A large 
 space on the wall of one of the galleries has been occupied by a 
 scene representing his triumph : much of it has perished, but 
 enough remains to show its purport 5 . He is seated on a throne 
 carried on the shoulders of twelve military chiefs, while two others 
 shade him with fans attached to long spears, and an attendant, 
 keeping his face towards the king as he walks, scatters grains of 
 incense on a censer which he holds out towards him. It is 
 evidently the celebration of a military triumph for a victory over 
 the Africans. Captives, whose features are strongly marked with 
 the negro peculiarities, are led bound by the wrists and neck ; and 
 the inscriptions record that the great ones of the land of Cush had 
 been trampled under foot. Both Luxor and Karnak received 
 additions from him. One of the rows of criosphinxes at the last- 
 mentioned place bears his legend, with an inscription declaring that 
 he had made great constructions in the residences of Thebes 6 . 
 The propylaeum from which this row leads was also built by 
 Horus, and beside the gate of entrance are seen traces of a gigantic 
 
 1 The whole is read Hor-mbhai. 
 
 * Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 272. M. R. tav. xliv. 5. 
 
 8 S^e vol. L p. 323. 4 See vol. i. p. 313. 
 
 8 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, p. 278. M. R. tav. xliv. 
 
 6 Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 288. 
 
210 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 figure of him, engaged in smiting his enemies. The name of Ber- 
 ber alone is legible, denoting probably some African race, though 
 it would be hasty to identify it with the Barbaria of Ptolemy, on 
 the eastern coast of Africa, or the modern names of Barabra and 
 Berber 1 . 
 
 The works of sculpture of this age show the high perfection 
 which art had already attained. The Egyptian Museum of Turin 
 contains two admirable statues of Horus, one in a white and crys- 
 talline calcareous stone, the other in black granite. On the first 
 the king appears standing beside the god Amonre, who is repre- 
 sented as of colossal size ; the hieroglyphics of the latter contain a 
 decree, very analogous in its forms to that of the Rosetta stone, in 
 which the benefits rendered by him to Egypt are enumerated, sta- 
 tues ordered to be erected in the principal temples, and panegyries 
 to be celebrated in his honor, conjointly with the god Phre. His 
 daughter, whose name has been read Tmauhmot, sits with Horus 
 on his throne, and the decree ordains that her statue should be 
 placed in the temple along with his 2 . A sphinx with female attri- 
 butes is carved on the side of the throne, in allusion to her sharing 
 with him the attributes of royalty 3 . 
 
 The genealogical succession of the kings after Horus is very 
 embarrassing, from the want of harmony between the monu- 
 ments and the lists. On the tablet of Abydos and the lists in the 
 
 1 According to Herodotus, the Egyptians called all i3ap0dpovg who did not 
 speak their own language (2, 158). This may only mean that they desig- 
 nated them by a name implying like 0dp/3apos (Strabo, 14, 663) harshness 
 of speech ; or they may have used the same onomatopoeia as the Greeks. 
 Berber in Coptic denotes the confused murmur of boiling water, no inapt 
 simile for a foreign speech, which always seems inarticulate to those to 
 whom it is unintelligible. Bpa£o or /fy jo-o-w, which signifies to seethe, also 
 denotes an inarticulate sound. See Hesych. fipd&iv, 0a0pa$eiv. 
 
 2 Champollion-Figeac, 321. Compare Rosetta Inscr. translated in Birch. 
 Gall. B. Mus. 
 
 8 See vol. i. p. 115. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 211 
 
 Rameseion and at Medinet Aboo 1 , the next name to Horus is 
 Kamessu, who is followed by the king whom Champollion and 
 Rosellini call Menephthah, Lepsius and Bunsen, Seti Merienpthah ; 
 but in the lists we find that Horus was succeeded by Acherres (or 
 as Josephus has it, his daughter Acenchres). These are followed 
 by Rathos (Rathotis), Chebres, Acherres (in Josephus two Acen- 
 cheres), Armesses (Armais), Ramesses, Amenophath, the first 
 whose name bears any analogy to Menephthah. It would be to 
 little purpose to relate the expedients resorted to for the removal 
 of these difficulties. That a period of civil war or divided reign 
 occurred about this time is evident from the circumstance that the 
 shields of two kings, Amuntoonh or Amuntuanch and a fourth 
 Amenoph, are found mutilated 2 . The explanation which Lepsius 
 has devised of the various facts observed on the monuments is, 
 that besides Horus who succeeded him, Amenoph III. left two 
 sons, Amenoph IV., Amuntuanch, and a daughter, Athotis. The 
 two sons both reigned during the life of Horus, in what relations 
 with him we know not. The shield of Amenophis IV. has not 
 been found further to the north than Hermopolis Magna in Middle 
 Egypt 8 , and where found it is always defaced*. In like manner 
 the shields of Amuntuanch, which are found chiefly in Ethiopia, 
 are defaced. We may hence conclude that their relations to 
 Horus were hostile. It is evident that he either put down or sur- 
 rived Amenoph IV. and Amuntuanch, as stones marked with 
 their shield are found in buildings at Karnak which Horus erected, 
 and for the name of Amuntuanch has been substituted that of 
 Horus 5 . The buildings of Horus contain also stones marked with 
 a royal name, which was read by Wilkinson Atinre Bakhan, and 
 by Lepsius Bech-naten Ra, in inverted order ; and the sculpture 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. i. p. 204. iii. 1, 305. 
 
 9 Wilkinson, M. <fc C. 1, 57. ■ See vol. i. p. 89. 
 
 4 Bunsen, B. 3, p. 88, Germ. Wilkinson, M. & C. 1, 57. 
 8 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. & Thebes, 2, 255. 
 
212 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of these stones is so fresh, as to show that the buildings of which 
 they are a part were destroyed soon after their erection 1 . This 
 Bech-natenra (sometimes written Bakhan only), hitherto supposed 
 to be an intrusive king, a worshipper of the Sun, Lepsius takes for 
 a queen, the wife and widow of Amunoph IV., and from her name 
 he explains the Acencheres or Kencheres of the lists. The 
 daughter of Amenophis III., whose name is written on a monu- 
 ment Teti or Tati, and who is called " royal daughter, sister, 
 mother, wife," 2 is according to him Athothis, the reading of one 
 MS. for Rathotis ; her husband, the personage whose tomb Cham- 
 pollion discovered in the western valley of Thebes, and whose 
 name he read Skhai*. They were, according to Lepsius, the 
 parents of Ramessu, the founder of that long line of princes who 
 fill the 19th and 20th dynasty 4 . Here we find the monuments 
 again coinciding with the lists, and as we follow the former 
 authority only, we shall leave the attempts to reconcile them to be 
 confirmed or overthrown by subsequent research. 
 
 Ramessu, the immediate successor of Horus on the tablet of 
 Abydos, appears to be both the Arm esses and the Ramesses, the 
 14th and loth of Manetho's 18th dynasty, the consonants in both 
 words being the same. The Armais of Josephus appears also to 
 be the same person with a variation of spelling. Of Ramessu's 
 reign little is known. The second year of his reign is found on a 
 stele dug out by the French and Tuscan expedition 5 from the ruins 
 
 1 Perring (Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 2nd Ser. 1, 140) supposes that the figures 
 found at El-Tel, representing the worship of the Sun, are those of the 
 Hyk6os kings. All that relates to these Sun-worshippers, to whom Bech- 
 naten Ra belonged, is very obscure. Layard (Nineveh, 2, 211) thinks they 
 may be Assyrians, as the Sun's disk was worshipped at Nineveh. 
 
 a Bunsen, Neues Reich, pi. viii. 3 Lettres, 247. 
 
 4 Ramessu (born of Ra) is probably the original participial form of the 
 name. (See Bunsen, vol. i. p. 297, Eng. Trans. 
 
 6 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, p. 298. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 213 
 
 of a temple near "Wadi Haifa, erected by Amenophis II. Ramessu 
 bad bestowed gifts upon tbe priests. The stele, which is dated the 
 20th of Mechir, in that year, but erected and terminated by his 
 son, speaks of the people of the " Land of the Nine Bows" as being 
 subjected beneath his feet, and commemorates, besides various 
 offerings made by him, " pure men and women of the captives." 
 This description occurs elsewhere on Egyptian monuments. The 
 prisoners are divided into three classes, the first of whom appear 
 to be the ordinary prisoners of war, who were reduced into slavery 
 or employed on public works. The second, called pure, which is 
 expressed by the same hieroglyphic character as priest, were pro- 
 bably distributed to the different temples, to perform as hieroduli 
 the inferior offices of ministration. The third class seem to have 
 been hostages 1 . 
 
 That the reign of Ramessu was short has been inferred not only 
 from the paucity of his monuments, but from the state of his tomb 2 . 
 It was nearly buried under rubbish, which was cleared away by 
 Champollion, and the tomb itself was found to consist of two cor- 
 ridors, without sculpture, terminating in an apartment decorated 
 with paintings. The granite sarcophagus which once contained 
 the body of the king had no sculpture, but was painted. From 
 the attributes given to Ramessu in the paintings, it appears that 
 some were executed during his lifetime, others after his death 3 . 
 Another presumption that his reign was short arises from the cir- 
 cumstance that Armais or Armesses and Ramesses, whom we 
 believe to be Ramessu, are represented as having reigned together 
 only six years, or according to Josephus, five years and five 
 months. 
 
 The name of the successor of Ramessu on the tablet of Abydos 
 
 1 Birch in Trans, of Royal Society of Literature, 2nd Series, 2, 345. 
 ' No. 16 in Wilkinson's enumeration of the tombs in the Bab-el-Melook. 
 Mod. Eg. <fc Thebes, 2, 214. 
 
 8 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 309. 
 
214 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 has been variously read, and exhibits a diversity which is not 
 common 1 . Champollion at first believed the various forms in which 
 the name is written to represent different kings. One class, in 
 which the figure of Osiris is found united with the syllable EI, he 
 read Osirei. Another, in which a different deity, whom he sup- 
 posed to be Mandoo, takes the place of Osiris, he read Manduei, 
 and considered him as a successor of Osirei, and both as represent- 
 ing the two Acencheres of Manetho. By local study of the Egyp- 
 tian monuments he ascertained that the figure of the god Mandoo 
 is very different, but it long remained uncertain how this name was 
 to be pronounced. The divinity represented, a sitting figure with 
 long ears and a head similar to that of a tapir, often occurs on 
 monuments, especially in Nubia. The phonetic name was disco- 
 vered to be Set or Seth. It was observed that the character by 
 which this god is denoted had been chiselled out wherever it 
 occurred in the name of a king 2 . This appearance of hostility, 
 which Champollion first remarked in the Museum at Turin, and 
 found universal in Egypt, led him to conclude that it could be no 
 other than Typhon, the principle of Evil, one of whose Egyptian 
 names was Seth, and thus the name of the king was read Scthei, 
 and the effaced figure was supposed to be an ass, which was an 
 emblem of Typhon. The other part of the group was read 
 Phthahmen or Menephthah. It was observed, however, that in 
 the same inscription, and where there could be no doubt of iden- 
 tity, the name of the god Amun was sometimes substituted for that 
 of Pthah 3 , which led to the conclusion that neither of these names, 
 nor that of Osiris noticed before, formed a part of the phonetic 
 name, which was pronounced simply Sethei. The name of 
 Menephthah, however, has become so current that we shall 
 retain it. 
 
 1 The varieties are given by Rosellini, Mon. Stor. i. 1, tav. ix. 110 a, 
 b, e, d. 
 
 3 See vol. i. p. 350. 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 329. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 215 
 
 To account for the introduction of such a divinity as Typhon into 
 a royal title, Rosellini supposed that it was adopted by the king to 
 express that he was the destroyer of his enemies ; but this leaves 
 unexplained the subsequent obliteration of his figure, which seems 
 to imply that he had become odious after the erection of the monu- 
 ments on which it is found. Lepsius on the other hand maintains 
 that the figure is not an ass but a giraffe (an animal which is not 
 uncommon in hieroglyphics), and that Seth whose emblem it is, was 
 originally a beneficent deity, held in high honor by the Egyptians, 
 but that by some revolution in theological opinions he subsequently 
 was identified with the principle of Evil, and his image defaced 
 wherever it was found. The evidence of this hypothesis has not 
 yet been produced. The name Seth does not disappear from the 
 Egyptian dynasties, even after the time when the change supposed 
 to be indicated by the obliteration occurred ; the priest of Vulcan, 
 who led the Egyptians against Sennacherib, was called Sethos. 
 
 Setei Menephthah has left a memorial of himself in the temple 
 of Amada in Nubia, built by Thothmes and repaired by him ; and 
 at Silsilis, where he excavated one of the small grotto temples in 
 the western rock. But his principal monuments are at Thebes. 
 He began the palace of Qoorneh on the western side of the river, 
 which has been already described under the name of Meneph- 
 theion 1 , but as it remained scarcely finished at his death, it was 
 completed and decorated by his successors, Rameses II. and III., who 
 give the honor of their own labors to Menephthah. The chief 
 apartment of the palace, forty-eight feet long and thirty-three wide, 
 appears to have been designed as a place of public assembly for 
 civil and judicial purposes. The remains at Karnak are much 
 more important 2 . The north-western wall of the hypostyle hall is 
 divided into compartments which occupy the whole of its vast sur- 
 face, and covered with figures and hieroglyphics in that peculiar 
 
 1 VoL i. p. 128. 
 
 8 Vol. i. p. 147, 148. 
 
216 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 relief which the Egyptian artists practised. Each of them re- 
 presents some great military undertaking, in which Menephthah 
 triumphs over five different nations of Asia ; and each concludes 
 with a procession in honor of Amun, to whom spoil and captives 
 are presented, in gratitude for his having given the victory to his 
 worshippers. The magnitude of the scale on which these pictures 
 are projected, the spirit of the drawing and the high finish of the 
 execution, show that painting and sculpture, both as mechanical 
 and intellectual arts, had attained to great perfection. 
 
 Menephthah had scarcely ascended the throne when he under- 
 took a military expedition against the same nations, over whom 
 the Thothmes and Amenophis had established their dominion. 
 We have no information from monuments of any wars of Horus 
 with Asiatic nations, and the state of division into which Egypt 
 appears to have fallen, both in his reign and that of Ramessu, 
 must have weakened its power over distant countries. One of the 
 compartments of sculpture at Karnak 1 represents him, with a 
 youthful figure, in the first year of his reign, engaged in warfare 
 with a people who are called Shos or Shosu, and their land 
 Kanana. Their features are wholly different from the Egyptians ; 
 they have caps on their heads and cuirasses round the body, and 
 have been armed with spears and battle-axes. They are in hasty 
 and disorderly flight before the king, who is pursuing them in his 
 biga, and has already pierced many with his arrows. On a hill 
 near stands a fortress, surrounded with a fosse, towards which 
 the fugitives are making their way ; — " fortress of the land of 
 Kanana " is inscribed on the front. Another compartment repre- 
 sents the continuation of this campaign 2 . The king again appears 
 in his chariot, transfixing his enemies with his arrows ; three for- 
 tresses are seen in the background, the nearest of which is already 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, 337 ; Mon. Reali, tav. xlviii. 2. 
 7 Rosellini, Mon. Reali, tav. xlix. 2. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 21*7 
 
 taken, and has the name of the king inscribed over the gate ; the 
 fugitives are making their way towards a mountain covered with 
 wood. ( 
 
 In the same year he carried on war with another people, whose 
 geographical position cannot have been very remote, and whose 
 names may be variously read Remanen or Lemnnen, Rotno or 
 Ludnu, owing to the ambiguity of the letters which stand for L or 
 R, T or D in the phonetic alphabet. They have gone forth in 
 chariots to meet the king, but have been utterly routed. Their 
 physiognomy, dress and armor are very different from those of 
 the Shos; they have less pointed features ; their heads are covered 
 with a cap, which descends to protect the back of the neck, and is 
 fastened by a band ; they wear long garments, with a girdle at 
 the waist and a deep cape over the shoulders. A fortress is near, 
 on the battlements of which the defenders are standing and hold- 
 ing out their hands apparently in supplication to Menephthah. In 
 the next compartment the king has descended from his chariot and 
 holds the reins behind him, while he turns to address the chiefs of 
 the defeated people, who supplicate him on their knees. Others 
 of the same nation are felling the trees of a wood, perhaps those 
 which surrounded their fortress and added to its strength ; for a 
 fortress is seen in the distance, with its gate-posts and architrave 
 falling, as if to indicate that it had been captured and dismantled. 
 The whole concludes with a triumphal procession, in honor of the 
 two campaigns. The king is seen mounting his chariot, lifting 
 two of the conquered nations, who are powerfully grasped in his 
 right arm, while two files, with their hands tied, and bound round 
 the neck by a rope which the conqueror holds, are following him. 
 In a similar way the captive Shos are led in triumph, and three of 
 their heads are fixed on the back of the royal chariot. Egyptians, 
 men and women, come forth to meet him ; some kneel, others are 
 standing and lifting up their hands in sign of reverence and wel- 
 come; and a company of priests, distinguished by their shorn 
 
 vol. it. 10 
 
218 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Leads, offer large nosegays of the lotus, the characteristic produc- 
 tion of the land 1 . The whole scene is bordered by the Nile, suffi- 
 ciently marked by the crocodiles with which it is filled ; and a 
 palace stands on the bank 2 . The date of the first year of the 
 reign of Menephthah is repeated in the hieroglyphics at this place ; 
 a presumption that the scene of the events cannot have been very 
 remote from the frontiers of Egypt. The whole finishes with the 
 presentation of the prisoners of the land of Luden to the Theban 
 triad of gods, Amunre, Maut and Chons, and an offering of vases. 
 The inscription declares them to be fabricated out of their spoils in 
 gold, silver, copper, and the unknown substance chesebt*, and pre- 
 cious stones. Their devices are emblematic of the event which they 
 record ; one of them is supported by figures of captives ; on 
 another the head of a prisoner appears as bent down by grief, and 
 in the hieroglyphics above them they are called " images of the 
 chiefs of the strange lands 4 ." 
 
 No date is found with the scene next represented, in which the 
 king is attacking a fortress, the name of which has been read 
 Oisch or Atet, situated in the land of Amar or Omar 6 . The people 
 who have been defending it, resemble in their features the Shos, in 
 costume the Remanen. They fight in chariots, and inhabit a 
 mountainous and woody country, through which herds of cattle 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. R. tav. xlvi-1. 
 
 a A bridge over the stream is here represented, a thing which occurs 
 nowhere else among the Egyptian monuments. It is probably laid over 
 one of the smaller streams of Lower Egypt, where the kings would natu- 
 rally fix their residence when they were carrying on campaigns in Asia. 
 
 3 See p 192 of this volume. 
 
 4 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 1, p. 333. 
 
 5 Birch in Roy. Soc. Lit., 2nd Series, vol. 2, p. 335. It is conjectured by 
 him to be Haditha on the Euphrates, by Dr. E. Hi neks to be Edessa, by 
 Mr. Osburn, Hadashah (Josh. xv. 37), and Amar to be the land of the Amo- 
 rites. Rosellini compares Omar with Omira, the name which the Euphrates 
 bore previous to its passage through Mount Taurus (Pliny, N. H. 5, 24). 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 219 
 
 are flying in consternation at the fray. The king is armed with 
 bow and arrows, and also with a short spear, which serves either to 
 hurl from a little distance, or to stab in close fight. The rest of the 
 events of this campaign are lost by the destruction of the wall ; 
 but it appears to have concluded with the usual offering of vases 
 and prisoners to Amunre. 
 
 It is probable that the war, which is the subject of the next 
 representation, occurred at a considerably later period of the reign 
 of Menephthah, since his son Rameses appears serving in the cam- 
 paign 1 . Taken or Token is the name of the people against whom 
 it is waged, the Tahai who are mentioned in the account of the 
 statistical tablet of Karnak 2 , and who are declared to belong to 
 the Rotno or Ludnu. They wear helmets, from which a strap or 
 strip of metal depends, for the protection of the cheek, and the 
 chiefs are distinguished by two feathers in the helmet. The general 
 of the enemy, who is represented as of an intermediate size between 
 his own troops and the gigantic figure of Menephthah, has been 
 pierced in the breast by one of the king's short spears, and then 
 caught round the neck by his bow ; and with the uplifted scimitar 
 in his hand he is preparing to put him to death. In another com- 
 partment he appears dismounted from his chariot and about to 
 stab with a short spear a chief who has been also pierced in the 
 breast with an arrow. The captives are as usual led in files to be 
 presented to the god. Among the offerings, besides the customary 
 vases, are bags tied up, probably containing gold dust or precious 
 stones. 
 
 The people who are called Sketo or Shetin are the subject of 
 another of the great historical pictures of the wars of Menephthah. 
 Unlike all those who have been described before, they use cavalry 3 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iiL 1, 378. M. R. tav. liv.-lvL 
 a See p. 187, 188 of this volume. 
 
 1 It is remarkable that the horses have neither saddle nor bridle, in this 
 respect resembling the Numidiun cavalry. "Nihil primo adspectu contem- 
 
220 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 as well as chariots in the field. They are clothed in long tunics, 
 girt round the middle and with sleeves, but these do not descend 
 below the elbow. They have no beard ; their heads are covered 
 with a scull-cap which reaches to the shoulders and protects the 
 back of the neck ; the top is ornamented with a tassel, and the 
 side of the neck defended by a strip which extends to the breast. 
 They have square shields with bows. The arrows of the king dis- 
 perse them, and the war ends with a procession, in which captives 
 and chariots are led before Amunre, who on this occasion is 
 attended by Pasht, Chons and Thmei. With this scene ends the 
 representation of the wars and triumphs of Setei-Menephthah on 
 the wall of the palace of Karnak. They are summed up, as it 
 were, in a vast emblematic picture, in which the king appears of 
 gigantic size, grasping by the hair captives of nine different nations, 
 who are fastened to a stake, and preparing to strike them with a 
 ponderous mace, loaded with a ball of metal at the end, while 
 Amunre stretches out towards him the scimitar or skopsh, the 
 emblem of destruction and power 1 . Among these nine nations we 
 recognize distinctly the negro of the interior of Africa ; the others, 
 though not so strongly characterized, correspond generally in fea- 
 tures and head-dress with the nations already represented as con- 
 quered by Menephthah. Naharaina or Mesopotamia is mentioned 
 in an inscription, partly mutilated, above the figure of the king. 
 Elsewhere we have seen the conqueror leading the vanquished 
 nations to the god ; but here Amunre himself holds the cords to 
 which their symbolical representations are attached. He is accom- 
 panied by a goddess, supposed to be the land of Egypt 2 , who also 
 holds three cords. The different tribes or towns (for probably 
 
 tius ; equi hominesque paulluli et graciles; discinctus et inermis eques prse- 
 terquam quod jaeula secum portat; equi sine frenis." (Liv. 35, 11.) 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Reali, tav. lvii.-lxi. 
 
 2 The same apparently who is given with slight variation in Sir G. Wil- 
 kinson's Plates, 58, 3, and called KoM, i. e. "the land." 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 221 
 
 they are no more) are designated by an embattled oval, within 
 which the name is written, and over which is placed a head and 
 shoulders, the cord being fastened round the neck, and the arms 
 bound. Of these ovals fifty-six are still legible, and several others 
 obliterated. Among those who belong to the race of Cush, a few 
 names seem to bear some analogy to those known to geography, 
 as the Barobro, the Takrurir, the Erk, supposed to answer respec- 
 tively to the Barabra and Berber, the Dakruri of Upper Nubia, and 
 Erchoas on the Nile 1 , but in most of them no resemblance can be 
 traced. Some of the characters do not belong to the general pho- 
 netic alphabet, and their sound is unknown. The features of the 
 negro in the group grasped by the king indicate that he came from 
 a country far to the South, unless we are to suppose that tribes of 
 this physiognomy extended further northward in ancient times. 
 The third file led by the god, with the exception of the first oval, 
 is of northern nations 2 . Of those whom the goddess leads, the 
 first oval contains a group of characters which Champollion reads 
 Nemone, and supposes lo signify shepherds (from the Coptic Moone, 
 to feed), and to denote generally foreigners of the Xorth. The 
 next are the Shetin, Naharaina r the Rotnu or Ludnu, Upper and 
 Lower, and Sinjar. Of the rest, though many of them are dis- 
 tinctly written, little can be made. Names of places in Palestine 
 have been found in them 8 , and nothing is in itself more probable 
 than that conquests in this country should be recorded on the monu- 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 1, 421. Birch, GalL Br. Mus. 2, 89. 
 
 2 This assumes the papyrus-plant, which the second and third ovals con- 
 tain, to denote the Xorth, as it often does. Rosellini (p. 425) thinks, from 
 its similarity with the character answering to 'E\\t)vikois on the Rosetta 
 Stone, that it shoold be read Aoninin, and understood of the Ionians of 
 Asia, I doubt if in this age the Ionians were found on the coast of Asia, 
 and were this reading phonetically correct, should rather connect it with 
 Tdvj;, the ancient name of Gaza (Dion. Perieget 1, 92, with the note of 
 Eustathius). 
 
 8 Osburn, Onomasticon, Ancient Egypt, p. 156 
 
222 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ments of Egyptian kings ; but their identification with biblical 
 names is not sufficiently supported to warrant our proposing them 
 as facts. 
 
 There is much probability in the opinion of Rosellini, that we 
 should read the name of the Rotnu, Ludin, and that the Lydians 
 are meant ; not using this word in the limited sense to which the 
 Greek writers have accustomed us, but as a general name for Asia 
 Minor and its prolongation to the country at the sources of the 
 Tigris and Euphrates. Two wholly different nations are evidently 
 described in Scripture under the name of Lud. One of these 
 (Gen. x. 13) is called a son of Mizraim, and is mentioned by Jere- 
 miah with Ethiopia and Libya (xlvi. 9) as an ally of Egypt. The 
 other (Gen. x. 22) is called a son of Shem, and mentioned in con- 
 nexion with Arphaxad (Arrapachitis in Northern Assyria), and 
 Aram or Syria. This is the position in which a name might be 
 expected to occur which represents the Semitic population of Asia 
 Minor. These Ludim, not the African nation of the same name, 
 appear to be meant in Ezek. xxvii. 10, where they are joined with 
 Persia and Libya as furnishing mercenaries to Tyre. To this 
 Semitic population was probably owing the manifest connexion 
 between the mythology of Lydia and that of Assyria 1 , and the 
 early civilization of Lydia, which through the Greek colonies settled 
 on its shores became a source of refinement and culture to all 
 Europe. 
 
 "We have already described among the sepulchres of Thebes, the 
 tomb and sarcophagus of Setei-Menephthah, discovered by Belzoni 
 in the Bab-el-Melook 2 . It is the most splendid that has hitherto 
 been explored, and the plates to Belzoni's work will give a good 
 
 1 Comp. Herod. 1, 7, where Agron, the first of the Heracleid kings of 
 Lydia, is made the son of Xinus the son of Belus. The predecessors of Agron 
 were descended from Lydus the son of Atys, who represents a Phrygian 
 population e arlier tha n the connexion wi Assyria. 
 
 9 VoL i. p. 141. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 223 
 
 idea of the variety and richness of its decorations. It contains a 
 representation which we find repeated with some variation in the 
 tombs of other kings of this and the succeeding dynasty, and which 
 seems designed to express the universality of Egyptian dominion. 
 The god Horus, the symbol of royalty, is preceded by four com- 
 panies of men, of different color, physiognomy, and costume. The 
 first are plainly Egyptians ; the third are blacks ; the second white 
 with bushy black hair, blue eyes, aquiline noses, and reddish beards ; 
 they wear short parti-colored tunics, with several tassels at the 
 lower extremities. The fourth resemble the people called Rebo in 
 the campaigns of Rameses IV., wearing feathers in their heads, and 
 large cloaks, and 'having their bodies tattooed. The Egyptians 
 have the name Hot, supposed to signify race, as if they identified 
 themselves with mankind ; the blacks that of Naksu ; the third 
 group are called Namu, and the fourth Tamhu. The Nahsu are 
 represented with variety of dress and physiognomy in the other 
 tombs, but always black ; the Namu are elsewhere drawn with an 
 entirely different costume ; and the Tamhu are made yellow instead 
 of fair, and have ample garments worked in elaborate patterns, 
 instead of the cloaks which half cover their tattooed bodies 1 . The 
 two names therefore appear to be generic, and to comprehend races 
 ethnographically distinct. The people called in the sculptures of 
 the wars of Menephthah, Remenen, or Lemenen, and the inhabit- 
 ants of the land of Omar, belonged to the Namu ; the Tohen to 
 the Tamhu. In the same way Nahsu is the generic name of the 
 black nations, and Cush the specific name of the Ethiopians. Taken 
 together they appear to have conventionally represented the prin- 
 cipal nations known to the Egyptians, and as their wars did not 
 extend to Europe, we must seek the originals in Asia, the Namu 
 in the Semitic nations, the Tamhu in those who dwelt eastward of 
 the Tigris. 
 
 The monuments do not afford us data for fixing the length of 
 1 Rosellini, M. S. 4, 228, M. R. tav. civ. Ac. 
 
224 
 
 HISTORY OP EGYPT. 
 
 Setei-Menepiith all's reign. The Setbos of the lists is said to have 
 reigned fifty-one or fifty-five years, and the magnitude and elabo- 
 rate decoration of the tomb of Setei-Menephthah, as well as his 
 recorded conquests, show that his reign cannot have been a short 
 one. The name of one of his queens appears to have been Tivea, 
 the mother of Rameses II. and III. ; of another, Tsire 1 . 
 
 The shields of all the sovereigns hitherto mentioned on the 
 tablet of Abydos contain titles only, and their phonetic names have 
 been ascertained from other monuments. That of the successor of 
 ' Setei-Menephthah, however, is followed by a shield which contains 
 a phonetic name, and closes the last line but one ; this name is 
 Rameses Mei-Amun, and it is repeated along with the titular shield 
 through the whole length of the lowest line. But the titular shield 
 of the lowest line is not exactly the same as the last titular shield 
 of the upper line ; it differs from it by the addition of a group of 
 characters which is usually interpreted, " Approved by Re 2 ." The 
 lateral column of the tablet, again, exhibits only the shield without 
 the addition. Hence arises the question, do these two titular 
 shields represent two sovereigns, Rameses Meiamun II. and Rame- 
 ses Meiamun III., or is the addition in the second shield merely a 
 difference, assumed by the same sovereign at a subsequent period 
 of his reign ? Such variations, perplexing as they are, appear to 
 have been practised. The obelisk of the Atmeidan, already men- 
 tioned, exhibits four several additions to the characters which form 
 the titular shield of Thothmes III. 3 , and one of them is this same 
 group, " approved by Re." Again, the same tomb in the Bab-el- 
 Melook was found to contain two shields, one which has, the other 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, 251, 270. 
 
 2 Compare the shields, 11, 12, & 13, in the Hieroglyphic Plates, II. vol. i. 
 No. 12 is the phonetic name belonging to both; no. 13 has the group of 
 characters at the bottom which is read Sotp-n-ra, " approved by Ra," which 
 is wanting in no. 11. 
 
 8 See Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 2, 228, 2nd Series. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 225 
 
 which has not the addition "approved by Re;" and hence Major 
 Felix and Sir Gardner Wilkinson were led to the conclusion, that 
 they indicated only one sovereign, Rameses II. The colossal statue 
 which lies reversed at Mitrahenny has on the girdle both shields, 
 one with, one without " approved by Re." At Beitoualli the shield 
 is four times repeated, once with the addition " approved by Re." 
 The processions of the kings at the Rameseion and Medinet Aboo 
 exhibit only the shield with the addition 1 . These are strong rea- 
 sons for believing that only one king is designated by both shields. 
 Yet a great difficulty attends this supposition : the names of their 
 wives and their children are different, and it would be too arbi- 
 trary a mode of proceeding to assume a second marriage and the 
 death of the children of the first. Rosellini adds 2 , that the physi- 
 ognomy of the two kings is so different, that even at a distance 
 they can be distinguished by one who is familiar with them. This 
 argument can be appreciated only by those who have seen the 
 monuments of Egypt on the spot ; yet the evidence of one who 
 spent so many months among them must be admitted to be of 
 great weight. It is also alleged 3 , that in more than one instance 
 the title " approved by Re" has been inserted in a shield in which 
 it had not been originally found, by a cancelling of the previous 
 inscription — an act not likely to have been performed by a sove- 
 reign on his own shield, though we find a son using this liberty 
 with the shield of his father. Rosellini assures us also that he has 
 found dates of the reign of Rameses from the second year to the 
 sixty-second, all containing the addition "approved by Re," and it 
 is difficult to conceive that he should before the first of these dates 
 have performed those exploits and executed those w^orks, to which 
 the shield without the addition is attached. Where obelisks have 
 been begun by one monarch and finished by another, the central 
 line marks the work of the first. Now the central inscription on 
 
 1 Rosellini, 1£ Stor. 1, p. 205. 3 Rosellini, M. Stor. 1, 25fi, ML 
 
 8 Rosellini, u. s. Birch, Gall. B. Mus. P. 2, p. 91, note 11. 
 
 10* 
 
226 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 three of the faces of the obelisk transported from Luxor to Paris 
 bears the shield without the addition ; so does that which remains 
 at Luxor on one of its faces ; the others bear the shield with the 
 addition. Without concealing the difficulties which press on either 
 hypothesis, I assume, as most probable according to the present 
 state of the question, that the two shields represent two kings, and 
 I shall proceed to give an account of the monuments which bear 
 their respective names. 
 
 To Rameses II. belong the historical pictures and sculptures of 
 Beitoualli near Kalabshe in Nubia, casts of which, colored accord- 
 ing to the original, may be seen in the British Museum 1 . The 
 sanctuary represents the youthful monarch suckled by Isis and 
 Anouke. The walls of the vestibule exhibit on the left his 
 triumphs over the Ethiopian nations. Mounted in his chariot 
 armed with his bow, and accompanied by two of his sons who are 
 also in chariots, he slaughters and tramples down the negroes who 
 fly in confusion towards a village indicated by its palms. A 
 w r ounded man, supported by two others, is feebly making his way 
 to a cottage within which the mother is cooking. A child and 
 another female stand beside the door with expressions of sympathy 
 and terror. Conquerors have been fond in all ages of recording 
 the carnage of their battle-fields, but this is a solitary instance of 
 their completing the picture by an exhibition of the misery which 
 war brings to the cottage-hearth. The fruits of the victory are 
 exhibited in a procession, in which the same productions of Africa, 
 which have been already described in speaking of the reign of 
 Thothmes III., are brought before the king, who is seated under a 
 rich canopy. Immediately before him stands his son, who is intro- 
 ducing into his presence "the royal son of the land of Cush, 
 Anemophth." Rosellini thought that he was brought as a pri- 
 soner, but it seems more probable that the two attendants are 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. R. tav. lxil-lxxv. Birch, Gall. Brit. Mus. pi. 38, p. 2. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 227 
 
 arraying him in garments of state, previous to his appearance 
 before the king ; and that the vase which Rosellini supposed to 
 contain a restorative potion, holds water or perfume. In another 
 part of the procession the same Anemophth brings on his shoul- 
 ders skins of panthers, rings of gold and exotic plants, and the 
 connection of the different parts of the picture is probably to be 
 conceived of in this way, that having deposited his offerings before 
 the king, he is rewarded by receiving the investiture described 
 above. From his features and dress he is evidently of Egyptian 
 race, and therefore probably of a family which had enjoyed the 
 viceroyalty of Ethiopia since the commencement of Egyptian con- 
 quests in that country. 
 
 The left side of the vestibule contains representations of the 
 Asiatic victories of Rameses II. The people with whom he is 
 engaged are those whom we have already become acquainted with, 
 in the historical monuments of Setei-Menephthah's reign. In one 
 compartment the king appears mounted in his chariot and pur- 
 suing a host of men of yellow complexion, short and peaked beards 
 and a sharp physiognomy, variously armed with scimitars, javelins 
 and throwsticks 1 . In the inscriptions which are legible their name 
 does not occur, but they closely resemble those who on the wal.s 
 of Karnak are called the Shos, and whom we have concluded to 
 be a tribe of Palestine. Next he is seen attacking a fortress, in 
 the upper story of which is a chief whom he grasps by his helmet 
 and is preparing to behead with his scimitar. On the lower story 
 are several figures, in attitudes expressive of distress and consterna- 
 tion. One man holds out a censer towards the conqueror, as if in 
 propitiation of a god ; two females are imploring his clemency ; a 
 third, with similar purpose, is holding her child from the battle- 
 ments, from which a man is also precipitating himself. A prince 
 armed with an axe approaches the gate of the fortress to break it open. 
 
 Rosellini, Mon. Reali, pi. lxvii. 
 
228 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 No name occurs in any part of this scene ; but the costume is that 
 of the people whose name is read by Rosellini Shomui, by Champol- 
 lion Shan or Kharu\ and supposed to be Syrians. Men of the 
 same nation appear in the next compartment to be brought before 
 the king to receive their doom. He stands on a board beneath 
 which two of them are lying prostrate, and thus literally made his 
 footstool ; he grasps three by the head, and the prince leads a file 
 of others to him bound. A similar scene is represented in another 
 compartment, where the king holds his scimitar over the head of 
 a kneeling prisoner of Asiatic race. Finally he is seen, seated on 
 his throne, with a lion having his fore-paws bound couched at his 
 feet. Egyptians, evidently of military rank bearing emblems of 
 victory, stand in order before him, and one of the princes of 
 the blood brings three Asiatic prisoners bound. The inscription 
 appears to be a general summary of the triumphs recorded on 
 both walls, mention being made of victories over the Cushites as 
 well as the Shari 2 . 
 
 This is the principal historical monument of Rameses II.'s 
 reign ; for the obelisks of Luxor contain nothing beyond the cus- 
 tomary pompous and mystical phrases. It has been already men- 
 tioned, that the tomb in the Bab-el-Melook appears to have been 
 begun, but not carried on far by him. From this and other cir- 
 cumstances it has been concluded that his reign was not long. 
 
 He was succeeded by Rameses III. That he was the brother 
 of his predecessor appears from the Menephtheion 3 already men- 
 tioned, in which both of them stand before the figure of Meneph- 
 thah, and the inscription declares that they have come to render 
 homage to their father 4 . We have seen however that Rameses 
 II. had sons, and therefore we must suppose that they were dead, 
 or what is more probable, that their uncle set them aside and 
 
 1 See p. 192 of this vol. Vol. i. pp. 262, 263. 
 - Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, p. 18. 
 
 3 See p. 215 of this vol. 4 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, p. 263. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 229 
 
 mounted the throne — a proceeding not unsuitable to his energetic 
 character. He may even have dated his accession from his 
 father's death. That Rameses III. is the Sesostris of Herodotus 
 is no longer doubtful. Herodotus says that he had himself seen 
 in " Palestine of Syria 1 " the tablet which Sesostris set up in com- 
 memoration of his conquest. At the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, 
 the ancient Lycus, not far from Beiroot, three such tablets are 
 found, exhibiting an Egyptian king in the customary posture of 
 smiting his enemies. His name is not preserved, but the titular 
 shield is that of Rameses III. with the characters " approved of 
 Re." Further, Herodotus relates that Sesostris on his return to 
 Egypt set up a colossal statue of himself, thirty cubits (forty-five 
 feet) in height, before the temple of Ptah at Memphis. At Mitra- 
 henny we have seen that a colossal statue still exists 2 , forty-eight 
 feet in height, bearing not only the titular shield, but the phonetic 
 name of Rameses III. This proof is not so cogent as the preced- 
 ing, because we are not sure that this is the statue of which Hero- 
 dotus speaks, but even alone it would have furnished a strong 
 argument for the identity of the Sesostris of Herodotus with this 
 king. It does not prove that he was called Sesostris in the Egyp- 
 tian annals ; but it shows that one remarkable circumstance which 
 Herodotus relates of Sesostris is historically true of Rameses III., 
 and justifies our application of the written history, in which no 
 Rameses appears, to the monumental, in which the name of Sesos- 
 tris is not found. That we should be able to frame from their 
 union a narrative in which every part of both shall find a place, is 
 not to be expected. Diodorus complains that the Greeks did not 
 
 1 Trans, of Royal Soe. Lit vol. 3, p. 105, PI. 1, 2, 1st Series. Possibly 
 this may explain the tablets lv rj? HtpiaSiK?, yrj Kcijxtvwv from which, accord- 
 ing to Syncellus (p. 40, 73, ed. Dind.), the Pseud o-Manetho in the Sothis 
 professed to have derived his history. The inscriptions in the Wadi 
 Mokuttub are hardly of sufficient antiquity to be referred to. 
 
 » VoL i. p. 9t. 
 
230 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 agree with one another in what they related of Sesostris (his 
 Sesoosis), nor the priests with those who panegyrized him in song 1 . 
 He himself begins his narrative with a circumstance which betrays 
 its own origin in popular and poetical fiction. It is a characteristic 
 of such fictions to represent the birth and earliest years of those 
 who are afterwards to play a distinguished part, as corresponding 
 with their subsequent celebrity. The father of Sesostris collected 
 together all the male children who were born in Egypt on the 
 same day with him, and caused them all to be educated together, 
 that early familiarity might prepare them for friendly co-operation 2 . 
 Their training was such as the future conquerors of the world from 
 India to Thrace might well need ; none was allowed to take food 
 in the morning till he had run 180 stadia, at least eighteen miles. 
 While yet a youth he was sent with his companions by his father 
 to undergo a still further hardening in the deserts of Arabia, and 
 subdued its inhabitants, on whom the yoke had never been 
 imposed before. Next he was dispatched to the west, where he 
 subdued also the greater part of Libya. That some reason might 
 appear why his father anticipated such celebrity for his son and 
 educated him accordingly, it was said that Hephaistos appeared to 
 him in his sleep and foretold that the child who was about to be 
 born should be the conqueror of the world. On his father's death, 
 either relying on this oracle, or persuaded by his daughter Athvr- 
 tis, who was endowed with superior sagacity to all other women, 
 or had acquired her knowledge by divination, he determined to 
 undertake an expedition. 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 53. 
 
 3 Jomard, Description d'Egypte, Memoires, 9, 151, calculates, that if, 
 when Sesostris was twenty years of age, more than 1700 males, as Diodorus 
 says (1, 54), were living, born on the same day with him, 6800 children 
 must have been born every day of the year, and the whole population of 
 Egypt must have been 72,722,600. The scythe of statistics mows down 
 unmercifully the exuberances of mythology and rhetoric. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 231 
 
 We recognize here plainly enough the exaggerations natural to 
 the story of an heroic conqueror, whose memory has been fondly 
 cherished by the people and celebrated in popular poetry. Hero- 
 dotus relates no prodigies or incredible facts respecting the child- 
 hood of his Sesostris, but he makes his first expedition to be for 
 the subjugation of the people who dwelt on the shores of the Ery- 
 thraean Sea, that is the Indian Ocean. If he built his fleet of ships 
 of war in some of the harbors on the western side of the Red Sea, 
 and with them passed the Straits of Babelmandeb to subdue the 
 Ethiopians, it is difficult to understand how his further progress 
 could be stopped, as Herodotus says, by shallows. If, however, as 
 Diodorus represents 1 , he made a land expedition into Ethiopia, and 
 as he and Strabo say, from that coast entered the Arabian Gulf, 
 he might naturally enough be stopped by shallows, for the sand- 
 banks and coral-reefs make navigation along its shores towards 
 the northern end dangerous in the extreme to all who are not 
 familiar with them. These difficulties were experienced by JElius 
 Gall us when he undertook his expedition from the head of the 
 Gulf, against the Arabs, in the reign of Augustus ; and the tides 
 of the Red Sea, which embarrassed his navigation, must have been 
 still more formidable to Egyptian sailors in the reign of Sesostris 2 . 
 A fleet for the navigation of this sea would be more easily 
 constructed on the coast of Ethiopia, which abounded with wood, 
 than at Suez, Myos Hormos or Berenice, where no timber what- 
 ever is to be found. The subsequent exaggerations of Diodorus, 
 who makes Sesostris conquer the whole sea-coast to India, and 
 even pass the Ganges and reach the Eastern Ocean, do not belong 
 to the poetical fictions of the ancient Egyptians ; they indicate the 
 corruption of history from a more recent source — the desire of the 
 
 1 Diod. 1, 55. Strabo, 16, p. 769. 
 
 * Syllseus, who undertook to be his pilot, exposed his fleet to danger 
 
 fia%iats dXifievoig napa0a\cl)v, ?/ ^oipiSoiv itfiiXwv ftearais 17 Tt£>ayu>&tai ' i:\tlaTov 6i al 
 rr\r)niivpi6es i\vnovv kuI al d/^TraJrctj. (Strabo, 16, p. 780.) 
 
232 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 priests to exalt the conquests of Sesostris above those of the Mace- 
 donians, under whose dominion the land of the Pharaohs had 
 fallen. Diodorus, who assigns him 600,000 infantry, 24,000 
 cavalry and 27,000 chariots, includes the Cyclades in his conquests ; 
 Dictearchiis 1 , " the greater part of Europe." 
 
 The Greek historians represent Sesostris as of unusually lofty 
 stature ; Herodotus, according to the probable meaning of his 
 words, six feet nine inches 2 ; and this may perhaps be a cause why 
 he seems to have drawn to himself the fame of the Thothmes and 
 Menephthah, whose names are passed over by them. In the Egyp- 
 tian battle-pieces the sovereign is always of gigantic size, and to 
 those who could not read their names, they might all pass for one 
 and the same Sesostris 3 . 
 
 The historical and other monuments of the reign of Rameses III. 
 far exceed those of any preceding or subsequent sovereign, and 
 correspond with the long reign of upwards of sixty years which the 
 lists and the sculptures agree in attributing to him. The earliest 
 of these records is of the fifth year of his reign. His campaign of 
 this year is partially delineated on the walls of the propylaea of 
 Luxor, but much more fully on those of the temple of Aboosimbel. 
 So numerous are the pictures that they alone occupy twenty-five 
 plates in the great work of Rosellini 4 . The cost and labor involved 
 in first excavating this temple in the rock, and then covering it 
 with painted sculptures of nearly the size of life, are incalculable ; 
 yet they could never be seen, except when explored with artificial 
 light. At the time when this temple was excavated, the valley of 
 the Nile between the two Cataracts was no doubt much better 
 peopled than it has ever since been. But on this site there is no 
 appearance that any town has ever stood ; the Nile is close to the 
 
 1 Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 4, 272. 
 
 3 See note on fityaUos -t^nrrig (jniBa^n^ Kenrick's Egypt of Herodotus, 
 2, 106. 
 
 * See p. 138 of this vol. 4 Mon. Reali, tav. lxxix. ciii. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 233 
 
 front and the desert is behind, whence the sand has poured down 
 in streams, choked up the entrance to the temple, and buried the 
 colossal figure of the king. We can only conjecture therefore that 
 some unrecorded circumstance in the life of Rameses led him to fix 
 on this spot for a record of his gratitude 1 . 
 
 The pronaos of the temple, into which the traveller first enters 
 when he has worked his way through the sand, is supported by a 
 double row of eight pilasters, on the front of which stands, like a 
 Caryatid, the figure of Rameses with the attributes of Osiris, 
 thirty feet in height. The walls on the left or south side are 
 divided into several compartments, each of which represents some 
 action of the king; the right is occupied with a single subject, 
 itself comprehending a great variety of actions 2 . The two first on 
 the left side exhibit the victories of the king, accompanied by his 
 three sons 3 , one of whom is named Rameses, over the Asiatic 
 nations whose names are already known to us from the sculptures 
 offSetei Menephthah, African victories being also incidentally men- 
 tioned in the inscriptions. The artist has apparently had this 
 monument of Menephthah's reign in view, and imitated its compo- 
 sition and arrangement. In the next compartment are seen two 
 files of African prisoners led by the king to be presented to three 
 divinities 4 . These according to the usual theology should be 
 Amunre, Phre, and Maut ; but Rosellini has observed a singular 
 piece of flattery in the composition of the group 5 . The figure which 
 should represent Phre has the disk of the sun placed over it, but 
 the features are those of Rameses III. himself, the head-dress is 
 that of a king, and the legend above is, " Discourse of Amun-mai- 
 
 1 Rosellini supposes that here he may have met his queen, hy whom the 
 smaller temple was dedicated to Athor, on his return from his expedition. 
 (Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 167.) 
 
 2 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 89-119. 
 
 * Rosellini, u. s. p. 101. 4 Rosellini, M. R. tav. lxxxiv. v. vi. 
 
 Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 117. 
 
234 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Ramses, We grant thee life and perfect purity." The African 
 prisoners are colored alternately brown and black, but it may be 
 doubted whether this is meant to indicate the difference of color 
 between Nubians and negroes ; elsewhere we find the Egyptian ar- 
 tists using a contrast of color for the sake of relief. The features of 
 both the brown and the black men are equally negro, and their cos- 
 tume is the same. In their rude and awkward movements, and the 
 ludicrous expression of constraint and pain in their countenances, 
 the painter has exactly copied the workings of nature as they may 
 be seen at this day in the same people under similar circumstances. 
 
 The wall on the right-hand side represents, without divisions, a 
 series of actions in a campaign against the Sheto which may be 
 considered as the first military undertaking of Rameses III., as it 
 bears date the ninth of Epiphi, in the fifth year of his reign. The 
 whole composition contains more than eight hundred figures, and 
 the centre is occupied by the camp of the king, the various events 
 of the campaign being exhibited around the four sides 1 . The series 
 begins with an attack made by him on a fortified city standing on 
 a river, branches of which flow around its walls, and serve the pur- 
 pose of a trench. The enemy, who wear long-sleeved tunics, have 
 generally the head shaven, with the exception of a lock which falls 
 over the back of the neck, and wear moustachios. They fight from 
 chariots, but of much ruder construction than those of the Egyp- 
 tians, and each chariot carries three persons, a spearman, a chario- 
 teer and a shield-bearer. Their shields are of different forms, some 
 square, and apparently made of basket-work, others of wood with 
 incurved sides. The enemy are driven headlong to the fortress, 
 and some of them have been precipitated with their horses and 
 chariots into the river. Mixed with the chariots appear here and 
 there men mounted on horseback ; but as they are without armor, 
 and the horses without saddle or bridle, they seem as if they were 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 119, tav. Lxxxviil-ciiL 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 235 
 
 making their escape from the field on horses which in the conflict 
 had been detached from their harness, or else are acting as messen- 
 gers 1 . The battle-scene is followed by another, in which the king, 
 seated in his chariot, and surrounded by his guards and officers, 
 sees the amputated hands of his enemies thrown down before him, 
 and their number recorded by scribes. Other scenes of war occupy 
 the borders ; they generally resemble those which we have already 
 described. One of them, however, deserves a special notice ; two 
 men of the hostile nation are undergoing the bastinade, and from 
 the inscription above them it appears that they are detected spies. 
 
 The importance which the Egyptians attached to the events 
 of this campaign is evident from its repetitions at Thebes. 
 The scene represented on the propylaea of the great court of Luxor 
 is the same as that which we have just described 2 . We find again 
 the city round which the river flows assaulted by the Egyptians, 
 and some of the combatants with their chariots and horses preci- 
 pitated into it. The bastinading of the spies is also repeated, and 
 the centre is occupied, as at Aboosimbel, by a representation of the 
 camp. All doubt of their identity is removed by the date, which 
 is the fifth of Epiphi in the fifth year of the king, Rameses III., the 
 date of that of Aboosimbel being four days later. The Rameseion, 
 on the western bank of the Nile 3 , which was his work, repeats, with 
 some variations, the same subject 4 . The city on the river again 
 appears, but it has a double fosse, and a bridge over them connect- 
 ing it with the main land. The river is full of drowning men and 
 horses ; a chieftain has been dragged out on the bank, and his sol- 
 diers are endeavoring to restore him to life by holding him with 
 his head downwards. These men have evidently made a sally 
 from the city over the drawbridge, for the purpose of assisting and 
 
 1 The camp which has been already described (vol. i. p. 194) occupies 
 the centre ; a lion bound couches in the middle. 
 8 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 222, tav. civ.-cvii. 
 
 8 VoL i. p. 129. 4 Rosellini, u. 8. p. 232, tav. cix. ex. 
 
236 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 rescuing their friends whom the Egyptians have driven into the 
 river. In another part of the Rarneseion is represented the capture 
 of a second fortress. A scaling-ladder is applied to the walls, two 
 sons of Rameses are ascending upon it, and four others at the base 
 are leading as many bodies of men, who are sheltered by a large 
 wooden coverlet from the stones, lances, and arrows of the besieged. 
 Four other royal princes appear in different parts of the field. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus 1 , having described, on the authority of the 
 Egyptian priests and the Greek writers who had visited Thebes 
 under Ptolemy Lagi, the fore-courts of the monument of Osyman- 
 dyas and the colossal statues of the king, his wife and his mother, 
 proceeds : — " Next to the pylon," they say, " is a peristyle hall, 
 more wonderful than the preceding, in which are all sorts of carv- 
 iugs, representing the war which he waged with the revolted Bac- 
 trians. Against them he made an expedition with 400,000 
 infantry and 20,000 cavalry, the whole army being divided into 
 four parts, all of which sons of the king commanded. On the first 
 wall the king is represented besieging a fortress surrounded by a 
 river, and encountering some of his enemies, accompanied by a lion 
 who fights fiercely in aid of him. Some of those who expounded 
 the antiquities said that the king had really tamed a lion, which 
 fought for him and put his enemies to flight ; others, that being 
 haughtily vain of his valor, he expressed his own character by the 
 figure of a lion. On the second wall captives are represented with 
 their hands cut off, and otherwise mutilated, indicating that their 
 minds were effeminate, and that in their difficulties they had made 
 no vio-orous use of their hands. The third wall had carvings of 
 all kinds, and brilliant pictures representing a sacrifice by the king, 
 and a triumph on his return from the war." 
 
 There are circumstances in this description which identify the 
 so-called monument of Osymandyas 3 with the Rarneseion, and the 
 1 Hist. 1, 47. 
 
 3 2s o name like Osymandyas appears in tlie lists of Egyptian kings; but 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 237 
 
 sculptures of which Diodorus speaks with those which Rosellini has 
 drawn. Such are the river flowing round the fortress, and the four 
 sons of the king. It is true that he also mentions circumstances 
 which are not found here, as the fighting lion, and the mutilation 
 of the captives. But only a part of the original sculptures of the 
 Rameseion remains ; and as we have already seen that those of 
 Aboosimbel and Luxor are free copies of the same general subject, 
 we may restore and supply the one from the other ; and in one or 
 other all these circumstances are found. If then it be ascertained 
 that all these relate to the same event, we know from Diodorus 
 what that event was ; it was reputed to be, according to the Egyp- 
 tian priests, the campaign of Rameses against the revolted Bactri- 
 ans. Amidst all the uncertainty which attends the interpretation 
 of the hieroglyphical inscriptions, so much seems to be ascertained, 
 both from the words themselves, and from the comparison of the 
 nations who now appear in the field with those who are seen in the 
 battle-pieces of Setei Menephthah, that this was a second conquest, 
 and that consequently there had been a rebellion. There is no 
 name indeed which bears any resemblance to that of Bactrians ; 
 nor is it necessary to suppose that the country bore the same name 
 in the Ptolemaic times as in that of Rameses III. Yet the name 
 is remarkable, as it recurs in Tacitus. The priest who acted as 
 guide to Germanicus, related from the monuments of Thebes that 
 Rameses had possessed Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactriana, 
 and Scythia, with the territories which the Syrians, Armenians, 
 and their neighbors the Cappadocians inhabit, extending his domi- 
 nion to the Bithynian sea on the one side, and the Lycian on the 
 other 1 . Now we know from the monuments that the claim of 
 dominion over Libya, Ethiopia, and Syria, was well founded ; in 
 
 ISimandu, " son of the god Mandu" (see vol. i. p. 331), is the name of one of 
 the sons of Rameses III., and may have been a title of his father. (See 
 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. i. 277.) 
 1 Tac. Ann. 2, 60. 
 
238 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the time of Herodotus its memorials existed in Asia Minor, and 
 may yet perhaps be found there ; the valley of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates was familiar ground to the military sovereigns of the 
 18th and 19th dynasties. Confirmed in so many points, why 
 should not the accounts of the Egyptian priests be believed, when 
 they tell us that Media, Persia, and Bactriana were also the scene 
 of the conquests of Rameses ? Such were the first conclusions of 
 Champollion respecting the country of the Sheto and the other 
 nations who are represented as warring with Menephthah and his 
 successors; and upon the whole they appear to be the most pro- 
 bable. The expression of Herodotus, that he w T ent through " the 
 whole continent," subduing all whom he met, may be explained 
 by tw r o other passages, in which he uses the same expression, and 
 from which it is evident that it included all Asia, from the shores 
 of the JEo-ean to the eastern limits of Media and Persia 1 . 
 
 o 
 
 One of the strong evidences of the wide range which the expe- 
 ditions of Rameses and other Egyptian sovereigns took in Asia, 
 was the resemblance which the Colchians bore to the Egyptians. 
 Herodotus does not speak from hearsay on this point ; he had 
 been among the Colchians, and had made inquiries both from them 
 and the Egyptians. He ackuowledges that the resemblance of 
 their dark complexions and crisp hair was not decisive ; other 
 nations had these peculiarities ; but he lays more stress upon their 
 linen manufacture, their whole mode of life, their language, and 
 their practice of circumcision. It was an ancient usage only 
 among the Colchians, Egyptians and Ethiopians ; for the Syrians 
 in Palestine (by whom, though ignorant of their distinct nation- 
 
 1 1, 96 'Eovtiov avrovofiOiv tt&vtuv d v a t t] v t t tt £ i pe v } a>6e av-ic eg rvpavviSas 
 
 ■nepiriXOov. From the comparison of this passage with the beginning of c. 95, 
 it is evident that " all on the continent" means all who were subsequently 
 included in the dominion of Persia (4, 91). Darius calls himself on the 
 stele, which he set up near the Hebrus, {Itpahw rs roi it dam rfjs f/ntipov 
 fiaotXcvs* 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 239 
 
 ality, he must have meant the Jews,) and the Phoenicians acknow- 
 ledged to have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Cappadocians 
 from the Colchians 1 . Pindar calls the Colchians dark-com- 
 plexioned, speaking probably according to the received opinion of 
 his contemporaries. The later geographers and Ammianus Mar- 
 cellinus 9 may have only repeated Herodotus. As we know no- 
 thing of the Colchian language, we cannot bring to the test the 
 declaration of Herodotus that they were similar ; nor is much 
 stress to be laid upon it, as his knowledge of the Egyptian language 
 was very limited ; but the correspondence of their mode of life was 
 a matter in which he could not be mistaken. The Colchians were 
 certainly a civilized and instructed people 3 , living among tribes 
 remarkable for their rudeness, and no other source of this supe- 
 riority appears so natural as a settlement of the soldiers of Sesos- 
 tris 4 . He remarks that when he inquired of both nations, he 
 found that the Colchians preserved more memory of the Egyptians 
 than the Egyptians of the Colchians. This was natural under 
 any circumstances ; but if Pliny's account be correct, that Sesostris 
 was defeated by Salauces, son of ^Eetes and king of Colchis, the 
 silence of the Egyptians would be very intelligible 6 . The wealth 
 of Colchis in gold, of which Pliny speaks, and which gave rise to 
 the fable of the fleece, accounts for the Egyptian king's including 
 this remote country in the range of his expedition. 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 376. Her. 2, 103. 
 
 2 22, 8. Colchos, ^Egyptiorum antiquam sobolem. 
 
 * Bochart, Geogr. Sacr. lib. 4, c. 31. 
 
 4 Ritter, the celebrated geographer, in his " Vorhalle Europaischer Vol- 
 kergeschichte," denies the Egyptian origin of the Colchians, and derives 
 them from India. One of his proofs will excite a smile at the present day: 
 "the Egyptians," he says, "in early times, according to the unanimous tes- 
 timony of antiquity, kept themselves to their native country " (p. 40). 
 
 * Plin. N. H. 33, 15. Salauces, JEetse soboles (Cod. Bamb. vulg. ^Esubopes), 
 victo Sesostri, ^Egypti regi tarn superbo, ut prodatur annis quibusque sorte 
 reges singulos e subjectis jungere ad curruui solitus, atque ita triumphare. 
 
240 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Herodotus does not mention how long the absence of Sesostris 
 lasted. Diodorus makes it nine years, nor is this improbable. 
 Both historians relate that he had made his brother viceroy in his 
 absence, and that on his return his life was exposed to danger at 
 Daphne near Pelusium from his treachery. He invited the con- 
 queror to a banquet in his tent, and when he had fallen asleep 
 under the influence of wine, set fire to a quantity of combustibles 
 which he had piled on the outside. Sesostris awaking and find- 
 ing his imminent danger, prayed to the gods for the deliverance of 
 himself and his children : his prayer was heard, and he escaped 
 through the flames. To show his gratitude, he offered gifts to the 
 other gods, but especially to Hephaistos, as the principal cause of 
 his escape. As related by Herodotus the story is still more por- 
 tentous. Discovering his danger, he consults with his wife, who 
 advises him to take two of their six children, and make a bridge 
 of them across the flames. He did so, the children were burnt, 
 but Sesostris and his wife escaped. In gratitude for their preser- 
 vation he erected statues of himself and his wife thirty cubits 
 high, and of his sons, twenty cubits high, before the temple 
 of Hephaistos at Memphis 1 . This tale betrays its origin in 
 an age when Egyptian tradition had begun to be corrupted 
 by a desire to conform to Greek ideas. To the Greeks the Mem- 
 phian Ptah was the god of fire ; and what cause more natural 
 for the erection of the family group in costly statues, than their 
 deliverance from burning ? It does not often happen that Dio- 
 
 1 Rameses III. appears to have had twenty-three sons, but four are seen 
 conspicuously on several of the monuments (Rosellini, M. Stor. iii. 2, 240, 
 2o5), and this might give rise to the popular opinion that all but four had 
 perished. (Birch, Gall. Brit. Mus. 204.) 
 
 Besides Nofre- Atari, who dedicated the smaller temple at Aboosimbel to 
 Athor, he had another wife, Isinofre, who appears along with him in the 
 inscriptions at Silsilis, accompanied by two sons and a daughter. (Rosellini, 
 Mon. Stor. 1, 272.) 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 241 
 
 dorus is more moderate and rational than Herodotus ; but it is so 
 here. Neither author gives the entire story ; Diodorus does not 
 mention the burning of the children, nor Herodotus say that the 
 statues were erected in memory of the escape, but both circum- 
 stances are necessary to complete the narrative. 
 
 Herodotus and Diodorus describe Sesostris on his return from 
 his long expedition as devoting himself to public works and to 
 legislation. The captives whom he brought back were employed 
 in dragging stones to the temple which he built to Hephaistos, and 
 others which according to Diodorus 1 he erected in the chief city 
 of every nome to its tutelary deity, placing on all of them an 
 inscription purporting that they had been raised by the labor of 
 captives and not of Egyptians. Some of these captives, who had 
 been brought from Babylon, unable to endure the severity of their 
 labor, rose and seized upon a strong post near the Nile and not 
 far from Memphis, to which they gave the name of Babylon, 
 whence they laid waste the neighboring country. If it were true 
 that they defied the power of the king and at last established 
 themselves here in security, as Diodorus says, this would give us 
 no high idea of the power of the Egyptian monarchy. Tradition, 
 however, varied in regard to the origin of the name ; Ctesias 
 derived it from an invasion of Egypt by Semiramis ; Josephus with 
 most probability refers it to the invasion of Cambyses 2 . Sesostris 
 raised mounds of earth, to which he removed the inhabitants of 
 those towns which were in danger of being flooded in the inun- 
 dation of the Nile ; cut canals through the whole of Lower Egypt 3 , 
 
 1 1, 56. 3 Antiq. Jud. 2, 15. 
 
 8 Diodorus represents this as being done partly to render Egypt inacces- 
 sible to cavalry and chariots ; Herodotus to supply fresh water to parts 
 remote from the river. The country having been rendered unfit for 
 wheeled carriages by the cutting of canals, it was a natural fiction to attri- 
 bute to him the introduction of mounted cavalry. Upajrov <p*j\v airdv 
 ffyifirfrai [tvo»v a; d(iwirur em/iaiveiv. (Schol. ApolL Rhod. 1, 2*72.) 
 
 VOL. II. 11 
 
242 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 and built a wall, 1500 stadia in length, from Pelusium to Helio- 
 polis, to defend the frontier of Egypt from the invasion of the 
 Syrians and Arabs. According to Herodotus he distributed all 
 the lands of Egypt, assigning to each man his " rood of ground," 
 and laid a land-tax upon them. Even the institution of the law 
 of hereditary occupations was attributed to Sesostris (Sesonchosis) 
 by Dicoearchus and Aristotle 1 . That a reign so long and vigorous 
 would witness many improvements in legislation, many works of 
 public utility, we cannot doubt ; we know that Rameses III. 
 covered Nubia 2 and Egypt with memorials of his devotion to the 
 gods and his magnificence in building ; but when the raising of 
 the sites of all the cities, the cutting of all the canals, the division 
 of the whole land of the kingdom, the distribution of the people 
 into castes, are attributed to him, we see the tendency of popular 
 history to crowd into one reign the progressive improvements of 
 many. Egypt had been a civilized kingdom long before Rameses 
 III., and those undertakings which are essential to its prosperity and 
 order had probably been the gradual work of several sovereigns. 
 
 The hieratic manuscript known by the name of the Papyrus of 
 Sallier, is said to contain an account of a war carried on by 
 Rameses III. 3 with the Sheto in the ninth year of his reign; but 
 the import of this document is hitherto so little known, that we 
 must content ourselves with indicating the fact, that four years 
 later than the events which have been just described, he was still 
 involved in hostilities with them. 
 
 The south wall of the palace of Karnak contains an inscription 
 dated in the twenty-first year of the reign of Rameses and the 
 
 1 Pol. 7, 10. 'O Si ^wpio-/iof b kclto yevos tov koXitikov nMBovs i% Aiyvirrov' 
 «roXv yap vmpTtivti toi$ yp6vois tt]v MiVoj fia<ri\tiav f) YitaoxTTpios. 
 a They are found at Ibrim, Derri, Amada, and Wadi Esseboua, 
 3 " Several hieratic papyri, which we still possess, are dated from the 
 Rameseion, and I have found in Thebes the sepulchres of two librarians, 
 father and son, under Rameses Meiamun." (Lepsius, Einleitung, 1, 39.) 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 243 
 
 twenty-first day of Tybi, in which it is recorded that four chiefs 
 of the Sheto came to the tent of his majesty to supplicate for 
 peace, who granted it to them on condition of their paying 
 tribute in silver, gems, and balsam or spicery 1 . We learn little 
 from this document respecting the events of this war or revolt. A 
 phrase in the inscription (1, 8 at the end) seems to imply that a 
 battle had been fought in the land of Egypt ; but the connexion 
 is not sufficiently clear to warrant the supposition that the Sheto 
 had actually invaded Egypt. It is remarkable that in this docu- 
 ment three of the gods of Egypt, and Sut or Sutch, the god of the 
 Sheto, who resembles the figure called Typhon or Seth in the 
 Egyptian monuments, are represented as taking a share in the 
 events of the war and the conclusion of the peace, on behalf of 
 their respective worshippers 2 . 
 
 This is the latest memorial that has been found of the wars of 
 Rameses III. The temple of Aboosimbel, however, contains a 
 large stele evidently later in its erection than the edifice itself, 
 dated the 13th of the month Tybi and the 35th of his reign 3 . 
 Its purport is rather religious than historical. He appears upon it, 
 preparing to smite three foreigners in honor of the god Ptah- 
 Sokari. A long inscription contains the discourse of this divinity 
 to the king, in which he declares that he and the other gods have 
 granted to him that his edifices should be stable as the pillars of 
 heaven, and promise that he shall celebrate many panegyries, that 
 he shall conquer his enemies, and that the rest of the world shall 
 be obedient to him, like the Sheto represented on the walls of this 
 temple. The king in reply boasts of having enlarged and adorned 
 the temple of the god in the habitation of Ptah, that is Memphis, 
 his peculiar dwelling-place. We know from Herodotus and Dio- 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, p. 268, tav. cxvi. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 280, note. This may possibly throw light 
 on the obliteration of the figure of Seth. See vol. i. p. 350. 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, p. 163. 
 
244 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 dorus what he did for the enlargement and decoration of this 
 temple ; the prostrate colossal statue of Mitrahenny bears the 
 image of Ptah and the contemplar goddess Pasht, in the tablet on 
 the breast and the shield on the belt 1 . The quarries of Silsilis 
 contain several stelae in which mention is made of panegyries cele- 
 brated by Rameses III. in his 30th, 34th, 37th, 40th and 44th 
 years. The last appears to have been celebrated on a larger scale 
 than usual, the cities of Upper and Lower Egypt being specially 
 mentioned as taking part in them 2 . 
 
 The smaller temple at Aboosimbel was dedicated by Nofreari 3 , 
 queen of Rameses, to the goddess Athyr, and contains chiefly reli- 
 gious inscriptions, but also some in honor of Rameses III., whose 
 victories over the nations of Africa, over the north and the south, 
 are commemorated, but without any precise dates. The face of 
 the rock from which these temples were excavated, also exhibits 
 sculptures of various kinds, and among them some of historical 
 import. One records an act of homage to Rameses III., in the 
 38th year of his reign, on the part of an Ethiopian prince, Sote- 
 kauto 4 , holding the office of basilicogrammat. Neither here, nor in 
 the other numerous examples of such homage, do the persons render- 
 ing it exhibit any trace of Ethiopian features or appear in Ethiopian 
 costume. They invoke the gods of Egypt, offer prayers for the 
 Pharaohs 5 , and are in every respect Egyptian. Either therefore 
 
 1 Bonomi, in Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit, 2nd Series, 2, 300. 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. del Culto, p. 230. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 173 ; Mon. Reali, tav. cxi. 
 
 4 Rosellini, u. s. p. 187. lie is called "the living eyes of the king" and 
 "ears of the chamberlains of the royal house." Compare Jul. Poll. ii. 84. 
 
 'Eh-a\oivro Sc rives cj ra /cat d^>0uX^oi /JaaiAtuj ot rd AfyduaV hayytWov rej 
 Kail rh bp&jitva. 
 
 6 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, p. 189. Rameses III. added two lateral 
 columns to the inscriptions on the obelisks of Luxor, erected by Rameses 
 II., but they contain no historical information. The colossal statues of 
 granite which (vol. i. p. 144) are attributed to Rameses II. should belong to 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 245 
 
 Nubia between the Cataracts were governed in this age by Egyp- 
 tian princes, or, as seems more probable from the multitude of 
 temples of that religion, its population was Egyptian. One of these 
 inscriptions on the rocks of Aboosimbel is important, as declaring 
 that Rameses had employed the captives of his Asiatic wars in 
 building the temples of the gods 1 . 
 
 Aristotle and Strabo inform us that Sesostris undertook, Pliny 
 that he meditated 2 , the construction of a canal to join the Nile with 
 the Red Sea. Herodotus, when he relates the similar undertaking 
 of Neco 3 , makes no mention of Sesostris, and it is probable that 
 the undertaking has been attributed to him from the celebrity of 
 his name 4 . 
 
 The tablet which Rameses III. caused to be erected at Abydos, 
 containing the shields of his predecessors, has been already 
 described. Setei Menephthah appears to have been the builder of 
 the temple or palace, the greater part of which is now buried in 
 the sand, and to have begun the temple of Osiris, which his son 
 Rameses III. completed. 
 
 Eusebius gives sixty-eight years to Rameses, and his sixty-second 
 is found on a tablet in the British Museum. This collection also 
 contains one of the finest specimens of Egyptian sculpture, in his 
 colossal bust of red granite, the remains of a statue once placed in 
 the Rameseion of western Thebes and removed thence by Belzoni 5 . 
 
 Mention has been already made of the tomb in the valley of 
 
 Rameses HL, according to the criterion laid down in p. 225 of this 
 volume. 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. 1, 56. Tlpng ras epyaaias rwi/ /ilv A.iyvnTia)v ov&iva 7n>pcAa/?f, <5i' 
 avrdv de tcjv ai^jiaXtoTuiv atTavra KaTeviccvaore. Aionep eiri iratn tols lepois intypatpw 
 ws ovSds iyxupios tii aira ^d^fl/KC The niai is an exaggeration. 
 
 2 Meteor. 1, 14. Strabo, lib. 1, p. 38. Plin. N. PI. 6, 29. 
 8 2, 158. 
 
 4 Lepsius (Einl. 1, 349) thinks that Sesostris carried his canal only to the 
 eastern extremity of the valley of Goshen. 
 
 6 Birch, Gall, of Brit Mus. p. 104. Vol. i. p. 130. 
 
246 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Bab-el-Melook in which the shields of both the second and the 
 third Rameses occur. Rosellini, who entered it with difficulty, 
 found it nearly filled with rubbish, either washed down by torrents 
 or purposely brought in when it was abandoned 1 . It has not been 
 explored to its furthest extremity, but there is no appearance that 
 it was ever elaborately executed, as we might expect in the tomb 
 of so powerful a monarch, and one who reigned so long. Was 
 the great Sesostris content with having covered Egypt with monu- 
 ments of his magnificence and indifferent to the splendor of his 
 sepulchre, or are we to believe that the Rameseion was his burial- 
 place as well as his palace ? Such a combination would be very 
 repugnant to Egyptian usages, and yet the authors whom Diodo- 
 rus 2 followed distinctly asserted that the tomb of the sovereign who 
 built the Rameseion lay apart from those of the rest of the kings, 
 and was approached by a flight of steps from the palace. It may 
 therefore remain to be discovered. 
 
 With Rameses III. we lose the guidance of the Tablet of Abydos, 
 but the procession at Medinet Aboo gives us a royal titular shield, to 
 which it appears from other monuments that the name of Meneph- 
 thah II, belongs 3 . Herodotus represents Sesostris as being suc- 
 ceeded by his son Pheron, whose name historians are agreed in con- 
 sidering as a misunderstood Pharaoh. Diodorus gives him as suc- 
 cessor Sesoosis II., confounding him probably with the next but one 
 in order, Setei Menephthah II. The Rameseion contains the portraits 
 and names and offices of the twenty-three sons of Rameses III. ; 
 the thirteenth, Menephthah, bears the addition of king, which has 
 evidently been made by a later hand, and subsequently to his 
 accession to the throne. Six princesses, elegantly clothed and with 
 a sistrum in their hands, are figured in the same place 4 . No pro- 
 
 1 Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 284. 2 1, 49. 
 
 8 Instead of the phonetic characters for Ptah, the last syllable is expressed 
 "by the figure of the god. (Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 1, 204. Lin. iv. 12.) 
 4 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. L 275, 6, 1. iii. 2, 297. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 247 
 
 perly historical monuments of his reign exist; he appears atSilsilis 
 in acts of adoration to various divinities 1 , among the rest the Nile, 
 who was worshipped wiih especial honor at this place, where he 
 seems to issue again as from a second source. Nor does any great 
 building appear to have been erected by this king ; when his name 
 is found, it is on trifling additions made to the works of preceding 
 monarchs. The fourth year is the highest date that has yet been 
 found on his monuments. His tomb in the Bab-el-Melook is 167 
 feet in length, and has been ornamented with great care in the 
 portions near the entrance, and one piece of sculpture still remains 
 of which the colors are as brilliant as when they were first laid on 2 . 
 Menephthah, crowned with a splendid head-dress, and clad in a 
 long transparent robe fringed at the bottom, stands before the 
 hawk-headed god Phre, who promises him length of days upon 
 the throne 3 . This is a sufficient proof of the custom of excavating 
 the tomb during the lifetime of the king. The name of the suc- 
 cessor of the Rameses, who, according to Eusebius, reigns sixty- 
 eight years, according to Josephus sixty-six, and who must there- 
 fore be Rameses-Sesostris, is in Africanus, Amenophath, who reigns 
 nineteen years. Removing the A, which may have been prefixed 
 as in Armesses, Menophath approaches closely to Menephthah. 
 With him the 18th dynasty of Manetho concludes. 
 
 To the reign of this Menephthah it appears probable that we 
 are to refer the commencement of a Sothiac cycle. It has been 
 already stated that the 1461 years of which it was composed, hav- 
 ing run out in 139 a. d., must have begun in 1322 b. c. 4 If there- 
 fore we could ascertain in what year of what king of Egypt it 
 began, we should have a fixed point for our chronological reckon- 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 298. 
 
 3 Wilkinson, Mod Eg. & Thebes, 2, 211. Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 306. 
 8 Rosellini, Mon. Reali, tav. exviii. A east of this sculpture was taken 
 by Mr. Hay, and is in the British Museum. (Birch, Gall. pL 41.) 
 * VoL i. p. 280. 
 
248 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ings. Now a passage in the writings of the Alexandrian astrono- 
 mer and mathematician Theon, published by Larcher in his Notes 
 to Herodotus, implies that this cycle had one of its beginnings, if 
 not its institution, in the reign of a certain king Menophres 1 . As 
 there is no king in the lists whose name exactly answers to this, 
 Champollion-Figeac conjectured that the king intended was the 
 Ammenephthes or Amenophis who stands third in the list of the 
 19th dynasty, and the year of the commencement of the cycle the 
 thirty-second of his reign 3 . Bunsen has given reasons, as convinc- 
 ing as the nature of the evidence allows, for considering Meneph- 
 thah II. as the king intended 3 . We have thus a fixed point from 
 which we can reckon downward to the reign of Sheshonk, and 
 thence to the Dodecarchy and the close of the monarchy of the 
 Pharaohs, with tolerable certainty, and upwards at least to the com- 
 mencement of the 18th dynasty. The astronomical ceiling at the 
 
 1 A.a\il3avoficv ra and M.tvo<ppto}s ecos rrjs X/)£eo>s Avyovorov. 'O/xov ra. intavva- 
 •ydfieva trr\ otj ininpocTiQovntv ra and rij? «p%?7s AioK\r)rtavov trrj p'' yiiovrai 
 
 oftov ern gxpe. "The sum of the years from" (the sera of) "Menophres to the 
 end of" (the sera of) "Augustus is 1605, to which adding the 100 years 
 from the beginning of (the sera of) Diocletian, we have altogether 1705 
 years." The sera of Diocletian began the 29th of August, a. d. 284. (Ideler, 
 Handb. der Chron. 1, 163; Champollion-Figeac, Premiere Lettre a M. le 
 Due de Blacas, p. 100.) Deducting the 283 years of the Christian sera 
 which preceded it, from 1605, the joint duration of the two preceding seras, 
 we have 1322 b. c. for the commencement of that of Menophres. This is 
 the year in which we know from Censorinus (vol. i. p. 280, 281, note) that 
 a Sothiac cycle began. 
 
 3 Syncellus (p. 103, 193, ed Dind.) says, Tw t (5th) trti tov Kt (25th) 
 
 3a<n\tx>aavTos K.oyxapt(x>s rrjs Aiyvnrov, inl <r' Svvaardas tov fcvvtxov \tyofttvov 
 Kvk\ov, and tov npcorov (iaoi'Xtuis koX oikigtov MfffTjOut/x rrjs A.iyvnrov n\ripovi>rai irrj 
 
 xp' (700) (3aai\zo>v Kt. Champollion-Figeac joined the words n^powrai im t// 
 with tov K.WIK0V ^tyofiivov kvkXov, instead of with (3aai\ta>v k'z, and hence con- 
 cluded, that the fifth year of Concharis, the last king before the Hyksos, 
 fell in the 700th year of a Sothiac cycle. See Bunsen's Egypt, 1, 221, Eng. 
 8 Bunsen, iEgyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 123. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 249 
 
 Rameseion 1 , if erected near the close of the reign of Rameses- 
 Sesostris, would exhibit the state of the heavens as they appeared 
 in the beginning of that of his successor. The reign of Sesostris 
 was one of the times assigned for the appearance of the Phoenix 2 . 
 
 After the death of Menephthah we have again difficulties from 
 the want of conformity between the monuments and the lists, and 
 discrepancies among the monuments themselves. In the proces- 
 sion of Medinet Aboo, the next shield to that of Menephthah is 
 Setei-Menephthah II., i. e. Sethos, whom the lists make the first 
 of the 1 9th dynasty. But we find on monuments the shields of 
 two other personages with titles of royalty, whose names read 
 Mai-n-Phre Siphthah 3 and Amun-meses. Siphthah appears at 
 Silsilis making an offering to Amunre, accompanied by an officer 
 of his court, who puts up a prayer for the king ; and in another 
 sculpture Siphthah supplicates Amunre that his son, Numei, may 
 sit on the throne after him, a prayer nowhere else found on Egyp- 
 tian monuments, and from which it has been argued that he felt 
 doubtful of the stability of his own power 4 . At Qoorneh, he is 
 represented on a stele inserted into the wall, receiving from the 
 same god the scimitar, the emblem of military dominion, Setei- 
 Menephthah L, Rameses III., and Aahmes the queen of Amenoph 
 I,, standing by 6 . The presence of these persons seems to indicate 
 seme genealogical connexion with the 18th dynasty on the part of 
 Siphthah, although we are unable to say what it may have been. 
 His tomb in the Bab-el-Melook 6 is of great length, and ornamented 
 with a variety of sculpture. His wife Taoser, Taosiri, or Taseser, 
 appears frequently making offerings to the gods, sometimes alone, 
 sometimes in company with her husband. As the epithet Osirian 
 
 1 Yol. i. p. 281. The expression " Rameses II. or III." indicates the doubt 
 whether these sovereigns were the same or different. 
 
 8 Tacit Ann. 6, 28. 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 324. 
 
 4 Rosellini, u. s. 829. 6 Rosellini, u. s. 330. 
 
 6 Ko. 14 on Sir G. Wilkinson's Plan. Rosellini, u s. 331. 
 
 11* 
 
250 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 (fj.axap(V7]£) is subjoined to her name, it is evident that she was 
 deceased when these sculptures were executed. There is no date 
 on any of the monuments of Siphthah, but everything tends to 
 show that he was not admitted as a legitimate monarch of Egypt, 
 though he assumed the title, and had for a time possession of 
 Upper Egypt, so as to prepare himself a sepulchre at Thebes 1 . 
 Of Amun-meses we know still less than of Siphthah, but he seems 
 also to have been an intrusive king, and the circumstance that a 
 change of dynasty took place about this time may account for 
 their appearance in monuments and their exclusion from the lists. 
 
 Assuming the end of the reign of Rameses III., or the commence- 
 ment of that of Menephthah II., to fall in the year b.c. 1322, and 
 that Rameses III. reigned 66 years, we are brought to 1388 b.c. 
 for the date of his accession. There is no certainty in the num- 
 bers assigned by the lists to his predecessors ; but we know from 
 the monuments that Amenophis III. reigned at least 36 years, 
 Thothmes III. at least 35, and Amosis 22 ; while Rameses I. 
 reigned probably only one or two years. If we allot to the twelve 
 predecessors of Rameses III. twenty years each, we shall be brought 
 to 1628 b.c. as an approximate date for the establishment of the New 
 Monarchy. If, however, the kings whom we have distinguished 
 as Rameses II. and III. were one and the same, only eleven reigns 
 intervened between Rameses III. and Amosis. 
 
 Nineteenth Dynasty. Seven Diospolitan kings. 
 (Eus. Five.) 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Sethos, reigned 51 Eus. 55. 
 
 2. Rapsaces (Rampses, Eus.) 61 Eus. 66. 
 
 3. Ammenephthes 20 Eus. 40. 
 
 4. Rameses 60 Omitted Eus. 
 
 5. Ammenemnes 6 Eus. 26. 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. hi. 2, p. 319. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 251 
 
 Years. 
 
 6. Thuoius, called in Homer Polybus, the husband of 
 
 Alcandra 1 , in whose time Troy was taken . . 7 
 
 204 
 
 " In this same second volume of Manetho are 96 
 kings, 2121 years." 
 
 It could not escape the observation of critics, that the com- 
 mencement of this dynasty bore a very suspicious resemblance to 
 the termination of the last 2 . We have Rampses reigning 66 years, 
 followed by Ammenephthes, who reigns 40 in the 19th, and Rarae- 
 ses reigning 68, followed by an Amenophis reigning 40, (Euseb.) 
 in the 18th. The names Ramesses, Armesses, Armais, Armaios, 
 Ermaios, if we strike out the vowels, which were not originally 
 expressed, reduce themselves to the same three letters, R, M, S, and 
 therefore probably denote the same name, if not the same person ; 
 nor are Rampses and Rapsaces so remote from Rameses as to pre- 
 clude the possibility of their also being the same. Amenophis, 
 Amenophath, and Ammenephthes so nearly resemble each other, as 
 to excite a similar suspicion, especially as the Amenophath of the 1 8th 
 dynasty reigns 19 years, Amenophis of the 19th, 19 years and 6 
 months 8 , and Ammenephthes, 20. Again, the Sethos-Rameses of 
 Manetho, quoted by Josephus, is so exactly a counterpart of Sesos- 
 tris-Rameses, that we cannot hesitate to pronounce their histories to 
 be the same in origin 4 . " Sethos, who is also Rameses," says he, 
 
 1 In the Armenian Eusebius Thuoris is said to be " vir strenuus ac fortis- 
 simus," as if the translator had read aXxavSpos drip, which is the reading of 
 two MSS. of Syncellus, p. 169 D. 320 ed. Dind. 
 
 3 "Hi ipsi reges, ultimi Dynastiae 18 et primi Dyn. 19, valde mihi sunt 
 euspecti tanquam iidem, bis positi et male in diversos distincti, quum utique 
 eadem sint nomina regum, idem ordo, idem denique spatium regni." 
 (Perizon. iEgypt. Orig. Investig. c. xii. p. 194.) 
 
 3 The authors of the lists have suppressed the odd months everywhere, as 
 we find by comparing them with the quotation from Manetho in Josephus. 
 
 4 Joseph, c. Apion. 1, 15. 
 
252 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 " had a large force of ships and cavalry. He established his brother 
 Armais as administrator of Egypt, and invested him with all other 
 royal authority, only enjoining upon him not to wear the diadem, 
 nor to injure the queen, the mother of his children, and to abstain 
 from the royal harem. He himself having made an expedition to 
 Cyprus and Phcenice, and again to the Assyrians and the Medes, 
 brought them all under subjection, some by force of arms, others 
 without fighting, through terror of his great power ; and being 
 rendered proud by his success, he went on yet more boldly, sub- 
 duing cities and lands that lay towards the East. After the lapse 
 of a considerable time, Armais, who had been left behind in Egypt, 
 began to do boldly just the reverse of what his brother had exhort- 
 ed him to do. He took the queen-mother to himself by force, 
 and did not abstain from the harem 1 ; and at the persuasion of 
 his friends he began to wear the diadem, and set himself up against 
 his brother. Sethos was informed of these things by the chief 
 priest, and immediately returned to Pelusium and took possession 
 of his kingdom. And the country was called Aiguptos from his 
 name ; for he says that Sethosis was called Aiguptos, and Armais, 
 his brother, Danaus." Here we have evidently the same narrative 
 as in Diodorus and Herodotus respecting Sesostris ; the great force 
 of ships and cavalry, the conquest of Hither Asia, the invasion and 
 subjugation of countries lying still further East (the Bactrians of 
 Diodorus), the distinction between the nations who timidly sub- 
 mitted and those who resisted by force of arms, the usurpation of 
 power by his brother, and the resumption of it by Sesostris at Pe- 
 lusium. The recital of Manetho, it is important to observe, since 
 his authority has been often so lightly treated, is simple and histori- 
 cal ; it is in Herodotus and Diodorus that we have it embellished 
 and exaggerated from popular tradition. 
 
 The monuments strengthen the suspicion which the lists excite. 
 
 1 Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 20. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 253 
 
 We have seen that the 62nd year of Rameses III. has been found ; 
 but there is no trace of any other king of these dynasties reigning 
 so long. We are therefore led to conclude that the Rameses of 
 the 19th dynasty, who reigns sixty years, and the Rampses, who 
 reigns 66, are one and the same historical personage, Rameses III. 
 of the 18th. The identity of Amenophis and Ammenephthes can- 
 not be proved by the same argument, because the monuments, 
 instead of 40, which the lists exhibit, have hitherto furnished us 
 only with 4 years. But only one king has been found whose 
 name can with any probability be read into Amenophath. The 
 Ammenemes, who now stands fifth in the 19th dynasty, is, accord- 
 ing to Lepsius and Bunsen, the Amenmeses of the monuments, a 
 contemporary and rival of Menophthes, the last of the 18th. 
 
 Thus when critically examined, the whole 19th dynasty appears 
 to collapse, and resolve itself into a repetition of the 18th, with 
 the exceptions of Sethos the first, and Thuoris the last name. 
 The Sethos of the extracts from Manetho's history in Josephus 
 is only a synonym of Rameses-Sesostris ; the Sethos of the lists 
 and the monuments is Setei Menephthah II. (p. 249). He is 
 called Osirei-Menephthah by Rosellini 1 and Wilkinson, as the 
 figure of Osiris occurs instead of Set in some variations of the 
 shield, namely in the tomb, and among the ruins of Karnak, as 
 well as on some of the sphinxes of the dromos, which were origi- 
 nally placed there by Horus 2 . A sarcophagus with his shield, 
 rudely carved, is found in his tomb in the Bab-el-Melook 3 , and 
 these are all the memorials of his reign, which can hardly have 
 extended to fifty-five years, according to the present reading of the 
 monuments. The second is the highest that has been found. Ac- 
 cording to all appearance, it was both a short and an inactive one. 
 
 In the monuments nothing has come to light by which the 
 name Thuoris can be explained. Polybus is not spoken of in 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 311, 313. 
 
 ■ Rosellini, u. s. p. 809. 3 Rosellini, u. s. p. 814. 
 
254 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Homer 1 as a king of Thebes, but as a rich, man by whom splendid 
 gifts were bestowed on Menelaus, while his wife Alcandra (not 
 very consistently with the Herodotean story of Proteus) gave 
 appropriate similar presents to Helena. That we should not find 
 an Egyptian king to answer to every name which the Greeks inter- 
 wove in their mythology is not surprising ; yet as fiction is not 
 wholly arbitrary, we might have expected some apparent reason 
 for the selection of this name. Bunsen would read for Thuoris, 
 Phuoris. Were this admitted, a probable derivation would be 
 from Ptiouro, which is Egyptian for ' king ' 2 . Phuoris would 
 then be a name, like Pheron, inserted in the room of one that had 
 been lost or was unknown. It is in this way that we find Pharaoh 
 used in the earlier Jewish books, while in the latter and contempo- 
 rary history, Shishak, Hophra, Necho are mentioned by name. 
 No such sovereign is found in the procession of Medinet Aboo, nor 
 can we trace any resemblance in the history of Pheron to that of 
 Thuoris. Pheron, the son of Sesostris, loses his sight, either by 
 hereditary disease, or as a punishment for impiously darting his 
 javelin into the Nile when its inundation was exceeding bounds, 
 and recovered it by a remedy prescribed by the oracle. In gratitude 
 to the god and at the command of the oracle, he erected two lofty 
 obelisks to the Sun at Heliopolis 3 . One obelisk remains there, but 
 no doubt had once its companion ; it bears the name of Sesor- 
 tasen I. Pliny appears to refer to it as set up by a king Mesphres. 
 Others at Heliopolis he attributes to Sothis, in whose name we 
 have perhaps the Sesoosis II. of Diodorus. Elsewhere Pliny 4 gives 
 the name of Nuncoreus to the son of Sesoosis, and says that the 
 obelisk which he erected on the recovery of his sight was in the 
 Circus of the Vatican. There is, however, another name, not 
 
 1 Od. 3\ 126. 
 
 ' Ouro is the Coptic for 'king,' whence the royal serpent, 0a<ri}foKos } is 
 called Urceus. (Horapoll. 1,1.) 
 
 8 Diod. 1, 59. Her. 2, 111. « N. H. 36, 15. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 255 
 
 indeed in the lists, but in the monuments, for which a place must 
 be found. The tomb of Siphthah already mentioned in the Bab- 
 el-Melook originally exhibited on its walls his shield and that of 
 his wife ; but they have been covered with plaster and other inscrip- 
 tions substituted for them. The name of the king who had 
 thus usurped the sepulchre of another is not clearly made out 1 , 
 owing to the number of characters not phonetic with which the 
 shield is filled ; but it seems to be Merir or Merira. His name is 
 also on the granite sarcophagus which remains, though broken. 
 In the procession of Medinet Aboo, his shield follows that of 
 Setei-Menephthah II. We cannot therefore question his royal 
 dignity. Bunsen, on the authority of Sir G. Wilkinson, makes 
 him the father of Rameses III. (IV.), and progenitor of the long 
 line of princes of that name who fill up the 20th dynasty. The 
 same author has also remodeled the two preceding dynasties. He 
 makes the 18th to end with Horus, and the 19th to consist of 
 Ramessu, Setei L, Rameses II., Menephthah, Setei II. Merira, 
 whom he takes to be the same as Phuoris, he places at the head 
 of the 20th dynasty. 
 
 The period of the 18th and 19th dynasties exhibits Egypt in a 
 new relation to the rest of the world. Under the Old Monarchy 
 we cannot trace its dominion beyond the peninsula of Sinai, the 
 northern shores of the Red Sea, the Libyan tribes immediately 
 contiguous to the Delta, and in the 12th dynasty Lower Nubia. 
 With the expulsion of the Shepherds, however, begins a series of 
 foreign wars, which led the armies of Egypt to the verge of the 
 then known world. 
 
 Nations seem impelled by their geographical position and their 
 relation to neighboring countries to seek to expand themselves in 
 certain directions. The first necessity for the Egyptians was to 
 
 1 Rosellini calls him Uerri, or Remerri (Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 317, tav. xiv. 116), 
 where the various shields are given. One of them, 116*, has the figure 
 which in the shield of Menephthah is pronounced Set. 
 
256 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 secure the valley of the Nile beyond the Cataracts of Syene. 
 From this quarter their independence was always threatened. Nubia 
 was inhabited by a people nearly allied to the Egyptians in blood, 
 and not inferior in valor or perhaps in civilization ; the banks of 
 the Nile offered them an easy road to descend on Egypt, which 
 could, therefore, have no peace or safety unless they were kept in 
 subjection. Possibly this may have been facilitated by matrimo- 
 nial alliances formed towards the close of the Hyksos period, or by 
 the first sovereigns of the 18th dynasty 1 . However this may be, we 
 find that Thothmes I. had possession of the valley of the Nile, as 
 far south as the island of Argo ; and the Egyptians remained mas- 
 ters of this country, as completely as of Egypt itself, during the 
 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties. 
 
 There was no such motive for attempting conquests towards the 
 West. The sandy desert which borders the Nile on that side 
 offered no temptation to ambition, and was too thinly peopled to 
 be formidable. The Oases were valuable as resting-places for com- 
 merce, but for this purpose military possession of them was not 
 necessary. The sea-coast westward from the Canopic mouth is not 
 desert, but is of no extraordinary fertility till you reach the district 
 of Cyrene. The Adyrmachida3, the immediate neighbors of the 
 Egyptians in the time of Cambyses, had in great measure adopted 
 their customs, and therefore probably lived under their laws, but 
 still retained many barbarous usages 2 . The Giligammse, who 
 extended thence to the territories of Cyrene, closely resembled 
 them. No mention of the characteristic production of this region, 
 the Silpkium, has hitherto been found on the Egyptian monu- 
 ments, nor does any inscribed memorial of Egyptian dominion 
 remain in it. In the name Nahsi, applied to the black nations in the 
 hieroglyphical inscriptions, a resemblance has been conjectured to 
 the Nasamones, who dwelt on the coast between Cyrene and the 
 
 1 See before, p. 175 of this vol. 
 
 3 Herod. 4, 168. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY". 
 
 257 
 
 Syrtis, feeding their flocks there, and in the season of dates gather- 
 ing a harvest of them in the Oasis of Augila : but the Nasamones 
 can scarcely have been more black than the Egyptians, living as 
 they did on the shores of the Mediterranean, and no reliance can 
 be placed on such verbal resemblances. Dominion over Libya is 
 claimed for the kings of Egypt in various inscriptions of the 18th 
 dynasty, but nothing indicates its extent, nor is any nation of West- 
 ern Africa clearly characterized in the sculptures 1 . Till the settle- 
 ment of the Phoenician colonies, which falls at a later period, this 
 region appears to have contained no civilized or powerful nation. 
 
 Towards Palestine, Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia, Egypt stood 
 in a very different relation. She had to fear at once the power of 
 the nomadic tribes, which still continue to roam over the desert 
 regions included in these limits, and the civilized communities 
 which had been established in other parts of them. At the com- 
 mencement of the 18th dynasty she was only just recovering her- 
 self from the invasion of one of the former class ; the Hyksos had 
 been driven out, but from Palestine they still threatened the fron- 
 tier. The desert which divides the two countries was but a slight 
 protection to Egypt ; it has been passed by many invading armies, 
 and would offer little obstacle to Palestinian or Arabian tribes. 
 Besides these, Palestine contained many warlike nations, " dwelling 
 in cities great and fenced up unto heaven," "children of Anak," 
 whose size and strength disheartened the Israelites and made them 
 shrink from the attempt to conquer their country 2 . They had cha- 
 riots and horses, and in the equipments and arts of war were not 
 
 1 There is a country hieroglyphically designated by " the bows" or " 9 
 bows," over which the Egyptian sovereigns are said to reign. A bow in 
 Coptic is Phit, and hence is supposed to stand for Phut, which (Gen. x. 6) is 
 the name of an African nation, probably the Mauritanians. (Joseph. Ant 
 1, 6, 2.) But this character of the nine bows occurs where it cannot well 
 be understood exclusively of the Libyans. (See Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 16.) 
 
 s Deut. ix. 1, 2. Numb. xiii. 31. 
 
258 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 inferior to the Egyptians themselves. The towns on the coast were 
 probably already engaged in navigation and commerce : Zidon is 
 mentioned in the dying words of Jacob. Syria and Palestine were 
 not only formidable neighbors to Egypt, but a most enviable pos- 
 session. From the variety of their soil and surface, they furnish 
 every choice production of the vegetable world ; in the level dis- 
 tricts, grain, in the more hilly regions, the olive, the vine, the pis- 
 tachio, and the odoriferous gums, for which the temple service of 
 Egypt made a large demand ; on the mountain sides inexhaustible 
 forests for architecture, ship-building, and the manufacture of arti- 
 cles of luxury. Hence we find that in all ages the acquisition of 
 Palestine has been coveted by the sovereigns of Egypt. Thoth- 
 mes I. must have held it, or he could not securely have carried on 
 wars in Mesopotamia. Sesostris has left the record of his conquest 
 on the coast; and the last military exploits of the Rameses appear 
 to have had Palestine for their scene. When the spirit of conquest 
 revived in the 22nd dynasty, we find Sheshonk invading Palestine, 
 and besides Jerusalem and " the fenced cities of J udah," occupying 
 other places in that country 1 . There is again an interval in which 
 Egypt was in a state of weakness and anarchy ; but when Psammi- 
 tichus had united its forces, the schemes of Asiatic conquest were 
 renewed. The danger on this side had become more imminent. 
 In earlier times Egypt appears as the assailant of the Mesopota- 
 mian nations ; but the Assyrians under their later sovereigns had 
 become a conquering people, and Sennacherib had advanced to the 
 gates of Pelusium. The power of the Assyrians soon after passed 
 into the hands of a people even more warlike, the Babylonians ; 
 Neco, who had advanced to the Euphrates, received a total defeat 
 at Carchemish. After this, the Pharaohs renounced their attempts 
 to make themselves masters of the country as far as the Euphra- 
 tes ; but Apries recovered much of the sea-coast of Palestine and 
 
 2 Chron. xii. 4. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 259 
 
 of the interior of Syria. Under the Persian power all these coun- 
 tries were united in one monarchy ; but no sooner had an inde- 
 pendent power been established in Egypt than a struggle for the 
 possession of Syria began on the part of the Ptolemies, which was 
 met by attempts on that of the Seleucidse to make themselves mas- 
 ters of Egypt. The same struggle has been renewed since the 
 Mohammedan Conquest. The powers which have successively 
 reigned in Egypt, Fatemites, Ayubites, Mamlukes, Turks, have all 
 aimed at the same object, but down to the recent attempt of 
 Mohammed Ali, no permanent union has ever been effected between 
 the two countries. 
 
 Even the Pharaohs with all their boastful claims to victory and 
 dominion never could incorporate them with Egypt. If one sove- 
 reign appears to have put down all resistance, we find that his suc- 
 cessors have soon to combat the same nations. Yet this would be 
 an insufficient ground for calling in question the reality of their 
 expeditions and victories. We are not indeed to receive the 
 accounts of them as literally true ; Egyptian sculptures and hiero- 
 glyphics were not more veracious than modern gazettes and bul- 
 letins ; Bel and Nebo may have been thanked for the same events 
 as Amun and Phre ; we know that Te Deum has been sung for 
 the same battle, at Vienna and Paris. But it would be the excess 
 of incredulity to suppose that the walls of the temples, palaces, and 
 tombs of Egypt could be inscribed with the scenes of imaginary 
 campaigns, and that the diversity of names, physiognomy, costume 
 and armor which appears in them has been devised for the purpose 
 of imposture. The evidence of the Statistical Tablet is still more 
 decisive. Here we have the year, month, and day of the king's 
 reign specified on which his expedition was undertaken ; and its 
 fruits in spoil or tribute registered with the most formal minute- 
 ness. If such evidence can be rejected, we must renounce all hope 
 of establishing history in these ancient times. Few events of the 
 middle ages are certified to us by such authority. 
 
260 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 It may seem incredible that kings of Egypt should be able to 
 carry on wars so far from home as the banks of the Euphrates, 
 and still more the confines of Bactria. This feeling, however, 
 arises from the ignorance in which we have remained till lately of 
 the times of the Thothmes and the Rameses. We have known 
 nothing of the wealth and power of Egypt, its population, its 
 military discipline, the perfection of its arts, and its civil organiza- 
 tion. The monuments confirm themselves, for they show that all 
 these existed in the 15th and 16th centuries before the Christian 
 era ; and where they exist, the ambition of conquest is not long 
 absent. The power of a single aggressive monarchy was then not 
 easily resisted ; extensive coalitions and alliances were impracticable. 
 The extraordinary stability and regularity of the Egyptian govern- 
 ment allowed the sovereigns to be absent from their dominions 
 without danger ; the people were not seduced from their allegiance, 
 even in the nine years' expedition of Sesostris. If Cambyses could 
 reign from Media to the confines of Ethiopia and to the JEgean 
 sea, there seems no reason why the sovereigns of the 18th and 
 19th dynasties of Egypt may not have traversed these countries 
 with their armies, and made them for the time their tributaries. 
 
 To this period later writers refer the arrival of the first Egyp- 
 tian colonists in Greece. Herodotus fully believed in the fact," 
 but he did not connect it with any particular event in Egyp- 
 tian history. He relates the introduction of the worship of Egyp- 
 tian deities at Dodona, by a female minister stolen from the temple 
 of Thebes ; the flight of the daughters of Danaus from the sons 
 of ^Egvptus, and their touching at Rhodes in the way ; he attri- 
 butes to them the introduction of the rites of Ceres into the Pelo- 
 ponnesus, and traces the genealogy of the Dorian kings through 
 Perseus and Danaus to Egypt. Divination, processions and solemn 
 festivals, according to him, all came to Greece from the same source 1 . 
 
 1 2, 54, 58, 171, 182. 6, 53. The inhabitants of Chemmis claimed Danaus 
 and Lynceus as natives of their city. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 261 
 
 Neither he nor the Greek writers who followed him appear to have 
 doubted the fact of the extensive influence of Egypt on Greece, 
 nor its having been produced by colonization. The circumstances 
 of the arrival and establishment of Danaus are indeed clearly 
 mythic — the fifty-oared ship, the equal number and marriage of 
 his daughters and his brother ^Egyptus' sons, the murder of all 
 but Lynceus by the Danaides 1 . But removing these, there remain 
 the belief of the Greeks that the ancient royal family of Argos 
 was of Egyptian descent — a belief which cannot have sprung up 
 and become national, without a specific cause — and the conviction 
 of Herodotus, who knew both Greece and Egypt well, that the 
 Grecian rites had been derived from Egypt. Some circumstances 2 
 seem to indicate that Phoenicia was the medium through which 
 the worship of Io was brought to Greece ; yet the interval was 
 probably short, as the Egyptian name was preserved. Josephus 3 
 says that the Egyptians became known to the Greeks through the 
 means of the Phoenicians, who visited Greece for purposes of com- 
 merce, and these visits began in the heroic age. 
 
 Speaking of the introduction of the Bacchic rites into Greece, 
 Herodotus gives it as his opinion that Melampus, by whom they 
 were taught to the Greeks, had himself derived his knowledge of 
 them through the Phoenicians, namely from Cadmus the Tyrian, 
 and those who came with him from Phoenicia into Boeotia 4 . 
 
 1 The number of fifty sons and daughters arose from a mythical propriety. 
 The vessel in which a voyage from Egypt to Greece was performed could 
 not be inferior to a pentecontor, the largest then known. But the heroes of 
 mythology, as the Argonauts, were their own rowers ; hence the sons of 
 iEgyptus were fifty, and the Danaides, whom each coveted for a bride, of 
 an equal number. The sons of JEgyptus had served their purpose when 
 one of them had furnished a sovereign to Argos ; the rest were disposed of 
 by the daggers of their wives. The Danaides remained. 
 
 a See p. 52 of this volume. 
 
 8 <$>oivikcs tear' ipKopiav toTs *EXXr?<rii' ETretairXcovTS; eidvs tyvwffOjjo-ar, <a\ iC 
 
 Ktifuiv Adytnut, (Jos. c. Apion. 1, 12.) 4 Herod. 2, 49. 
 
262 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Indeed there is some reason to believe that Melampus, the sup- 
 posed founder of these Bacchic rites in Greece, and progenitor of 
 a caste of soothsayers, is only another name for Egyptian, and 
 that the Egyptian origin of the Bacchic rites is the fact meant to 
 be expressed, in calling Melampus their author 1 . The Attic worship 
 of Neith, under the name of Athena, has evidently come from the 
 Phoenicians of Boeotia. 
 
 In the age of Herodotus historical chronology was not suffi- 
 ciently cultivated to induce an identification of Danaus with an 
 individual king or prince of Egypt. The Greeks had already con- 
 nected the war of Troy and the wanderings of Menelaus with 
 Egyptian history, but they contented themselves with turning Pro- 
 teus into a king of Egypt, and Thone into a guardian of the 
 mouth of the Nile. But when learned chronologers began to 
 synchronize the histories of different countries, it was natural to 
 seek for such illustrious personages as Danaus and ^Egyptus, joint 
 founders, through a son and daughter, of the Argive royal family, 
 among the characters of history. The feud of Rameses and the 
 brother whom he made his viceroy, repeated in the story of Sethos 
 and Armais, was one of the few personal anecdotes which the Egyp- 
 tian records had preserved, and was therefore fixed upon to explain 
 the hostility of Danaus and ^Egyptus. Sethosis, says Manetho, 
 was called ^Egyptus, and Ermaios (Armais) his brother Danaus 2 . 
 The resemblance, indeed, ceased with this circumstance ; but this 
 identification served to make the Macedonian conqueror of Egypt 
 through Hercules, Perseus and Danaus, a descendant of the most 
 illustrious of the ancient Pharaohs. No regard was paid to the 
 heroic chronology of Greece in these deductions ; for Amenophis 
 
 1 Apollod. Bibl. ii. 1, 4. Aiyvirros — KaraaTpsxpa/jievos rrjv M tX a prr 66 w v 
 X^P av <*<f eavroi wvofiaaev AXyvirrov. There appears no sufficient reason for 
 the conjecture of Scaliger, MiAa^/SwA™, since Eustathius and the Scholiast 
 on the Prometheus evidently read as we now do. (See Heyne ad loc.) 
 
 " Joseph, c. Ap. 1, 26. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 263 
 
 III., who preceded Rameses the brother of Armais-Danaus by five 
 reigns, was made to be Meranon, a contemporary of the War of 
 Troy, and Thuoris, the successor of Rameses by two reigns, the 
 Polybus under whom Troy was taken. 
 
 We must therefore regard these identifications as arbitrary, so 
 far as they relate to persons. Yet there was a good reason for 
 referring the commencement of Egyptian influence upon Greece to 
 this period of history — the 18th and 19th dynasties. Such expe- 
 ditions as Thothmes, Amenophis and Sesostris undertook, could 
 not be without effect upon all the countries around. Their occu- 
 pation of Phoenicia and Asia Minor may have caused migrations 
 from these countries to a more western land, the traces of which 
 remained in the Greek religion and manners, though the circum- 
 stances are disguised in mythe. Sesostris is said by Herodotus to 
 have crossed into Thrace ; Diodorus represents him as conquering 
 the Cyclades ; he was the first Egyptian king who built ships of 
 war, and the pentecontor or vessel of fifty oars first appears in 
 Greek mythology, in the story of Danaus and ^Egyptus. It is 
 from this time also, namely the fourteenth century before Christ, 
 that something like consistency begins to appear in Grecian 
 history. 
 
 Diodorus, in a fragment of his 40th Book, refers the expulsion 
 of the Jews and the emigrations of Danaus and Cadmus to the 
 same age and the same cause. The Exodus, or Departure of the 
 Children of Israel from Egypt, falls according to the common 
 chronology about the year 1490 b.c. ; but as no king is named, in 
 the account either of their settlement in Egypt or of their departure, 
 we cannot connect the scriptural history with the regnal chrono- 
 logy of the Pharaohs. The time of their residence is distinctly 
 fixed, both in the prophecy of the fortunes of his descendants to 
 Abraham and in the narrative of the Exodus itself. In the former 
 (Gen. xv. 13) God says to Abraham, " Thy seed shall be a stranger 
 in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them ; and they shall 
 
264 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 afflict tliem four hundred years. But in the fourth generation 
 they shall come hither again." In Exodus (xii. 40) it is said, 
 " The sojourning of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt was 
 four hundred and thirty years ; and at the end of the four hundred 
 and thirty years, even on that very day, all the hosts of Jehovah 
 went out from the land of Egypt." These words are so precise, 
 that no other sense would have been affixed to them than that the 
 sojourning in Egypt lasted 430 years, had not a difficulty arisen 
 from the mention of the fourth generation in the prophecy to 
 Abraham, and the genealogical notices in Exod. vi. 16-19, 
 Numb. xxvi. 58, where Kohath is made the grandfather, and 
 Amram the father of Moses ; Kohath being the son of the Patri- 
 arch Levi (Gen. xlvi. 11), and having gone down with him into 
 Egypt. The difficulty of stretching out four generations to 400 
 years was early felt, where it was most natural that a chronological 
 difficulty connected with Egypt should be felt, at Alexandria. 
 Accordingly in the Septuagint Version, made by learned Jews at 
 that seat of Graeco-Egyptian science, Exod. xii. 40 reads thus : 
 " The sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in 
 the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was 430 years ;" 
 the Samaritan Pentateuch, which so often agrees with the Septua- 
 gint against the Hebrew 1 , here also follows the Greek Version. 
 Josephus is inconsistent; in one place he reckons the whole period 
 of Egyptian bondage at 400 years 2 ; in another 3 he gives 215 years 
 to the sojourning of Abraham and the patriarchs in Canaan, and 
 215 to the sojourning in Egypt. This reckoning appears to have 
 
 1 This may perhaps be explained by the fact that the Samaritans appear 
 to have been a considerable body in Egypt (Flav. Vop. Saturninus, c. 8), 
 and may have lived there more harmoniously with the Hellenistic Jews 
 than with the Jews of Palestine, who hated the Hellenists as much as they 
 did the Samaritans. 
 
 2 Ant. 2, 9, 1. TerpaKociojv fitv ercov ^ovov inl ravrais 6irivwav Ta\aino)piais* 
 
 3 Ant. 2, 15, 2. 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 265 
 
 been adopted by the Jews, who chiefly used the Septuagint, in the 
 age of the preaching of the Gospel, and is the foundation of 
 St. Paul's remark (Gal. iii. 17), "that the promise to Abraham 
 preceded by 430 years the giving of the Law." That the reading 
 of the Septuagint is an arbitrary and uncritical alteration of the 
 text is now generally admitted ; it appears to remove one difficulty 
 to create a greater ; since the increase of the children of Israel 
 from seventy persons to 600,000 fighting-men in 230 years is 
 incredible. A generation is not to be understood in the prophecy 
 to Abraham in the strict and scientific sense ; it evidently means 
 the average period of the life of man, which might fairly be esti- 
 mated at a century, when 110, 120, 130, and 137 years are assigned 
 as its actual duration. There is then no sufficient ground for 
 impeaching the purity of the Hebrew text, nor for giving to it any 
 other than its obvious meaning, that the children of Israel dwelt 
 400 years in Egypt 1 . The words of the prophecy to Abraham do 
 not necessarily imply that their oppression should last so long. 
 
 If then the Exodus falls in the 15th century before Christ, and 
 the children of Israel went down into Egypt 400 years before, their 
 settlement must have taken place under one of the dynasties 
 between the 14th and the 18th. The friendly reception which 
 they met with in Egypt, and the facility with which the fertile 
 land of Goshen, lying towards Palestine and Arabia, was assigned 
 to them, is most naturally explained, if we assume that the Pha- 
 raoh who raised Joseph to the rank of vizir was one of the Hyksos 
 race. The Hyksos were Phoenician shepherds, therefore, of a 
 Semitic race like the Israelites; and by placing them on the 
 frontier of Asia, they secured themselves a friendly garrison in that 
 
 1 There still remains the difficulty that Moses is made the great-grandson 
 of Levi But is it probable that genealogical registers would be preserved 
 with such accuracy, as to make them historical documents, in that inter- 
 val when the children of Israel had ceased to be a family and had not yet 
 become a nation ? 
 
 VOL. II. 12 
 
266 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 vulnerable part of their dominions. It is true that we find no 
 marks of the sovereignty of a foreign race in the account of the 
 settlement of the Israelites. Everything corresponds with the 
 usages, ceremonials and condition of society, as we know them 
 from monuments of the native Egyptians. The native gods are in 
 high honor ; the prime-minister receives for a wife the daughter 
 of the chief-priest of Re at Heliopolis; the lands of the priests 
 alone escape forfeiture to the crown in the famine. He is invested 
 with the insignia of office with the same ceremonies which were 
 practised at the court of Setei Menephthah 1 . The king has a 
 splendid retinue — a chief captain of the guard, a chief butler and 
 chief baker, magicians and wise men. There is the same marked 
 contrast between Egyptian usages and those of neighboring 
 nations ; they will not eat with a Hebrew any more than they 
 would touch the knife of a Greek 2 ; when Jacob dies, forty days 
 are consumed in his embalmment, and seventy more in mourning 
 for him. The language of Egypt was unintelligible to the Hebrews, 
 and as far as we can judge from the disguised fragments which 
 have been handed down to us, was the same as that of the monu- 
 ments. This would be of great weight were it certain that all the 
 details, as well as the great facts of the narrative, have been 
 derived from contemporary authority. It might also be said, that 
 if the Hyksos had been already established some centuries in 
 Egypt when Joseph was transported thither, they would have 
 adopted the language and manners of the conquered people. 
 Joseph suggests to his brethren that they should call themselves 
 shepherds, in order that the land of Goshen might be assigned to 
 them, adding, " for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyp- 
 tians ;" and this has been thought to refer to the sufferings inflicted 
 on Egypt by the Hyksos and to prove that they had recently been 
 expelled. But the settlement of an aged man with his children 
 
 Wilkinson, H. and C. pi. 80. 
 
 * Her. 2, 41 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 26V 
 
 and grandchildren, amounting in all only to seventy persons, 
 could hardly excite apprehension, however much the Egyptians 
 had suffered from an invasion of a nomad people. We do not 
 know indeed, from other authorities, that shepherds, like swine- 
 herds, were an abomination to the Egyptians ; but they were of a 
 low caste, and their occupation evidently ranked below that of 
 the cultivator of the soil 1 . 
 
 The language of the Book of Exodus, " a new king arose who 
 knew not Joseph," points to a change of dynasty, and the com- 
 mencement of the New Monarchy, rather than the succession of a 
 sovereign of the same family, in whom such ignorance would be 
 incredible ; and a long interval must have occurred, of which the 
 historian gives us some general measure by saying that "the 
 children of Israel, after the death of Joseph and all that genera- 
 tion, multiplied and waxed exceedingly mighty and the land was 
 filled with them." Their oppression extended through several 
 reigns, for Pharaoh not being a personal name, its recurrence is 
 no proof that one sovereign is intended throughout. After the 
 expulsion of the Hyksos, the Israelites, who, though not the same, 
 were closely connected with them, naturally became an object of 
 alarm, and the kings of the 18th dynasty endeavored first to 
 check their increase and then to break their spirit. 
 
 In endeavoring to connect the Exodus of the Israelites with the 
 Egyptian history, we must lay out of the account entirely the nar- 
 rative of the expulsion of the Hyksos by Manetho. It is only by 
 the means of the interpolations of Josephus 2 that it has appeared 
 to describe the Exodus of the Israelites. The authentic chronicles 
 
 1 Wilkinson, M. and C. 2, 16. " As if to prove how much they despised 
 every order of pastors, the artists both of Upper and Lower Egypt delighted 
 in representing them as dirty and unshaven ; and at Beni Hassan and the 
 tombs near the pyramids of Geezah, they are caricatured as a deformed 
 and unseemly race." 
 
 a See p. 158 of this vol 
 
268 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of Egypt contained, as far as we can judge, no notice of their 
 settlement, residence or departure. Nor do the monuments sup- 
 ply the deficiency ; except that they appear to have been employed 
 in brick-making in the reign of Thothmes III. 1 But the account 
 which Manetho really gives of the departure of the Jews, though 
 by his own confession derived from unauthentic and fabulous 
 sources 2 , deserves attention as exhibiting the popular belief. 
 Josephus having represented Manetho as identifying the Jews with 
 the Hyksos, charges him with falsehood in mentioning Amenophis 3 
 as the king under whom the Exodus took place, whgn he had 
 himself declared it to be Tethmosis ; but Manetho is liable to no 
 such imputation, and it is Josephus who has sacrificed truth to 
 national pride. This popular account represents the expelled 
 nation, not as foreigners, but as an impure and diseased portion of 
 the Egyptian people. " Amenophis, a pious king, desirous of 
 obtaining a vision of the gods, such as Horus his predecessor had 
 enjoyed, had been exhorted by his namesake Amenophis, an 
 inspired man, to clear the land of all impure persons, and those 
 who labored under any bodily defect. He accordingly collected 
 them to the number of 80,000, and relegated them to the quarries 
 eastward of the Nile, along with the separated portion of the other 
 Egyptians. It happened that among the leprous persons, who 
 in virtue of the edict were consigned to this region and condemned 
 to labor, were some learned priests. The soothsayer who had 
 given advice to the king to clear his land, was alarmed wnen he 
 thought of the hostility which he should bring down on the part 
 of the gods by the violence offered to their ministers, and put an 
 end to his life, leaving behind him a written prediction, that the 
 impure persons would obtain auxiliaries and be masters of Egypt 
 for thirteen years. The king, moved by their sufferings, assigned 
 
 1 See p. 194 of this vol 3 See p. 159 of this vol., note V 
 
 * 'Kfievtlxpiv ti<moif\aai £///?<SAt^iov fiaai\£a. (C. Ap. 1, 26.) 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 269 
 
 them as an abode the Tvphonian city of Abaris, which had once 
 been occupied by the Shepherds, but was then unpeopled. Here 
 they chose for themselves a leader Osarsiph, one of the priests of 
 Heliopolis. He formed them into a confederacy, whose principle 
 was hostility to the religion of Egypt and opposition to its laws 
 and customs. Having fortified their city they sent for aid to the 
 Shepherds who had been expelled by Tethmosis and then occupied 
 Jerusalem, and invited them to invade Egypt by the promise of 
 re-establishing them in the country from which they had been 
 expelled. Two hundred thousand men obeyed the call, and Ame- 
 nophis went to meet them with 300,000 men, but thinking that 
 he was acting in opposition to the divine will, withdrew with his 
 forces into Ethiopia, leaving behind him his son Sethos (called 
 also Rameses from Rampses his father), a child of five years old, 
 having first collected together the most honored of the sacred 
 animals, and warned the priests to bury their images. Here he 
 remained during the fated period of thirteen years, while the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem and the impure men of Egypt committed 
 all manner of outrages, plundering the temples, mutilating the 
 images of the gods, and compelling the priests to kill and cook 
 the sacred animals. The priest Osarsiph changed his name to 
 Moses when he joined this race. At the end of the thirteen years 
 Amenophis returned with a great force, and with his son Rampses 
 attacked the Shepherds and the impure persons, and pursued them 
 to the borders of Syria." 
 
 We cannot recognize in this tale anything that claims even the 
 character of an original historical tradition, disguised and perverted 
 by length of time and national feeling. It might have originated 
 in the age when the Jews began to settle themselves in Egypt, and 
 by the establishment of their monotheistic worship to give offence 
 to the religious feeling of the Egyptians 1 , as well as in that of the 
 
 1 Is. xix 18. Plutarch, Is. et Osir. p. 363, makes Typhon the father of 
 
270 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Exodus ; for the fundamental fact which it implies, the religious 
 antagonism of the Jewish and Egyptian people, extended through 
 all times, and found an expression in this form 1 . Beyond this 
 there is scarcely a resemblance to the Scripture narrative. Instead 
 of immigrants, immemorially hostile to the polytheism of Egypt, 
 the founders of the Jewish nation are impure Egyptians, and their 
 leader a renegade priest. The bitterness of national and religious 
 hatred and contempt is expressed by representing them as origi- 
 nally a company of lepers, a disease of which we do not read in 
 Scripture before their residence in Egypt, but which seems to have 
 been rife among them afterwards, if we may judge from the anx- 
 ious precautions of the Law against this disease 2 . The historical 
 narrative and the tale agree in the circumstance that the departure 
 of the Jewish people was accompanied by calamity to the Egyp- 
 tians, but all the circumstances of that calamity are entirely differ- 
 ent. The Amenophis to whom it refers, if an historical personage, 
 must be the Menephthah of the monuments, the father of Rameses- 
 Sesostris ; we know his history from these monuments with con- 
 siderable minuteness, and it is quite inconsistent with the story of 
 Manetho. Probably, however, Amenophis has been introduced 
 into the story, without regard to chronology, from his high repu- 
 tation for piety 3 . What Jews and Christians regard as an act of cru- 
 elty and injustice, the Egyptians considered as the necessary means 
 of obtaining the favor or averting the displeasure of the gods. The 
 
 Hierosolymue and Judaeus, and all the places connected especially with 
 Typhon were on the eastern side of Egypt. 
 
 1 Clueremon (Jos. c. Apion. 1, 32) makes Moses, whose Egyptian name 
 was Tisitlien, and Joseph, whose name was Peteseph, to be hierogrammats, 
 and the leaders of the 2,500,000 impure persons. According to Lysima- 
 chus, Bocchoris was the king who endeavored to clear his country of impure 
 persons by drowning them. 
 
 3 The story of Job proves that the leprosy was considered as indicating 
 the extremest degree of divine displeasure and consequent guilt. 
 
 6 See p. 1*76 of this voL 
 
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 271 
 
 king was to be rewarded, according to one account, by a sight of 
 the gods, according to others, by deliverance from pestilence 1 , or from 
 the displeasure of Isis 2 , or famine 3 , if he destroyed or expelled the 
 enemies of the gods. Popular fable, such as we are dealing with, 
 would naturally fix on an eminent name like that of Amenophis, 
 whose connexion with Ethiopia gave probability to the account of 
 his flight to that country. 
 
 Who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, in the silence of Egyptian 
 monuments and the uncertainty of Jewish chronology, we may 
 never be able to ascertain. The most important fact in reference 
 to the providential character of that event, a crisis in the religious 
 history of the world, is, that Israel was brought out of Egypt, not 
 in a period of its weakness and depression, but when its monarchy 
 was warlike and powerful; and only the strong hand and out- 
 stretched arm of Jehovah could have effected its deliverance. 
 
 We could, not suppose that this event was accomplished by the 
 aid of an auxiliary body of Palestinian Hyksos, without imputing 
 to the author of the book of Exodus a wilful suppression of the 
 truth. But it is possible that the expulsion of the Hyksos under 
 the first kings of the 18th dynasty may not have been so com- 
 plete, but that a considerable remnant of the population was left 
 behind in the country eastward of the Delta, and that uniting 
 themselves with the Israelites, they may have contributed to pro- 
 duce that great increase of numbers which alarmed the kings of 
 Egypt. It was probably during the close union of Phoenicia with 
 Egypt that the alphabetical character of the former was arranged, 
 and learned by the Israelites. In the preceding part of the history 
 there is no trace of its use; but from the account of the giving of 
 the Law, it is evident that it was known at the Exodus, though 
 probably little diffused among the nation at large 4 . Such an 
 
 1 Diod. Fr. lib. 40. m 
 
 9 Chaer. ap. Jos. e. Ap. 1, 32. * Jos. w. s. 1, 33. 
 
 4 The mention of a signet-ring in the history of Judah is no proof of the 
 
(2 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 adaptation of the phonetic system of the Egyptians is more likely 
 to have been made by the Phoenicians than by the Jews, and the 
 use of the same alphabet by both may be best explained by their 
 dwelling together in Egypt before they became neighbors in the 
 land of Canaan. 
 
 During their residence in Egypt, and probably in consequence 
 of this intermixture, the common people among the Israelites 
 appear to have lost in great measure their belief in the God of 
 their forefathers. When Moses came with a message from him, it 
 is evident that he was not known to them under his distinctive 
 appellation ; nor have we any account of their religious history 
 during the whole interval from the settlement in Goshen to the 
 Exodus. Their ancient faith was revived by the mission of Moses 
 and the events of their deliverance, but there are evident marks of 
 the prevalence both of Egyptian and Phoenician superstitions 
 among them, notwithstanding the repugnance which their tradi- 
 tionary usages created between them and the Egyptians 1 . As the 
 land of Goshen bordered on Heliopolis, and was not far removed 
 from Memphis, the chief seats of the worship of Mnevis and Apis, 
 it is not wonderful that in their first distrust of the power of Jeho- 
 vah, they recurred to the worship of the golden calf. The prophet 
 Amos informs us, that during their wanderings in the Desert, they 
 neglected the sacrifices of Jehovah for those of Moloch and Chiun 2 , 
 Palestinian and Arabian divinities 8 , with whom they had probably 
 become acquainted by their intercourse with the Palestinian and 
 Arabian Hyksos. 
 
 use of alphabetical characters in the patriarchal times. Though worn only 
 as an ornament, of Egyptian fabric, it would serve, like the bracelets and 
 the staff, to identify the owner, which is all that the story requires. (Gen. 
 xxxviii. 18, 25.) 
 
 1 Exod. viii. 26. * Amos v. 25. ' Selden de Bis Syris, c 6, 41. 
 
THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 273 
 
 THE THIRD VOLUME OF MANETHO. 
 
 Twentieth Dynasty, 
 
 Twelve Diospolitan kings, who reigned 
 
 Years. 
 135 
 
 [Eusebius in Syncellus (p. 139, Dind.) 178 years. Arnien. 172.] 
 
 The monuments have fortunately preserved for us the names of 
 the sovereigns of this dynasty, which appear to have been lost in 
 Manetho, from the circumstance of their being all Rameses. Ac- 
 cording to the reckoning of those who make Rameses II. and III. to 
 be one and the same, Rameses III. will be the first of this dynasty, 
 son of Remerri or Merira, who himself never reigned. According 
 to our arrangement it will begin with Rameses IV. The follow- 
 ing is the succession which Lepsius has derived from the monu- 
 ments : 
 
 Rameses VHI. , 
 Rameses IX. 
 Rameses X. 
 Rameses XI. 
 Rameses XII. 
 Rameses XIII. 
 
 The monuments of the reign of Rameses IV. show that the 
 power of the 18th and 19th dynasties had been transmitted unim- 
 paired to the 20th. The pavilion of Medinet Aboo or Southern 
 Rameseion, exhibits the splendid ceremony of his coronation 1 . In 
 the first compartment the king appears, seated under a canopy, the 
 
 Rameses IV. 
 Rameses V. 
 Rameses VL 
 Rameses VII. 
 
 - Brothers reigning in succession. 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 136, 137. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, pi. 76. 
 
 12* 
 
274 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 cornice of which is formed by a row of the royal serpents or urcei. 
 Two figures of the goddess of Truth and Justice stand behind his 
 throne, and cover the back of it with their outstretched wings. 
 Rameses wears his helmet and carries in his hand the emblem of 
 Life, and the hook and scourge, the emblems of Dominion, which 
 serve also to identify him with Osiris. The sphinx and the hawk, 
 symbols of royalty, adorn the side of the throne, which is supported 
 by the figure of a lion and of two captives. The poles on which 
 this canopy is carried are supported on the shoulders of twelve 
 princes of the blood ; other attendants carry a broad umbrella and 
 feather-fans. Three priests, distinguishable by their shaven crowns, 
 walk beside the throne, carrying the arms and insignia of the king, 
 and four immediately behind it. They are followed by six more 
 princes of the blood, some with hatchets and some with feather- 
 fans. Military attendants bearing the steps of the throne and 
 square blocks of wood on which it might be rested, when lowered 
 from the shoulders of the bearers, close the lower line of the pro- 
 cession. In the upper, immediately behind the throne, walk two 
 men in civil costume, who from their attitude appear to be making 
 proclamation 1 ; they are followed by princes of the blood, fan- 
 bearers and guards. In front of the throne walk two priests, who 
 turn their faces back towards the king and scatter grains of incense 
 on a censer ; a scribe reads from a roll ; two more princes of the 
 blood, mixed with the priests and military officers, make up the 
 rest of the procession, which is headed by drummers, trumpeters, 
 and players of the double pipe. 
 
 The second compartment begins with a libation and burning of 
 incense made by the king, who has descended from his throne, to 
 Amun Khem. The statue next appears carried in procession by 
 twenty-two priests, hidden all but the feet and heads by the 
 
 1 The hand raised towards the mouth is an indication of rehearsing in 
 Egyptian pictures. 
 
THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 275 
 
 drapery of the platform on which the statue is erected. The king 
 walks before the god, having a staff in one hand, a sceptre in the 
 other, and the red crown of the Lower Country on his head. He 
 is preceded by a white bull, before whom a priest burns incense, 
 and a long train of other priests carry standards on which are fixed 
 images of the jackal, the bull, the cynocephalus, the hawk, em- 
 blems respectively of Anubis, Apis, Thoth and Horus. The images 
 and shields of some of the predecessors of Rameses are also borne 
 on the shoulders of the priests, but a more complete succession is 
 given afterwards. The king now appears wearing the Pschent, 
 which on the Rosetta stone 1 he is described as having put on when 
 he entered the temple of Memphis, to perform the ceremonies pre- 
 scribed on taking the throne. The hieroglyphics in front of the 
 king describe him as putting on the crown of the Upper and Lower 
 countries. Four birds are at the same time let loose by the priests, 
 and the columns of hieroglyphics above them being headed by the 
 symbols of the four cardinal points, it has been ingeniously con- 
 jectured by Champollion 2 , that the birds were to announce to East, 
 West, North and South, the fact that Rameses IV. was crowned. 
 
 In the last compartment the king has laid aside his crown, and 
 with a helmet on his head cuts with a sickle six ears of corn, which 
 a priest binds together and offers to the sacred bull. This cere- 
 mony no doubt was emblematical of the relation between the 
 kingly office and agriculture, the great source of the prosperity of 
 Egypt. It was also very appropriate to the character of Amun 
 Khem, who symbolized the productive power of nature. The 
 queen, who was not present at the procession of the statue of 
 Amun Khem, appears in the two last compartments, not, however, 
 as taking a part in the ceremony, but only as a spectator. 
 
 1 KoXot)//£VF/ fiaaCKtia xp % c v r , f\v irepidsficvos dfffj'Xdev ets rd iv Mf/^ct * * * 
 TtXeaOr] ra vofii^Ofieva rj? itapahjipti rfjs fiaai'ke'ias. (L. 11, 12 from the end.) 
 
 * Lettres d'Egypte, p. 347. 
 
276 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 The interior court of the palace at Medinet-Aboo contains an 
 inscription in not fewer than seventy-five columns, bearing date the 
 fifth year of his reign, in which his victories over various nations 
 are commemorated 1 . It is not accompanied by any historical pic- 
 ture, and is in some parts injured by time and in others obscure in 
 its construction ; but enough remains and is intelligible to furnish 
 us with the information that the king had already made two expe- 
 ditions 3 , and reduced into submission various nations of Asia, some 
 of whose names have occurred in the historical inscriptions of his 
 predecessors, others not mentioned before. Among the former are 
 the Mennahom and the Tohen ; among the latter the Mashiosha 3 . 
 
 The inscription is supposed by Rosellini, from its redundant and 
 tautological style, and the more than usual quantity of flattery to 
 the king which it contains, to be the substance of some poem com- 
 posed to celebrate the expedition. An embassy from the " men of 
 the great island " is also mentioned, to which the king is said to 
 have " passed like a waterfowl over the waters 4 ." This island can 
 scarcely be any other than Cyprus, which, according to Manetho, 
 as reported by Josephus, was a conquest of Sethosis Rameses 5 . 
 
 Of the next expedition of Rameses IV., undertaken in the 
 eleventh and twelfth years of his reign, we have more ample 
 details in a magnificent series of bas-reliefs on the north-eastern 
 walls of the palace of Medinet-Aboo 6 . The whole progress of a 
 campaign is recorded there. We have first an allocution of his 
 army by the king ; he stands on a raised platform ; the com- 
 
 Rosellini, M. R. tav. cxxxix. cxl. 
 
 * His return from one with his prisoners is mentioned, cols. 40, 41 (Ros. 
 Mon. Stor. 4, 88), but he appears subsequently to have undertaken 
 another. 
 
 * Supposed by Mr. Osburn to be the inhabitants of Dar-mesek, Damascus 
 (Ancient Egypt, p. 102.) 
 
 4 Cols. 51-53. 6 Cont Apion 1, 15. 
 
 6 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 14-50 ; Mon. Reali, tav. cxxiv.-cxxxiv 
 
THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 manders have received their banners and kneel with them in their 
 hands, while others stand at a distance and lift their hands towards him 
 in homage. In another division the arming of the troops is repre- 
 sented ; bows, quivers, spears, battle-axes and scimitars are piled on 
 the ground, and distributed by the officers to men who come in 
 companies to receive them. The lowest compartment, which per- 
 haps should be considered as the first in order, exhibits the enrol- 
 ment of the soldiers, performed by a prince of the blood, attended 
 by his officers. Next begins the march. The king in his biga is 
 accompanied by his guards, and as Diodorus describes Osymandyas, 
 by a lion ; before him is another chariot on which is erected the 
 royal standard, the head of Amun with the disk of the sun. In 
 six lines of hieroglyphics placed above, the god promises to go 
 before him into the land of the enemy, and make him pass victo- 
 rious through it. This and the following scene represent the 
 march through Egypt ; the next exhibits the Egyptians in conflict 
 with their enemies. Their head-dress is different from that of any 
 foreigners whom we have yet found on the monuments ; a high 
 cap or helmet, wider at the top than at the base, divided into 
 colored stripes with disks of metal attached to it, descending on 
 the back of the neck, and fastened beneath the chin. It is not 
 unlike the head-dress of figures on the Persepolitan monuments 1 , 
 but in other respects their costume is different. They carry round 
 shields, with spears and short straight swords. The arrows of 
 the king are making havoc among them ; they fly in all directions, 
 and some of them appear to have seized on an Egyptian chariot, of 
 which the driver had been killed, to aid in their escape. They were 
 probably a people of a nomadic life ; for in the rear are waggons 
 with solid wheels and bodies of wicker work, drawn by oxen, con- 
 taining their women and children. Their name, which was read 
 Tokari by Sir G. Wilkinson, is read FeJckaroo by Champollion 
 
 1 Wilkinson, M. and C. 1, 367. 
 
278 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 and Rosellini 1 , but no name in ancient geography has been found 
 by which it can be explained. The Egyptians were aided in this 
 campaign by a body of foreign auxiliaries, who must have been 
 taken permanently into their service, as they form a part of the 
 army when it sets out on its march, and have previously appeared 
 among the troops of Rameses III. They have a helmet of a very 
 peculiar shape, a horned crescent being fixed on the top, with the 
 addition of a stem surmounted by a ball 2 . Their name is written 
 Shairetaan, with an addition which shows them to have been a 
 maritime people, and though at times in alliance they were at 
 other times in hostility with Egypt. 
 
 The next scene represents a lion-hunt ; one of these animals 
 lies in the agonies of death under the feet of the royal horses ; 
 another pierced with three arrows is taking refuge among the 
 water-plants, which indicate the vicinity of a river. Remembering 
 the allusions of the Jewish prophets to the lions which harbor on 
 the banks of Jordan, and are driven out by the swelling of its 
 waters 3 , we can hardly avoid the conclusion that Rameses was now 
 on his progress through Palestine. If this be the case, it will be 
 somewhere on the coast of Palestine, or a country not very distant, 
 that we should seek for the scene of the next transaction — a naval 
 fight between the Egyptians and the nation whom they had just 
 before defeated by land. It is the only representation of a naval 
 battle remaining among the Egyptian monuments 4 . The Egyp- 
 tian vessels have both oars and sails, those of the enemy sails only, 
 and they differ in their build ; the prow of the Egyptian vessel is 
 the head of a lion, of the other that of a water-fowl ; the opposite 
 
 1 Osburn makes them Ekronites, i. e. Philistines. (Ane. Egypt, p. 107, 
 140.) 
 
 2 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. iii. 2, 135; Mon. Reali, tav. ci. He calls them 
 "royal guards," but they were evidently not Egyptians. Osburn considers 
 them as Sidonians. (Anc. Egypt, p. 119.) 
 
 8 Jer. xlix. 19 ; 1, 44. 4 Vol. i. p. 195. 
 
THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 279 
 
 end is armed with a spike. The rowers are protected by a raised 
 bulwark which runs aloDg the side ; the combatants assail each 
 other with arrows from a distance, or board and fight hand to hand 
 when the vessels are in contact. The Egyptians as usual are com- 
 pletely victorious ; one of the enemies' ships has been upset and is 
 sinking ; another has grounded, and the crew are endeavoring to 
 escape. But the king and a body of archers are stationed on the 
 shore ; the fugitives are slain or made prisoners, and are marched 
 off bound under the convoy of Egyptian soldiers. It is remarkable 
 that among the crew of the hostile vessels are many of the same 
 nation, distinguishable by their helmet with the horns and disk, 
 who serve in the army of Rameses. We need not, however, sup- 
 pose that some change of policy had converted them from allies 
 into enemies ; Greeks were found fighting against Greeks in the 
 armies of Persia. 
 
 In the next compartment the king appears, having laid aside 
 his arms, in his civil costume, and again harangues his soldiers, 
 and distributes arms and insignia to the officers as rewards of merit. 
 The hands of the slaughtered enemies are told out before him and 
 their numbers recorded by the scribes, and the prisoners led up, 
 some fettered by the arms and others by the wrists. The presenta- 
 tion of the captives to the triad of Theban gods, Maut, Amun and 
 Chonso, closes the series ; but here, besides the Fekkaroo pri- 
 soners of another people are introduced, the Bebo, against whom 
 Rameses IV. carried on wars. This people have been incidentally 
 mentioned in the inscription which records the expedition of 
 Rameses III. in his fifth year against the Sheto, whose neighbors 
 they must have been. The walls of the second court of the palace 
 of Medinet-Aboo give the details of this or some other war of 
 Rameses IV. against them. Probably the war occurred at some 
 later period of his reign ; for in the presentation of the prisoners to 
 Amun, the Fekkaroo and Rebo appear both as prisoners, whereas 
 in the campaign represented in the inner court, the Fekkaroo 
 
280 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 are acting as auxiliaries against the Rebo. From their costume 
 we should suppose the last to be the inhabitants of a somewhat 
 colder climate, as in addition to tunics they wear long upper vests, 
 crossed by bands of a different color, open below and fastened on 
 by a strap over the shoulder. This garment appears sometimes 
 to have been of leather. The head is covered with a close-fitting 
 cap, and adorned with feathers ; but in war they wore a helmet 
 or cap fastened by a strap beneath the chin. Their physiognomy 
 also indicates a northern race ; their eyes are blue, the nose aqui- 
 line, the beard red. Occasionally we find the limbs tattooed. 
 The slaughter made of them was great ; 3000 hands, according 
 to the inscription, are poured out before the king 1 , as he sits on 
 his chariot after the battle to receive the returns ; and an equal 
 number in three other compartments, indicating that 6000 had 
 been slain. Besides these, 1000 appear to have been made prison- 
 ers. As the conclusion of the whole, the king returns to Egypt 
 and presents his captives to Amunre and Maut. 
 
 The sixteenth is the latest year of Rameses IV. that has been 
 found on the monuments, and the lists give only the duration of 
 the whole dynasty ; but from the extent of the works executed in 
 his reign, and the size and magnificence of his tomb, we may pre- 
 sume that it was of more than the average length. He appears 
 originally to have destined for himself a tomb at the very entrance 
 of the Bab-ei-Melook, but to have abandoned his design, when the 
 excavation had been carried but a short way, and chosen a spot 
 further on in the valley 2 . It had been known as the Harper's 
 
 1 This and another kind of mutilation which the bodies of the slain had 
 undergone are inaccurately represented by Diodorus as if performed on 
 the living prisoners. 'Ei> 6t ru devTepoi roi'^w roij ai'^paXwrouj vtto tov (Saci\iu3S 
 dyontuovi eipyaaOai rd t£ aiSoTa kcli raj %eTpas uvk i^ovras' 6i Sokciv Srj\ov<r9ai 
 6i6ri ratj ipv^aii dvavSpoi koli vara raj iv roig Seivois ivtpyeias a%eipes rjaav (1, 48). 
 
 This is part of his description of the tomb of Osymandyas, in which various 
 buildings appear to be confounded. 
 
 a According to Sir G. Wilkinson, Rameses III began the tomb, and his 
 
THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY". 
 
 281 
 
 Tomb, long before the discovery of the hieroglyphics assigned it 
 to Rameses IV., Bruce having copied two remarkable figures of 
 harpers which one of the apartments contains. Its whole extent 
 is 405 feet ; not, however, to that direct depth in the mountain, 
 the line of direction having been diverted to avoid interfering with 
 an adjoining tomb. The principal hall contained the sarcophagus 
 of the king, but it had long been rifled. It is of red granite, and 
 is covered with inscriptions which have been filled up with a green 
 enamel. The sarcophagus itself, seven feet in depth and fourteen 
 in length, is in the Louvre, the cover at Cambridge. 
 
 The queen of Rameses IV. is not named, though she is repre- 
 sented in the scene of the Coronation ; but on the jambs of a door 
 in the Valley of the Queens, the shield of Rameses VI. appears on 
 one side, and on the other that of " the royal mother, ruler of the 
 world, Ise." She must therefore have been the queen of Rameses 
 IV. 1 It is probable that his three brothers, one of whom ascended 
 the throne before and two after him, were also her sons ; some at 
 least of the numerous other princes of the blood who appear in 
 the procession at his coronation must have been children by his 
 concubines. That he maintained a harem we know from the 
 representations in some of the smaller apartments of his pavilion at 
 Medinet-Aboo, where he is seen among them, playing at a game 
 of draughts or chess 2 . Ten princes appear with their names in 
 one of the courts of the palace ; the inscriptions of the four firsl of 
 these have received additions, as they successively came to the 
 throne ; the rest are qualified simply as princes. 
 
 We found a temporary agreement between the authentic and 
 monumental history of Egypt, and the legendary history as it was 
 received by Herodotus, in the reign of Rameses III., his Sesostris. 
 
 .egend can still be traced near the entrance beneath that of Rameses IV. 
 Mod. Eg. and Thebes, 2, 207.) 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 119. 
 
 2 Rosellini, Mon. Civ. 3, 116 ; Mon. Reali, tav. cxxii. 2, 3. 
 
282 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 It disappears again in that of his successor, whom he calls Pheron, 
 and of whom he expressly says that he undertook no expedition. 
 The interpolation of Proteus after Pheron among the kings of 
 Egypt, in order to connect its history with that of the Iliad and 
 Odyssey, shows how little regard was paid to truth in framing this 
 legendary tale. It is therefore useless to seek among the successors 
 of Rameses III. for the Rampsinitus of Herodotus who surpassed 
 in riches all his successors, and built himself a treasure-house, from 
 which the sons of the architect ingeniously contrived to abstract a 
 portion of his wealth by means of a moveable stone. The name 
 appears to contain that of Rameses, which is spelt among other 
 varieties Rampses in Manetho ; but the story of his descent into 
 Hades, and his playing at dice there with Ceres, so clearly dis- 
 closes the unhistorical character of the accounts which Herodotus 
 received, as to deter us from any attempt to place him in relation 
 with really historical personages 1 . Diodorus having related the 
 blindness of Sesoosis II., who corresponds with the Pheron of Hero- 
 dotus, passes over a long line of his successors with the remark 
 that they did nothing worthy of being recorded. 
 
 This appears to be true of the successor of Rameses IV. All 
 record of foreign expeditions ceases with his reign. The principal 
 memorials of Rameses V. are the lateral inscriptions of the obelisk 
 which Thothmes L erected at Karnak. They contain, however, no 
 historical fact. His tomb in the Bab-el-Melook is small ; the sar- 
 cophagus remains in it, but has been broken 2 . Rameses VI. has 
 in several places effaced the name of his brother, as if some hos- 
 tilitv between them had preceded his elevation to the throne ; s but 
 we have no memorials of his reign, and can only conjecture that it 
 was long, from the unusual amount of labor bestowed on the pre- 
 paration of his tomb. It is 342 feet in length, descending by a 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 121, 122. 2 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. <fc Thebes, 2, 212. 
 
 8 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 118. 
 
THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 2-83 
 
 gradual slope to the depth of 25 feet below the ground, and 
 divided into a number of chambers 1 . The whole surface of the 
 walls and ceilings is covered with a profusion of colored sculptures 
 of minute size, chiefly astronomical and mythical. One of them is 
 the Judgment-scene before Osiris already described 2 , and the sup- 
 posed return of a wicked soul to the world. Of Kameses VII. 
 there is absolutely no memorial except his tomb, which is of much 
 less finished execution than that of his predecessor. The sarco- 
 phagus is excavated in the rock of the floor to the depth of four 
 feet, and covered with a slab of granite. Rameses VIII. is known 
 only by the occurrence of his shield among those of the other sons 
 of Rameses IV. (III. according to another reckoning) at Medinet- 
 Aboo, and on two tablets in the Museum of Berlin. The titular 
 shield contains the figure of the same deity as the phonetic shield 
 of Setei, and it has here also been effaced. From this time it never 
 occurs in the monuments 3 . The shields of the sovereigns of this 
 dynasty are much more crowded with characters than those of the 
 18th. As these kings were all brothers, it was natural that the 
 reigns of the last should be short. His third year has been found 
 on a monument 4 . Rameses IX. (VIII.) was according to Lepsius 
 the son of Rameses VII. (VI.) He began a temple to Chons on 
 the right bank of the Nile near Karnak, but left it imperfect except 
 the sanctuary 5 ; his tomb is small, and appears to have remained 
 unfinished at his death, as the walls of some of the apartments 
 have figures and inscriptions traced upon them, but not sculptured. 
 The tombs of Rameses X., XI., and XII. have also been ascer- 
 tained. That of Rameses X. is executed with care, and adorned 
 with astrological paintings. The seventeenth year of Rameses 
 XL's reign has been found on a papyrus, and the second of Rameses 
 
 1 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. & Thebes, 2, 210. 9 Vol i. p. 402, 403. 
 
 8 Bunsen, B. 3, p. 118. Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 124. 
 4 Bunsen, JEgyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 119. 
 6 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 125. 
 
284 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 XII 1 . ; of Rameses XIII. and XIV. nothing beyond the names is 
 known, which is the more indicative of the inactivity which charac- 
 terized the last years of this dynasty, because Rameses XIV. 
 reigned at least thirty-three years 2 . Rosellini reckons a fifteenth, 
 by whom a hypostyle hall w r as added to the temple of Chons at 
 Karnak, founded by Rameses IX. 3 
 
 The dominion of Egypt had long been on the decline, but 
 Amunre addresses the last Rameses in the same magnificent lan- 
 guage as his predecessors, and gives him " to put all foreign lands 
 under his feet." The diminution of power in the Egyptian 
 monarchy since Rameses IV. was probably caused or accompanied 
 by an increase in that of its neighbors. Ethiopia seems to have 
 regained its independence. The Phoenician cities must have been 
 rapidly rising by means of commerce to the prosperity in which 
 we find them in the age of Solomon. The recent discoveries of 
 the antiquities of Assyria excited the hope that by their means 
 light would be thrown on the relations of that country with Egypt, 
 whose sovereigns, from Thothmes I. to Rameses IV., repeatedly 
 invaded Mesopotamia and Assyria. We cannot, however, trace 
 any conformity between their respective histories, as disclosed by 
 their monuments. Those of Khorsabad, Koyunjik and Nemroud 
 are much later than the 18th and 19th dynasties of Egypt. No 
 Egyptian appears among the nations w ith whom the Assyrians are 
 at war 4 . Yet it is probable that when the invasions of the 
 
 1 Amenmeses, whom Rosellini, from the position of his tomb, would inter- 
 pose between Rameses XII. and XIII., has been already placed last but 
 one in the 19th dynasty. See p. 253 of this vol. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, p. 49. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 50. 4, 137. M. R. tav. cxlvi. 
 
 4 We do not, find any close resemblance between the Asiatic nations 
 represented in the Egyptian monuments and those who appear in the 
 Assyrian sculptures. A people armed with shields, like those described, p. 
 234, are seen on the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad, and among the spoil is a cha- 
 riot, resembling that brought by the Rotno to Thothmes III., p. 187. The 
 
THE TWENTY-FIRST DYNASTY. 285 
 
 Pharaohs ceased, perhaps by means of successful resistance to 
 them, the Assyrian monarchy rose in power. The Greek tradi- 
 tions begin with mythe in Semiramis, and end with it in Sardana- 
 palus ; but the monarchy which these mythes represent was real, 
 and must have begun in the thirteenth century b. c. 1 , that is about 
 the time when the power of Egypt declined. 
 
 The battle-pieces of the reign of Rameses IV. are not inferior in 
 design to the works of his predecessors, but those who have studied 
 minutely and on the spot the remains of Egyptian art discover 
 an inferiority in the execution. The inscriptions which Eameses V. 
 added to the obelisk erected by Thothmes I. betray even in an 
 engraving their inferiority in execution. In design there could be 
 little difference, art in its application to sacred subjects being so 
 completely submitted to established rules; but we perceive that 
 the style becomes more loaded and elaborate, an indication of the 
 decline of taste. 
 
 Twenty-first Dynasty. Seven Tanite kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Smendes, reigned 26 
 
 Psousexnes 46 41 Euseb. 
 
 Nepherciieres 4 
 
 Amexophthts 9 
 
 Osochor 6 
 
 PSEN'ACHES 9 
 
 Psousennes 14 35 Euseb. 
 
 In all 130 years. 114 130 
 
 Shairetana, p. 2*78, have many peculiarities in common with the Assyrians 
 of Nemroud; the Tokkari or Fekkaroo, p. 277, in their arms and dress and 
 the shape of their carts drawn by oxen, bear some resemblance to a nation 
 represented in the Assyrian sculptures. (Layard's Nineveh, 2, 493, foil.) 
 
 1 Herodotus (1, 95) says that theMedes revolted from the Assyrians, who 
 had ruled Upper Asia 520 years. This revolt is commonly placed 711 b. a 
 (Clinton, sub anno.) 
 
286 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Tanis or Zoan, although its name now appears for the first time 
 in Egyptian history, had long been the most important city on the 
 coast of Egypt 1 . The branch of the Nile on which it stood was the 
 most easterly and the nearest to Palestine and Arabia, with the 
 exception of the Pelusiac. It is spoken of in Scripture as being 
 founded seven years later than Hebron 2 ; the precise date of the 
 foundation of Hebron we do not know, but it was one of the oldest 
 towns in Palestine, and is mentioned in the history of Abraham. 
 It is probable that Tanis rose into importance during the wars of 
 the early kings of the New Monarchy with the Hyksos, and their 
 expeditions into Western Asia. Although Thebes continued to be 
 the place in which the splendor of the monarchy was chiefly dis- 
 played, and where the sovereigns held their court during intervals 
 of peace, they must have needed a residence in that part of Lower 
 Egypt which was nearest to the scene of their most important ope- 
 rations. That it should be at the same time not very distant from 
 the sea was also necessary, when they established a navy and 
 carried on maritime warfare against Phoenicia and Cyprus. And 
 as the eastern branches of the Nile one after another became silted 
 up, it is probable that even in this age the Pelusiac mouth may 
 have been too shallow to admit ships of war. In the 78th Psalm 
 (vv. 12, 43) the wonders which accompanied the Exodus are said 
 to have been wrought in " the plain of Zoan." This Psalm is pro- 
 bably somewhat later than the age of David, but it proves that this 
 was supposed to have been for the time the residence of the Pha- 
 raoh who had " refused to let Israel go." In the age of Isaiah it 
 was still considered as the capital of the Delta ; " the princes of 
 Zoan and the princes of Noph" (Memphis) are spoken of 3 as equiva- 
 lent to the nobles of Egypt. The ambassadors who go down to 
 Egypt to form an alliance which implied distrust in Jehovah 4 are 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. 46. 
 8 Is. xix. 11, 13. 
 
 3 Numbers, xiii. 22. 
 
 4 Is. xxx. 4. 
 
THE TWENTY-FIRST DYNASTY. 287 
 
 described as repairing to Zoan and Hanes, or Heracleopolis 1 ; the 
 desolation of Zoan is threatened by Ezekiel, as the consequence of 
 the invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. In Strabo's time it was 
 still a large town 2 , the capital of a norae ; in the age of Titus it 
 had dwindled to an insignificant place 3 . Its ruins attest its ancient 
 importance; its principal temple stood within an area of 1500 feet 
 by 1250, and appears to have been built by Rameses-Sesostris, 
 whose shield is seen in various parts of the ruins. It was adorned 
 with an unusual number of obelisks 4 . Had its remains been 
 explored with the same diligence as those of Middle and Upper 
 Egypt, we should probably have learnt something of the dynasty 
 which took its name from Tanis. But the inhabitants are rude 
 and the air at most seasons of the year pestilential 5 , and no travel- 
 ler has remained here long enough to ascertain what may be buried 
 beneath the mounds of earth which cover the site. History has 
 preserved no account of the manner in which the sceptre of Egypt 
 passed from the Diospolite dynasty to the Tanite, and the monu- 
 ments do not supply the deficiency. The temple which Rameses 
 IX. erected to the god Chons exhibits a priest, whose name has 
 been read Hraihor or Pehor 6 , distinguishable by his shaven head 
 and panther's skin, and denominated in his shield " High-priest of 
 Araun," who at the same time appears to have performed the func- 
 tions of royalty. In one compartment of the sculptures Horus 
 places on his head the white cap, and Xebthi the red cap, acts 
 symbolical of his investiture with the dominion of Upper and Lower 
 Egypt. He even appears in a military capacity with the title of 
 
 1 Champollion, L'Egypte sous les Pharaons, 1, 309. P. 130 of this 
 volume. 
 
 9 Lib. 17, p. 802. 3 Joseph. Bell. JucL 4, 11. 
 
 4 See a plan with drawings of some of the inscriptions in Burton's 
 Excerpta Hier. pi. 38-41. 
 
 6 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. & Thebes, 1, 450. 
 6 Rosellini, Mon.Stor. 4, 139. 
 
288 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Commander of the archers. Another priest, whose name has been 
 read Pischiam, appears on the same building, qualified with the 
 titles of royalty. These names do not correspond with any of those 
 in Manetho 1 , and we are left to conjecture, that during the time that 
 elapsed after the expiration of the Rameside dynasty, and before 
 the establishment of the Tanite in full authority over Upper as well 
 as Lower Egypt, the High-priests of Thebes assumed the royal style 
 and even military command. It would be agreeable to the prac- 
 tice of Manetho, not to include them in his dynastic lists, but to 
 carry on his chronology by means of the Tanite kings, even though 
 two or three generations elapsed before their authority was acknow- 
 ledged in Thebes. His omission of the reign of Actisanes, if, as 
 Diodorus represents 2 , such an invasion from Ethiopia really took 
 place, may be explained on the same principle. He did not ? like 
 Sabaco, found a dynasty. 
 
 During the long interval from the Exodus to the reign of David, 
 there is no mention in Egypt of Jewish history. The Jews had 
 not consolidated themselves into a nation during the prosperous 
 times of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and if they occupied Pales- 
 tine could offer no resistance to the armies of Rameses III. or IV. 
 An incident mentioned in the first book of Kings (xi. 14) might 
 have given us some light into Egyptian history, had its indications 
 been more precise. When Joab, in the reign of David, slaughtered 
 all the males in Edom, Hadad, one of the royal family, made his 
 escape into Egypt, and being hospitably entertained by Pharaoh, 
 received in marriage the sister of his queen Tahpenes. The name 
 of this queen, however, has not been found on any monument, and 
 therefore we are still at a loss respecting that of her husband. 
 During the reign of Solomon an active commerce in horses, chariots, 
 
 1 Bunsen (B. 3, 121) transfers to this dynasty a Nefrukera (Nephercheres) 
 and a Menephthah (Amenophthis). He also gives Pianch, answering to 
 Psinaches. 
 
 9 2, 60. 
 
THE TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 289 
 
 and linen yarn was carried on between Judaea and Egypt. Solo- 
 mon not only furnished his own armies with horses and chariots 
 from this country, but sold them again to the Hittites and the 
 kings of Syria 1 . The Pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married 2 
 must have been one of the latest kings of the 21st dynasty : he 
 received as her dowry the town of Gezer in Palestine, which the 
 king of Egypt had recently taken ; but the friendship which this 
 alliance established was soon destroyed under the 22nd. 
 
 Twenty-second Dynasty. Nine Bubastite kings. 
 
 (Euseb. Three.) 
 
 Years. 
 
 Sesonchis, reigned 21 
 
 Osorthon 15 
 
 Three others [omitted by Eusebius] .... 25 
 
 Tacellothis 13 
 
 Three others [omitted by Eusebius] ... 42 
 
 116 Eus. 49 
 
 Tn regard to this dynasty we have no longer to complain of the 
 silence of history and the monuments. The names of Sesonchis, 
 Osorkon and Tacellothis were early recognised by Champollion 3 , 
 and the researches of other Egyptologists have recovered the shields 
 of all the nine kings of whom this dynasty was composed. Those 
 of Sesonchis and several of his successors of this dynasty contain a 
 character which does not occur before, the white crown of Upper 
 Egypt, as if to indicate that it had been acquired by them. Bu- 
 bastis, whence its name is derived, was one of the most ancient 
 cities of Lower Egypt 4 ; it is mentioned in Manetho in the second 
 dynasty of the Old Monarchy, and it stood near the Pelusiac arm 
 of the Nile, about twenty miles below the apex of the Delta. In 
 
 1 1 Kings x. 28. Vol. i. p. 166. 3 1 Kings ix. 16. 
 
 8 Lettres a M. le Due de Blacas, P. 2, p. 119 * Vol. i. p. 46. 
 
 VOL. II. 1£ 
 
290 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 its modern name, Tel Basta, we recognize that of the goddess 
 Pasht, to whom the principal temple was dedicated — the Artemis 
 of the Greeks. The Hebrews called it from the same goddess 
 Pi-bcseth\ which the Septuagint renders Boubastos, and the Coptic 
 Poubast. In its present abandoned and desolate condition it still 
 exhibits some of the features which are so graphically described by 
 Herodotus 2 . " There is," says he, " in the city of Bubastis a tem- 
 ple very deserving of description ; larger and more costly temples 
 exist, but none so pleasant to behold. Except the entrance it is 
 all an island ; two canals come from the Nile, not united, but dis- 
 tinct as far as the entrance, and one flows round it on one side, and 
 one on the other. The propylaea are sixty feet high, and adorned 
 with excellent sculptures six cubits in height. The temple being 
 in the middle of the city, one who walks round looks down upon 
 it from all sides ; for the city has been raised by accumulations of 
 earth, and the temple remaining as it originally was can be looked 
 into. An outer wall runs round it with sculptured figures. Within 
 is a grove of very large trees, planted round a large temple 
 (vrjo'v), in which the image of the goddess is. The length and 
 breadth of the hieron is a stadium each way. Near the entrance 
 is a road paved with stone of the length of three stadia, leading 
 eastward through the agora, its breadth 400 feet. Trees reaching 
 to the skies are planted on either side, and it leads to the hieron 
 of Mercury." The temples of Pasht and Thoth can still be traced ; 
 the mounds which surround the ancient site are of extraordinary 
 height, rising above the area of the temple. 
 
 Sesonchis (Shishak), the first of this dynasty, is not mentioned 
 by Diodorus, nor according to our present text by Herodotus. A 
 happy conjecture of Bunsen's has restored his name to the com- 
 mencement of the 136th section of the Euterpe. " After Myceri- 
 nus the priests said that Sasychis became king of Egypt, and built 
 
 1 Ezek. xxx. 17. 
 
 2 2, 138. 
 
THE TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 291 
 
 the eastern propylaea of the temple of Vulcan 1 ." With Herodo- 
 tus the time of the building of the pyramids represents the long 
 interval of decline and insignificance which intervened between the 
 illustrious sovereigns of the 18th and 19th dynasty, and the revival 
 of the prosperity of Egypt before the invasion of the Ethiopians. 
 
 The reign of Sesonchis is the first which we are enabled to con- 
 nect, by means of a synchronism, with our ordinary reckoning of 
 the years before Christ, as he is the first Pharaoh who is men- 
 tioned by name in the Jewish Scriptures. The jealousy of Solomon 
 having been excited against Jeroboam 2 , in consequence of his 
 being prophetically pointed out by Ahijah as the future sovereign 
 of the ten tribes, Jeroboam, to save his life, had escaped into 
 Egypt, in the last years of Solomon's reign, and had taken refuge 
 with Sesonchis, or as the Hebrews wrote the name, Shashaq. The 
 folly of Rehoboam had caused the erection of a separate kingdom 
 of the ten tribes, which had its capital at Shechem. Of this 
 Jeroboam was made king, and set up here the worship of the 
 Egyptian divinities. The country being thus divided by a double 
 schism, political and religious, and a powerful ally to Egypt being 
 secured, Sesonchis made an easy conquest of Jerusalem. He came 
 up in the fifth year after the accession of Rehoboam with an over- 
 whelming force of chariots and horsemen 3 , and an auxiliary body 
 composed of Libyans, Ethiopians, and the Troglodyte tribes who 
 dwelt on the western shore of the Red Sea 4 and Ethiopia. Reho- 
 
 1 Mera Si MvKepivov yevtadai Aiyvirrov 0aai\ea e\eyov ol TPEES AEYXIN. 
 The loss of the E in such a position wo»ld easily occur. (Comp. Wessel. ad 
 Diod. 1, 94.) The Septuagint calls Shishak, Lovjaiciy. From the mention 
 of his legislation he appears to be the same as the Sasychis of Diodorus 
 {u. s.), though his chronology is entirely confused. 
 
 8 1 Kings xi 40. 
 
 * Much over-estimated no doubt in 2 Chron. xii. 3 at 1200 chariots and 
 60,000 horsemen. 
 
 4 Such is the probable meaning of the Sukiim, mentioned 2 Chron. xii. 3. 
 They were skilful slingers and very useful as light troops. (Heliod. 2EMu 
 
292 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 boam had not neglected preparation ; lie had built some strong 
 places and fortified others in the kingdom of Judah, had put gar- 
 risons in them and victualled them against a siege 1 , and had given 
 the command in them to his own sons. Sesonchis, however, 
 speedily reduced all the fenced cities of Judah and Benjamin. 
 Jerusalem appears to have made no resistance, and thus escaped 
 the sufferings of a siege and a storm 2 ; but the treasures both of 
 the Temple and the royal palace were carried off, including the 
 golden shields which Solomon had made for the use of his guards 
 on solemn occasions, and placed in the house of the forest of 
 Lebanon. It was part of the threatening of the prophet Shemaiah 
 that Judah should become subject to the king of Egypt, that they 
 might " learn the difference between the service of Jehovah and 
 the service of the kingdoms round about 3 ." During the reign of 
 Sesonchis they probably continued in a state of dependence, which, 
 however, was not burdensome, as we are told that " things went 
 w r ell in Judah 4 " during the later years of Kehoboam. 
 
 A monument still remaining on the outer wall of the hypostyle 
 hall at Karnak confirms in a very remarkable manner this nar- 
 rative from the Jewish Scriptures 6 . Sesonchis (Amunmai Sheshonk) 
 is there represented as usual of gigantic size, preparing to inflict 
 death on a group of prisoners, African and Asiatic, in the presence 
 of Amunre, who holds out a scimitar towards him with one hand, 
 and with the other leads to him a number of foreigners bound. 
 To each of the five cords which he holds in his hand are attached 
 
 8, 16.) There was a town on this coast called Suche (Plin. N. H. 6, 34), 
 supposed to be the modern Suakin. 
 
 1 2 Chron. xi. 5-1 2. The Book of Kings makes no mention of these pre- 
 parations. 
 
 2 2 Chron. xii. 7. " My wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem 
 by the hand of Shishak." 
 
 * 2 Chron. xii. 8. 4 2 Chron. xii. 12. 
 
 6 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 149 ; M. R. cxlviii. 
 
THE TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 293 
 
 a series of shields surrounded with an embattled edge and sur- 
 mounted by a head, round the neck of which the cord is passed. 
 Each of the five rows contains thirteen shields, and about half of 
 the sixty-five is legible. The first in the first line contains the lotus, 
 the symbol of the South, with the character for region ; the second 
 the papyrus, the symbol of the North. The account given in the 
 Book of Chronicles of the various nations composing the expedi- 
 tion of Sesonchis shows that he held Lybia and Ethiopia in his 
 obedience when he invaded Palestine, and renders it probable that 
 he might have subdued them in the previous part of his reign. 
 The third shield is composed of the character which has been read 
 Penne or Pone, and is understood to denote the western bank of 
 the Nile, along with the bows which have been already explained 
 as denoting Libya. Among those which remain legible, few have 
 been identified with known geographical names. Champollion 
 supposed " the land of Mahanima " (line 2, 9) to be the Mahanaim 1 
 of Scripture; "the land of Baithoron" (1. 2, 11) and Makto 
 (1. 3, 1) to be Bethhoron and Megiddo, both of which Solomon 
 fortified 2 . Mr. Osburn has since pointed out some others which 
 bear a resemblance to known names in Palestine 3 . Much uncer- 
 tainty attends these identifications, because it is necessary to assume 
 certain phonetic values for characters which do not occur else- 
 where, or only in positions equally ambiguous. There is, however, 
 no uncertainty respecting the most important figure of the whole, 
 the third in the third line, which contains in well-known characters 
 Joudhmalk, i. e. Joudah-Melek, "King of Judah," which being 
 followed by the usual character for land, the whole will be read 
 " Land of the King of Judah ;" these shields representing not per- 
 sons but places, symbolized by a figure of their inhabitants. 
 Another figure on the same wall represents the goddess Egypt, 
 who holds in her hand four cords, to each of which seventeen 
 1 Gen. xxxii. 2. a 1 Kings ix. 15, 17. 2 Chron. viii. 6. 
 
 * Ancient Egypt, p. 158. 
 
294 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 similar shields are attached. The greater part are legible, but 
 none of them have been identified with names known in geo- 
 graphy. Since this is the case on a monument of the middle of 
 the tenth century before Christ, we cannot be surprised at the little 
 success which has attended the attempts made to ascertain the 
 nations who are mentioned in the sculptures of sovereigns of the 
 18th dynasty, the Thothmes, Menephthah and the Rameses. 
 With the exception of a few general designations of the African 
 nations, we meet with none of those with which the earlier monu- 
 ments have made us familiar — Naharaina, for example, — or those 
 which we have supposed to describe people inhabiting the countries 
 eastward of the Tigris and north-westward of the Euphrates. Not- 
 withstanding the pompous list of names in the record of the 
 triumphs of Sesonchis, it is not probable that his expedition 
 extended much beyond Palestine. He could not have advanced 
 towards the Euphrates without encountering the power of the 
 Assyrians. 
 
 There are other memorials of Sesonchis 1 at Karnak and Silsilis, 
 but being of the religious class they throw no light on the history 
 of his reign. A stele at the latter place bears date in the twenty- 
 first year of his reign, which must have been the last. It speaks 
 of his excavations in these quarries for the purpose of erecting 
 buildings at Thebes'. These were carried on by his successors in 
 the Bubastite dynasty 9 . 
 
 1 A cuirass of leather, studded with brass scales, hearing the shield of 
 Sheshonk, is figured in M. Prisse d'Avennes' Monumens Egyptiens, Paris, 
 1846, p. 735. The name, however, will not prove that it was worn by 
 Sesonchis, as a throwstick is figured in the same work, bearing the shield 
 of a queen. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 165. Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, 359. 
 
 8 It would be premature to enter into any speculations respecting the 
 connexion of Egypt and Assyria in this age till the Assyrian monuments 
 are better understood. See Birch, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. voL iii. From 
 Layard's account, it is evident that the Egyptian remains found at Nineveh 
 
THE TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 295 
 
 If Sesonchis were the Sasychis of Diodorus and Herodotus, he 
 was celebrated as a legislator as well as a conqueror. To him 
 Herodotus attributes the law 1 which allowed a debtor to raise 
 money by pledging the body of his father, under the condition 
 that if he did not repay the money, neither he himself nor any of 
 his family should be interred, either in the family sepulchre or 
 elsewhere. He was said also to have erected a pyramid of brick, 
 and placed an inscription upon it, in which he claimed for it a 
 superiority over the pyramids of stone. The inscription as given 
 by Herodotus has very little resemblance to a genuine inscription, 
 and was probably the invention of his guides. But it is not at all 
 improbable that Sesonchis, following the example of his predecessor 
 of the 18th century, may have employed his Asiatic captives in 
 brick-making. The sepulchres of the kings, after the last of the 
 Rameses, are no longer found in the Bab-el-Mel ook ; and there is 
 no reason why some of the brick pyramids of Lower Egypt, which 
 have been ascertained by the Prussian Expedition to be nearly 
 double the number previously known, may not have been the tombs 
 of later kings. 
 
 If some of them were built after the end of the 19th dynasty, 
 when royal interments ceased at Thebes; we can understand how 
 all of them were referred to that period. Sasychis, according to 
 Herodotus, built the eastern propylsea of the temple at Memphis, 
 and adorned it with sculptures of remarkable size and beauty. 
 These have perished, and the imperfect remains at Karuak atford 
 no criterion of the state of the arts in the reign of Sesonchis. It 
 may be better judged of by the statues of the lion-headed god- 
 dess Pasht, which seem to have been multiplied in the reign of 
 this first Bubastite king. One of these is in the Museum of Turin! 
 another in the Louvre, and a third in the British Museum 2 . In 
 
 do not belong to the earliest age of the Assyrian monarchy, as they occur 
 above ruined buildings. Layard's Nineveh, vol. 2, p. 205. 
 
 1 See p. 48 of this voL a Gallery of Antiquities, pi. viii 
 
296 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 regard to its execution, Mr. Birch observes : — " The style is very- 
 different from those executed under Amenoph III. in the same 
 collection ; the cheeks are more hollow, the limbs more lissom 
 and less strongly developed ; the whole of a style of art less pure 
 and grand than that of the 18th dynasty." 
 
 A son of Sesonchis appears joined with him in an act of wor- 
 ship at Karnak. His name is Ushiopf or Schuopt, and like the 
 kings mentioned, p. 287, he united with the sacerdotal office the 
 post of captain of the archers. He did not, however, succeed his 
 father. 
 
 Osorthon is the next king in Manetho's list. Where this name 
 occurs again in the 23rd dynasty in Eusebius, it is Osorcho in 
 Manetho ; and although there is no various reading here, there 
 can be no doubt that the king intended is the Osorkon of the 
 monuments. His shield follows that of Sheshonk in the sculp- 
 tures of the court at Karnak, which has been called, from having 
 been adorned by them, the Court of the Bubastite kings*. It is 
 also found at Bubastis on a fragment of a cornice, and cut on 
 some blocks where originally the shield of Rameses-Sesostris stood 5 . 
 Among the Egyptian antiquities of the Louvre, there is a magni- 
 ficent vase of alabaster, which contains on one side a dedication 
 by Osorchon to Amunre. It was subsequently employed to receive 
 the remains of a member of the Claudian family at Rome, and 
 bears an inscription to this purpose on its opposite side 4 . 
 
 The Book of Kings gives no account of the relations between 
 Egypt and the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, from the invasion 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 163. 
 
 9 See vol. i. p. 148. It is marked B. 4. 8, on Sir G. Wilkinson's Map of 
 Thebes. Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 85. 
 
 3 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. <fe Thebes, 1, 429. He has not given any facsimile 
 of these shields, and it is possible that they may not all refer to the same 
 Osorkon. 
 
 4 Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 360. 
 
THE TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY. 
 
 297 
 
 of Shishak till the reign of Hoshea, who made an alliance with 
 Seva, or So, king of Egypt (725 B.C.), in order to throw off the 
 yoke of Salmaneser and the Assyrians 1 . The Second Book of 
 Chronicles, however, records an invasion of Judah by Zerach, 
 the Ethiopian, in the reign of Asa, the grandson of Rehoboam. 
 In the name of Zerach critics have recognized that of Osorchon, the 
 successor of Sesonchis. A war between the two countries was an 
 exceedingly probable event. Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, had 
 gained a great victory over the kingdom of Israel. Asa had 
 raised an army, according to the Book of Chronicles, of 580,000 
 men, and built several fortified places in Judah. If Egypt had 
 retained a claim of superiority and tribute over Judah from the 
 time of Sheshonk's invasion, these indications of a growing mili- 
 tary power would not be overlooked by her. Zerach (941 B.C., 
 Usher) came up with a very numerous army 2 as far as Mareshah 
 in the plain of Judah, but was defeated by Asa and pursued to 
 Gerar on the southern boundary of Palestine. The only difficulty 
 which attends the narrative is, that Zerach is called an Ethiopian 
 (Cushite). No king of the Bubastite dynasty could have been so 
 designated ; the works of Osorchon and his successors at Thebes 
 show that Upper Egypt was in their possession ; and therefore if 
 we could suppose a motive for an invasion of Judaea by a sovereign 
 of Ethiopia, it is not credible that he should have marched through 
 Egypt for its accomplishment. On the other hand, chronology forbids 
 the supposition that Zerach could be one of the 25th or Ethiopian 
 dynasty of Egyptian kings, the earliest of whom lived 200 years 
 later than Asa. The reality of the invasion and defeat cannot be 
 called in question ; the name Zerach is not very remote from Osor- 
 chon, when reduced to its consonants, and the times would very 
 exactly correspond. Rehoboam reigned twelve years after the 
 1 2 Kings xvii. 4. 
 
 3 Estimated in 2 Chron. xiv. 9, at a million of men and three hundred 
 chariots. 
 
 13* 
 
298 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 invasion of Sesonchis ; Abijah, his son, three years ; the victory 
 of Asa took place in the fifteenth year of his reign 1 . Thus thirty 
 years elapsed between the invasions by Sheshonk and by Zerach, 
 and as Sesonchis reigned twenty-two years and Osorchon fifteen, 
 there is sufficient room for both events. The name of Ethiopian 
 given to Zerach in the Book of Chronicles, which was not written, 
 at least in its present form, till after the Captivity, may be explained 
 by the circumstance that his army, like that of Sheshonk, was 
 composed chiefly of Libyan and Ethiopian troops. 2 
 
 The names of the three successors of Osorkon I. are not given 
 by Manetho ; Lepsius makes his immediate successor to have been 
 Amunmai Pehor, who was probably his son. Another son, whose 
 name was Sheshonk, filled the office of high-priest, and is men- 
 tioned in a funeral papyrus which appears to have accompanied the 
 mummy of another high-priest of the name of Osorkon, the son of 
 this Sheshonk, and consequently grandson of Osorkon I. Neither 
 of these appear to have ascended the throne. Pehor was succeeded 
 by Osorkon II., and he by Sheshonk II. His shield is distin- 
 guished from that of the founder of the dynasty, by the addition 
 of the name of the goddess of Bubastis, Pasht. The name of Take- 
 lothis was recovered by Champollion from a fragment 3 of a piece of 
 sycamore-wood, the remainder of which is*in the Vatican, on which 
 a priest clad in the leopard's skin is represented, performing an act 
 of adoration to Phre, in behalf of Takelothis' son. It has since 
 been found on the wall at Karnak, and with the date of the twenty- 
 fifth year of his reign. The same inscription mentions the name 
 of his queen Keromama, and of his son and probably successor 
 Osorchon, who is called high-priest and captain of the archers 4 . 
 
 1 2 Chron. xv. 10. 3 2 Chron. xyi. 8. 
 
 * Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 361. Champollion le Jeune, Lettre a 
 M. le Due de Blacas, 2, 123. 
 
 * Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 170. 
 
THE TWENTY-THIRD DYNASTY. 
 
 299 
 
 Of Osorkon III., Sheshonk III., and Takelothis II. 1 , with whom, 
 the dynasty became extinct, no historical fact is recorded. 
 
 The relations of Egypt and Judaea appear not to have been 
 friendly, under this and the succeeding dynasty, even when there 
 was not actual war between them. The prophet Joel 2 (iii. 19) 
 threatens Egypt, as well as Edom, with desolation for its violence 
 against the children of Judah, which may have consisted in the 
 forcible seizure of the inhabitants for slaves. Eusebius in his Canon 
 remarks, under the 23rd dynasty, that after the Phoenicians the 
 Egyptians became masters of the seas, and they probably exercised 
 their dominion piratically, like their predecessors. 
 
 Twenty-third Dynasty. Four Tanite kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Petubatis [Petubastis, Euseb.], reigned ... 40 25 (Euseb.) 
 
 In his reign was the first Olympiad. 
 Osorcho [Osorthon, Euseb.] 8 
 
 "Whom the Egyptians call Hercules 3 . 
 
 PsAMMUS 10 
 
 Zet [omitted by Euseb.] 31 
 
 89 44 
 
 Of this whole dynasty, till lately, no name had been read on the 
 monuments, as no fact is recorded concerning them. Lepsius has 
 found a shield with the name of Petsepasht, the Egyptian word 
 whence the Petubastis of Eusebius was derived. The occurrence 
 
 1 Bunsen, ^Egyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 135. 
 
 ' His age is uncertain, but from the absence of all mention of Assyria, 
 he is thought to have lived before that power threatened the independence 
 of Palestine. 
 
 s This remark, from its turn of expression, is evidently not that of Mane- 
 tho. It does not appear what ground there was for this identification, as 
 Chon is said to have been the Egyptian name for Hercules. Etym. M. s. v. 
 X<3»>. Vol. i. p. 322. 
 
300 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of the name of the great goddess of Bubastis in that of the founder 
 of the dynasty, leads us to conclude that this family, though called 
 of Tanis, was genealogically connected with the preceding. This 
 is confirmed by the name of the second king Osorchon, which was 
 borne by so many of the 22nd dynasty. A shield at Karnak, con- 
 taining the name Psemaut, has generally been attributed to 
 Psemmuthis of the 29th dynasty, which arose during an interval 
 of successful revolt from Persia 1 , a prince who reigned only during 
 a part of the year. Lepsius has given it to Psammus, the third of 
 this dynasty. There remains then only Zet 2 , whose name has not 
 yet been found. 
 
 The fifth year of Rehoboam, in which Sheshonk invaded Judaea, 
 is generally placed 974 b. c. Between this date and 1322 b. c. 
 we must place the reigns of all the kings from Menephthah (p. 250) 
 to Sheshonk. These three centuries and a half suffice for the 
 events of the history, but their distribution into reigns would be 
 quite hypothetical. The chronological notice, that the first Olym- 
 piad fell in the reign of Petubastis, seems to have been transferred 
 hither by mistake. It is not found in Eusebius, and cannot have 
 proceeded from Africanus, who elsewhere places the first Olympiad 
 in the first year of Ahaz 3 . This is too late, as the other is too early. 
 
 We obtain no assistance either from Herodotus or Diodorus, in 
 recovering the history of this dynasty. Herodotus knows the name 
 of no king of Egypt, between Sasychis and Anysis, who was reign- 
 ing at the time of the Ethiopian invasion. Diodorus passes at once 
 from the builders of the pyramids to Bocchoris, and he makes many 
 years to have intervened between him and Sabaco, contrary to the 
 
 1 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 1, 207 ; Mod. Eg. & Thebes, 2, 256. 
 
 a Lepsius, Einl. 1, 256, makes him to be the Sethos of Herodotus. 
 
 * Fynes Clinton, Fasti, 1, 150, who observes that the year b. c. 776, the 
 admitted aera of the Olympiads, fell in the 33rd year of Uzziah. His reign 
 lasted 51 years ; that of his son and successor Jotham, the father of 
 Ahnz, 16. 
 
THE TWENTY-FOURTH DYNASTY. 
 
 301 
 
 lists, according to which Bocchoris was taken captive and burnt 
 alive by the Ethiopian king. There are not even any private 
 monuments which throw light on the condition of Egypt during 
 this period. That it was one of decline and decay we may infer 
 from the ascendency which the Ethiopians acquired in the next 
 dynasty, and apparently with little struggle on the part of the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 Twenty-fourth Dynasty. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Bocchoris of Sais reigned 6 Euseb. 44 
 
 In his reign a lamb spoke 1 . 
 
 The Dynasty of Sais, founded by Bocchoris, may be said to have 
 been in fact prolonged to the time of the Persian conquest, the 
 Ethiopian dynasty being intrusive and the Dodecarchia only tem- 
 porary. Sais stood near the Canopic branch of the Nile, to which, 
 as the nearest and the most accessible, the traffic of the Greeks 
 was from the first attracted. Naucratis, the only harbor in Egypt 
 to which strangers were admitted, unless under the plea of stress 
 of weather 2 , was on the Canopic branch and nearer to the sea 
 than Sais. It is not certain when the Greeks were first allowed 
 to settle in Naucratis. Eusebius in his Canon says 3 , that the 
 Milesians, in the reign of Bocchoris, became powerful at sea and 
 built the city of Naucratis. This is not very probable, if literally 
 
 %1 Probably a portent of the approaching calamities of Bocchoris and his 
 kingdom. So when Psammenitus was about to be dethroned, rain fell at 
 Thebes (Her. 3, 10). According to ^Elian, N. H. 12, 3, this lamb, besides 
 speaking with a human voice, had two heads, eight feet, <fec. 
 
 8 This is stated by Herodotus (2, 179) as if true of all strangers. Strabo 
 intimates that it was chiefly intended against the Greeks from their piratical 
 habits, 1*7, 792. The duty of watching the coast and keeping off strangers 
 was committed to the herdsmen, a rude and inhospitable face. 
 * Under Olymp. vi. 
 
302 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 taken, and is contradicted by Herodotus 1 , who says the Ionians 
 and Carians under Psammitichus were the first foreigners who 
 were allowed to settle in Egypt. Considering the wide-spread 
 colonization of the Milesians in the eighth century before Christ 2 , 
 there is however nothing improbable in their having established 
 more regular commercial relations with Egypt than Greece had 
 possessed before. 
 
 Gradually greater privileges seem to have been allowed them^ 
 and hence the variety of accounts respecting the time of their 
 establishment, which Strabo against all probability brings down as 
 low as the revolt of Inaros 3 , 462 B.C. The Portuguese at Macao 
 at first only obtained permission to erect sheds for their goods, but 
 by degrees were allowed to build houses, establish a government 
 of their own and erect a fort. The story of the landing of the 
 Ionian and Carian mercenaries in Egypt at the time of the Dode- 
 carchia indicates that armed Greeks were a novel sight to the 
 Egyptians 4 ; but of course only merchant ships and men in peace- 
 ful attire would be admitted to Naucratis. The English, when 
 they first established themselves at Formosa, agreed to deliver up 
 all their guns and ammunition while in port 6 . We do not, how- 
 ever, derive much increase of our knowledge respecting Egypt 
 from the increased resort of the Greeks before the time of Psam- 
 mitichus. They have not even preserved such tales of wonder as 
 we find in the Homeric legends. The Epic Muse was silent ; the 
 Cyclic, if she deserves the name of Muse, was occupied in combin- 
 ing and harmonizing the traditions of the Mythic age. Prose 
 history, scientific geography and astronomy had their birth-place 
 at Miletus ; but in a later century. 
 
 1 2, 154. a Rambach de Mileto, p. 19, 62. Clinton, F. H. 1, 115. 
 
 3 IV, p. 801. According to him they first fortified a place at the Bolbitine 
 mouth, in the reign of Psammitichus ; and afterwards removed in the time 
 of Inaros to the Saitic nome, and fortified Naucratis. 
 
 4 Her. 2, 152. 5 Davis, The Chinese, vol. 1, p. 35. 
 
THE TWENTY- FOURTH DYNASTY. 
 
 303 
 
 The name of Bocchoris, which was probably in Egyptian Pekor, 
 does not appear on any monument which can be conclusively 
 referred to his reign 1 . His father's name, according to Diodorus, 
 was Tnephachthus, or Gnephachthus, in which we recognise that 
 of the goddess Pasht 2 . Diodorus calls his father king, and relates 
 an anecdote of him which has been mentioned under the reign of 
 Menes. Bocchoris himself is said by Diodorus to have been mean 
 and feeble in body, but to have surpassed his predecessors in 
 ingenuity and wisdom. He attributes specially to him the laws 
 which regulated commercial contracts and the prerogatives and 
 duties of the king 3 . This reputation seems to imply that at his 
 accession he found public and private law in a state of decay, and 
 labored to renew them. He is celebrated also for the wisdom of 
 his judicial decisions, many of which were handed down by fame 
 even to very late times. A very different account of his character 
 and administration is given by ^Elian 4 , who says he had obtained 
 a false reputation for the justice of his decisions. To grieve the 
 Egyptians, he set a wild bull to attack their sacred Mnevis. As 
 the assailant was rushing furiously on, he stumbled, and entangling 
 his horn in the tree persea, Mnevis gave him a mortal wound in 
 the flank. Plutarch 5 , while he acknowledges the just decisions of 
 Bocchoris, calls him a man of stern character. Possibly the 
 avarice which Diodorus attributes to him may have been only the 
 unfavorable aspect of a rigid economy, rendered necessary by dila- 
 pidated finances. Economy, especially if accompanied by strict- 
 
 1 The Amunse Pehor, whom the earlier Egyptologists identified with 
 Bocchoris, has been removed by Lepsius to the 21st dynasty. See before, 
 p. 287. Bunsen. 3, 135. 
 
 2 Plut. Is. et Osir. 354 B. gives the name Technatis ; Athenseus, x. p. 418, 
 
 3 Tovtov ovv Stard^ai ra nepl rovs 0aui\tTs navTa, fat ra irtpii twv cvfi^oXaiuiv 
 l^aKptPaicrai. (Diod. ibid.) 
 
 4 Nat. Anim. 11, 11. 5 Tlep\ Avcwmas, p. 529, E. 
 
304 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ness in the levying of taxes, is seldom a popular virtue in rulers. 
 The celebrity which he enjoyed is hardly reconcilable with the 
 short reign of six years which the lists attribute to him. Eusebius 
 makes his reign to have lasted forty-four years ; but this number 
 is suspicious, as being the same which this author attributes both 
 to the 23rd dynasty which precedes and the 25th which follows. 
 The cruel death inflicted by Sabaco on Bocchoris, which appears 
 inconsistent with the humanity ascribed to the Ethiopian conqueror, 
 may be explained, if we suppose that Bocchoris was at first left on 
 the throne in the capacity of a tributary, but revolting, w r as taken 
 prisoner by Sabaco and then put to death by burning. Herodotus 
 calls the king who \vas reigning at the time of the Ethiopian 
 invasion, Anysis, and a native of the city of the same name, pro- 
 bably the Hanes of the prophet Isaiah 1 , to which, as well as Tanis, 
 the ambassadors of Israel came, seeking an alliance with the king 
 of Egypt, when they were alarmed by the prospect of an Assyrian 
 invasion, in the reign of Sennacherib. According to Herodotus, 
 Anysis was not put to death,, but took refuge in the marshes of 
 the Delta. He had made a spot of solid ground of a little more 
 than a mile square, by laying down ashes amidst the muddy soil. 
 These ashes were supplied by the friends, who, unknown to the 
 Ethiopians, brought him provisions. On the retirement of the 
 Ethiopians he issued from his retreat, and resumed his power, after 
 an interval of fifty years. These differences are irreconcilable, but 
 on the whole it appears probable that a considerably longer date 
 is to be allowed to the reign of the immediate predecessor of 
 Sabaco than six years. 
 
 1 xxx. 4. See p. 286, 287 of this vol. 
 
THE TWENTY-FIFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 305 
 
 Twenty-fifth Dynasty, of three Ethiopian kings. 
 
 Yeara 
 
 1. Sabaco, reigned 8 Eusebius 12 
 
 He took Bocchoris prisoner and burnt him 
 alive. 
 
 2. Sebichos (Sevechos) his son 14 Eusebius 12 
 
 3. Tabktjs (Tarakos, Eus.) 18 Eusebius 20 
 
 40 44 
 
 The word Ethiopian has so wide a meaning, being applied to 
 the Arab of Yemen, to the Abessinian, the native of Sennaar, Dar- 
 fur and Kordofan, as well as of Nubia and Dongola, that it is 
 necessary to fix its sense more precisely, in order to conceive 
 rightly of the conquest of Egypt by the Ethiopians in the latter 
 part of the eighth century before Christ. The seat of the monarchy 
 of Sabaco and his successors was Napata, whose site and remains 
 have been already described 1 . It extended as far north as to the 
 island of Argo ; the space between that and the Cataracts of Syene 
 must be regarded as a debateable land, which was held by Egypt 
 or Ethiopia according to their relative strength. Under the 18th 
 dynasty we have seen that the valley of the Nile was completely 
 possessed by Egypt, even to the south of the Second Cataract. 
 During the feebleness of the last years of the 23rd and the 24th, 
 it is probable that the Ethiopians had advanced their arms to the 
 very frontiers of Egypt, or even occupied Thebes. How far to the 
 south of Napata the Ethiopian monarchy extended at this time we 
 do not know. It has been commonly supposed that the island of 
 Meroe was its original seat : Herodotus calls the city of Meroe 
 " the metropolis of the other Ethiopians," meaning probably those 
 of the island. No monuments of equal antiquity with those of 
 
 1 VoL i p. 13. 
 
306 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Napata have been found in any part of the island 1 . Diodorus 8 
 says that the city of Meroe was founded by Cambyses and named 
 after his mother ; but Cambyses never reached so far. In the 
 Persian times the valley of the Nile above the First Cataract was 
 held by the Ethiopians, but as tributaries ; the Persian frontier 
 garrison was established in Elephantine. The Ptolemies before 
 Euergetes left Ethiopia in possession of her independence ; we find 
 the names of Erkamen (Ergamenes) and Atharaman on the monu- 
 ments of Lower Nubia 3 . Under the Romans, in the reign of 
 Augustus, Ethiopia appears again as a powerful monarchy, and 
 Petronius marched to Napata and compelled Candace to submit 
 herself to the emperor. 
 
 The Ethiopians of the eighth century before Christ were little 
 inferior in civilization to the Egyptians themselves. They had a 
 system of hieroglyphical writing identical with the Egyptian, 
 though applied to a different language, and therefore not yet 
 deciphered 4 . The power of the priesthood was greater than even 
 in Egypt, and completely ascendant over the monarchy. Both the 
 historical and the prophetic books of the Jews afford evidence of 
 their military power. They bear a part in the invasions of Pales- 
 tine ; they are joined by Isaiah with the Egyptians when he 
 endeavors to dissuade his countrymen from relying on their aid to 
 resist Assyria. In the 87th Psalm (v. 4) Ethiopia is mentioned 
 along with Egypt, Babylon, Tyre and Philistia, as one of the most 
 illustrious nations 5 . Throughout the prophetic writings the Ethio- 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. 8. 2 1, 33. 3 Vol. i. p. 22, 24. 
 
 4 It is said that Lepsius has ascertained the language of the Ethiopian 
 inscriptions. Charemon, who wrote on hieroglyphics about the Christian 
 a?ra, called them Ethiopic letters. His explanations accord in general with 
 modern discovery. See Birch's Remarks on the curious fragment of Chse- 
 remon, preserved by Tzetzes, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 3, 384. 
 
 6 The meaning of the passage evidently is, that though it was an honor 
 to be a native of Egypt, Babylon, or Ethiopia, it was a greater honor to be 
 a native of Zion. 
 
THE TWENTY-FIFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 307 
 
 pians are very generally conjoined with Egypt, so as to show that 
 the union between them, produced sometimes by the ascendency 
 of one country, sometimes of the other, was so close, that their 
 foreign policy was usually the same 1 . We are not therefore to 
 consider the subjugation of Egypt by the Ethiopians as if they had 
 fallen under the dominion of a horde of Arabs or Scythians. The 
 blameless Ethiopians 2 is the earliest epithet which the Greeks 
 applied to them ; Diodorus 3 celebrates the moderation of Actisanes, 
 and the account which Herodotus 4 gives of Sabaco's retirement 
 from Egypt proves his humanity and reverence for the gods. The 
 dynasty was changed ; the head of it either put to death or driven 
 into the marshes of Lower Egypt ; but the order of government 
 appears to have suffered little change. No difference of religion 
 or manners embittered the animosity of the two nations ; they had 
 been connected by royal intermarriages ; Ammon and Osiris were 
 equally honored at Thebes and Me roe 5 ; and to the inhabitants of 
 Upper Egypt, the Ethiopians would seem hardly so foreign as the 
 people of Sais. 
 
 The Egyptian history of Herodotus, if we understand by that 
 word a series of facts connected in chronological order, really 
 begins with the invasion of Sabaco. He himself remarks, that the 
 settlement of the Ionians and Carians in Egypt, in the time of 
 Psammitichus, gave the Greeks an accurate knowledge of all its 
 subsequent history, and the effect would naturally extend upw ards 
 also. Herodotus indeed considers the same king Sabaco as reign- 
 ing through the whole fifty years that the Egyptians kept posses- 
 sion of Egypt ; but the similarity of two of the names may partly 
 account for this error, which at all events was not his, since the 
 relation of the departure of Sabaco is evidently formed on the 
 assumption of the identity of the invader with the sovereign who 
 withdrew from the country. 
 
 1 Is. xx. 5. Xahum iii. 9. Ezek. xxx. 4. 
 
 1 H a', 423. » 2, 60. 4 2, 139. 6 Her. 2, 29. 
 
308 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 The name of Sabaco, written Shabek, is found at Luxor, with 
 the usual titles of Egyptian sovereignty, on the internal wall of the 
 propyla raised by Rameses-Sesostris 1 . The sculptures having been 
 injured, or decayed with time, Sabaco renewed them and substi- 
 tuted his own name for that of Rameses ; they indicate that Egyp- 
 tian art still existed in considerable vigor. A statuette of the 
 same king, of the stone called plasme cfemeraude, is preserved in 
 the Villa Albani at Rome, and his name occurs also as a date on 
 some amulets and small figures from the collection of Anastasy, 
 now in the Louvre. The shield of Sabaco has also been found 
 over a gate of the palace of Karnak, and on some fragments one 
 of which bears the date of his twelfth year. This, according to 
 Eusebius, was the last of his reign ; according to the text of Mane- 
 tho, with which the summation of the years of the dynasty agrees, 
 he reigned only eight years. The name of the succeeding king, 
 however, Sebechus or Sevechus, is evidently the same as Sabaco, 
 which Manetho probably adopted as one already established in 
 history ; and the shield at Karnak which has been attributed 
 to the first Ethiopic king may with equal propriety be given 
 to the second, as their phonetic names are written in the same 
 characters 2 , and thus the monuments and the lists will be brought 
 into accordance, the date of the twelfth year being allotted to 
 Sevechus. 
 
 Diodorus bestows the highest praise on Sabaco, as surpassing in 
 piety and clemency all his predecessors 3 . Herodotus agrees in 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 107 ; 4, 175, 177. Champollion-Figeac, L'Uni- 
 vers, p. 363. The name also occurs (Rosellini, 2, 108) on monuments of 
 private persons, who call themselves natives of Cush. 
 
 2 See Bunsen, Plates of 25th Dynasty, Xos. 1 & 2. 
 
 8 His account of Actisanes has the air of being a confused tradition of 
 this Ethiopian conquest ; the only circumstance which he definitely men- 
 tions concerning his reign is, that he did not put criminals to death, but 
 banished them to Rhinocolura on the confines of Syria (1, 60). 
 
THE TWENTY-FIFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 309 
 
 representing him as having abolished the punishment of death, and 
 substituted for it compulsory labor on public works 1 . They were 
 such as in the more glorious days of the monarchy had been per- 
 formed by foreign prisoners. The increase in the rise of the Nile 
 since the reign of Sesostris, had made it necessary to add to the 
 height of the embankments which prevented the towns of Lower 
 Egypt from being laid under water at the time of the inundation. 
 He also employed culprits in excavating canals. The circum- 
 stances of his retirement from Egypt, as related by both historians, 
 indicate that the priests bore subjection to a foreign power impa- 
 tiently and caballed for its overthrow. He dreamt that a figurp 
 standing over him in his sleep, counselled him to collect all the 
 priests in Egypt together and cut them to pieces 2 . Sabaco per- 
 ceived in this a design on the part of the gods to entice him to the 
 commission of an act of impiety which should bring on his ruin. 
 He had been told by the oracles of Ethiopia that he should reign 
 over Egypt fifty years, and being disturbed by the dream he deter- 
 mined voluntarily to withdraw into Ethiopia. As related of the 
 Ethiopian king who had invaded Egypt this cannot be true ; but 
 the subsequent elevation of a priest of Memphis to supreme power 
 makes it probable that the sacerdotal order of that city, controlled 
 in their ascendency, had placed the Ethiopian sovereigns in the 
 dilemma of yielding to them or undertaking their extermination. 
 No memorials of any of this dynasty except Tirhakah have been 
 found in Lower Egypt, though it is evident from the account of 
 the raising of the mounds that it was subject to Sabaco. 
 
 It is related in the Second Book of Kings (xvii. 4), that Hoshea, 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 137. 
 
 9 Mfo-ovs Siaraficeiv, Her. 2, 139. Diodorus adds, Sta [ttaajp avrdv cd\Bri ftcra 
 rrjs Bcoairua, (1, C5), a circumstance which seems to have been added from 
 the story of Xerxes (Her. 7, 40), who commanded the eldest son of Pythius, 
 whom he had endeavored to beg off from military service, to be cut in two 
 pieces, which were fixed on either side of the line of march. 
 
310 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 king of Israel, who had become tributary to Shalmaneser, king of 
 Assyria, had entered into a secret alliance with Seva, the king of 
 Egypt, the Sevechus of Manetho 1 , and relying on his assistance, 
 " had brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done 
 year by year ;" for which the king of Assyria put him in prison, 
 and after a three years' siege took Samaria and carried the people 
 captive into Assyria and Media. This, according to the Jewish 
 Chronology, took place in the year 722 B.C., the ninth of Hoshea's 
 reign. The kings of the Ethiopian dynasty would naturally enter 
 into the policy of the native kings of Egypt, which evidently was 
 to uphold the power of Israel and Judah, the only barrier between 
 themselves and the warlike and aggressive empire of the Assyrians. 
 It is probable that the rapid movements of Shalmaneser, who had 
 an ally in the kiug of Judah, anticipated the aid which Sevechus 
 had engaged to furnish to Hoshea ; but the very brief narrative 
 of the Book of Kings gives us no details. Many of the Israelites 
 avoided the captivity which threatened them, by taking refuge in 
 the friendly territory of Egypt, while others even penetrated into 
 Ethiopia, and from this time forward there seems always to have 
 been a considerable body of Jews in the eastern side of Egypt, 
 speaking their own language, practising their own religious rites, 
 and exciting the bigotry of the native Egyptians 2 . The prophet 
 Isaiah 3 anticipates the time when the remnant of the people should 
 be recalled " from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros (the 
 Thebaid), and from Cush," and in glowing language describes 
 Jehovah as drying up the gulf of the Red Sea, smiting the seven 
 channels of the Nile, and making a highway through the Desert, 
 that they might return without danger or delay. 
 
 Tirhakah, the Tarcus or Taracus of Manetho, the Tearco of 
 Strabo 4 , succeeded Sevechus. His name, written Tarhak or Tar- 
 haka, is found on the internal face of the pylon of a building 
 
 1 5S~iD w hich without the points may be read Seva. 
 
 2 Isaiah xix. 18, folL 8 xi. 11. 4 B. 1, pi 61. 
 
THE TWENTY -FIFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 311 
 
 erected at Medic et Aboo by Thothmes IV. 1 and at Gebel-el-Birkel, 
 with the date of his twentieth year, which, according to Eusebius, 
 must have been the last of his sovereignty over Egypt. Other 
 inscriptions remain in which he is mentioned, but they give us no 
 other knowledge concerning him than the name of his queen and 
 of the nurse of his daughter. The Egypto-Ethiopian monarchy 
 must have been very powerful, though Memphis had been given 
 up to Sethos. Strabo speaks of him as rivalling Sesostris in the 
 extent of his foreign expeditions, and as having reached the Pillars 
 of Hercules 2 . These are evident exaggerations, but they prove the 
 historical fame of Tirhakah, and may have had their foundation in 
 an expedition into Western Africa, of which the Phoenician colo- 
 nies were the object and limit. The narrative of the expedition of 
 Sennacherib against Judaea and Egypt indicates the opinion enter- 
 tained of his power. The king of Assyria was dissatisfied with the 
 conduct of Hezekiah, who, after having paid him a heavy contri- 
 bution in gold and silver, was meditating defection in hope of aid 
 from Egypt. He had taken all the strong places of Judah, and 
 from Lachish, a town in the plain of Sephela, on the road to 
 Egypt, which he was besieging, he sent a powerful detachment 
 with a threatening message to Hezekiah 3 . The king himself and 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem were filled with alarm ; but Isaiah 
 encouraged them by a prediction, that Sennacherib " should hear 
 a rumor and return to his own land 4 ." This rumor was evidently 
 of the march of Tirhakah to the relief of Judaea, the expectation of 
 which had emboldened Hezekiah to withdraw the submission 
 
 1 Rosellini, M. Stor. 2, 109. 2 B. 1, p. 61 ; 15, p. 687. 
 
 9 Isaiah xxxvi. xxxvii. ; 2 Kings xviii. xix. 
 
 4 The common Translation has, " I will send a blast upon him, and he 
 shall hear a rumor and return to his own land," in which there appears to 
 be a reference to the miraculous destruction of his army. But this is an 
 error. Archbishop Seeker and Bishop Lowth translate the passage, "I will 
 infuse a spirit into him," and explain it, "a spirit of cowardice." 
 
312 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 which he had recently made. The narrative, however, implies 
 that there was another power in Egypt on which Hezekiah relied ; 
 for Sennacherib in his taunting message says, " On whom dost thou 
 trust, that thou rebellest against me ? Lo, thou trustest in the star! 
 of this broken reed, on Egypt ; whereon if a man lean it will go 
 into his hand and pierce it ; so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all 
 who trust in him." Now we learn from Herodotus that after the 
 retirement of " the Ethiopian " from Egypt, and the resumption 
 of power by the king who had fled into the marshes, Sethos, a 
 priest of Hephaistos, made himself king, probably only of part of 
 Lower Egypt. He treated the warrior caste, not only with contempt, 
 but with injustice, endeavoring to deprive them of the lands which 
 preceding kings had allotted to them. The consequence was that 
 when Sennacherib, whom Herodotus calls king of the Assyrians 
 and Arabians, invaded Egypt, the military refused to march 
 against him. The priest, reduced to despair, went into the sanc- 
 tuary of his god, and lamented to him his condition. In the midst 
 of his lamentations he fell asleep, and a dream came over him, in 
 which the god appeared to stand beside him and exhort him to 
 fear nothing from an encounter with the Arabians, for that he 
 would send him defenders. Relying on the dream, Sethos marched 
 to meet the enemy, attended by those of the Egyptians who chose 
 to go. But none of the military joined him ; his forces were com- 
 posed of men altogether unused to warfare, tradesmen and artifi- 
 cers, and the loose population of a great city 1 . With such troops 
 Sennacherib might well describe him as a broken reed, and warn 
 Hezekiah of the folly of trusting to his succor. Similar warnings 
 not to trust in the power of Egypt are given by the prophet him- 
 self in the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters, which notwithstanding 
 the place in which they now stand, appear to refer to this alliance, 
 and indicate that Lower Egypt was the seat of the power with 
 
 1 "Eneadai ol ruK /xa^ipiov piv oidtva dv6pwv y Kurrf/Xovs 6i Kal ^eipcovaKras xci 
 
 (Her. 2, 141.) 
 
THE TWENTY-FIFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 313 
 
 ■whom it was made. Sethos encamped, however, nea? Pelusium, 
 to defend the entrance of Egypt. The narrative of Scripture does 
 not speak of Sennacherib's advancing so far as Pelusium ; but both 
 Libna and Lachish were on the way from Jerusalem to Egypt, and 
 it was natural that if he apprehended an attack from that quarter, 
 he should send a portion of his troops to seize Pelusium, which 
 was equally the key of Egypt and of Palestine. He could do it 
 the more safely as he had already reduced the Arabians, who had 
 possession of the south-western coast of Palestine and the Desert, 
 through which an army must pass 1 . No battle, however, ensued ; 
 during the night an immense multitude of field mice covered the 
 encampment of the Assyrians and gnawed the strings of their 
 bows and the straps of their shields. Finding themselves thus left 
 defenceless, in the morniug they betook themselves to flight, and 
 many were slain by the Egyptians. A statue of Sethos was set up 
 in the temple of Hephaistos, holding a mouse in his hand, with 
 this inscription, " Whosoever looks on me, let him be pious." We 
 can have no doubt from whom Herodotus derived his tale — the 
 priests of the temple of Ptah at Memphis. The mouse was an 
 emblem of destruction 2 , and it may be that the narrative of the 
 defeat of Sennacherib's army owed its specific form to this circum- 
 stance. We must believe that in the time of Herodotus the tem- 
 ple of Memphis contained such a statue as he describes 3 ; but that 
 it was the statue of Sethos, or that the inscription meant what his 
 guides told him, is not equally certain. The Jewish account is 
 
 1 Comp. Herod. 3, 4-10. 
 
 ' 'Atyavicuov 6i]\ovvres pvv {wyovpoiimv ivciSn iravra eadiuv fiiaivei Kal dxprjaroT. 
 
 (Horap. Hierog. 1, 50.) The mouse is produced in sudden and extraordi- 
 nary numbers in Egypt, and causes great destruction. ' El. Hist. Anim. 
 6, 41.) The ancients were not satisfied without exaggerating their destruc- 
 tive powers, and the story of their gnawing bowstrings is told of other 
 places. (Strabo, 13, p. 604.) 
 
 3 Kai v v v ovtos 6 /3a<ri\£vs I <? r ike iv r&> tpu) row 'Hfaiarov >/0(foj. (2,141.) 
 VOL. II. 14 
 
314 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 more faithful than the Egyptian, inasmuch as it notices the rumor 
 of Tirbakah's expedition, while the Egyptian makes the cause of 
 the Assyrians' retreat wholly supernatural. Pestilence and panic 
 appear to have combined in bringing it about 1 . The flight of 
 Sennacherib probably put a stop to the march of Tirhakah. 
 Wh ether he ended his days as sovereign of the Thebais, or retired 
 into Ethiopia and continued to reign there, we do not know ; but 
 it is evident that the seat of his power must have been in Upper 
 Egypt, when the rumor of his coming could produce such a sudden 
 retreat of the Assyrians. 
 
 The two circumstances which characterize the reign of Sethos, 
 the usurpation of supreme power by a priest, and the degradation 
 of the military caste, indicate a decay of the ancient constitution of 
 Egypt. That the increase of population in the great towns of 
 Lower Egypt, the consequence of the fertility of the soil and the 
 growth of commerce, should have made the civil element much 
 more important than it had been in the flourishing days of the 
 monarchy, was natural. It was not less natural that this rise of 
 the commercial and working class should be attended with a change 
 in the military system. Widely different as the Calasirians and 
 Hermotybians were in many respects from the Geomori of Athens 
 before the time of Solon, and the Hippeis and Zeugitae of his con- 
 stitution, from the original Plebs of Rome and the Feudal army of 
 the Middle Ages — in one respect they all agreed ; landed property 
 and military service were conjoined. And all these, in process of 
 time, yielded up their exclusive right to bear arms, and admitted 
 into partnership with them in this function, the mixed multitude 
 whom the progress of society engenders in flourishing towns. At 
 Athens the change was brought about by the rise of its naval 
 
 1 "The Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; 
 Yea, a sword, not of mortal, shall devour him : 
 And he shall betake himself to flight from the face of the sword. 
 And the courage of his chosen men shall fail." — Is. xxxi. 8. 
 
THE TWENTY-FIFTH DYNASTY. 
 
 315 
 
 power, which transferred the chief strength of the state from the 
 land to the sea. At Rome the cultivators of the soil were not suf- 
 ficient to supply the demand of a military republic, and employ- 
 ment and pay were needed for the city population. In modern 
 Europe the rise of the cities was everywhere accompanied with a 
 more promiscuous constitution of the military force, and at no long 
 interval with the establishment of mercenary troops. We know 
 not how the elevation of Sethos took place ; but it is evident that 
 he relied on the town population as the instruments of his design 
 of depressing the ancient military body. His power appears to 
 have been exercised tyrannically; for Herodotus speaks of the 
 Egyptians as being set free after his reign 1 . He notices no anar- 
 chy as supervening upon his death, but his usurpation and his 
 encroachments on the military order render it abundantly proba- 
 ble; and Diodorus informs us that it actually took place 2 , and 
 assigns two years as its duration. The nineteenth chapter of Isaiah, 
 written about this time, perhaps towards the close of Sethos' usur- 
 pation, foretells a state of complete anarchy and the consequent 
 depopulation and impoverishment of the country, to be succeeded, 
 as anarchy usually is, by the reign of a despotic monarch. " I will 
 set the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they shall fight every 
 one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor, city 
 against city, and kingdom against kingdom. And the Egyptians 
 will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord, and a fierce king 
 shall rule over them. In that day shall Egypt be like unto women ; 
 and it shall be afraid and fear, because of the shaking of the hand 
 of the Lord of Hosts, which he hath determined against it. And 
 the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt; every one that 
 
 1 2, 147. 'EXevQepayOevrei Aiyvirrioi ftcra tov Ipea tov 'H^'it'orov PaaiAcv- 
 aavra (ovbtva yap ^povov olol te nnav aieo fiaoi^zoi Siairdadai) iarrtaavTO 6vu>0EKa 
 /3aai\tas. 
 
 ■ 1, 66. He places it immediately after the retirement of the Ethiopian, 
 and does not mention Sethos. 
 
316 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 maketh mention thereof shall be afraid in himself." We know of 
 no period in Egyptian history to which this description is at all 
 applicable, except that which Diodorus designates as the anarchy 1 . 
 The effects which it is described as producing on the condition of 
 Egypt, however, seem to indicate a longer duration than two years, 
 and Diodorus is never a safe guide in chronology. 
 
 The invasion of Judaea by Sennacherib took place 713 b. c, and 
 this fixes a date for the reigns of Sethos at Memphis and Tirhakah 
 in the Thebaid and Ethiopia. The chronology of the two centuries 
 and a half between the invasion of Sheshonk and that of Senna- 
 cherib, cannot be settled in detail, from the variations in the lists 
 and the chasms in the series of the monuments. Supposing Shes- 
 honk to have invaded Judaea in the beginning of his reign, the 21st 
 dynasty to have lasted 116 years, according to Manetho, the 22nd, 
 89 years, the 24th, 6 years, and the 25th, 40, these numbers (116 
 + 89 -(-6 + 40) amount to 251, a coincidence sufficiently close to 
 show that Manetho is substantially correct. Eusebius makes them 
 (49 + 44 + 44 + 44) 181 years. 
 
 Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Nine Saite kings. 
 
 AFRICANUS. 
 
 1. Stephinates, reigned 
 
 2. Nechepsos . . . . 
 
 3. Nechao 
 
 4. psammitichus . . . 
 
 5. Nechao II 
 
 Years. 
 7 
 6 
 8 
 
 54 
 
 6 
 
 He took Jerusalem and carried Jehoash the 
 
 king captive into Egypt. 
 6. Psammutiiis II 
 
 6 
 
 1 Gesenius on Is. xix. refers the delivery of the prophecy to the time of 
 Psammitichus; but Isaiah began to prophesy in the reign of Uzziah, who died 
 757 b. a, and cannot have been contemporary with Psainmitichus. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. ^ 317 
 
 Years, 
 
 7. TJaphris 19 
 
 To him the remnant of the Jews fled when the 
 Assyrians took Jerusalem.' 
 
 8. Amosis 44 
 
 9. Psammeche kites 6 months. 
 
 150 6 m. 
 
 EUSEBIUS. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Ammeris, the Ethiopian, reigned 12 (Arm. 18) 
 
 2. Stephixathis ... 7 
 
 3. Xechepsos 6 
 
 4. Nechao 8 
 
 5. Psammitichus 45 (Armi. 44i 
 
 6. Nechao IL 6 
 
 7. Psammuthis II. who is also Psammitichus . . 17 
 
 8. Uaphris 25 
 
 9. Amosis 42 
 
 168 
 
 We find the list of Manetho beginning with three names before 
 that of Psammitichus, whom Herodotus and Diodorus represent as 
 raising himself to the throne when he had put down the Dodecar- 
 chia. It seems to have been his principle to admit of no interreg- 
 num ; he takes cognizance neither of the anarchy of which Dio- 
 dorus speaks, nor of the subsequent agreement among the chiefs 
 of the principal cities, but makes Stephinates found the 26th 
 dynasty immediately on the cessation of the 25th or Ethiopian. 
 The list of Eusebius gives a fourth Ethiopian king, Ammeris, who 
 is certainly misplaced at the head of the Saitic dynasty, but may 
 have been transposed from the close of the Ethiopian. In this case 
 we must regard the Ethiopian power as continuing to maintain 
 itself at Thebes, while Sethos called himself king at Memphis, and 
 another power, seated at Sais, claimed to be the depositary of legi- 
 
318 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 timate authority. No such king as Ammeres has been found in 
 the monuments of Thebes 1 . 
 
 We are not informed in what relation this new dynasty of Saite 
 kings stood to Bocchoris the Saite, whom Sabaco deposed and put 
 to death ; but in the statement of Herodotus 2 , that the blind king 
 who had fled into the island of Elbo in the marshes, when the 
 Ethiopians invaded Egypt, returned when they retired, we may 
 probably trace the fact, that Sais still claimed the sovereignty over 
 the district of Lower Egypt in which it stood, during the whole 
 time of the Ethiopian dominion. Thus Egypt was truly divided, 
 " every one against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against 
 kingdom," the upper country being under the dominion of the 
 Ethiopians, Sethos ruling at Memphis, and over the country 
 towards the frontiers of Palestine, and the Saitic nome and western 
 mouths of the Nile, near one of which Elbo stood, being under 
 the sway of the princes from whom Psammitichus descended. 
 That hostile relations existed between them and the Ethiopians is 
 evident from the account of Herodotus, that Necho the father of 
 Psammitichus had been put to death by Sabaco 3 . This cannot 
 have been literally true ; but we have seen that to Herodotus the 
 name of Sabaco represented the whole Ethiopic dynasty, which, as 
 enlarged by the addition of Ammeres, will occupy the space from 
 Sabaco to Necho. The first act recorded of this dynasty was the 
 putting of Bocchoris the Saite to death ; the last, a similar act of 
 violence towards the Saite Necho. This is a reasonable presump- 
 tion that during this whole time Sais maintained at least a claim 
 of independence, and will explain its subsequent elevation to the 
 supremacy over all Egypt. 
 
 The ruins of Ssa, the ancient Sais, attest its former grandeur ; 
 the wall of crude brick which surrounded the principal buildings 
 
 1 Bunsen, B. 2, 139. Lepsius has discovered at Thebes a queen Amnerith, 
 whose name, he thinks, might give rise to that of Ammeres. 
 3 2, 140. 3 2, 152. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 319 
 
 of the city was seventy feet thick, and therefore probably not less 
 than 100 feet in height. It encloses an area 2325 feet in length, 
 by 1960 in breadth, and traces appear in it of the lake in which 
 according to Herodotus the mysteries of Osiris were performed ; 
 of the temple of Minerva, and the tombs of the Saitic kings. 
 There are also beyond this enclosure two large cemeteries, one for 
 the interment of the privileged classes, the other of the common 
 people 1 . The site, however, has been very imperfectly explored by 
 modern travellers, and much may remain undiscovered which will 
 throw light on the history of the last dynasty of the independent 
 Pharaohs. The names of Stephinates, Necepsos and Nechao L 
 have not yet been found on any monument. 
 
 Herodotus, when he resumes the history of Egypt after the 
 reign of Sethos, remarks that from this time forward he shall 
 relate that in which the Egyptians and other nations agree 2 . 
 Previously to this time there was no other testimony to control the 
 accounts which the " Egyptians and the priests " gave of their own 
 history 3 : no Greek had advanced beyond Naucratis, and no record 
 was left even of the imperfect knowledge of Egypt which they 
 might thus have gained. The effect is immediately visible, and 
 we have henceforth a definite chronology, an authentic succession 
 of kings conformable to the monuments, and a history composed 
 of credible facts. He thus relates the circumstances which led to 
 the establishment of the monarchy of Psammitichus : — " Being 
 freed after the government of Sethos the priest of Hephaistos, the 
 Egyptians, who never could live without a king, set up for them- 
 selves twelve kings, dividing all Egypt into twelve parts. These 
 kings gave one another mutual rights of intermarriage*, and entered 
 into an agreement to abstain from all acts of aggression and live in 
 entire friendship. The reason of their binding themselves so strictly 
 
 1 Wilkinson, Mod. Eg. & Thebes, 1, 183. Champollion, Lettres, 50-53. 
 
 3 2, 147. 3 2, 142. 
 
 4 Probably agreeing not to marry out of the twelve families. 
 
320 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 was, tliat when they entered on their several sovereignties, an oracle 
 had declared that whichever of them should offer a libation to 
 Hephaistos with a brazen helmet 1 would be the king of all Egypt. 
 It was to this temple that they all repaired in a body. For a long 
 time all observed faithfully the terms of their alliance. But it 
 happened one day that as they were sacrificing, the chief priest 
 brought out only eleven vessels of libation instead of twelve, and 
 that Psammitichus, who stood last in the row, took off his brazen 
 helmet, received the sacred wine in it, and poured it out in libation. 
 He had no sinister design — all the other kin^s had helmets and 
 were wearing them at the time. But the oracle was brought to 
 their mind, and though upon examining Psammitichus they found 
 that he was innocent of any evil purpose and therefore could not 
 put him to death, they determined to strip him of the chief part 
 of his power, and confine him to the marshes on the coast 2 , from 
 which he was not to go out into any other part of Egypt. In the 
 former part of his life Psammitichus had been an exile in Syria, 
 his father Necho having been put to death by Sabaco ; and the 
 people of the Saitic nome had brought him back and replaced 
 him in the sovereignty. Feeling himself to have been treated 
 with great injustice by the eleven kings, he sought the means of 
 being avenged, and sent from his retreat to consult the oracle of 
 Latona at Buto, which had the reputation of being the most truth- 
 ful in all Egypt. He received in answer from the oracle a predic- 
 tion 1 that he should have retribution on his enemies by means of 
 brazen men appearing from the sea.' That brazen men should 
 come to his aid appeared to him a thing utterly incredible ; but 
 not long after, some Ionians and Carians who had sailed on a 
 piratical expedition w r ere driven by stress of weather to the coast 
 
 1 This is only another form of the same impression on the mind of the 
 Egyptians, produced by subsequent events, that the brazen-armed foreigners 
 were to be the means of overthrowing the Dodecarehia. 
 
 a Diod. 1, 66. vpoard^at iiarpifiety iv rotj eXsai tois napa daXarrav. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 321 
 
 of Egypt, and landing in their complete suits of brazen armor began 
 to plunder the country. An Egyptian who had never before seen 
 men in a panoply of brass, hastened into the marshes to Psammi- 
 tichus with the intelligence that brazen men had come from the 
 sea. He at once recognized the fulfilment of the oracle, engaged 
 the Ionians and Carians in his service by magnificent promises, 
 and with the assistance of the Egyptians who favored his cause, 
 he defeated the other dodecarchs 1 ." It was natural that the author- 
 ity of an oracle should be pleaded for a proceeding so repugnant 
 to Egyptian feeling as the engagement of a body of foreign merce- 
 naries to fight against native Egyptians, but we can hardly believe 
 that their appearance was accidental as the story represents. It is 
 evident, from the account of Diodorus, that Psammitichus, who, 
 by his possession of Sais and of course Naucratis, had the readiest 
 access to the sea, had encouraged the visits of Phoenicians and 
 Greeks 2 , and had excited the jealousy of his colleagues not only 
 by the wealth he thus acquired, but by the friendly relations which 
 he had established with foreigners. In regard to mythic times, 
 the tendency of Diodorus and the authors of his age to find his- 
 torical explanations for everything makes their accounts suspicious. 
 But on the other hand, Herodotus is disposed to attribute to dreams, 
 oracles and prodigies what had its origin in political causes. The 
 mention of Carians renders it probable that the Ionians here 
 spoken of were Milesians, whose territory was surrounded by that 
 of the Carians, pirates and rovers from the earliest times. The 
 Milesians had visited Egypt for half a century before the Dode- 
 carchia, and nothing could be more natural than that Psamrni- 
 
 1 There was another version of the oracle, that Tementhas, one of the 
 dodecarchs, had been warned to beware of cocks, and that .Psammitichus, 
 understanding this of the crests of the Carian helmets (Her. 1, 171), imme- 
 diately engaged them. (Polysen. Strat 7, 3.) 
 
 a 'Ek t£ rfjg ' Apa/?iu$ koX rns Ktiptaj Kai rrjs 'luivias niffQo<p6povs fie r air e pip ii [i tv o j. 
 (Dioi 1, 66.) 
 
 14* 
 
322 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tichus, a native of Sais, should engage their services, when he had 
 been deprived of his share of the government by the injustice of 
 his colleagues. He had not trusted to Greek mercenaries alone ; 
 during his exile under the Ethiopian sway he had formed connexions 
 with the Arabians who border on Egypt and Palestine, and Dio- 
 dorus tells us that he had sent for them, and that they composed 
 a part of the forces with which he overthrew the Dodecarchs. 
 The battle was fought at Momemphis 1 near the Canopic branch of 
 the Nile, and on the shore of the Lake Mareotis. Some of the 
 dodecarchs were slain ; the rest escaped into Libya, near the bor- 
 ders of which the battle took place. 
 
 According to Herodotus, the dodecarchs while they lived 
 together in peace conceived the wish to leave a joint memorial of 
 themselves, and in fulfilment of this design built a labyrinth 2 near 
 the Lake Mceris, and not far from the town of Crocodilopolis. It 
 is evident from other passages of his history 3 that he did not pos- 
 sess an aptitude for measuring the proportion between causes and 
 effects, otherwise he would not have attributed such a work to a 
 period of divided power and no very long duration. We know 
 that Ammenemes was the founder of the Labyrinth ; its different 
 parts had their several uses — sepulchres of the sacred crocodiles — 
 halls of assembly for the different nomes — temples in which the 
 tutelary gods of each might be worshipped. It is more probable 
 that the story of its having been built by the Dodecarchs origi- 
 nated in the number of the principal courts being twelve, answer- 
 ing either to the months of the year or the chief gods of the Fan- 
 
 1 Called Panonf by the Copts, and Menouf by the Arabs (Champollion, 
 Egypte sous les Pharaons, 2, 252.) 
 
 3 In the time of Herodotus it was a common name for a building or exca- 
 vation of a great variety of passages. He does not call it The Labyrinth, 
 but " a labyrinth," " this labyrinth." 
 
 3 For instance, his believing that the Lake Moeris had been excavated 
 and the earth thrown into the Xile. (2, 150.) 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 323 
 
 theon, or to the original number of the nomes 1 . Diodorus, who 
 ascribes the building of the Labyrinth to Mendes or Maims, before 
 the Trojan war 2 , makes the building begun by the Dodecarchs to 
 be distinct from it, yet apparently on the same site. The Laby- 
 rinth was remarkable for the multiplicity of its rooms and passages ; 
 the mausoleum of the Dodecarchs for a large peristyle hall, and 
 apartments adorned with pictures, representing the religious rites of 
 the district to which the chiefs severally belonged. The work was 
 left unfinished at the dissolution of the Dodecarchy. Perhaps 
 antiquarian research may show that the remains are of two differ- 
 ent ages, and thus justify Diodorus. 
 
 Psammitichus L (6*70 b. c), having established himself in 
 power by means of his foreign allies and a portion of the Egyp- 
 tian people, fulfilled the promises by which he had engaged them 
 to assist him. He allotted them a district on the Pelusiac branch 
 of the Nile, a little nearer to the sea than the city of Bubastis, and 
 allowed them to construct fortifications. His foreign mercenaries 
 and the native Egyptians who had joined him 3 were stationed on 
 opposite sides of the river — a necessary precaution, as even their 
 engagement in the same service could hardly have prevented hos- 
 tilities between them ; such was the contempt of the Greeks for 
 Egyptian superstition, and the horror of the Egyptians for Grecian 
 usages 4 . As the Phoenicians had borne a part in establishing him 
 on the throne, it is probable that their settlement at Memphis, in 
 what was called the Tyrian Camp, dates from the same time 6 . It 
 was in great measure commercial, or if meant for warlike purposes 
 was a naval station ; but that of the Greeks and Egyptians was 
 
 1 Strabo, 17, p. 787, 811. 3 1, 61. 
 
 3 ToTfft "Iwfft Kal Total avyKarepyaaafiivoint avrco b "^Pa/z/urt^oj 
 SidbXTi %u>povs ivoiicrjaai dvriovs dXAr/Xcov, tov Nti'Xov to fiivov Z%ovros' roTai oivd^tara 
 iredri ErparoVfcJa. (Her. 2, 154.) Compare rol^i fitr' luvrov (3ov\ofiivoi<Ti 
 Atyvirrioiot (2, 152). 
 
 4 Her. 2, 41. 6 Her. 2, 112. 
 
324 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 evidently designed to form a body of troops on whom he might 
 rely for the maintenance of his throne, to which the ancient militia 
 of the country, the Calasirians and Hermotybians, were made to 
 give way. The Ionians and Carians would no doubt receive acces- 
 sions by fresh immigration ; in the reign of Apries they amounted 
 to 30,000 men 1 . Amasis subsequently removed them to Memphis, 
 that they might aid him more effectually against the Egyptians ; 
 but their docks, and the foundations of their houses, were still to 
 be seen at their original settlement in the time of Herodotus 2 . 
 
 Psammitichus also caused Egyptian children to be placed under 
 the instruction of the Greeks, that they might become masters of 
 the language, and they and their descendants became, after the 
 model of Egyptian life, a yivog or hereditary caste of Interpreters. 
 It is important to remark that the Greeks never appear to have 
 acquired the Egyptian language, but to have depended entirely 
 upon native interpreters. Their knowledge might have been much 
 more comprehensive and accurate, had they been able to converse 
 with the inhabitants, to check the accounts which they received 
 from their dragoman by their own inquiry, to test the correctness 
 of the popular explanations of names, and cross-question an 
 informant who might be inclined to impose on the ignorance of a 
 stranger. Unfortunately the Greeks in all ages disdained the 
 acquirement of barbarous tongues. Herodotus, with all his zeal 
 for knowledge, does not appear in his wide journeyings to have 
 learned more than a chance word or two of the languages of the 
 countries which he visited. For commercial and political purposes 
 they used interpreters, who were commonly not Greeks, but barba- 
 rians speaking Greek 3 . No Greek philosopher ever condescended 
 to study another language than his own for ethnographical or 
 
 1 Her. 2, 163. 2 2, 154. 
 
 3 Timesitheus, the Trapezuntian, addresses the Mosynoeci in their own 
 language (Xen. Anab. 5, 4), but he was the Proxenus of their nation. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 325 
 
 philological purposes 1 . The versatile Greek intellect cannot have 
 wanted aptitude for such attainments ; but the perfection of their 
 own language in sound and structure would make those of Asia 
 and Egypt seem harsh and clumsy. The caste of interpreters in 
 Egypt was probably formed from the lowest people ; Herodotus 
 places them last but one in his enumeration 2 , immediately before 
 the pilots, with whom Egyptians would hold no intercourse 3 ; they 
 possessed no knowledge of the character with which the monu- 
 ments of Egypt were covered ; but being compelled to satisfy the 
 curiosity of the Greeks, they gave such superficial explanations as 
 might correspond with their most obvious features. Before the 
 Persian conquest, very few Greeks penetrated into Upper Egypt. 
 Those who came for commercial purposes would be attracted to 
 Sais; those who, like Thales, or Pythagoras, or Solon, sought 
 scientific knowledge, would find it at Sais, Heliopolis and Mem- 
 phis 4 . The old national feeling of the Egyptians, which had 
 been weakened in Lower Egypt by commercial intercourse, sub- 
 sisted in all its intensity in the Upper country, where, except the 
 kindred Ethiopian, the face of a stranger was rarely seen. 
 
 Xo monument of any magnitude, bearing the name of Psam- 
 mitichus, remains in Egypt, but it is evident that the whole of that 
 country was subject to him, as his shield is found in the palace at 
 Karnak and in a little island of granite in the Xile near Philae. 
 In the quarry of Tourah 5 , the design of a monolithal shrine 
 
 1 Pythagoras is said (Diog. Laert. 8, 3) to have learnt the Egyptian lan- 
 guage. 3 2, 164. 
 
 * Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 363. K.vftepvriras ov -npooayopevovai, on xpwvrui 
 
 0uXuff77J. 
 
 4 The account of Pythagoras having been recommended by Amasis to the 
 priests of Heliopolis, and by them put off with a reference to the priests of 
 Memphis, and again by them to those of Thebes, rest3 on the authority of 
 Antipho, recorded by Porphyry. 
 
 6 See voL i. p. 118. Champollion-Figeac, l'Univers, p. 367. 
 
326 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 intended to be excavated is traced on the rock in red paint, and 
 the cornice bears the shield of Psammitichus. Works of his reign 
 are found in several of the European museums, but by far the most 
 remarkable record of the state of the arts is the obelisk which 
 stands in the Monte Citorio at Rome. It was brought by Augus- 
 tus from Egypt as a memorial of its reduction under the Roman 
 power, and set up in the Campus Martius to serve as a gnomon, 
 the length of the shadow on the pavement which surrounded it 
 marking the longest and shortest and all intermediate days of the 
 year 1 . It bears the phonetic and titular shields of Psammitichus I. 
 It is about seventy feet in height ; the sculpture, if compared with 
 the work of Thothmes III. at St. John Lateran, or Menephthah and 
 Rameses in the Piazza del Popolo, appears inferior in execution, 
 the figures being less deeply and finely cut. Yet when we con- 
 sider that nearly *700 years had elapsed between the latest of these 
 sovereigns and Psammitichus, we shall be astonished that art had 
 declined so little. About an equal length of time intervenes 
 between the execution of the obelisk of Psammitichus and those 
 of Vespasian and Titus in the Piazza Navona ; but in these the 
 inferiority of execution is obvious; the characters are rather 
 scratched than cut upon the granite, and the design is cumbrous 
 and incorrect. The obelisk appears to have been brought from 
 Heliopolis, but Psammitichus' principal works were intended for 
 the embellishment of Memphis. It is probable that an epiphaneia 
 or manifestation of Apis took place about the time of his obtaining 
 the sovereignty, and to gratify the people of Memphis he built a 
 splendid court in which he might be shown to his worshippers. It 
 was in front of the propylaea of the temple of Ptah 2 , which Psam- 
 mitichus also built, and was surrounded with a colonnade, in which 
 colossal figures, twelve cubits in height, supplied the place of pil- 
 
 1 Plin. N. H. 36, 10. Zoega, p. 612. 
 3 Strabo, 11, 807. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY 
 
 327 
 
 lars 1 . The priests who had the charge of Apis brought him forth 
 into this court, that he might be offered food by his votaries, and 
 an omen be drawn from his favorable or unfavorable reception 
 of it. 
 
 As Psammitichus had obtained the throne by means of foreign 
 mercenaries, he trusted to them for its support, increased their 
 numbers, and gave them precedence in honor above the native 
 troops. This produced discontent and ultimately revolt on the part 
 of the Calasirians and Hermotybians. Its immediate occasion is 
 variously reported. One of his military enterprises was the siege 
 of Azotus or Ashdod. This town, one of the five called in Scrip- 
 ture " cities of the Philistines," appears to have been a place of 
 great size and importance 2 , and the key of Palestine to an invading 
 force from the side of Egypt. It included a harbor and an inland 
 fortress 3 like Gaza, which lay a little nearer to Egypt, and in the 
 age of Psammitichus appears to have had the same place in mili- 
 tary importance for the attack of Palestine from Egypt, or Egypt 
 from Palestine, as Gaza in the age of Alexander the Great, who 
 did not venture to pass on to Egypt till he had taken it 4 . Azotus 
 belonged to the Philistines, but it was not their power which ena- 
 bled it to resist so long the arms of Psammitichus. We find from 
 the prophecies of Isaiah 5 that it had been besieged and taken by 
 Tartan, the general of Sargon king of Assyria. This king is not 
 elsewhere named in history, and it is therefore difficult to say 
 whether he preceded or followed Sennacherib ; but as we know the 
 
 1 Sir G. "Wilkinson has given a drawing illustrative of it. (Manners and 
 Customs, 1, Frontispiece.) 
 
 2 T/Js Lvpiris iteya\r}v tto^iv. (Her. 2, 157.) 
 
 3 A£wros irapakos, "A^cjtos. (Excerpta ex Not. Patriarehat. in Reland. 
 Palajst. 215.) 
 
 4 Arrian, 2, ad Jin. The strength of Gaza was so great that Alexander's 
 engineers pronounced it to be impregnable. 
 
 6 Isaiah xx. 
 
328 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 succession of Assyrian kings pretty accurately after Sennacherib, 
 the probability is that he was his immediate predecessor, reigning 
 only for a short time. Tartan was in the service of Sennacherib, 
 and was one of the envoys sent by him to Hezekiah when he 
 invaded Judaea and meditated the conquest of Egypt 1 . Probably 
 the Assyrians had ever since kept a garrison in Azotus, and hence 
 the obstinate defence which it made. Herodotus says it lasted 
 twenty-nine years 2 , but we can only understand by this, that from 
 the commencement of the siege to the capture twenty-nine years 
 elapsed, and it would be suspended during the invasion of the 
 Scythians. It was in these operations in Syria that, according to 
 Diodorus, who however does not specifically mention the siege of 
 Azotus, Psammitichus offended his Egyptian troops, by allotting to 
 the mercenaries the post of honor in the right wing. Herodotus 
 gives a different account. He says that in the reign of this king 
 garrisons were stationed in Elephantine against the Ethiopians, in 
 Daphne near Pelusium against the Arabians and Syrians, and in 
 Marea against the Libyans, to the number in all of 240,000 men. 
 For three years these garrisons were not relieved, and the soldiers 
 having communicated with one another, all revolted from Psammi- 
 tichus and marched away into Ethiopia. Diodorus calculates their 
 numbers at 200,000. Both authors agree in representing the king 
 as hastening after them and endeavoring to prevail on them to 
 return. But he was unsuccessful. When he implored them not 
 to forsake their country and the temples of their gods, their wives 
 and their children, they all raised a shout, and clattering with their 
 spears upon their shields, declared that while they were men and 
 had arms in their hands, they should never want a country, nor 
 wives and children 3 . According to Herodotus, on reaching Ethi- 
 opia they gave themselves up to the king, and he being in hostility 
 
 1 2 Kings xviii. 17. 
 
 2 " A^wroi/ e v ds 6iovra rpifiKovra erea npo<TKaTr)jx£vos enoXiopxee is to ifriXe. (2, 157.) 
 
 3 Diod. 2, 67. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 329 
 
 with a portion of the inhabitants, assigned their territory to the 
 Egyptians who conquered and took possession of it. " And by 
 their settlement," says the historian, "the Ethiopians became 
 humanized, learning Egyptian manners 1 ." 
 
 As the Romans garrisoned Elephantine with three cohorts only 2 , 
 we cannot readily believe that 240,000 or 200,000 men should 
 have been distributed through three frontier towns of the kingdom 
 of Psammitichus. Neither is it very credible, that, separated by 
 600 miles, as those at Elephantine were from their comrades at 
 Marea and Pelusium, they should have concerted a revolt which 
 took Psammitichus so much by surprise, that he could not come 
 up with the deserters till they had passed the frontier of Ethiopia. 
 Two hundred thousand men with arms in their hands, aggrieved 
 by spoliation and indignity, would not surely have withdrawn so 
 peaceably from their country. It is evident that Herodotus and 
 Diodorus have taken some old traditionary numbers of the Egyp- 
 tian militia as representing their force in the reign of Psammitichus. 
 The fact of the dissatisfaction and revolt is unquestionable, but we 
 shall probably be near the truth if we suppose that it was only the 
 troops in garrison on the Ethiopian frontier who migrated. The 
 unobstructed march of 60,000 or 80,000 men from Marea and 
 Pelusium to Xubia is incredible ; but if the garrison of Elephantine 
 mutinied and deserted, owing to their being left so long without 
 relief, it might well happen that Psammitichus could not overtake 
 them till they had proceeded far on their way. He may not have 
 been much displeased that the most turbulent of his ancient sol- 
 diery had withdrawn so quietly. Peter the Great and Sultan 
 Mahmoud were not able to emancipate themselves from the tyranny 
 of the Strelitzes and the Janissaries, except by their extermi- 
 nation. 
 
 1 Tovruv 61 iconcicdcvrcjv is rovi Aidioiras fifieptJTepoi yzyovaai A.iQi>-cs, i]Qea 
 fiaQovTCS AiyvTTria. (Her. 2, 30.) 
 
 " Sharpe, Egypt under the Romans, p. 14. 
 
330 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 The place in which the deserters (Automoli) settled is said by- 
 Herodotus to be as remote from Meroe, as Meroe from Elephantine, 
 and along the course of the Nile 1 . Now fifty-six days' navigation 
 up the Nile from Meroe would carry us very far beyond every 
 trace of that Egyptian civilization which Herodotus declares that 
 the Ethiopians received from the Egyptian deserters. In fact no 
 such traces are found further south than lat. 16°, which is within 
 the limits of the island of Meroe itself. The king of the Ethiopians 
 by whom they were received, and who gave them permission to 
 conquer themselves a settlement within his dominions, was proba- 
 bly a successor of Sabaco and Tirhakah, having his capital, not at 
 the Meroe of later geography, but at Napata ; nor does it necessa- 
 rily follow that they proceeded so far as Napata before they 
 received his commands. Diodorus says they took possession of 
 some of the best land in Ethiopia and divided it among them. 
 Eratosthenes, Strabo, Pliny 2 , all mention them, but with such vari- 
 ations as to their position, that it is evident they wrote from no 
 certain knowledge. Herodotus tells us that the Automoli bore the 
 name of Asmach, which signifies " those who stand on the left hand 
 of the king ;" Diodorus attributes their emigration to their displea- 
 sure at being posted on the left wing in an expedition into Syria 3 ; 
 both accounts being probably etymological conjectures, founded on 
 the circumstance that a people called Euonymitse (left), of Egyptian 
 origin, dwelt between Ethiopia and Egypt. We cannot avoid the 
 suspicion that the distance of the country to which they emigrated, 
 as well as their numbers, has been greatly exaggerated, that their 
 real settlement was near the Second Cataract 4 , and that they were 
 
 1 'Ato ravrris rrjs no\tos n X £ oi v % iv iuto %porw aWco n%as is rovg AvrofioXovs, iv 
 ooioTTtp i% 'JZ^ecpavTivris ijAOcj is rlfv [irj-po^oXiv twc A.idi6Trwv, 
 
 2 Strab. 17, 786. Plin. 6, 30. 1 Her. 2, 30. Diod. 1, 67. 
 
 4 Pliny, on the authority of Xero's exploratores, places the Euonymitas on 
 the frontier of Ethiopia towards Egypt, between the Second Cataract and 
 the island Gagaudes, probably Argo. Agathemerus places them on the west 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 331 
 
 referred to a region far south of Meroe, not because any traces of 
 Egyptian civilization were found there, but in deference to the 
 authority of Herodotus. Those from whom he received his account 
 had made no better estimate of the difficulties of a march to a 
 country fifty-six days' sail south of Meroe, than those who repre- 
 sented Darius as having marched from the Danube to the Wolga ; 
 and the historian was not the man to correct such tales by applying 
 the tests of time and space. 
 
 Psammitichus, relieved by the departure of his discontented 
 troops, applied himself more diligently to - the internal arrange- 
 ments of his kingdom, the collection of taxes, and the cultivation 
 of friendly relations with the Greeks, especially the Athenians. 
 Egypt, formerly the most inhospitable of all countries towards 
 strangers, now opened all her harbors to them 1 . The king caused 
 his own sons to be instructed in Greek learning. The intercourse 
 of Sais and Athens would be promoted by their worship of the 
 same deity, and the opinion ultimately sprung up, though in a 
 much later age, that Cecrops had led a colony from Sais to 
 Athens 2 . It is characteristic of a time when there was a great 
 increase of intercourse with foreign nations, that a rivalry in anti- 
 quity should have existed, which led Psammitichus to make his 
 experiment of educating two new-born children apart from men, 
 and watching to what language their first vocal utterance would 
 
 •or left bank of the Nile, above the Second Cataract, adding the name 
 Sebridce as coming next to them. Stephanus Byzantinus says they are an 
 Egyptian nation on the borders of Ethiopia. (Pliny, 6, 35. Steph. Byz. s. v. 
 Eitoi/vfurui. Agath. Geog. Min. 2, 5. Msrd rov piyav Karappmr^v dird piv 
 ivujxwv rovNeiXov Evcovv/urai, HePpiSm, Kdroinoi' Kal npos tt} Meodj/ n/<r<w Mepvoves' 
 
 fied' ovs 'EXefavTotyayoi AiQioire;.) The Greeks used the names right and left 
 as we do, in reference to the course of a river. (See Herod. 1, 72. Eust. 
 ad Dion. Perieg. 251.) 
 1 Diod. 1, 67. 
 
 a Miiller Hellenische Stamme und Stadte, 1, 106. 
 
332 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 belong 1 . Having been suckled by she-goats, the first sound they 
 uttered was becos, and this being found to signify bread in the 
 Phrygian language, the Egyptians conceded to the Phrygians the 
 honor of priority 2 . Such was the account given to Herodotus by 
 the priests of Memphis of the first attempt made to apply the 
 evidence of language to decide the antiquity of nations. We may 
 smile at the experiment and the inference deduced from it, but till 
 lately philological arguments have been applied to historical ques- 
 tions with not much more discretion. To obtain a better know- 
 ledge of Africa, he trained youths of the Ichthyophagi to explore 
 the fountains of the Nile, and others to examine the Deserts of 
 Libya. They were taught to endure the extremity of thirst, but 
 few survived 3 . 
 
 It was towards the latter part of his reign that Egypt was 
 threatened by an invasion of the Scythians. Cyaxares, king of 
 the Medes, having defeated the Assyrians in a great battle, was 
 besieging Nineveh, when his own kingdom was overrun by a 
 horde of Scythians. They had driven the Cimmerians before 
 them and entered Media. Cyaxares encountered them, but suffered 
 an entire defeat, and for twenty-eight years they kept possession 
 of western Asia. They had advanced to the south of Ascalon on 
 the coast of Palestine, on their way to attack Egypt, when Psam- 
 mitichus met them, and by entreaties and presents prevailed on 
 them to proceed no further. Some of them on their return 
 plundered the temple of Venus Urania at Ascalon, and were 
 punished by the infliction of a disease 4 , which, according to Hero- 
 
 1 Her. 2, 4. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 4, 262. Aristoph. Nub. 397. <3 ftSpt vi 
 teal KpoJtav Sgta* Kal /? e k k c a- IX q v z . The Scholiast there refers the story 
 to Sesonchosis, meaning apparently Sesostris, the world-conqueror. (See 
 p. 13« of this vol.) 
 
 2 Her. 1, 104. 9 Athen. 8, p. 345. 
 
 * The existence of a peculiar dfj\eia vovaos among the Scythians is certain, 
 as it is described by Hippocrates de Aer. <fec. p. 293. Evvov^tat ytvovrat, * * 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 333 
 
 dotus, accompanied them to their native land, and even cleaved 
 to their descendants in his own time. The invasion of the Scy- 
 thians took place in 634 b.c. ; their occupation of Palestine 
 (according to Eusebius) in 632 ; their march towards Egypt some- 
 where about 630 b.c. They must have passed Azotus on their 
 way, and interrupted the siege of that place. The town of Beth- 
 shan, in the north of Palestine, is said to have received the name 
 of Scythopolis 1 from their having made it their head-quarters 
 during their occupation of the country. The prophet Zephaniah 
 (i. 14), who lived in the reign of Josiah (630 b.c), appears to 
 describe them under the appellation of " a people without fear 2 ." 
 The desolation which they would cause throughout Palestine is 
 set forth by the prophet in very forcible language 3 : — 
 
 "That day is a day of wrath; 
 A day of distress and of anguish ; 
 A day of desolation and of destruction ; 
 A day of darkness and of gloom ; 
 A day of clouds and of thick darkness ; 
 A day of the trumpet and of shouting 
 Against the fenced cities and against the high towers." 
 
 TJ^e invasion of the cities of the Philistines is specifically men- 
 tioned : — 
 
 "Surely Gaza shall he forsaken and Ascalon a desolation ; 
 Ashdod shall be driven out at noonday and Ekron shall be rooted up. 
 
 yvvaiKtia ipyugovrat Kal wj at ywaiKes tSiaXiyivrai re biioi(->s, KaXevvrat re ot rotovrot 
 dvavtAeis. They were nevertheless looked on with reverence, because their 
 disease was referred to the immediate power of the divinity. It appears 
 to have been a species of imbecility allied to cretinism. 
 
 1 Judges i. 27, in the Septuagint. Batdadv % io-n HxvOaiv n6\is. 
 1 Literally, "the people that turns not pale," CpDlD fcO 1 "D?1« 
 * 'Em fdv vvv <$at£> kui eiKoat erea ijp^ov rijs 'Afftijf oi ^xvOai Kal ra navra eft 
 vt6 -c vfipios Kal 6)tyu)ptris dvaarara iji/* qpmigov nepte\avvovrti tovto ort ej(oiev 
 
 Uaaroi. (Herod. 1, 106.) 
 
334 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 The sea-coast shall be dwellings for shepherds and folds for flocks/' 
 (v. 5, 6.) 
 
 The prophet anticipates that the flood of invasion would roll 
 forward even to Ethiopia (v. 12), as no doubt it would have done, 
 but for the gifts and supplications by which Psammitichus induced 
 the Scythians to return. Yet it is intimated also that their suc- 
 cess should be short-lived and be followed by a great reverse : — 
 
 "Gather yourselves together and assemble, 0 nation that feareth not; 
 Before the decree bring forth, that your day pass away as chaff ; 
 Before the hot anger of Jehovah come upon you." (ii. 1.) 
 
 This also corresponds with history. The Scythians were enervated 
 by a residence in a southern climate, and overpowered by Cyaxares 
 and the Medes. The capture of Nineveh, foretold by the prophet 
 (Zeph. ii. 13), speedily followed the recovery of Median ascen- 
 dency 1 . A few years later the northern nomad tribes 2 appear to 
 have meditated another and combined invasion of the South, in 
 which they were to have been joined by Persia, Ethiopia and 
 Libya 3 ; its defeat was foretold, but from some cause which history 
 has not explained, it never took place. The prophecy stands 
 insulated among the oracles of Ezekiel, and may have been delivered 
 when the great power of Nebuchadnezzar had alarmed the neigh- 
 boring nations both north and south. 
 
 The lists represent Psammitichus as reigning fifty-four years, 
 and Herodotus agrees with them : among the papyri of Turin, 
 
 1 Herod. 1, 106. 
 
 * Ezek. xxxviii. " Gog, of the land of Magog, Rhos" (the nations dwell- 
 in: on the Araxes), "Mesech and Tubal" (the Moschi and Tibareni), 
 "Gomer" (the Cimmerians), "Togarmah" (the Armenians). 
 
 1 Ez. xxxviii. 5. xxxix. 1. "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against 
 thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and I will turn thee 
 back and leave but the sixth part of thee." 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 335 
 
 Lepsius has found the date of his forty-fifth year 1 . He was suc- 
 ceeded (616 b.c) by his son Neco or Nechao, the Pharaoh Necho of 
 the Second Book of Kings. His first undertakings, according to 
 Herodotus, were peaceful. To construct a canal which should join 
 the Nile with the Red Sea, and save the troublesome transport by 
 land across the Desert, was a project which would naturally suggest 
 itself to the mind of a king of Egypt, where stupendous works of 
 the same kind existed in the Fyoum and the Delta 2 . We have 
 noticed the tradition that it had been begun by Sesostris 3 . During 
 the French occupation of Egypt this district was carefully explored 
 and the ancient line of the canal traced. It went off from the 
 Nile in the neighborhood of the modern town of Belbeis, sup- 
 posed to represent the Bubastis Agria of the Greeks 4 , and ran 
 eastward through a natural valley, the Goshen of Jewish history, 
 till it reached the Bitter Lakes, which derive their quality from the 
 saline impregnations of the Desert. The influx of the water of the 
 Nile rendered them sweet, and they abounded in fish and aquatic 
 birds 5 . Issuing from these it pursued a southerly course to Suez. 
 Towards the western end its traces are very visible, notwithstand- 
 ing the deposit of the Nile, which has partly filled it up ; towards 
 the East, where the influence of the Desert is more powerful, it has 
 nearly disappeared. At the junction of the Red Sea, remains of 
 masonry are visible, but they are probably no older than the time 
 of Ptolemy II. Neco is said to have sacrificed the lives of 120,000 
 men 6 in the attempt to excavate this canal, which after all he left 
 imperfect, being warned, it is said, by an oracle, that he was only 
 
 1 Bunsen, JEgyptens Stelle, B. 3, p. 144. 
 
 1 Diodorus (1, 68) omits the reigns of Xeco and Psamrais, and passes 
 {vortpov TtTTapci ytvtais) to that of Apries. He mentions Neco, however, 
 incidentally (1, 33) as the author of the canal. 
 
 • See page 245 of this vol. 
 
 • -Champollion, L'Egypte sons les Pharaons, 2, 56. 
 
 • Strabo, 17, p. 804. 6 Her. 2, 168. 
 
336 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 laboring beforehand for trie benefit of the barbarian 1 . Darius 
 resumed the work, and according to the description of Herodotus, 
 made it of sufficient width to admit two triremes rowed abreast 2 . 
 His language leaves no doubt that in his time it reached the sea 3 , 
 though Diodorus 4 says that Darius left it unfinished, because he 
 was informed that it would inundate Egypt with the water of the 
 Red Sea. Since the French occupation of Egypt it has been taken 
 for granted, on the authority of their engineers, that the average 
 height of the sea at Suez exceeds by twenty-seven feet that of the 
 Mediterranean. Subsequent levellings have thrown doubt on this 
 fact, which contradicts the laws of hydrostatics. The fear seems 
 to have been, that the water of the canal and the Bitter Lakes, 
 which the Nile had freshened, should be made salt by the tides 6 . 
 Ptolemy completed the canal and constructed a flood-gate, which 
 excluded the sea-water, except during the time of the passage of a 
 vessel 6 . The object of Neco in attempting to establish a communi- 
 cation with the Red Sea, was to facilitate his design of creating a 
 fleet there ; and this he accomplished, although his canal was 
 never completed. His alliance with the Phoenicians, who were at 
 this time at the height of their naval power, would furnish him 
 with materials for ship-building, which being brought up the Nile, 
 and along the canal, as far as it was finished, might then be trans- 
 ported to the sea. The docks which he constructed for the recep- 
 tion of his ships were still to be seen in the days of Herodotus. 
 
 1 Herodotus (4, 42) repeats his assertion of Neco's having left the canal 
 unfinished ; a similar motive is said to have rendered Mohammed Ali 
 averse from the re-establishment of this canal. The Caliphs had closed it 
 for this reason. 
 
 8 Pliny, describing it after its completion by Ptolemy, says 100 feet wide, 
 40 deep (N. H. 6, 33). The whole length is about 90 miles. 
 
 3 'E(T£^£i is riiv 'JZpvdpriv da^aaaav (2, 158). * 1, 33. 
 
 * The rise of the tide at Suez is six or seven feet. Report onSteam Navi- 
 gation to India, App. p. 23. 6 Diod. 1, 38. 
 
THE TWENTY- SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 337 
 
 From this point began the voyage which, at the command of Neco, 
 the Phoenicians undertook for the circumnavigation of Africa. 
 Herodotus gives the following account of it 1 : 
 
 " I am astonished at those who divided and fixed the boundaries 
 of Libya, Asia aud Europe, seeing they differ in no small degree. 
 For Europe stretches in length far beyond them both, and as to 
 width it does not appear to deserve a comparison 2 . For as to Libya 
 it shows itself to be circumnavigable, except where it borders on 
 Asia ; this was first proved, as far as I know, by Neco, king of 
 Egypt. When he gave up excavating the canal that runs from the 
 Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent out some Phoenicians in ships, 
 giving them orders on their way back to sail through the Pillars 
 of Hercules into the Northern Sea, and thus return to Egypt. 
 Setting out then from the Red Sea, they sailed on the Southern Sea. 
 As often as autumn returned they landed and sowed the ground 
 in the part of Libya where they chanced to be, and awaited the 
 harvest ; and then sailed again when they had reaped it. So two 
 years having elapsed, in the third, doubling the Pillars of Hercules, 
 thev came back to Egypt. And they said, what to me is not 
 credible, but may be to some one else, that in sailing round Libya 
 thev had the sun on the right hand. In this way Libya was first 
 known. The Carthaginians are the next who affirm it [to be cir- 
 cumnavigable] ; for Sataspes, the son of Teaspis, did not circum- 
 navigate Libya, though sent out for this very purpose, but turned 
 back, fearing the length and the dreariness of the navigation." 
 
 It is remarkable that Herodotus does not express the smallest 
 doubt respecting the reality of this circumnavigation ; that the 
 
 1 4, 42. 
 
 2 Herodotus reckoned as a prolongation of Europe what we call Northern 
 Asia, and as it had never been circumnavigated, its breadth from south to 
 north was unknown, but was evidently supposed by him to surpass that of 
 Asia, as he was not aware of the great extension of the peninsula of India. 
 See 3, 45. 
 
 VOL. ii. 15 
 
338 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Carthaginians confirmed the testimony of the Phoenicians, all 
 whose naval and geographical knowledge they would share ; and 
 that in the age of Xerxes, Setaspes was sent out, not to try if 
 Africa could be circumnavigated, but to perform its circumnaviga- 
 tion, as an admitted possibility. Whether the Ophir of the Book 
 of Kings were a port in India, or Sofala on the S. E. coast of 
 Africa, it is evident that the ships of the Phoenicians had for several 
 centuries been accustomed to distant voyages — voyages even of 
 three years' duration, according to the Book of Chronicles 1 . Their 
 ships were large, and so arranged internally as to give the greatest 
 stowage in the smallest space 2 . Major Rennell's researches have 
 shown, that the circumnavigation might be much more easily 
 accomplished from the eastern side of Africa than the western 3 , 
 and that consequently the failure of Setaspes, who tried it from the 
 west, and the slow progress of the Portuguese in reaching the 
 Cape, afford no ground for calling in question the truth of Hero- 
 dotus' account. The time of three years, however, must appear 
 inadequate, when we consider that Scylax occupied two years and 
 ten months in his voyage from Caspatyrus on the Indus to Suez 4 . 
 
 It may appear extraordinary, that if the fact that Africa was a 
 peninsula had once been ascertained, it should have been virtually 
 denied by Plato 6 , and expressly by Ephorus 8 , and doubted by 
 
 1 2 Chron. ix. 21, which may be admitted as an evidence for the age in 
 which this book was written, if not for the age of Solomon. 
 
 * n\eT(TTa VKevr) iv fjiKpuraro) ayyei'.) fnaKf^Mpiaixiva iOcatrafi^v. Xen. OEcon. 
 c. 8, speaking of the Phoenician vessels that resorted to the Piraeus. 
 
 3 Geog. of Herod. Sect. xxiv. 4 Her. 4, 44. 
 
 6 In the age of Plato, the Atlantic was believed to be incapable of navi- 
 gation, owing to the mud produced by the sunk island Atlantis. (Tim. § 6, 
 iii. 25.) If the Atlantic was not navigable, Africa of course could not be 
 circumnavigable. 
 
 8 Plin. N. H. 6, 31. Ephorus auctor est a Rubro mari navigantes in insu- 
 lam Cernen non posse provehi. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 339 
 
 Polybius 1 , who had himself visited the western coast, in a fleet 
 fitted out to explore the traces of the Carthaginian settlements. 
 The art of navigation, however, had greatly declined among the 
 nations bordering on the Mediterranean, between the times of 
 Ephorus and Polybius, and that in which Phoenicia flourished : the 
 voyages made from Egypt under the Ptolemies were directed in 
 the profitable channel of Indian commerce. He might therefore 
 well speak of that as doubtful, of which the evidence was four cen- 
 turies and a half old, and which had not been confirmed by subse- 
 quent voyages. Strabo appears to have entertained no doubt that 
 Africa terminated in a southern cape, though he conceived most 
 erroneously of its form, believing the eastern coast to form a right 
 angle with the northern, and the western to be the hypothenuse of 
 the triangle 2 . He did not, however, believe in the circumnaviga- 
 tion. In speaking of the eastern coast of Africa, he says that no 
 one had advanced more than 5000 stadia beyond the entrance of 
 the Red Sea 3 ; and, having perhaps Ephorus in his mind, that those 
 who had coasted Libya where it is washed by the ocean, whether 
 they had set out from the Pillars or from the Red Sea, had turned 
 back after proceeding a certain distance, whence many thought that 
 an isthmus interposed 4 . Such an isthmus Ptolemy lays down, 
 stretching away from the coast of Africa south of the Equator, to 
 the eastern verge of the world. It is impossible to arrive at any 
 decisive conclusion respecting this celebrated voyage 5 , the reality 
 
 1 Oi'<Jcij ^x. £t ^^Y etv drpsKros, cots T&v Ka9' njias r<up<5r, -ortpov n-t on; icn Kara to 
 avve^is ra rroos ttjv ptvnp.'ipiav ?; flaXarrj; r;zo:z \z-a\ (3, 38. Plin. X. H. 5, 1.) 
 
 9 17, p. 825. * 16, p. 769, from Eratosthenes. 4 Strabo, 1, p. 32. 
 
 6 The Phoenicians alleged that in their voyage round Africa they had the 
 sun on their right hand, that is in the North (Plut. Is. et Osir. p. 363), which 
 only proves at most that they had passed the Equator. Long indeed before 
 reaching the Equator, navigators, whose home was to the Xorth of the 
 tropic of Cancer, must have been struck with seeing the sun in the summer 
 far to the north of them at noon. 
 
340 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of which rests on the strong conviction of Herodotus, an author, in 
 such matters at least, not prone to credulity ; and as at all events 
 it was not repeated, if real it had no influence, like the voyages of 
 De Gama and Columbus, on the subsequent history of the world. 
 
 "When Neco abandoned his plan of joining the Nile and the 
 Red Sea by a canal, he engaged," says Herodotus, " in military 
 expeditions, and encountering the Syrians with a land force, he 
 conquered them at Magdolus, and after the battle took Cadytis, 
 which is a large city of Syria 1 ." Since the death of Sennacherib, 
 Assyria and Babylon had existed as two independent kingdoms, of 
 which Assyria was manifestly on the decline, while Babylon was in 
 the ascendant. The fate of Assyria, threatened by the Medes, had 
 been delayed by the invasion of the Scythians, who had still kept 
 possession of their conquests in Asia, in the early part of the reign 
 of Neco. On their expulsion (C08 b. c.) Cyaxares resumed his 
 enterprise against Nineveh ; and about the same time Neco left his 
 kingdom to march to the Euphrates 2 . He seems to have employed 
 his fleet on the Mediterranean to transport his army to some harbor 
 in the north of Palestine, and was thence proceeding inland 
 towards Caivhemish. Josiah, who was king of Judah, and held 
 also the ancient territories of Israel 3 , induced perhaps by the Assy- 
 rians, endeavored to stop the march of Neco, with the whole force 
 of his kingdom. He would gladly have passed on to the Euphra- 
 tes unmolested, and earnestly entreated Josiah to abstain from 
 interrupting him ; but Josiah was not to be dissuaded, and they 
 met in battle at Megiddo 4 in the plain of Esdraelon near the foot 
 
 1 2, 159. 
 
 2 2 Kings xxiii. 29. " In the days of Josiah, Pharaoh Necho, king of 
 Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates." Jose- 
 phus says (Ant. 10, 5), "against the Medes and Babylonians, who had over- 
 thrown the power of Assyria." 
 
 3 2 Kings xxiii. 19. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6. 
 
 4 Hup o(ff « b NtKoK cru/i/iuX ov iv May«5uA'.) £i i'vjjts (Her. 2, 159). A.prairav6s 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 341 
 
 of Carmel 1 . Josiah had disguised himself before the battle 2 , that 
 the royal insignia might not make him a mark for the enemy ; 
 but an arrow reached him ; he was brought back to Jerusalem and 
 died there. This battle delayed the march of Xeco; he took pos- 
 session of Jerusalem, the Cadytis of Herodotus 3 , and advanced as 
 far as Riblah in Hamath on his way to the Euphrates. The people 
 of Judaea, however, made Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, king. Neco 
 sent for him to Hamath, deposed and imprisoned him after he had 
 reigned three months, and sent him to Egypt, where he ended his 
 days 4 . At the same time he made his younger brother Eliakim 
 king, changed his name to Jehoiakim, and imposed a tribute of a 
 hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold upon the land 5 . 
 Whether Neco himself returned to Egypt, or remained in Palestine 
 to secure his power there, we are not informed ; but four years later 
 he marched to the Euphrates with an army, comprehending, accord- 
 ing to the prophet Jeremiah 6 , Ethiopians and Libyans as well as 
 Egyptians 7 . Carchemish, or Circesium, where the battle took place 
 
 fr/ai rovs 'IvvSa'iovs dvofia^ccOai 'E p fiiovd. (Euseb. Pra?p. Ev. 9, IS.) This is 
 probably Jl^'Tp-l^l^ Arami Jehudeh, Syrians of Judah. Deut xxvi. 5, 
 
 "A Syrian ready to perish was my father." Her. 2, 104. 
 
 1 Reland, Pahcst. 893. 2 2 Chron. xxxv. 22. 
 
 8 The name seems to mean " the Holy" city. From a comparison of the 
 passages in Herodotus, 2, 159; 3, 5, it appears that no other place than 
 Jerusalem can be meant Herodotus would not have compared Gaza or 
 Kadesh-Barnea with Sardis. Jerusalem had been known as the seat of a 
 magnificent temple for several centuries, and had enjoyed a reputation for 
 sanctity in much earlier times. See Gen. xiv. 18. 
 
 * He is the same who, in Jer. xxii. 11, is called Shallum, and of whom the 
 prophet declares that he should never return to his own land. Comp. 
 Ezek. xix. 4. 
 
 6 2 Chron. xxxvL 3. 6 Jer. xlvL 
 
 T Such was the tediousness of ancient sieges, that he might have been 
 engaged in operations before Circesium during the interval, but the lan- 
 guage of the prophet seems to indicate a recent invasion. Jer. xlvi 8: — 
 
342 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 in which he was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, stood on the eastern 
 side of the Euphrates, in the angle, or as the ancients said, the 
 island, formed by its confidence with the Chaboras, which gathers 
 the waters of northern Mesopotamia and discharges them into the 
 Euphrates nearly in N. lat. 35°. It lies in the line of march of an 
 army proceeding from the north of Palestine to northern Mesopo- 
 tamia, and Neco was on his march to occupy it, when intercepted 
 by Josiah 1 . If Nineveh still held out against the forces of Cyax- 
 ares and the Babylonians, the object of Neco's march might be to 
 relieve that city ; if, as seems more probable, it had already 
 fallen 2 , he may have deemed it politic to anticipate the hostilities 
 which he could not but foresee, on the part of the power which 
 had thus become predominant in Asia. Carchemish was an 
 important military position. The Euphrates, in this part of its 
 course, is fordable both above and below the influx of the Cha- 
 boras 3 , and by the possession of Carchemish its passage might be 
 impeded. When Diocletian was strengthening the frontier posts 
 of the Empire in the East, against the inroads of the Parthians into 
 Syria, he erected a strong fortress at Carchemish, which Trocopius 
 calls the most remote garrison of the Romans 4 . In the times of 
 
 " Egypt riseth up like a flood, 
 And his waters are moved like the rivers ; 
 And he saith, I will go up and cover the earth ; 
 I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof." 
 1 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. 
 
 a The capture of Nineveh is usually placed, but not on very certain 
 grounds, in 606 b. c. ; the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, which was that of 
 the battle of Carchemish (Jer. xlvi. 1), on the authority of Ptolemy's Canon, 
 in 604. 
 
 8 See Col. Chesney's Map in Pari. Report on Steam Navigation to India. 
 
 4 Cercusium munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum: cujus moenia 
 Abora et Euphrates ambiunt flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. 
 Quod Diocletianus exiguum antehac et suspectum ruurls turribusque circum- 
 dedit celsis. (Ammian. Marc. 23, 5.) 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 343 
 
 Grecian and Roman power it appears to have been a place of little 
 strength, but it would be otherwise when Egypt and Assyria con- 
 tended on the Euphrates. This is implied in the boast of the king 
 of Assyria (Is. x. 9), " Is not Calno as Carchemish — is not Samaria 
 as Damascus ?" and the name itself indicates the existence of a 
 fortification 1 . 
 
 We have no further account of the battle of. Carchemish than 
 that of the prophet, that Nebuchadnezzar "smote the army of 
 Neco ;" Herodotus makes no mention of it. It is evident, how- 
 ever, that its effect was to strip Neco of nearly the whole of his 
 Asiatic possessions. "The king of Egypt came not again any 
 more out of his land ; for the king of Babylon had taken from the 
 river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the 
 king of Egypt 2 ." An immediate invasion by Nebuchadnezzar 
 seemed impending over Egypt as the result of this defeat 3 . Accord- 
 ing to Berosus 4 , Neco himself, whom he calls the revolted satrap 
 of Egypt and Syria, fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, who 
 was not at this time king of Babylon, but viceroy of his father 
 Nabopolassar. But it would neither accord with Scriptural nor 
 Egyptian history to suppose that Babylon had previously to this 
 time conquered Egypt and reduced its king to the condition of a 
 satrap. Doubtless Neco returned to his kingdom as Herodotus 
 implies. It marks the ascendency of Greek ideas, that on his 
 return from Syria, either now or after the battle of Megiddo, he 
 dedicated the dress which he had worn to Apollo of Branchidae, a 
 celebrated oracle in the territory of his Milesian allies 5 . Herodotus 
 
 1 Karalca in Syriae is a castle. See Cleric, ad 2 Chron. xxxv. 
 3 2 Kings xxiv. 7. 
 
 3 That Jer. xlvi. 13 belongs to this time, not to the period following the 
 captivity of Zedekiah, is evident from v. 15, 16, which speaks of a recent 
 grent defeat 
 
 * Joseph, contra Apion. 1, 19. 
 
 6 Ilerod. 2, 159. Strabo, 634. A lion is still found among the ruins of 
 
2U 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 says, he reigned sixteen years ; the lists only six, a term evidently 
 too short for the undertakings recorded of him. That the number 
 in Herodotus is correct is proved by a remarkable monument in 
 the Museum at Florence, published by Rosellini 1 . It records that 
 Psammitichus, a priest of Sokari, was born on the first of the 
 month Paoni*, in the reign of Neco — that he lived seventy-one 
 years, four months, six days, and died on the sixth day of the 
 month Paopi*, in the thirty-fifth year of Amasis. If we allow 
 that the authors of the lists in extracting from Manetho have 
 given us round numbers, instead of the exact sum in months and 
 days which they fouud in the original, the correspondence will be 
 complete 4 . 
 
 Neco was succeeded (600 b.c.) by his son Psammitichus II., 
 whom Herodotus calls Psammis. The record of Manetho in Afri- 
 canus is evidently imperfect ; Psammuthis is called the Second, 
 though no other of the name has been mentioned, and therefore 
 we should read, with the aid of Eusebius, "Psammuthis, who is 
 also Psammitichus the Second." His phonetic name is spelt with 
 
 Palot (the ancient Miletus), which is said to be of Egyptian style, and may 
 he the record of the connexion between Miletus and Egypt. (Chandler's 
 Travels, p. 170. Miiller's Dorier, 1, 225.) 
 
 1 Mon. Stor. 2, 151 ; more accurately 4, 197. 
 
 8 The tenth month of the Egyptian year. See vol. i. p. 277. 
 
 8 The second month. 
 
 4 The reckoning will stand thus, supposing Neco to have reigned sixteen 
 years, and the priest to have been born when he had reigned 2 years 
 9 months and 1 day : — 
 
 Eesidue of his reign 13 years 3 months. 
 
 Psammis or Psammitichus II. . . 6 years. 
 
 Apries 19 years. 
 
 Amasis, to the death of the priest 34 years 1 month 6 days. 
 
 72 years 4 months 6 days. 
 The excess of one year is accounted for by Bunsen (B. 3, p. 143) by the 
 supposition that the fractions of years have been reckoned as full years. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 345 
 
 precisely the same characters as those of his grandfather, but the 
 titular shield has a difference in the middle character. Xo public 
 building remains erected by him, nor is any large work of art 
 extant of his reign. Fragments of sculpture, however, bearing his 
 name, exist in the citadel at Cairo, and under the base of the 
 column called Pompey's Pillar at Alexandria. The former of 
 these appears to have made a part of some erection in honor of the 
 god Ptah at Memphis ; the latter probably belonged to some 
 building at Sais. His titular shield is also found on the obelisk 
 of the Piazza Minerva at Rome, which was executed under his son 
 and successor Apries 1 . The British Museum contains a portion of 
 an intercolumnial plinth inscribed with his name and titular 
 shield, in which he appears offering to the gods, who give him all 
 power and victory, and put all lands under his sandals 2 . He had 
 a daughter, whose name was Xitocris, the same as that of the 
 queen of Psammitichus the First, and derived from Xeith, the 
 tutelary goddess of Sais. 
 
 Herodotus mentions a single anecdote of the reign of Psammis, 
 which is not otherwise important than as indicating the reputation 
 which Egypt enjoyed among the Greeks for wisdom and equity. 
 The inhabitants of Elis, to whom the administration of the Olym- 
 pic games belonged, were accustomed to consult the oracle of 
 Jupiter at Ammonium : inscriptions remained there recording the 
 names of the delegates and the answers which they had received ; 
 and libations were offered at Elis to the Ammonian gods, Jupiter 
 and Juno, and Mercury who presided over games 3 . Exercising 
 the delicate function of judges between Greek competitors, they 
 would naturally seek to arm themselves with the authority which 
 this ancient and venerated oracle conferred. To ascend the Xile 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 4, 198. 2, 136. 
 
 a Birch, Gall, of Brit Mus. P. 2, p. 109. 
 
 3 Pausan. Eliaca, 5, 15. Mercury was surnamed Ilapa/i/icjv. 
 
 15* 
 
316 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to Terenuthis on the Canopic branch below Memphis and cross 
 the valley of the Natron Lakes, was an easier way of reaching 
 Ammonium than from the sea-coast, provided Egypt were 
 friendly 1 . In going or returning, the delegates from Elis had an 
 audience of Psammitichus, and boasted to him of the perfect 
 equity with which they made their decisions. If we may believe 
 Herodotus, they had come for the sole purpose of inquiring if the 
 Egyptians, the wisest of men, could devise any better method of 
 securing impartiality. The king summoned those who were 
 reputed wisest among them, and they having heard their state- 
 ment, asked if Eleans were allowed to contend in the games as 
 well as other Greeks. The Eleans replied that they were. Then 
 said the Egyptians, " Your method is entirely unjust ; it is impos- 
 sible that you should not be biassed in favor of one of your own 
 people ; and if you have really come to Egypt desirous of attain- 
 ing to perfect equity, you must henceforth exclude every Elean 
 from the contest." Diodorus with more probability refers the 
 story to the reign of Amasis, and attributes the advice (which was 
 not followed) to the king himself 2 . 
 
 Towards the end of his reign, Psammitichus II. made an expe- 
 dition kito Ethiopia, of which Herodotus 3 does not mention either 
 the purpose or the result. His shield is found at the island of 
 Snem, near the Cataracts of Syene. The Greek inscription on the 
 statue of Aboosimbel, which mentions a visit of Psammitichus to 
 Elephantine, may be of this date. It is in the Doric dialect 4 , 
 
 1 Alexander went by Para?tonium and the coast, but found the difficulties 
 so great that he returned by the Natron Lakes. Arrian, 3, 4. See also 
 Minutoli's Travels. 
 
 a Diod. 1, 05. 8 2, 161. 
 
 4 The inscription is as follows: — BaoiXcos t\Qovros cs K\c<pavnvap ^Vafiart^o 
 ravra eypaipav rot ovv "^fa^ari^oi roi QcokXos enXeov' r]\6ov 6c JZcpKios KaOoircpOcv is 
 o (ets ov) wora/ioj avir)' a\oy\o<ros (aXXoyAwo-o-oj) ***** Aiyvtrnos 6c A^iaais 
 
 eypatpc A ^iupoj A^ 0l ^'X° Kai IlcXe^j Oidu^o. (Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. 1, 223.) 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 347 
 
 which we should hardly expect to be in use among the Ionian 
 mercenaries of the first Psaramitichus ; but as Egypt had now- 
 been fully opened to the Greeks for half a century, every variety 
 of dialect might be found among them, though Ionians formed 
 the great body of the mercenary troops 1 . If it should still be 
 thought improbable that a Greek inscription should be found in 
 Egypt exceeding in age any in Ionia or Greece itself, there was a 
 third Psammitichus 2 , who lived about 400 B.C., a descendant of 
 the ancient kings of that name,, to whose reign it may be 
 referred. 
 
 Psammitichus II. died almost immediately after his expedition 
 to Ethiopia, and was succeeded (594 b.c.) by Uaphris, as the 
 lists write his name, the iVpries of the Greeks and the Ilophra of 
 Scripture. After the great defeat which Neco suffered on the 
 Euphrates, no attempt had been made by Egypt to recover her 
 ascendency in Palestine and Syria, which appear to have been 
 entirely dependant on Babylon. Jehoiakim, whom Xeco had 
 placed on the throne of Judaea, had been compelled to submit 
 himself to Nebuchadnezzar, and for three years remained faithful ; 
 but at the end of that time, perhaps in hope of assistance from 
 Egypt, he " turned and rebelled against him." The weakness to 
 which Judaea had been reduced, exposed it to invasions from all 
 the neighboring tribes, Mohabites, Ammonites and Syrians, as well 
 as the Chaldees 3 . The king of Babylon himself, it should seem, 
 was engaged elsewhere, probably in establishing his dominion at 
 home. Jehoiakim was succeeded by his son Coniah or Jehoiakin 
 in 598 b.c. He had either made himself king on his father's 
 
 As the king had only come to Elephantine, while the Greeks anl the 
 aX\oy\6(jao<; had gone to the Second Cataract, it is evident that it cannot be 
 the expedition of Psammitichus I. (Herod. 2, 151) to overtake his fugitive 
 soldiery. Nor in his reign is it probable that the son of a Greek should 
 have been named Psammitichus. 
 
 1 Her. 2, 163. 3 Diod. Sic. 14, 35. 3 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 2, 
 
348 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 death, or had been placed on the throne by the people without 
 the approbation of the king of Babylon. An army was imme- 
 diately sent against him, and the siege of Jerusalem was formed 
 by the lieutenants of Nebuchadnezzar ; but it appears to have pro- 
 ceeded slowly, till the king himself came, to take the command of 
 the besieging army, when the city speedily surrendered 1 ; Jehoiakin 
 was carried captive to Babylon within twelve months from his 
 accession, and his uncle Zedekiah placed on the throne in his stead. 
 Apries had succeeded to his father about four years previously, 
 and the earliest undertakings of his reign were directed to the 
 recovery of that ascendency in Syria and Palestine which Neco 
 had possessed. But Jerusalem being virtually in the power of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, he did not venture at first to attempt an 
 invasion by land. We find that the hopes of the people of Judaea 
 were strongly excited ; the prophet Hananiah foretold, that within 
 two years the yoke of the king of Babylon should be broken, and 
 the captive king be restored to his throne. This was the effect of 
 the success which attended the first undertakings of Apries, and a 
 truer prophet warned them that they would prove fallacious. All 
 the nations of Palestine appear to have been alarmed at the grow- 
 ing power of Babylon, and sent emissaries to Zedekiah, tempting 
 him to throw off his allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar. They were 
 also warned by Jeremiah of the fruitlessness of their attempts, by 
 the symbolical act of sending a yoke to the sovereigns when their 
 emissaries returned 2 . Their more immediate danger, however, \\ as 
 from Egypt. Herodotus speaks only of Apries' expedition against 
 Sidon and his sea-fight with the king of Tyre; but, according to 
 Diodorus, he took Sidon by storm, reduced the whole sea-coast of 
 Phoenicia and defeated the Cyprians, who appear to h ive been 
 
 1 2 Kings xxiv. 10-16. 
 
 1 Jer. xxvii. In the first verse of this chapter Zedekiah should certainly 
 be read for Jehoiakim (comp. v. 3), if indeed the whole verse, which is 
 wanting in the Septuagint, be not an interpolation. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 340 
 
 allies, if not subjects 1 , of the Phoenicians. Although Gaza and the 
 other towns of South Palestine are not expressly mentioned by 
 either of the Greek historians, it is probably to this time that the 
 prophecy in the 47th chapter of Jeremiah 2 is to be referred ; and 
 as the destruction is said to come from the north, it must have 
 been attacked on the return of Apries from his campaign against 
 Cyprus and Sidon. After these successes, Apries dispatched an 
 army into Judaea. Zedekiah having violated the oath of allegiance 
 which he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar 3 , and sent ambassadors 
 into Egypt to ask for an auxiliary force of cavalry and infantry 4 , 
 the Chaldaeans had invested Jerusalem. The tidings of the march 
 of the Egyptian army caused them to raise the siege 5 , but they 
 returned, as Jeremiah had foretold, in greater strength, the king 
 himself commanding them 6 ; and the troops of Apries, it is pro- 
 bable, retired without a contest. The prophecy of EzekieP, in 
 which the arm of Pharaoh is described as being broken, so that it 
 could never be bound up again to hold the sword, was delivered on 
 occasion of this retreat, when Egypt renounced for ever its attempts 
 to occupy Palestine. Nebuchadnezzar, after a siege of eighteen 
 months, took Jerusalem by storm, and Zedekiah being made pri- 
 soner, as he was attempting to escape in disguise by a concealed 
 breach in the wall 8 , was deprived of his eyesight, and carried in 
 
 1 Virg. Mn. 1, 621 :— 
 
 Genitor turn Belus opimam 
 
 Yastabat Cyprum et victor ditione tenebat 
 Menander (Jos. Ant. 9, 14, 2) represents Elula?us, in the time of Shalmane- 
 ser, as reducing the revolted people of Citium into obedience. 
 
 2 "The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the 
 Philistines, before that, Pharaoh smote Gaza." 
 
 • 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1 3. 
 
 4 Ezek. xvii. 15. The embassy to Egypt must have taken place towards 
 the end of the sixth year of Zedekiah, in 592 or 591 b. c. 
 
 ' Jer. xxxvii. 6 Ezek. xxiv. 2. 
 
 7 Ezek. xxx. 21. 8 Ezek. xii. 12. 
 
350 
 
 HISTORY" OF EGYPT. 
 
 chains to Babylon. This took place in the eleventh year of Zede- 
 Jriah's reign, and the seventh of the reign of Apries (587 b. c). In 
 consequence of the murder of Gedaliah, to whom the government 
 of Judrca had been entrusted by Nebuchadnezzar, many of the 
 Jewish chiefs who had escaped the execution of Riblah 1 tied into 
 Egypt, carrying with them the prophet Jeremiah. He probably 
 finished his days at Daphnse near Pelusium, foretelling in the last 
 of his prophecies the fate of Apries 3 . 
 
 After the occupation of Jerusalem the efforts of Nebuchadnezzar 
 would naturally be directed to the reduction of the sea-coast of 
 Palestine and Syria, without securing which it would have been 
 unsafe for him to have attacked Egypt. Tyre was at this time in 
 the height of her commercial prosperity and naval power 3 . Whe- 
 ther in subjection to Egypt in consequence of the victory of Apries, 
 or not, she was evidently hostile to Babylon from a natural jealousy 
 of any power, Egyptian, Jewish, or Chaldaean, by whose ascendency 
 her commerce might suffer, and Nebuchadnezzar almost immediately 
 undertook the siege. Even before Jerusalem was actually taken, 
 but when that event was clearly to be anticipated, the prophet 
 Ezekiel describes Tyre as exulting in the prospect of the increase 
 of her own power by the sufferings of her rival 4 , and foretells her 
 destruction. The siege must have begun soon after the capture of 
 Jerusalem ; the insular position of Tyre (for the original city on 
 the mainland had been taken by Shalmaneser), the strength of its 
 fortifications, and the command of the sea, enabled it to hold out 
 for thirteen years, as we learn from the Tyrian historians quoted 
 by Josephus 5 . It is clear that the results were not such as the 
 
 1 2 Kings xxv. 21. 
 
 They appear to close with the 44th chapter. The Fathers (Hieron. adv. 
 Jov. lib. 2. Tertull. Scorpiace viii.) say that Jeremiah was stoned by the 
 people. 
 
 * See the description in Ezek. xxvi.-xxviii. 
 
 • Ezek. xxvi. 2. 5 Cont. Apion. 1. 21. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 351 
 
 besieging army had expected from success. " Nebuchadnezzar and 
 his troops had served a great service ;" their heads had grown bald 
 with the pressure of the helmet, and their shoulders had been galled 
 by the weight of the cuirass ; expressions which indicate a pro- 
 tracted warfare ; " yet had they no wages for Tyre for the service 
 that they had served against it 1 ;" and the spoil of Egypt is pro- 
 mised to them as a compensation for this disappointment, which 
 probably arose from the city having surrendered on terms which 
 saved it from being given up to plunder 2 . That an invasion of 
 Egypt actually took place is probable. Megasthenes asserted that 
 Nauocodrosorus (Nebuchadnezzar) had led his army as far as the 
 Pillars of Hercules, and conquered great part of Libya 3 . Unless 
 this is a pure fiction, he must have made conquests to the westward 
 of Egypt, which he could not do without passing through the 
 northern border of that country. 
 
 Now the prophecy of Jeremiah 4 implies no more than such a 
 passage, accompanied by the usual outrages of a victorious army. 
 It does not describe a permanent occupation. The prophet 
 declares that " he would spread his pavilion in Tahpenes (Daphnas), 
 break the images of Bethshemesh (Heliopolis) and lay waste Noph 
 (Memphis) ; that he should array himself with the land of Egypt 
 as a shepherd putteth on his garment, and go forth thence in 
 peace." He might be deterred from attempting the conquest of 
 
 1 St. Jerome on Ezek. xxix. ]8, relates that when Nebuchadnezzar had 
 nearly completed his mole to attack the island, the Tyrians put their wealth 
 on shipboard and carried it off: but it is difficult to know whether he is 
 relating a certified fact or expounding the prophecy. 
 
 8 The reign of Ithobalus, the king under whom the siege took place, was 
 followed by that of Baal, which lasted ten years; then followed a period 
 of mixed government of auffetes, high priest and king, for eight years, after 
 which two princes in succession were sent for to Tyre from Babylon, to be 
 invested with royalty, which seems to imply some kind of dependence at 
 that time. (Jos. Ant. 9, 14, %) 
 
 3 Strabo, 15, 687. 4 Jer. xliii. 12 ; xlvi. 13-26. 
 
352 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Middle and Upper Egypt by the power of Apries, or dissuaded by 
 his submission. This explanation, however, will not apply to the 
 prophecy of Ezekiel 1 , according to which man and beast were to be 
 cut off from the land, from Migdol to Syene, and Egypt to be 
 desolate for forty years. The remark is often forced upon one who 
 compares prophecy with history, that the prophet, in enlarging 
 upon his theme and carrying it out into details, indulges his own 
 peculiar genius, and obeys in some measure the impulse of his own 
 feeling. The genius of Ezekiel was exaggerative 2 and vehement, 
 whereas the style of Jeremiah is more simple and prosaic. It 
 would be pushing a negative argument too far to deny any inva- 
 sion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, because it is not mentioned in 
 Herodotus ; but to relate its desolation for a long series of years as 
 a fact, would be a violation of all principles of historical criticism. 
 It is certain that from this time there was no hostility between Egypt 
 and Babylon, and there is even reason to think that Nebuchad- 
 nezzar married an Egyptian princess. 
 
 There is a striking correspondence between the language in which 
 Ezekiel describes the pride of Pharaoh and its humiliation, and the 
 contrast which Herodotus draws between the commencement and 
 the close of his reign. Next to Psammitichus he had been the 
 most prosperous of Egyptian kings ; but the time had arrived when 
 he was destined to misfortune, and according to the historian's 
 philosophy, great prosperity, especially if accompanied with any 
 elevation of mind, was provocative of a reverse 3 . Both the pros- 
 perity and the pride of Apries 4 are set forth in strong poetic 
 
 1 Ezek. xxix. 
 
 2 "Ezekiel — est atrox, veheraens, tragicus, totus in Saviocci, frequens in 
 repetitionibus, non deeoris aut gratise causa, sed ex iudignatione et violen- 
 tia." (Lowtb, de Sacra Poesi HebraBortun, Pra;l. xxi.) 
 
 3 1, 34. Mcra 6i EdAwya oi^Ojitvov, z\aj3e zk deov ft^ratj peydXn lZpoiaov' wj 
 eix ,(rai } T: €POfUtt€ twvrov rival dvOptoTTLOv a-dvrcop 6\/3iu>TaTOi>. 
 
 4 'Airp'uco Si Xtycrai eluai ijSe % Stdvoia, priS' ai/ deov jiiv firidzva SvvaaOai navvai r% 
 fiaaiKqirA' uvtu) dcr^aXeus twvrw ISovaOai iSoxic. (2, 169.) 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 353 
 
 imagery by Ezekiel : he is likened to a crocodile lying in the midst 
 of the Nile, saying of the river, " It is mine own, I have made it 
 for myself," troubling the waters with his feet, when he rushed 
 forth to seize his prey 1 . It was not, however, from the rival power 
 of Babylon that he was destined to meet with destruction. 
 
 The Greek colony of Cyrene had been founded about half a cen- 
 tury before this time. The history of its establishment is curiously 
 illustrative of the state of geographical knowledge among the 
 Greeks in the seventh century before Christ. The king of Thera, 
 a small island of the Sporades, had gone to Delphi, probably to 
 consult the oracle respecting the drought under which the island 
 had suffered 2 . The Pythia replied, " that they should go and 
 found a city in Libya." The Theraeans were descended partly from 
 the Minyae, the earliest navigators of Greece 3 , partly from the 
 Phoenician companions of Cadmus, yet they knew not in what 
 part of the world Libya was. Not daring, even in obedience to 
 an oracle, to go forth on such a blind expedition, they continued to 
 endure the drought, till every tree on the island, save one, had 
 perished. They had again recourse to the oracle, but received for 
 answer only a renewal of the command to colonize Libya, accom- 
 panied by a reproach for their neglect of the previous oracle. 
 They knew, however, that Crete lay between it and their own 
 island, and sent thither to inquire whether any Cretan or stranger 
 settled there had ever been in Libya. After wandering througk 
 the island they came to the town of Itanus at its eastern extremity, 
 and there found a manufacturer of purple of the name of Corofeius. 
 He had been driven, probably while seeking for the shell-fish from 
 which the purple is derived 4 , to the island of Platea, now Bomba, 
 
 1 Ezek. xxix. 1, 3 ; xxxii. 2. 
 
 3 Her. 4, 151, represents the drought as following the first visit to 
 Delphi. 3 Miiller, Orchomenos und die Minyer, 258. 
 
 4 Zuchis, on the coast of North Africa, near the Syrtis, is mentioned by 
 Strabo as a great seat of the manufacture of purple (17, 835). 
 
354 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 between Paraetonium and Gyrene. The promise of a reward 
 induced him to return with them to Thera, and thence to sail, 
 accompanied by an exploring party, to Platea. The Therans left 
 him on the island with such a supply of provisions as they calcu- 
 lated would sufiice, and returned to Thera to fetch their country- 
 men. The time fixed for their coming had expired ; and Coro- 
 bius would have perished from want, had not some Samians on 
 their voyage to Egypt been driven to the same island, who, on 
 hearing his story, left him provisions for a year 1 . A colony after 
 6ome time arrived from Thera, but their first settlement was not 
 prosperous, and when two years had elapsed, leaving one of their 
 number on the island, they again visited Delphi, and complained 
 to the Pythia that though they had colonized Libya, they had 
 fared no better. The answer of the Pythia implied that they were 
 mistaken in supposing that the island was Libya 2 , and they accor- 
 dingly removed to a place named Aziris, opposite to it on the 
 mainland, at the opening of the valley which is now called Wadi 
 el Temmineh. Herodotus says, that after remaining here six years 
 they were induced by the promises of a better settlement to let 
 themselves be conducted by the Libyans to Cyrene, and that their 
 guides contrived to lead them by night through the finest part of 
 the country. But it is evident from the exclamation of one of the 
 guides when they arrived at Cyrene, " Greeks, here it is best for 
 you to dwell ; for here the skies are pierced 3 ," that they had been 
 pining for a land watered by rain, having found that the evil of 
 drought had followed them to their new settlement. Such a land 
 
 1 These Samians, when they left Platea, made for Egypt, but the violence 
 and long continuance of the east wind drove them through the Pillars of 
 Hercules to Tartessus, a mart till then un visited by Greeks (Herod. 4, 152). 
 
 2 At rv iuei A.i(3ir)v firi\oTf>6^ov oidag UjtCivop 
 
 Tfj eXdtov c\66v-os } ayav ayapai aotyir\v cev. — Her. 4, 157. 
 
 8 In the language of Scripture, " the windows of heaven are opened." 
 (Gen. vii. 11. Mai. hi. 10.) 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYXASTV. 
 
 355 
 
 is the Cyrenaica 1 : as the traveller ascends from the Gulf of Bomba 
 towards the elevated "plateau on which the city stands, the sandy 
 soil changes to a rich loam ; a fine vegetation clothes the hills 
 (the Arabs now call it the Green Mountain) ; herds of cattle are 
 seen, which the lands on the sea coast are unable to support ; the 
 olive, the citron, the juniper, the cypress, the pine, grow luxuriantly 2 , 
 and there is an abundant supply of water. The whole district pro- 
 duced the Silphium 3 , which was so highly prized in ancient phar- 
 macy that it sometimes sold for its weight in silver 4 . The differ- 
 ent elevation of the coast, the mountains and the intermediate 
 region, gave the Cyrenians three harvests in the year, one becom- 
 ing ripe while the other was gathered in 5 . The site of Cyrene was 
 well adapted for the settlement of a flourishing colony. The pro- 
 montory on which it stands, between the Syrtis and the Bay of 
 Bomba, is the nearest point to Greece of the whole line t of the 
 African coast ; and there is an excellent harbor at the distance of 
 80 stadia or 10 miles from the town 6 . The gardens of the Hes- 
 perides, as far as they had a prototype in nature, appear to have been 
 hollows in the limestone hills on the western side of the promon- 
 tory, where orchards of extraordinary productiveness are found. 
 
 The establishment of the colony of Cyrene was indirectly fatal 
 to the Saitic dynasty. Under Battus L its founder, who reigned 
 
 1 The name was probably Phoenician, and derived from cornu, like 
 Cerne on the coast of Mauritania. Compare Isaiah, v. 1, where " a very 
 fruitful hill" is literally "a horn, the son of fatness;" iv xtpart, iv rd™ rlmu 
 (Sept.) 
 
 2 Pacho, Voyage dans la Marmorique, p. 83. 
 
 8 It is supposed to be the Laserpitium Derias w hich Pacho observed to 
 grow plentifully in the Cyrenaica, though he nowhere met with it between 
 Egypt and the Bay of Bomba. It was not found westward of the Syrtis 
 (Her. 4, 169). Pliny, X. H. 22, 49, enumerates its virtues, which extended 
 from the dispersion of a dropsy to the cure of corns. 
 
 4 Aristoph. Plut. 925. Plin. N. H. 19, 15. 
 
 6 Herod. 4, 199. 6 Scylax, 107, p. 234, cd. Klausen. 
 
356 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 40 years, and his son Arcesilaus, who reigned 16, the numbers of 
 the original settlers were not increased by any new immigration. 
 But in the reign of Battus, surnamed the Prosperous, an invitation 
 was sent to all the Greeks to come and aid the Cyrenians in colo- 
 nizing Libya, with the promise of an allotment of land. The 
 Pythia lent her aid, as before, by an oracle which warned against 
 delay 1 , and a great multitude soon assembled at Cyrene from Crete, 
 Peloponnesus, and the Cyclades and Sporades 2 . They could not 
 be provided with the land which had been promised them, but at 
 the expense of the native Libyans, who were not only stripped of 
 their territories, but treated with great insolence, according to the 
 common fate of barbarians who presume to defend their rights 
 against the intrusion of a civilized people. They were probably 
 the same Libyan tribe, the Giligamnue, in whose territory 
 the first Thersean settlers had landed. Egypt was interested in 
 preventing the further growth of a power which threatened to 
 encroach on all its neighbors 3 . Adicran, the king of the Libyans, 
 sent to implore aid from Apries, and place himself under his 
 authority. Apries accepted the offer of the Libyans, and sent a 
 large army to their aid ; but as he could not venture to employ his 
 Greek mercenaries against their countrymen, it was composed 
 entirely of Egyptian troops. The Cyrenians marched out, and a 
 battle took place at Irasa, now Ain 3rsen\ between the Bay of 
 Bomba and Cyrene.. The Egyptians had never before encountered 
 
 1 "Of 6i Ktv ii A i0vr]i/ TroXvfiparov votcoov t'XOi] 
 
 Yds dvaSaiOfjiivus, pcra oi ttoku (f>afxi ^tXrfattv. — Her. 4, 159. 
 
 a Her. 4, 161. 
 
 * Her. 4, 168. Scylax (106, p. 233 Klausen) extends the Egyptian terri- 
 tory as far as Apis (Boun Ajoubah) ; but his work was hardly written 
 before the middle of the 4th century B.C. 
 
 4 'Es'fyuera x -opov ical tnl k p >i v r) v Otarrjv. (Her. 4, 159.) Jmmeans foun- 
 tain, and in these countries fountains are more permanent than towns. 
 The name is probably also Phoenician Hl" 1 ^ ur bs. See Gesenius, Ling 
 Phcen. 1, 424, 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY". 
 
 357 
 
 Greek arms and tactics ; the disproportion in numbers must have 
 been great, but the negligence of their adversaries enabled the 
 Greeks to gain a complete victory, and few of the Egyptian army 
 returned to their own country. It was the first occasion on which 
 the valor and skill of the free Hellenes was matched in a pitched 
 battle against the forces of the great despotic monarchies which 
 had previously ruled the world ; the first of a series of victories, 
 which in the course of two centuries and a half made them masters 
 of the ancient territories of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt. 
 
 The news of this defeat and the almost entire extermination of 
 the army produced a revolt in Egypt. Apries, who had probably 
 imagined that he should easily conquer a handful of Greeks, was 
 accused of having sent his troops on an enterprise in which he 
 knew that they must perish, in the hope of governing his kingdom 
 more securely by means of the foreigners. Those who returned, 
 being joined by the relatives of those who had perished, imme- 
 diately revolted. Apries, on the receipt of this intelligence, sent 
 to them Amasis, one of his officers, who had gained the favor of 
 the king, and been advanced to high office, though of humble 
 origin, by the beauty of a chaplet which he presented to him on 
 his birth-day. While he was haranguing them in order to bring 
 them back to their allegiance, a soldier came behind him, and 
 placed a crown upon his head. He accepted it without reluctance, 
 and prepared to march against Apries. On hearing this, Apries 
 dispatched Patarbemis 1 , an officer of high rank, with orders to 
 bring Amasis alive into his presence. Amasis bade him return 
 with a contemptuous refusal, and when he appeared before Apries, 
 the king ordered his ears and nose to be cut off. The Egyptians 
 who had hitherto adhered to the royal cause, seeing the outrage 
 offered to a man who was highly esteemed among them, irame- 
 
 1 Hellanicus ( Athen. 15, p. 6S0) called the king himself Partamis, appa- 
 rently from confusion with Patarbemis. 
 
358 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 diately joined Amasis and the revolters. Apries was thus left 
 alone with his Carian and Ionian auxiliaries, whose numbers 
 amounted to 30,000. He marched from Sais, where his royal 
 residence was, to meet Amasis, who was advancing from Lybia, 
 and the armies encountered at Momemphis, near the borders of 
 the Lake Mareotis. The digression which Herodotus makes at 
 this moment of his narrative 1 , to give an account of the castes of 
 Egypt, and especially of the numbers and privileges of the military 
 caste, proves that in his mind this revolt was closely connected 
 with the attempt which the Saitic princes had carried on for three- 
 quarters of a century, to raise up a body of Greek troops, by 
 whose means they might make themselves independent of the 
 ancient soldiery. Their dissatisfaction first manifested itself in the 
 emigration of the Automoli, and most effectually in the revolt 
 under Amasis. That they were still so powerful is a proof that 
 the numbers of the Automoli must have been greatly exaggerated. 
 The auxiliaries were defeated, owing to the superiority in numbers 
 of the Egyptians, and Apries being taken prisoner, was carried 
 back to Sais to the palace, now become the property of Amasis. 
 For a time he was treated with kindness by his conqueror ; but 
 the Egyptians murmured at the indulgence shown to one who had 
 made himself so odious to them. Amasis therefore delivered him 
 into the hands of the people, by whom he was strangled 2 , but 
 allowed to be buried with his ancestors in the splendid temple of 
 Minerva at Sais. To the modes of interment in pyramids practised 
 under the Old Monarchy and in grotto sepulchres by the Theban 
 dynasties, another had been added by the Pharaohs of Sais. The 
 level and alluvial Delta afforded neither hills on which pyramids 
 could be set up, as objects conspicuous from afar, nor rocks in 
 which sepulchres could be hewn. They therefore constructed for 
 
 1 % 164. 
 
 2 Jor. xliv. 30. "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give Pharaoh Hophra 
 into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life.*' 
 
THE TWENTY- SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 309 
 
 their remaius vaults within the precincts of the temples, sur- 
 rounded with pilasters and columns, and opening with fold- 
 ing-doors. The interments of the common people of Sais 
 were made in a large necropolis, of which the remains may still 
 be traced 1 . Apries had reigned, according to Herodotus and 
 Manetho as reported by Eusebius, twenty-five years, and died 
 569 B.C. 
 
 Amasis or Amosis, was a native of Siouph, a small town in the 
 Saitic nome, and of plebeian birth 2 . Thus another great principle 
 of the ancient constitution of Egypt was infringed, according to 
 which the king must be chosen from the priests or the soldiery. 
 Being a man of the people, he was no doubt supported by them, 
 and at first despised by the higher castes for the meanness of his 
 birth. He admonished them, by a truly oriental mode, a sym- 
 bolical action, of the folly of valuing men according to their origin, 
 instead of their actual place and use in society. He had a golden 
 foot bath, in which he and his guests were accustomed to wash 
 their feet b fore the banquet. This he broke up, and out of the 
 material fashioned a statue of a god, which was erected in a public 
 place, and received the homage of the citizens. Sending for the 
 Egyptians, he pointed out to them to what honor this vessel had 
 been raised, which had formerly served for humble and even dis- 
 honorable uses 3 . " My lot," said he, " has been the same : I was 
 once a plebeian ; I am now your king ; and you must honor and 
 respect me accordingly ;" and in this way he gently reconciled 
 them to his yoke. In another respect he innovated upon ancient 
 
 1 Champollion, Lettres, p. 50, 52. 
 
 5 A>7//o't/ji/ to npiv iovra Kal om/jj ovk eiri<f>av£os. (Her. 2, 172.) 
 
 8 The lively description of Herodotus gives no high idea of the refine- 
 ment of Egyptian manners. <t>as e< roD noSai/wrfjpos rwya\jia yeyofifatf is rov 
 irporepov idi> touj A.iyvnriovs evepeiv re k al ivovpttiVKai roda; ivaxoi i^c<rdnt. 
 (2, 172.) In a picture at Thebes (Wilkinson, M. and C, 167) is a represen- 
 tation of the effects of wine on ladies at a feast. 
 
300 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 customs. The court ceremonial of Egypt, arranged hy the priests, 
 regulated for the sovereign the employment of all his hours, and 
 when he had given the morning to the dispatch of business, 
 prescribed to him religious duties and moral reading. Amasis did 
 not neglect the duties of sovereignty ; on the contrary he estab- 
 lished a strict administration throughout Egypt, and raised it to 
 a high degree of prosperity. But having given the early hours 
 of the day to business, he devoted the rest to pleasure, drank 
 freely, and unbent his mind in pleasantry with his boon compa- 
 nions. Ilis friends were scandalized at his levities, and thus 
 addressed him : " You do wrong, 0 king, in making yourself so 
 cheap ; you ought to sit gravely in a throne of state, and give the 
 whole day to business ; the Egyptians would then know by how 
 great a personage they are governed, and you would be in better 
 repute with them. Your present conduct is quite unkingly." 
 But Amasis replied : " Those who have bows, string them when 
 they want to use them, and unstring them when they have done ; 
 for if they were kept always strung they would break, and be 
 useless when they were wanted. And such is the case with man : 
 if he were to attempt to be always serious, and never to relax with 
 mirth, he would insensibly become mad, or lose his faculties. 
 Aware of this, I give part of my day to business and part to 
 amusement 1 ." Amasis is the first king of Egypt of whose per- 
 sonal character we have any knowledge ; the older Pharaohs 
 has r e been distinguished by their names, their public acts, and the 
 length of their reigns ; but we have known nothing of the men. 
 We readily recognize the qualities w r hich made him the favorite of 
 the people and the common soldiers ; Julius Caesar, Henry V., are 
 examples of a youth spent in licentious and even lawless courses, 
 succeeded by a manhood of vigorous activity and equitable and 
 
 1 Herod. 2, 1*72. See vol. i.- p. 382, the account of the treatment which 
 the different oracles underwent from Amasis after his accession. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 361 
 
 sagacious administration 1 ; and the union of severe application to 
 business, with the love of pleasure and a playful humor in the 
 hours of relaxation, has a parallel in Philip of Macedon. 
 
 His reign was favored by external circumstances. The Nile was 
 regular in its rise, and the land yielded abundance to the people ; 
 the number of inhabited places exceeded twenty thousand 2 . A 
 friendly alliance was' made with Cyrene, and Egyptian prejudice 
 so far set at nought, that Amasis married Ladike, the daughter 
 either of the king of that city, or of an eminent citizen. No dan- 
 ger threatened on the side of Babylon ; on the contrary, their 
 relations were friendly, and Amasis, after the power of Cyrus 
 became formidable, entered into an alliance with Nabonadius or 
 Labynetus, the last king of Babylon, for the defence of Croesus 
 against the Medes 3 . The rapid movements of Cyrus defeated their 
 purpose, and Sardis was taken before the allies of Croesus could 
 muster. This was in the year 546 b.c. The naval power of the 
 Phoenicians was so much reduced by the war of Xebuchadnezzar 
 against Tyre, that Amasis dispossessed them of Cyprus 4 , and made 
 it tributary, which would facilitate his intercourse with Asia Minor. 
 His internal regulations were so judicious, that he is reckoned with 
 Menes, Sasychis, Sesostris and Bocchoris, as one of the great legis- 
 lators of Egypt. They extended, according to Diodorus, to the 
 whole administration 5 , but only one of them is specified 6 . It 
 obliged every man to declare every year to the chief magistrate of 
 his nome, by what means he lived, and if he could show no honest 
 livelihood, he was to be put to death. It is probably more correctly 
 stated by Diodorus 7 that he who gave a false account of himself, 
 
 1 Tlapa5t6orai avvtroi te yEyovtvai ko.0' v-cp/3oXliv Kai tov rpfrrov iiruiKtjs koi <Ji*caioj. 
 (Diod. 1, 95.) 
 
 2 Herod. 2, 177. 8 Herod. 1, 77. 
 
 * Herodotus says, £?-\£ 6i JZiirpov irpwrjj dvdpamuv, but this is evidently a 
 mistake. 
 
 5 1, 95. 6 Herod. 1, 177. ' 1, 77. 
 
 VOL. II. 16 
 
362 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 or followed an unlawful calling, was punishable with death. From 
 the general character of the administration of Amasis, we should 
 expect to find him moderating the severity of a penal law. Hero- 
 dotus says that the law of Solon which was in force in his time 
 and was an excellent law, was borrowed from Egypt ; but Solon's 
 law only punished idleness with the loss of civic rights, and that 
 perhaps only if a man had for three successive years been without 
 an honest calling 1 . 
 
 Amasis at first was not favorably disposed towards the Greeks 2 , 
 by whose defeat he had been advanced to the throne, but he con- 
 tinued them in his service, and afterwards removed their quarters 
 to Memphis, that they might be available against the population 
 of the capital. He showed himself also very friendly towards the 
 whole Greek nation. He allowed all who pleased to inhabit the 
 city of Naucratis, and to those who came only for commercial pur- 
 poses, he gave sites on which they might build altars to their gods. 
 The largest and most illustrious of these factories was that which 
 was called Hi lien ion, founded by the principal states of Asiatic 
 Greece ; Chios, Teos, Phocaea and Clazomenae in Ionia ; Rhodes, 
 Cnidus, Halicarnassus and Phaselis in Doris ; and the single city 
 of Mitylene in JEolis. These cities enjoyed exclusively the privi- 
 lege of appointing the magistrates or consuls who regulated the 
 commercial concerns of the Hellenion ; others claimed a share, 
 but Herodotus emphatically declares that it did not belong to 
 them. ^Egina, however, had independently founded a tcmenos of 
 Jupiter, the Samians of Juno and the Milesians of Apollo, their 
 respective chief divinities ; and these were probably older than the 
 Hellenion, as the states which founded them were distinguished in 
 navigation earlier than the others. Amasis sent presents to several 
 
 1 Petit, Leges Atticse, p. 520, ed. TVessel. Herodotus himself speaks of 
 Solon's visiting Egypt after he had given laws to Athens (1, 30). 
 
 a $>i\t\\riv ytvt>ntv»s 6 'A/'rt<ris is the expression of Herodotus (2, 177). 
 
THE TWENTT -SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 363 
 
 of the Grecian temples ; a gilded image of Minerva with his own 
 picture, to Cyrene ; to Lindus, two statues of Minerva in stone, 
 and a linen corslet of wonderful workmanship. According to the 
 description which Herodotus gives 1 of a similar present made to 
 the Lacedaemonians, each thread consisted of 360 filaments clearly 
 to be distinguished. Figures were woven in the pattern of the 
 linen, and it was adorned with gold and cotton 2 . Cotton, being 
 used as a costly material along with gold for the enrichment of 
 the linen, was probably of recent introduction from Ethiopia or 
 India ; for it seems not to have been known in Egypt in earlier 
 times 3 . The corslet sent to Lindus remained to the time of Pliny, 
 though nearly destroyed by the curiosity of travellers, and the 
 examination of it verified the account of Herodotus 4 . Another 
 occasion for displaying his liberality towards the Greeks was offered 
 by the conflagration of the temple at Delphi, which took place 
 548 B.C. Its restoration was undertaken for the sum of 300 talents 
 by the wealthy family of the Alcmaeonidaa, and was to be paid for 
 by a general contribution of the members of the Amphictyonic 
 confederacy. Of this sum one-fourth part was allotted to the 
 Delphians, who being unable to raise it themselves, wandered 
 throughout Greece and the Grecian settlements, begging for con- 
 tributions, and visited among the rest their countrymen settled in 
 Egypt. From them they received 20 minae ; from Amasis 1000 
 talents, about 50,000 pounds weight of alum. It is obtained in 
 
 1 Her. 3, 47. 
 
 2 'E6vra filv \ivzov kcl'i £'J)a}v evvpai7jx£voJv y ov^vcov, KtKOPjxr}atvov Si ^pvaoi Kai tip io i- 
 vi and %v\ov. (Her. u. S.) 
 
 3 Jul. Poll. 7, 75. Plin. K H. 19, 1. 
 
 4 Mirenlur hsec (the fact that there were 150 threads in one rope of a 
 hunting-net) ignorantes in ^Egyptii quondam regis, quem Amasim voeant, 
 thorace, in Rhodiorura insula ostendi in templo Minervse ccclxv. filis singula 
 fila constare ; quod se expertum nuper Romse prodidit Mutianus ter Con- 
 sul, parvasque jam reliquias ejus superesse, hae experientium injuria. (N. 
 H. 19, 1.) 
 
3G4 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 great quantities from the Oases of the Libyan Desert, and this was 
 reckoned the purest of any. It was .of extensive use, especially in 
 dyeing, and very costly ; in later times the Lipari Islands enjoyed 
 the monopoly of it, and acquired incredible riches, says Diodorus, 
 from this source 1 . More recently it has been a source of great 
 wealth, first to the Turks, and afterwards to the Popes, who for a 
 long time possessed the monopoly 2 . 
 
 The alliance and friendship of Amasis with Polycrates of Samos 
 is very celebrated, and must belong to the latest part of Amasis' 
 reign. Polycrates (532 b. c.) had made himself master of the 
 whole of that island, having killed one of his brothers and expelled 
 the other, and acquired a degree of power and splendor which no 
 Grecian tyrant ever equalled, except Gelon and Hiero of Syracuse 3 . 
 The Samians, as we have seen, were commercially connected with 
 Egypt, and Polycrates cultivated the friendship of Amasis. For a 
 time uninterrupted success attended his schemes ; but they were 
 carried on with little regard for the rights of his neighbors 4 , whom 
 he invaded and plundered without scruple. Amasis had marked 
 his prosperity, and on occasion of some new success was so con- 
 vinced that a dreadful reverse must be preparing for him, that he 
 addressed to him, says Ilerodotus, the following letter: — "Amasis 
 to Polycrates. It is pleasant to hear of the prosperity of one with 
 whom we are connected in friendship, and hospitality. But thy 
 great successes displease me, knowing how envious the divinity is, 
 
 1 Diod. 5, 10. Murray's Africa (2, p. 67), of the alum found in the Oasis 
 of Shelima. Hamilton's iEgyptiaca, 428; Russegger, Reise (2, 1, 342), of 
 the Oases Chardseheh, El-Dachel and El-Bacharieh. A Frenchman in part- 
 nership with the Viceroy was carrying on the manufacture there on a large 
 scale at the time of Russegger's visit, 1836 (Reise, u. s. p. 53). 
 
 3 Beckmann's Hist, of Inventions, London, 1846, 1, 196. The ancient 
 alumen appears not to have been so well purified as our alum from the sul- 
 phate of iron which is mixed with it in nature. 
 
 • Herod. 3, 125. * Herod. 3, 39, 40. 
 
THE TWENTr-SIXTII DYNASTY. 
 
 365 
 
 and it is my wish for those in whom I am interested, that they 
 should succeed in some things and fail in others, and thus experi- 
 ence an alternation of fortune through life, rather than he always 
 prosperous. For I have never yet heard of any one who had been 
 successful in everything, who did not suffer entire ruin before he 
 died. Take my advice, then, and counteract your prosperity in this 
 way; consider what is the thing you value most and would be most 
 grieved to lose, and throw that away in such a manner that it shall 
 never come back again among men. And if in future good and ill 
 fortune should not alternate with you, adopt the remedy that I 
 suggest." The moral of this letter is that with which Herodotus 
 himself philosophized on history and human life, and it coincides 
 so exactly with the address of Solon to Croesus, in another part of 
 his work, even to the phraseology 1 , as to leave no doubt that he 
 has held the pen for Amasis, as he made himself the spokesman of 
 Solon. Poly crates weighed the advice, and found that there was 
 nothing which it would grieve him more to lose than a costly 
 emerald ring, engraved by Theodorus of Samos 2 . He therefore 
 ordered a pentecontor to be manned, rowed out into the deep sea, 
 and in the presence of all drew his ring from his finger, dropped 
 it into the water, and returned to his palace with a heavy heart. 
 It was a notion of the ancient religions that one who was threat- 
 ened with an overwhelming calamity by the anger or envy of the 
 gods, might break the force of the blow by voluntarily taking on 
 
 1 1, 32. 'Err ( a t a p ev 6v pe to OeTov tt a v lav <p6 o v t p 6v re /ecu rapa- 
 XmSes, ivcipuros avQpuirri'iuiv npaypdrcov n£pi ; 3, 40. 'E/JOt at aai psydXat tiru^i'at 
 ovk apcffKovaij to OeTov tit i a t a p £ v w a> f e a t i <^0ovEp6v. 1, 32. Xo^ -aw 
 tos xpriiidTof okoituiv tj]v te\evt^v kt\ dn^PficETai' iroWoTcri yap 6n vTroS££as o^fiov b 
 deds 7T p op p i $o vg dvETpeipE. 3, 40. OvScva o?Ja ootij eis t£\os oy 
 k a k ai f £ r e\ £ v r ij a e Trp6ppi£os t evtv%eo)v to. vavra. 
 
 9 Plin. N. H. 37, 1, 2. " Sardonychem earn gemmam fuisse constat ; 
 ostenduntque Rorase, si credimus, Concordia? delubro, cornu aureo Augusti 
 dono inclusam." 
 
3G6 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 himself some minor evil, and thus compound his debt to Fate. But 
 in this case the composition was refused. Five or six days after, a 
 fisherman who had caught a fish of unusual size and beauty, car- 
 ried it as a present to Polycrates. When the servants opened it, 
 they found in the stomach the lost ring, and in great joy brought 
 it to their master, who, struck with the ominous character of the 
 event, wrote a full description of all that had happened to Amasis 
 in Egypt. He perceived that the god was bent upon the ruin of 
 Polycrates, and sent a herald to Samos to renounce his friendship, 
 in order, says Herodotus, that when some terrible calamity should 
 befall him, he might not be grieved by thinking of him as his 
 friend. The story of the ring recovered by means of the fish, is 
 one of the traditionary stock of fictions whose origin is not to be 
 traced. Amasis may have had reasons of policy for renouncing the 
 friendship of Polycrates. He aspired to be master of Ionia and the 
 islands 1 , and voluntarily offered a naval armament to Cambyses, for 
 the invasion of Egypt, which was on the point of taking place when 
 Amasis died 2 . And though Herodotus has courteously omitted 
 any intimation in the letter, that the abuse of power was a sure 
 means of drawing down retribution, Amasis cannot have been igno- 
 rant that Polycrates was guilty of acts of tyranny, very likely to 
 bring about his ruin. The unromantic account of Diodorus is, that 
 Amasis renounced the friendship of Polycrates, on finding that he 
 paid no regard to an embassy which he sent, exhorting him to 
 abstain from his outrages on his own fellow-citizens, and on stran- 
 gers who resorted to Samos 3 . The fulfilment of the augury took 
 place a few years later, when Polycrates was crucified by the Per- 
 sian Orcetes, into whose power he had put himself, in spite of the 
 warning of dreams and oracles 4 . 
 
 Like others whom the Greeks classed under the general name 
 
 1 Her. 3, 122. 
 8 Diod. 1, 95. 
 
 2 Her. 3, 44. 
 
 4 Her. 3, 124, b. c. 523. 
 
THE TWEXTY-SIXTH DYXASTY. 
 
 36? 
 
 of tyrants, Polycrates collected poets and men of letters around 
 him, and is said to have formed a library 1 . One of the most illus- 
 trious of these was Pythagoras, a native of Samos, of Phoenician 
 parentage, who is said to have visited Egypt, recommended by 
 Polycrates to the protection of Amasis. Of the wide peregrinations 
 attributed to this philosopher, which reached even to India and 
 Gaul, his residence in Egypt is the best-attested portion. The 
 authors on whom we are compelled to rely for his history lived so 
 long after his own time, and there is so much of mystery and 
 exaggeration in their accounts, that we know not what reliance is 
 to be placed on the stories of the severe trials which the priesthood 
 made him undergo, and his final success in obtaining initiation into 
 all their secrets. But that he had resided long in Egypt, and 
 become acquainted both with their religion and their science, we 
 learn on surer evidence, the character of his own philosophy and 
 institutions. Herodotus all but names him as having derived from 
 Egypt the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, of which we find no trace 
 before in Greek religion or philosophy 2 . His knowledge of medi- 
 cine, and strict system of dietetic rules, lead us to conclude that he 
 had been trained in Egypt, where medicine had attained the highest 
 perfection, and dietary rules had been systematized with the great- 
 est success. His attainments in geometry correspond with the 
 ascertained fact that Egypt was the birthplace of that art. He is 
 distinguished in the history of philosophy for an attempt, happily 
 unsuccessful, because uncongenial to the Grecian mind, to make 
 knowledge a mystery, to obstruct the approach to it by the inter- 
 position of long and repulsive discipline, by investing the teacher 
 
 1 Athen. Epit lib. 1, p. 3. "Wolf, without reason, throws doubt on this 
 statement (Proleg. cxlv. note 7). 
 
 2 Herodotus speaks of the prohibition to bury in woollen as belonging to 
 the orgies which were called Orphic and Bacchic, but were really Egyptian 
 and Pythagorean rites (2, 81) ; but this does not necessarily imply a belief 
 in the transmigration of the soul. 
 
368 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 with a supernatural character to exalt his precepts into oracles, and 
 to place the governing power of the state in the hands of an order 
 who had been separated from their fellow-citizens and inspired with 
 an esprit de corps by their education. In these respects the Pytha- 
 gorean school resembled the Egyptian priesthood of this age, as far 
 as the different circumstances of Greece and Egypt would allow 
 imitation, and there was no other model in the ancient world that 
 he could have copied 1 . 
 
 Solon must have come to Egypt 2 before the reign of Amasis, if 
 his visit preceded his legislation ; a supposition not necessary to 
 account for the similarity between his laws and those of Egypt. 
 Tradition related that he had been the companion of Psenophis, the 
 priest of Ileliopolis, and Sonchis, the priest of Sais, two of the most 
 learned of their order, and philosophized with them 3 . His object 
 would be very different from that of Pythagoras, not to dive into 
 religious mysteries, but to learn practical wisdom, such as he might 
 have applied to the benefit of his country on his return, had he not 
 found its liberties overthrown by Pisistratus. If we may believe 
 Plato, however, he brought home thence a wondrous tale of the 
 ancient glories of Athens, in times some thousand years prior to 
 Phoroneus and Niobe and Deucalion's flood, when she had 
 
 1 According to Pliny, N*. II. 36, 9, Semenpserteus was the name of the ting 
 in whose reign Pythagoras came to Egypt. The Bamberg MS. reads Spe- 
 mctnepserphreo, whence Bunsen elicits Psameticho Ne-pherphreo. (UYkun- 
 denbuch, p. 85, Germ.) 
 
 a Herodotus (I, 29, SO) represents him as visiting Egypt after his legisla- 
 tion (594 b. a), but does not expressly say that he was there in the reign of 
 Amasis, who came to the throne in 570 B.C., although his words (2, 177) 
 seem to imply not only this, but that Amasis was a legislator before Solon. 
 Grote and Niebuhr have remarked that there is an error of forty years in 
 Herodotus' chronology of this period (Grote, 3, 205). There i? a similar 
 variation of forty years in the assigned age of Pythagoras. See Fynes Clin- 
 ton, F. H. vol. 2, p. 9. 
 
 3 Plut. SoL 26. A.oyto>TaTots ovai tuIv Up£on> avvt^iKoao^at. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 369 
 
 repelled an invasion of tlie inhabitants of the since submerged 
 island of Atlantis, who had overrun the whole of the west, as far 
 as Egypt and Tyrrhenia 1 . There is much in the story which 
 betrays the desire of the priests of Sais at once to ingratiate them- 
 selves with the Athenians, by finding parallels between Attic and 
 Egyptian usages, and to maintain their own superiority ; and no 
 historical inference can be drawn from any part of it. Yet the 
 mention of the impossibility of navigating the Atlantic, in conse- 
 quence of the mud produced by the subsidence of the island, 
 deserves notice, in reference rather to the age of Plato than of 
 Solon. We have seen that after the time of Herodotus it became 
 the established opinion that Africa could not be circumnavigated, 
 owing to some obstruction vaguely described. The modern navi- 
 gator finds neither mud nor shallows nor dead calms, but the sea- 
 weed which covers the ocean south of the Azores really does impede 
 navigation, and would have stopped the enterprise of Columbus, 
 had he not skilfully turned the terror of his crew into an encourage- 
 ment, by representing it as a proof that land was near 2 . Should 
 it hereafter be ascertained that a ridge now covered by the Atlantic 
 ocean once joined the two worlds, the tale of the priest of Sais, or 
 of Plato, will only be an example of a guess curiously fulfilled, like 
 Seneca's prophecy of the discovery of a new world. 
 
 Among the temples enlarged or decorated by Amasis, that of 
 Minerva at Sais was particularly distinguished. He erected there 
 propylsea, which, both for height and size and the magnitude and 
 the quality of the stones employed, surpassed all others. These he 
 brought from the quarries of Memphis, as well as the colossal 
 figures and androsphinxes with which the dromos was adorned. 
 A monolithal shrine of granite from the quarries of Elephantine 
 excited the especial admiration of Herodotus. Two thousand men 
 were appointed to bring it down the Nile ; from Elephantine to 
 
 1 Tim. iii. 25, Steph. 
 
 a See Grote's Greece, 3, 382, note. 
 16* 
 
310 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Sais was an ordinary navigation of only twenty days, but in this 
 case three years were occupied, probably because the immense 
 weight made it impossible to float it except during the season of 
 the high Nile. Its height was above thirty feet ; its depth, from 
 front to bach, twelve feet ; its breadth twenty-one 1 . After all the 
 cost and labor bestowed on its extraction and conveyance, it was 
 not erected in the temple of Minerva : as they were drawing it in, 
 the superintendent of the works uttered a groan through weariness 
 of the labor and the thought of the time that had been expended ; 
 and Amasis, either because he deemed this ominous, or because one 
 of the workmen had been killed in the process of moving it on 
 levers, would not allow it to be drawn any further. When Hero- 
 dotus visited Egypt, it remained lying on* the ground before the 
 temple. There remains at Tel-et-mai, the ancient Thmuis in. the 
 Delta, a monolithal shrine of the granite of Syene, bearing the name 
 of Amasis, of similar form to that which Herodotus describes ; but 
 its length is only twenty-one feet nine inches, and its breadth thir- 
 teen feet 2 . Amasis erected also a colossus seventy-five feet in height 
 at Memphis, before the temple of Ptah, and two of granite, twenty 
 feet in height, one on each side of the inner sanctuary. One of the 
 same size at Sais was prostrate like the great colossus. Judging 
 from analogy, we may suppose that these were colossal statues of 
 himself, which the Persian conqueror of Egypt threw down, among 
 his other outrages on the memory of Amasis. He also built a 
 large and splendid temple to Isis at Memphis 3 . Inscriptions are 
 found on the rocks at Syene which confirm the accounts of Hero- 
 dotus respecting the extensive excavations made there by this king 
 for his various public works. 
 
 1 See note on Kenrick's Herod. 2, 115. He gives its measures as it lay 
 on the ground ; consequently what he calls the length was the height, and 
 so of the other dimensions. 
 
 2 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 1, 191 ; Mod. Eg. and Thebes, 1, 440. 
 Champ. Egypte sous les Pharaons, 2, 114. 3 Her. 2, 176. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 371 
 
 His reign lasted, according to the lists and Herodotus 1 , forty- 
 four years ; and Rosellini has found a tablet in the quarries of 
 Mokattam, bearing his name and this date 2 . His death took place 
 in the year 526 B.C., when his kingdom was on the point of being 
 invaded by Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. 
 
 Cyrus, the grandson of Astyages, the son of the Cyaxares by 
 whom Nineveh was besieged, had united the empire of the Medes 
 with that of the Persians, and reduced Asia Minor, Lydia, and the 
 Grecian colonies into subjection. Babylon alone remained in 
 Western Asia as an independent state. It is remarkable that 
 Herodotus says nothing of the expansion of the power of Babylon 
 in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, but represents Nitocris, queen of 
 the Babylonians, as alarmed at the growing empire of the Medes, 
 after their capture of Nineveh 3 . It should seem that immediately 
 after this event, accomplished by the alliance of the Medes and 
 Babylonians, the Medes turned their arms towards Lydia, and 
 left Babylon in possession of the greater part of the territories 
 dependent on Nineveh ; for the king against whom Cyrus advanced 
 is called, not king of Babylon, but king of Assyria 4 . The name 
 of the queen Nitocris is so entirely Egyptian, that we cannot hesi- 
 tate to consider her as a daughter of the Pharaohs 5 . The wife 
 
 1 3 10. 
 
 2 Mon. Stor. 2, 152. It has been said by Sir Gardner Wilkinson (M. and 
 C. 1, 179), that the title Melek is given to Amasis in some of his legends. 
 Dr. "Wiseman (Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion, page 301) says, 
 that Amasis on his monuments never receives the Egyptian titles of royalty, 
 but instead of a prrenomen the Semitic title of Melek. This is a mistake ; 
 Amasis has the usual titles, "Son of the Sun," <fec. Malek is found over 
 some shields bearing his name, but they may belong to the Amasis men- 
 tioned by Herodotus (4, 167), who lived in the reign of Darius. See Sharpe, 
 Hist, of Egypt, plates 190, 191. 
 
 ' Her. 1, 185. Tf/v Mfj<k>»' dptHaa ap-^hv ntyi\r)v tz ko\ ovk arptii'i^ovaav aWa re 
 Qpupnjicva aarea avroT<n } iv 6i Sr) kcii rr/v NTi/ov, npodpvXd^aro oaa hfovaro ^.akiara. 
 
 * Her. 1, 188. 8 Philostr. Vit. Apoll. 1, 25, calls her a Median 
 
372 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of Psammiticlius L, and the daughter of Psainrais or Psammiti- 
 chus II. both bear this name 1 . Coupling this circumstance with the 
 absence of all hostility between Egypt and Babylon after the 
 invasion of Nebuchadnezzar 2 , it seems probable that Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had married an Egyptian princess. The succession of the 
 Babylonian kings is thus given by Ptolemy, whose authority must 
 be considered as the highest : — 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. N abocolassar (Nebuchadnezzar) 43 
 
 2. Illoarapamtjs 2 
 
 3. Nerigassolassar (Neriglissar) 4 
 
 4. Nabonadius 17 
 
 The Nabonadius of Ptolemy is evidently the Labynetus of Hero- 
 dotus, the Belshazzar of Daniel, and, according to Herodotus, the 
 son of Nitocris. Herodotus calls her husband also Labynetus, 
 which does not agree with Ptolemy ; but he appears to have 
 known only two Babylonian kings, both of whom he calls Laby- 
 netus 3 . In what relation Illoaradamus (Evilmerodach, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's son) stood to Neriglissar we do not learn from Ptolemy, 
 but Berosus 4 informs us that Neriglissar was husband of his sister, 
 and put him to death. It seems probable therefore that Nitocris 
 was the widow of Nebuchadnezzar 5 ; that after the death of Neri- 
 glissar, who reigned but four years, she was regent, or guardian, 
 of her son Nabonadius, and that foreseeing the impending attack 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 130, 137. 
 a See p. 352 of this vol. 
 
 9 Labynetus the Babylonian, whom he mentions (1, 74) as making peace 
 between the Lydians and Medes, must be Nebuchadnezzar. 
 4 Jos. Apion. 1, 20. 
 
 6 From Jeremiah xxvii. 7, it has been inferred that Nebuchadnezzar's 
 grandson was to lose his power, and Evilmerodach may have been the hus- 
 band of Nitocris and father of Labynetus. But perhaps " son's son " may 
 only mean a short succession, as HalSes naiiuv rot kcv licrSmaBt yevwvrai in 
 Homer, an indefinitely long one. 
 
THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 373 
 
 of Cyrus, she performed those works which Herodotus describes 
 and praises for the protection of Babylonia against invasion. They 
 are such as might naturally suggest themselves to a native of 
 Egypt. That country had been rendered impracticable for the 
 operations of cavalry by its canals. The Euphrates just above 
 Babylon had previously flowed in a straight channel ; she gave it 
 such a winding and interlaced course, that, according to Herodotus 
 (1, 185), in descending in a boat you were brought thrice to the 
 same place, and on the third day were no further advanced than 
 on the first. She raised an embankment along the course of the 
 river, resembling that by which Memphis was protected ; and a 
 reservoir like that of Mceris below the city to receive the super- 
 fluous waters of the inundation. These works were evidently 
 intended to answer a double purpose, to regulate the operations of 
 the river, and render the country inaccessible and difficult for an 
 invading army. Another of her works was the construction of a 
 bridge, consisting of piers on which planks were laid, for joining 
 the two parts of Babylon on the opposite side of the Euphrates. 
 We know from the monuments that the Egyptians had constructed 
 such bridges some centuries before this time 1 . All her precautions, 
 however, were unavailing ; Cyrus defeated the Babylonians in the 
 field, and afterwards captured the city by drawing off the waters 
 of the river, and entering along its bed. This was in the year 
 538 b.c. Xo hostility against Egypt 2 followed the conquest of 
 Babylon ; the attention of Cyrus was drawn towards the nomadic 
 nations on his north-eastern frontier, and in an expedition against 
 the Massagetae, he lost his life in the year 529 b.c. He was suc- 
 ceeded by his son Cambyses, who almost immediately began to 
 prepare for an expedition against Egypt. 
 
 1 See p. 218 of this vol. 
 
 8 The assertion of Xenophon in his Cyropsedia, 1, 1, that Cyrus conquered 
 Egypt, is generally and justly rejected by historical critics. 
 
374 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Twenty-seventh Dynasty. Eight Persian kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Cambyses, in the fifth year of his reign over Persia 
 
 became king of Egypt, and reigned .... 6 
 
 2. Darius, son of Hystaspes 36 
 
 3. Xerxeb the Great 21 
 
 4. Artabaxus 7 months. 
 
 5. Arta XERXES 41 
 
 6. Xerxes 2 " 
 
 7. sogdianus 7 " 
 
 8. Darius, son of Xerxes 19 
 
 124 4 
 
 No single or personal cause is at all necessary to account for an 
 attack on a wealthy country like Egypt, b} T a newly-risen and 
 aggressive power such as that of the Medo-Persians, which, accord- 
 ing to Herodotus, " w r ould not rest 1 ." In all recent encounters 
 between the armies of Egypt and those of the great Asiatic states, 
 Egypt had been worsted, if we except the invasion of Sennacherib, 
 whose defeat the Egyptians themselves regarded as a miracle. 
 Popular tradition, however, supplied many such causes. Accord- 
 ing to that which was most evidently devised in order to soothe 
 the national pride of the Egyptians, Cambyses was the son of 
 Nitetis, a daughter of Apries, whom Cyrus had taken as a secon- 
 dary wife — whereas, says Herodotus, it is notorious that no son of 
 a secondary wife could succeed to the throne of Persia, and that 
 Cambyses was the son of Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, 
 a man of the Achsernenid family. The Persian story was, that 
 Cambyses had sent to Egypt to demand in marriage a daughter 
 of Amasis. who, knowing she would be only a secondary wife and 
 not his queen, substituted a beautiful daughter of Apries, and that 
 Cambyses discovering the fraud, w r as so enraged that he deter- 
 
 1 Ovk drpt^ovaav. See note 3 , p. 371. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 375 
 
 mined to invade Egypt. This story is refuted by chronology. 
 Apries had died more than forty years before, and his daughter 1 , 
 though arrayed, as Herodotus says, " in royal vestments and gold," 
 could never have gained the affections of the youthful monarch, as 
 the story implies. Another version was that Nitetis was the wife, 
 not of Cambyses, but of Cyrus. A Persian woman visiting his 
 harem, was struck with the beauty of the children of Cassandane, 
 and praised them greatly to their mother. " Yet would you 
 believe it," said Cassandane, " Cyrus neglects me, the mother of 
 such children as these, to pay honor to an Egyptian interloper 2 ." 
 On this, Cambyses, her elder son, a boy of ten years of age, 
 exclaimed, " Therefore, mother, when I am a man, I will turn 
 Egypt upside down ;" and recollecting his promise when he came 
 to the throne, he prepared to invade that country. 
 
 Among these various stories, one thing alone appears to have 
 the sanction of Herodotus. An Egyptian, at the request of Cyrus, 
 had been sent to him by Amasis, as the most skilful oculist in the 
 country. This was equivalent to a perpetual separation from his 
 wife and children ; and either in revenge, or in the hope of revisit- 
 ing Egypt, if war should result from the refusal of Arnasis, he 
 urged Cambyses to demand his daughter. The demand was pro- 
 bably refused — the Persians said, eluded. It happened about the 
 time when Cambyses was preparing his expedition, that Amasis 
 had given offence to Phanes of Halicarnassus, one of the com- 
 manders of his mercenary troops, a man of great valor and ability. 
 He had got on shipboard, intending to join Cambyses, but Amasis, 
 knowing his estimation among his auxiliaries, and his accurate 
 acquaintance with everything relating to Egypt, sent a trireme in 
 pursuit of him. The eunuch who had the command of the vessel 
 
 Herodotus calls her h naTg, but we have before had occasion to observe 
 how little he troubles himself with chronological difficulties. 
 a Tijv air' A.iyvnrov iniKTrirov iv npj riBsrai (3, 3). 
 
376 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 overtook and seized him in Lycia, but be made his guards intoxi- 
 cated, and escaped to Cambyses. The Persian king was then 
 deliberating how he should pass the Desert between Egypt and 
 Palestine, and Phanes not only gave him information on this 
 point, but laid open to him the whole state of Amasis' affairs. 
 This Desert of sand extends from Kan Iones (Jenysus), about five 
 or six hours' travelling to the south-west of Gaza, to Salahieh in 
 Egypt. Along this distance of 107 geographical miles there is no 
 trace of vegetation, nor any water fit for drinking ; the first sixty- 
 miles, from Kan Iones to the commencement of the Casian Mount 
 at the angle of the coast, are entirely destitute of water 1 . The 
 sands of the Isthmus are loose and shifting 2 , and the track was 
 marked by tall poles. The Casian Mount, on which a temple of 
 Jupiter stood, was only a ridge of sandy downs, somewhat higher 
 than the adjacent coast 3 . The sea-coast anciently possessed by 
 the Philistines as far south as Jenysus was at this time in the 
 power of the Arabians, and from Jenysus to the confines of Egypt, 
 of the Syrians of Palestine 4 . The Arabians were Idumeans, whd 
 had encroached upon the territory of the Jews 6 , and extended them- 
 selves from Petra and the yElanitic Gulf to the Mediterranean. 
 The Syrians, according to the use of that name elsewhere by Hero- 
 dotus, must have been Jews, some of those fugitives who, as we 
 learn from various passages in the prophets, had settled them- 
 selves, at the time of the Captivity, along the frontiers of Egypt, 
 
 1 'AwSpdv Suvios. (Her. 3, 5.) 
 
 2 Nisi calami defixi regunt via non reperitur, subinde aura vestigia ope- 
 riente. (Plin. N. EL 6, 33.) 
 
 3 Strabo, 16, p. 760. Lucan, Phars. 8, 539. 
 
 4 'A~d fyoivtxris [i^xP 1 01 ''P W, ' r ^> v Ka(5urjos n6\io$ ) fj earl Hvpoov t£>v Y\.(iXaiariv(7)v 
 Ka^eJ/jtvwv, and ravrrji to. Efinopia ra inl 8a\air<TT)S f^XP 1 ^l^^^ov nj\t6s sort tov 
 'Ao'i0iov, and 6i 'Irjvvaov, avrts Evpwv \^XP l "Eep#Mi>t&iS Xt/»»"?f. (Her. 3, 5.) By 
 "the boundaries of the city Cadytis" Herodotus probably means Joppa, 
 which was the port of Jerusalem. (Strabo, 16, 759.) 
 
 5 Ezek. xxxvi. 5. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DFNASTT. 
 
 377 
 
 from the neighborhood of Heliopolis to the sea. The Syriac 
 language was spoken there, even in the days of Jerome 1 . 
 
 Thanes advised Cambyses to avail himself of the aid of the 
 Idumaaans for accomplishing his passage through the Desert. 
 Without their friendship he could have obtained no adequate sup- 
 ply of water 2 : he had an auxiliary fleet of Asiatic Greeks, Ionians 
 and ^Eolians whom his father had reduced ; but the nature of the 
 coast precludes the possibility that an army should be supplied by 
 a fleet accompanying its progress. It is destitute of harbors, and 
 the shore is bordered by shifting sands, which appear firm, but give 
 way under the foot 3 . The Egyptian kings had made no provision 
 for a supply of water in this Desert, whose sands were a better bul- 
 wark to their kingdom than any wall or trench 4 . Cambyses 
 entered into a treaty for this purpose with the Idumseans. Accord- 
 ing to their usage, it was ratified by the representatives of the two 
 contracting parties allowing a vein to be opened with a sharp stone 
 in one of their hands, beside the middle finger. With a shred 
 from the outer garment of each dipped in the blood, the person 
 who officiated then anointed seven stones placed in the midst 5 , 
 and called on Dionysus and Urania by the names of Orotal and 
 Alilat to sanction the pledge 6 . Different accounts were given of 
 
 1 Hieron. ad Is. 19, 18. "Ostracinam et ceteras juxta Rhinocolurarn et 
 Casiuui civitates usque hodie in ^crypto lingua Canaanitide, hoc est Syra, 
 loqui manifestum est" See p. 269 of this vol. note * 2 Herod. 3, 88. 
 
 s From Strabo (16, 758) it seems as if there were a tide here as in the 
 Syrtes, and several other hays of the Mediterranean, which increased the 
 danger of passing, especially as they were of irregular occurrence. See iu 
 Diod. 20, 73 tseq. the account of the expedition of Antigonus, and the dan- 
 ger to which his fleet was exposed. 
 
 4 Rennell's Geogr. of Herodotus, 1, 339. 
 
 B Compare Gen. xxi. 28. "To swear" in Hebrew is literally "to seven" 
 S^tE* Traces of this practice of taking an oath before a stone were found 
 at Athens. (Poll. Onom. viii. 9, 86.) 
 
 8 Probably the Sun and Moon, who appear from Job xxxi. 26, 27, to have 
 been worshipped in Idumrea, the country of the patriarch. 
 
378 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the manner in which the necessary quantity of water was sup- 
 plied. It was said that a river had been conveyed through leather 
 hose into three reservoirs on different parts of the line of march. 
 But no such river existed anywhere within reach, and it appears 
 that a great number of camels were laden with water-skins, and 
 driven by the Idumaeans to those points in the Desert at which 
 the army of Cambyses would halt. The Book of Job affords a 
 proof that the Idumaeans possessed very numerous herds of camels, 
 which in this age were unknown, except as foreign animals, on the 
 western side of the Isthmus of Suez 1 . The Persians immediately 
 took measures to secure a regular passage, by laying down vessels 
 of earthen-ware beside the track, which were filled with water 2 from 
 the Nile. 
 
 Amasis died (525 b.c.) while Cambyses was preparing his expe- 
 dition 3 , and had been embalmed and consigned to the tomb which 
 he had constructed for himself in the temple of Minerva at Sais. 
 His son Pbammenitus assembled his Greek and Egyptian forces, 
 and awaited the approach of the Persians in his camp near Pelu- 
 sium. Before the armies engaged, the Ionians and Carians took 
 a cruel revenge on Phanes, by whose treachery the enemy had 
 been enabled to pass the Desert. His children, whom he had left 
 behind him in Egypt, were brought out, one at a time, into the 
 space between the camps in view of their father, their throats cut, 
 
 1 See Bitter, Asien, 13, 757. 
 
 2 Tliis practice the Xabathoean Arabs also used. (Diod. 19, 94.) They 
 buried pots full of rain-water in the Desert, in places known only to them- 
 selves. See Renncll, u. s. 
 
 3 A passage of Theopompus, preserved by Longinus, sect. 43, and describ- 
 ing the KaralSacns of some Persian king into Egypt, has been referred by 
 Toup (7. c.) and Sch weigh aeuser (ad Athen. 2, 67) to the expedition of Cam- 
 byses. But the description evidently belongs to a much later period of the 
 Persian Monarchy, nor is it easy to conceive how the reign of Cambyses 
 should come within the scope of any work of Theopompus, who wrote 
 a History of the latter part of the Peloponnesian war and the reign of 
 Philip. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 379 
 
 and the blood which was received into a goblet, mixed with wine 
 and water, and drunk by the auxiliaries. " And so," says the his- 
 torian, " they went to battle 1 ." 
 
 The calamitous issue of the battle had been portended to the 
 Egyptians by the fall of a shower of rain at Thebes 2 ; it was obsti- 
 nate, and attended with great slaughter on both sides, but ulti- 
 mately the Persians triumphed, and the Egyptians fled in disorder 
 to Memphis. The field remained strewed with skulls in the time of 
 Herodotus, and those of the Egyptians could be distinguished from 
 the Persians by their superior hardness (a fact confirmed by the mum- 
 mies), the result, as he thought, of the practice of shaving the head 
 from infancy. We read of no outrages or acts of cruelty committed 
 by Cambyses on occasion of his victory ; he sent a Mitylenean vessel, 
 with a Persian herald on board, to Memphis to propose a pacifica- 
 tion. The Egyptians, as soon as they saw it approaching, rushed 
 down in a body, destroyed the ship, hacked the crew to pieces, and 
 exposed their mutilated limbs on the wall. Cambyses immediately 
 formed the siege of Memphis, which held out for a considerable 
 time, but ultimately surrendered. Ten days after its capture, 2C00 
 Egyptian youths were led out to be put to death, in reprisal for 
 the 200 men of the Mitylenean vessel whom the people of Mem- 
 phis had massacred. This was no sudden act of furious revenge 
 on the part of Cambyses ; the royal judges' had decided that a 
 tenfold retribution must take place. Darius without such provo- 
 cation empaled 3000 of the most eminent Babylonians 3 . The law 
 of reprisals is terrible in its operation, falling on the innocent 
 instead of the guilty, or at best involving both ; but it is the ultima 
 ratio which upholds the law of nations, clearly violated by the 
 
 1 According to Polysenus (7, 9) Cambyses used a stratagem, placing in 
 front of his line, dogs, sheep, cats, ibises and other animals held sacred by 
 the Egyptians, and thus preventing them from using their missiles against 
 the Persians as they approached. 
 
 2 Her. 3, 10. 8 Herod. 3,159. 
 
380 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Egyptians. Herodotus thus relates the scene which passed. I 
 regret the necessity of giving his narrative in any other language 
 than his own : — 
 
 " Ten days after Memphis had surrendered, Cambyses brought 
 out Psammenitus, who had been six months king of Egypt, and 
 seating him, exposed to public contumely, in the suburb, along 
 with other Egyptians of the first rank, put his spirit to the proof 
 in this way. Having dressed the daughter of Psammenitus in the 
 garb of a slave, he sent her forth carrying a pitcher to fetch water, 
 and with her the maiden daughters of the chief men, in a similar 
 garb to that of the princess. The other parents, when their chil- 
 dren came opposite to where they sat, lifted up their voices and. 
 wept at the sight of their afflicted condition ; but Psammenitus, 
 though he recognised his daughter, only bent his head towards 
 the ground. When these were gone by, Cambyses made his son 
 pass before him along with 2000 other Egyptians of the same age, 
 gagged, and with ropes round their necks, who were on their way 
 to execution, in reprisal for the Mityleneans who had been put to 
 death at Memphis. The other Egyptians who sat near him wept 
 and lamented as before ; but Psammenitus, though he saw them 
 pass, and knew that his son was on his way to death, did as he 
 had done when his daughter went by. But when they all had 
 passed, there happened to come by an aged man, who had been 
 one of his table-companions, now stripped of everything, and beg- 
 ging from the soldiers. On the sight of him Psammenitus- burst 
 into tears, and, calling on his friend's name, beat his head in grief. 
 Men had been stationed to watch him, and report his behavior to 
 Cambyses, who, being astonished, sent a messenger to him with 
 this inquiry, — ' Psammenitus, thy lord Cambyses asks thee why, 
 when thou sawest thy daughter in affliction and thy son going 
 forth to death, thou didst neither weep nor utter any exclamation, 
 but hast shown respect to this beggar, who, as I hear, is no way 
 allied to thee.' Thus Cambyses questioned, and thus Psammenitus 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 381 
 
 replied : — ' 0 son of Cyrus, the misfortunes of my own family were 
 too great for weeping, but the sorrow of my companion deserved 
 tears ; on the threshold of old age he has fallen from great pros- 
 perity into beggary.' " The history beautifully illustrates the dif- 
 ference between the misery that closes, and the sympathy that 
 unlocks the source of tears, and the sequel shows that it was not 
 lost on Cambyses. The Persians who were present wept ; Croesus, 
 who had followed Cambyses from Lydia, wept ; he himself (it is 
 the Egyptians who report) felt some touch of pity 1 ; he commanded 
 the son of Psammenitus to be spared, and his father to be brought 
 from the suburbs to his presence. The son had suffered before the 
 messenger arrived ; but Psammenitus was conducted to Cambyses, 
 and for the present lived unmolested in his household. 
 
 From Memphis Cambyses went to Sais, and commanded the 
 mummy of Amasis to be brought forth from its repository. It 
 was subjected to various indignities, the hair was plucked off, the 
 body pierced and beaten with stripes. But the process of embalm- 
 ment had made it so firm, that all this produced little change in 
 it, and Cambyses ordered it to be burnt. This was an act, accord- 
 ing to Herodotus, equally abhorrent to the feelings both of 
 Persians and Egyptians ; for the Persians, who esteemed fire to be 
 a god, would regard its employment for the consumption of a dead 
 body as a pollution 2 . The Egyptians believed or pretended 3 that 
 it was not really the corpse of their late king which underwent 
 these indignities, but that Amasis, foreseeing the violation of his 
 
 1 Her. 3, 14. '£2? Si Xeycrai vir' Aiyvxricov .... avru> JZajjL.Svcrr) iaeXOeiv ol^rov 
 Tiva. 
 
 3 Ctesias (Pers. § 5*7. Ba.hr.) appears to deny this burning of the body of 
 Amasis, but only on the ground that it was not accordant with Persian 
 usage. He does not indeed mention Amasis (the extract in Photius is 
 obscure), but he charges Herodotus with falsehood, and there is no other 
 part of the history to which he can refer. 
 
 8 At flip vvv Ik tov A^aextof ivroXai alrai ov pot SoKtovciv df>%iiv ycviaOai } aAXwj 
 <T aira Aiyvnrtot aeftvovv. (Her. S, 16.) 
 
382 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 sepulchre, of which he had been warned by an oracle, had buried 
 a corpse close to the entrance, and commanded his son to inter 
 his own in an interior recess. Such outrages on the remains 
 of the dead are justly reprobated as effusions of impotent 
 rage, but they have been too often imitated among Christian 
 nations. 
 
 As Egypt was subdued, and apparently incapable of resistance, 
 Cambyses planned three expeditions for the extension and security 
 of his conquests. The people of Lybia bordering on Egypt sur- 
 rendered without a battle, submitted to become tributaries, and 
 sent presents with which Cambyses was satisfied. The people of 
 Cyrene and its colony, Barca 1 , did the same ; but he either despised 
 their gifts or doubted their sincerity, and flung the 500 minae of 
 silver which they had sent him in handfuls to his soldiery. He 
 allowed, however, Ladice, the widow of Amasis, to return unmo- 
 lested to Cyrene, her native city. The Carthaginians were the 
 only other power in Northern Africa from whom Cambyses had 
 anything to fear. They were at this time in the height of their 
 prosperity, predominant over the colonies which they had planted 
 among the Libyan tribes, without a rival in naval power in the 
 western part of the Mediterranean 2 , and enriched by an extensive 
 traffic both maritime and inland. They could be reached, how- 
 ever, only by sea, and Persia had no fleet of her own, depending 
 on her Greek subjects and her Cyprian and Phoenician allies 3 ; and 
 Carthage being a colony of Tyre, the Phoenicians professed to 
 regard it as an impiety to attack their own children. Cambyses 
 did not think it expedient to attempt to force them, and the rest 
 
 1 Her. 4, 160. It had been founded about thirty years before. The 
 remains of walls and sepulchres at Merge, about eight miles from Cyrene, 
 which were first discovered by Delia Cella, appear to mark its site. 
 (Ritter, Erdk. 1, 942.) 
 
 2 They had defeated the Phocaians in a great naval battle b.o. 536. 
 
 3 Her. 3, 19. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY". 
 
 383 
 
 of his fleet not being able alone to cope with the Carthaginians, 
 they escaped being reduced into slavery to Persia. 
 
 Nothing has contributed more to procure for Cambyses the 
 character of a frantic madman than his expedition to Ethiopia. 
 Had it been really undertaken against a people living, as Hero- 
 dotus supposed, where Africa is washed by the southern sea 1 and 
 in revenge for an insulting message, he would have deserved this 
 character. But we must distinguish between the Ethiopia of 
 Egyptian history and the Ethiopia of Greek mythology. The 
 former is better known in this age than in the age of Herodotus. 
 Its seat was in Upper Nubia, Dongola and Meroe, and though we 
 have heard of no invasion of the Egyptian territories by the 
 Ethiopians since the accession of the Saitic dynasty, we have no 
 ground to believe that their power was so decayed as to be no 
 longer formidable to Egypt, especially to Egypt when become a 
 province of Persia, and filled with a discontented population. 
 Sound reasons of policy might therefore induce Cambyses to 
 undertake an expedition against it. The narrative of Herodotus 
 is altogether romantic. Even in the time of Homer the Greek 
 fancy was excited by tales respecting the Ethiopians. They were 
 a blameless race, extending from the rising to the setting sun, 
 devoted to the worship of the gods, and honored by their special 
 presence. If Homer had any distinct conception of their geo- 
 graphical position, he probably placed them immediately above 
 Egypt, whence he believed them to spread in indefinite extension 
 to the east and west, wherever there was a rumor of sun-blackened 
 men. But in the age of Herodotus the countries which bordered 
 upon Egypt, though rarely visited by Greeks, were too well known 
 to be the scene of prodigies ; the course of the Nile to Mero« was 
 explored and measured ; it was believed that the limits of geogra- 
 phical knowledge had been carried forward a thousand miles 
 
 1 Her. 3, 11 4. 
 
384 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 above Meroe by the settlement of the Automoli. Yet fiction 
 would not for this loose its hold of the Ethiopians ; to Herodotus 
 as to Homer they were still " the remotest of men, dwelling on 
 the shores of the ocean 1 ;" but the ocean was now the southern 
 boundary of Africa, a real sea, though misconceived by Herodotus 
 in regard to its position and direction. The barbarism of the 
 tribes who dwelt to the south of Meroe, and their consequent free- 
 dom from the vices of civilization, afforded an opportunity for 
 making them the heirs of that peculiar favor of the gods which 
 their mythic predecessors had enjoyed ; they surpass all men in 
 beauty, strength and longevity, and instead of living by laborious 
 culture of the soil, a table covered with flesh was said to be 
 renewed every night by the bounty of their chief god, the Sun. 
 
 The first step which Cambyses took in the execution of his enter- 
 prise was to send an exploring party into Ethiopia. Where the 
 Ethiopia lay which he was intending to invade, is evident from his 
 choice of spies. Psammitichus, as we have mentioned, had trained 
 a body of the Ichthyophagi, the inhabitants of the eastern coast of 
 the Red Sea, southward of Berenice, to assist him in seeking the 
 fountains of the Nile, and a chief requisite for this purpose would 
 be a knowledge of the language of the Ethiopians, who occupied 
 the banks of the Nile for more than a thousand miles of its course. 
 They appear to have been permanently established at Elephantine, 
 the frontier town of the two nations and languages, where their 
 services as interpreters would be equally valuable to the Egyptians 
 and Ethiopians 2 . The subsequent proceedings are thus related by 
 Herodotus : — 
 
 "When the Ichthyophagi appeared before the king of the Ethi- 
 opians, bringing the gifts which Cambyses had entrusted to them 
 (a purple garment, a twisted golden collar and bracelets, an ala- 
 
 1 H if/, 205 ; a\ 423. Od. a, 22. . 
 
 3 Her. 3. 19. Strabo, 17, p. 818. The expression of Herodotus, 2, 29, is 
 ambiguous, but it is probable he meant Elephantine by f, vnvos. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 385 
 
 baster vase of perfume and a jar of palm wine), they thus spoke : 
 ' Cambyses, king of the Persians, wishing to be on a footing of 
 friendship and hospitality with thee, has sent us to confer with 
 thee, and offers thee as gifts these things, in using which he him- 
 self most delights.' The king of Ethiopia, knowing that they had 
 come as spies, replied to them thus : ' The king of Persia has not 
 sent you with these gifts because he values my friendship, but ye 
 are come to spy out my kingdom : nor is he a just man ; for if he 
 had been, he would not have desired any other country than his 
 own, nor have reduced to slavery men who had done him no injury 
 whatever. Give him then this bow, and say these words to him, — 
 The king of the Ethiopians advises the king of the Persians not to 
 invade the long-lived Ethiopians till the Persians can draw with 
 ease such large bows as this, and then to come with superior forces. 
 Till that time, let him thank the gods that they do not put it into 
 the hearts of the Ethiopians to add to their own territory.' Then 
 unstringing his bow he gave it to the messengers of Cambyses. 
 Next, taking up the purple garment, he asked what it was, and 
 how it was made. The Ichthyophagi having told him all about 
 purple and dyeing, he said they were deceitful men and their gar- 
 ments deceitful. Then he inquired about the golden collar and 
 bracelets, and when the Ichthyophagi explained the ornaments, he 
 laughed and said that they had stronger fetters than these, thinking 
 they were meant for fetters. In the third place he inquired about 
 the perfume ; and when they told him how it was made and how 
 it was used, he said the same thing as about the purple garment. 
 But when he came to the wine and heard how it was made, being 
 excessively delighted with the draught he inquired on what the 
 king lived, and what was the longest life that a Persian attained. 
 They told him, on bread, explaining the nature of wheat, and that 
 80 years was the longest term of life that awaited man. ' No 
 wonder, then,' said the Ethiopian, 'if those who live on dirt have 
 such short lives ; they would not even have lived so long if they 
 
 VOL. II. 17 
 
386 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 had not kept themselves up with this liquor ; in this one thing the 
 Persians have the advantage of us.' The Ichthyophagi in their 
 turn questioned the king about the life and diet of his people, and 
 he said that the majority of them lived to 120 years and some even 
 more ; that their food was boiled flesh, and their drink was milk. 
 When they expressed their wonder that the Ethiopians lived so 
 long, he led them to a fountain, which made those who bathed in it 
 sleek as if it had been oil, and had a fragrance like violets, and so 
 light that neither wood nor bodies lighter than wood would swim 
 in it ; they all sunk to the bottom. Next they were taken to the 
 prison, where all the prisoners had fetters of gold, and to the table 
 of the Sun." 
 
 The view which a barbarian takes of the arts of civilized life 
 always affords a lively contrast, and the opportunity of covert satire 
 on artificial manners. Such is evidently the purpose with which 
 this scene has been described. The king of the Ethiopians treats 
 the dyed garment as a fraud, the perfumed ointment as a corrup- 
 tion of the simplicity of nature 1 , and takes the royal ornaments for 
 the collar and fetters of a culprit. In one thing only does he admit 
 the superiority of the Persian — the art of producing wine, every- 
 where the most irresistible attraction to the savage. There is a 
 certain adaptation in the story to what was known or believed 
 respecting the interior of Africa, but it can only be received as a 
 happy fiction. The Ichthyophagi vanish and re-appear, like the- 
 atrical messengers, without any note of time, Cambyses remaining 
 as it should seem at Memphis, while they go to " the ends of the 
 earth" and return 2 . The sole fact on which we can rely is, that 
 1 The rustic served the same purpose of contrast to Virgil, as the king of 
 Ethiopia to Herodotus, or the author of the tale : — 
 
 Si non .... varios inhiant pulchra testudine postes, 
 
 Alba neque Assyrio fucatur lana veneno, 
 
 Nec casia liquidi conrumpitur usus olivi ; 
 
 At secura quies, cset. — Georg. 2, 461. 
 " Iu its disregard of time and distance this story resembles that of the 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 387 
 
 Cambyses sent an exploring party before lie set out on his march 
 against Ethiopia, a wise precaution, not indicative of that frenzy 
 which the Egyptians imputed to all his actions. 
 
 When they returned, provoked, as Herodotus says, at the mes- 
 sage of the king, he set out for Ethiopia. The Greeks were left 
 behind at Memphis, and we are consequently deprived of the bene- 
 fit of their evidence, as to the real events of the expedition. Tak- 
 ing with him the whole of his land forces, he proceeded from 
 Memphis to Thebes. Hence it is said he detached 50,000 men 1 
 with orders to reduce the Ammonians, and burn the temple of 
 Jupiter ; with the remainder he pursued his march towards 
 Ethiopia. He had made no provision of magazines of corn, and 
 before he had accomplished a fifth part of the way, the victuals 
 which the soldiers carried with them failed. They then devoured 
 the beasts of burthen, but even this did not induce Cambyses to 
 renounce his project ; he still pressed on. The soldiers supported 
 themselves on herbs, as long as the ground furnished them with 
 any supply; but when they came into the sand, such was the 
 extremity of their suffering, that they cast lots among ten, and he 
 on whom the lot fell was devoured by the rest. Then Cambyses 
 repented, and led back his army to Thebes, abandoning his enter- 
 prise against Ethiopia. 
 
 It would not be easy, from the brief description of Herodotus, to 
 decide the direction of Cambyses' march beyond the frontiers of 
 Egypt. Nature, however, has marked out the lines of communi- 
 cation between it and the country which he was endeavoring to 
 reach, and they remain the same in all ages. He might have fol- 
 lowed the Nile upwards from Syene, through Nubia and Dongola, 
 
 expedition of Darius to the Wolga, Her. 4. (See Mr. Grote's remarks, Hist, 
 of Greece, 4, 356.) 
 
 1 This number far exceeds what would be necessary for the purpose of 
 occupying the oases, nor is it credible that Cambyses should have with- 
 drawn all his native troops at once from Egypt. 
 
388 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to Gebel-el-Birkel. and so further to Meroe ; but this would have 
 occupied many months, and would not have involved him in that 
 Desert of sand which ultimately compelled him to return. He 
 might have struck at once from Syene into the Desert, to proceed 
 by the track which the caravans from Sennaar now often take, and 
 which Bruce and Burckhardt followed ; but this would be incon- 
 sistent with the account of Herodotus, who represents the soldiers 
 as supporting themselves on the scanty vegetation which they 
 found, before they entered the sand. The third track is that which 
 is most commonly pursued by caravans and travellers at the pre- 
 sent day. From Syene they ascend the river to Korosko (Derr), 
 about half way between the First and Second Cataract. Here an 
 AJcaba or mountain pass opens into the valley of the Nile, leading 
 through the Desert, by a route of about 250 miles, to Abou Ham- 
 med, near the island Mogreb, where it rejoins the river just at the 
 beginning of its great bend to the south-west 1 . The first part of 
 the march, for about sixty miles, lies through a valley bordered by 
 sandstone hills not wholly destitute of vegetation, since Hoskins 
 was informed that the Bishareen Arabs come hither in the season 
 to pasture their flocks 2 . Beyond this valley lies a plain of desert 
 sand, called At?noor-bela-ma, the sea without water, extending to 
 the south for fifty miles, on the west to the Second Cataract, and 
 on the east nearly to the Red Sea 3 . The desert is seen here in all 
 its horrors, which have been in some measure relieved by a variety 
 in the scenery while passing through the rocky valley. The want 
 of water is aggravated by the illusion which presents everywhere 
 lakes and pools to the traveller suffering the extremity of thirst. 
 The wind, sweeping over the unsheltered plain, raises pillars 
 of sand, which choke the breathing-passages, while the heat of 
 the blast relaxes his strength and augments his distress. Even 
 1 See vol. i. pp. 21, 22. 
 
 3 Russegger, Reisen, 2nd B. B. 1, p. 423. Hoskins, p. 23. 
 * See Russegger's Karte von Nubien. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 389 
 
 the obstinacy of Cambyses was compelled to yield to the sufferings 
 of his followers and their dreadful effects ; could he have struggled 
 through the sand, there was still considerably more than 100 miles 
 to be accomplished through a region of barren rock, before he 
 could have reached the Nile at Abou Hammed. This desert, how- 
 ever, is not impassable for an army 1 , if proper precautions be taken. 
 In the reign of Augustus 2 the Ethiopians under Candace had 
 advanced as far as Elephantine, the Roman garrison being weak- 
 ened by the withdrawal of part of the troops under ^Elius Gallus 
 to attack the Arabians. Petronius, with about 10,000 infantry 
 and 800 horse, first of all drove them from Elephantine into the 
 fortress of Pselcis (Dakke), between Svene and Korosko, and then, 
 as the remains of the army had fled into the Desert, " passing 
 through the tract of sand 3 where the army of Cambyses was over- 
 whelmed, a violent wind falling upon them 4 , he came to Premnis, 
 a strong place which he took, and then advanced against Xapata." 
 The Premnis here spoken of must be the Prlmis Magna of Pto- 
 lemy 5 . He places it beyond Napata, and just above Meroe, in his 
 enumeration of towns on the eastern or right bank of the Nile. It 
 must therefore have been somewhere near the termination of the 
 pass of Korosko at Abou Hammed. Petronius was deterred from 
 proceeding further south by the heat and the sand 6 , and could not 
 
 1 That it was commonly traversed in ancient times is evident from what 
 Mr. Hoskins says, that hieroglyphics are found near some of the wells 
 (p. 24). 
 
 a Strabo, 17, p. 822. 
 
 * Qlves was the appropriate name for these sandy regions. Clearchus 
 (Allien. 8, 345) wrote a treatise, flepi Qivw, De Locis Arenosis. 
 
 4 Strabo has confounded the expedition against Ethiopia with that against 
 Ammonium, but it is evident he believed the army of Cambyses to have 
 been in the sandy desert 
 
 6 PtoL Geogr. 4, 7, p. 302, ed. Wilberg. ]»? Meya\ n W (62°) I? (17°) 
 
 ' E V T £V ft £ V 61 VI)<TOTTOlElTai t\ M £ p O JJ %U} p a. 
 
 6 Dion. Cass. lib. 54, p. 734, Reiz. He calls Napata, Tavanri. 
 
390 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 remain where he was with his whole army. He refortified Prem- 
 nis, garrisoned it with 400 men, victualled it for two years, and 
 returned to Alexandria. In his absence Candace attacked Prem- 
 nis, but Petronius was in time to relieve the garrison, and compelled 
 the queen to send an embassy to Caesar. In this age the Desert 
 had been long known and often travelled by those who passed 
 between Egypt and Meroe, but to Cambyses and his army its 
 difficulties were unknown, and it is not wonderful that he should 
 have been baffled in his attempt to cross it. The name of Maga- 
 zine of Cambyses 1 , which Ptolemy places in lat. 18°, shows that 
 while the main army attempted the passage of the Desert, another 
 part advanced by the valley of the Nile into Upper Nubia; and 
 this country remained tributary to Persia 3 . 
 
 His expedition against Ammonium has been attributed to the 
 same uncalculating frenzy as that against Ethiopia, inflamed by 
 the fanatical wish to destroy the celebrated temple of Amnion. 
 At this time, however, Cambyses had committed no outrages 
 against the Egyptian religion, and had his object been only to 
 occupy Ammonium and destroy its temple, it might have been 
 reached with much greater ease from Lower Egypt. It was evi- 
 dently his design to take possession of all these Oases, which 
 
 1 Kapfivirov Ta/i/£?a, Ptolemy, 4, 7. It was on the left bank of the river. 
 TaineTov was not merely a treasury, but a storehouse or magazine. (Pollux, 
 9, 5.) According to the account of Pliny, Petronius returned to Napata, on 
 his second expedition, by the valley of the Nile, through Nubia and Don- 
 gola, for he enumerates the places which he took, in this order: Pselcis, 
 Primis (Ibrim), Aboccis (Aboosimbel), Pthuris (Farras), Cambusis, Atteva, 
 Stadisis, "ubi Nilus prcecipitans se, fragore auditum accolis aufert."* (6, 
 29.) This must be the Third Cataract, to which Pliny has transferred the 
 popular account of the First. 
 
 a Her. 3, 97 ; 7, 69. Josephus, Ant. 2, 10, represents Cambyses as con- 
 quering the capital of Ethiopia and changing its name from Saba to Meroe. 
 Diodorus (1, 34) speaks of Cambyses as occupying Ethiopia, meaning proba- 
 bly only Nubia. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 391 
 
 might serve as retreats and mustering-places for the discontented 
 Egyptians, and nests for robbers who might interrupt' commerce. 
 This was a wise policy for the new sovereign of Egypt, and the 
 Great Oasis was accordingly occupied under Darius his successor. 
 The fate of the 50,000 men said to have marched against it was 
 never distinctly known. They reached in safety the Great Oasis, 
 which is nearly in the same latitude as Thebes, and about 120 
 miles distant from it ; it was inhabited by Samians of the iEschri- 
 onian phyle, who had probably found their way to it from the 
 north, as Ammonium appears to have had also a Greek popula- 
 tion 1 . Their route after leaving it would lie through the Oasis of 
 El Farafreh in lat 27°, nearly opposite Siout in Egypt, and thence 
 through the Oasis of El Bacharieh, or the Little Oasis, in lat. 28° 
 20'. But it was only known that they never reached Ammonium, 
 and never returned. The Ammonians said that they had arrived 
 about half way 2 between the Great Oasis and their own, and while 
 sitting down to take their meal were overwhelmed by a sudden 
 and violent wind which buried them under heaps of sand. No 
 well-attested instance is known of a traveller being deprived of 
 life by the fall of the moving pillars of sand in the Desert, much 
 less of whole armies and caravans being buried by them 3 . Nor is 
 there any necessity to have recourse to this supposition to explain 
 the loss of Cambyses' army. They may have been misled by 
 their guides ; they may have found the wells dry or choked with 
 sand, at which they expected to renew their supply of water ; the 
 wind may have obliterated the track by which they had advanced, 
 and baffled their attempt to return. In all these cases they must 
 perish miserably, and the traveller who saw their shrivelled bodies 
 or their skeletons, covered with the drifted sand, would naturally 
 
 1 Her. 2, 32. Vol. L p. 60. 
 
 * Mcra^B kov fi&Xicra avrwv rz koi rrjs 'CWioj. (Her. 3, 26.) 
 
 * Compare the accounts of Bruce (6, 458) with those of Burckhardt. 
 (Nubia, 1, 20V.) 
 
392 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 suppose that its fall had buried them alive 1 . The expedition of 
 Cyrus against the Massagetae was rash ; so was that of Darius 
 against the Scythians ; but the Desert expeditions of Cainbyses 
 were far more rash, because, like Napoleon in Russia, he committed 
 himself to a strife with the powers of nature. 
 
 We are not informed when it was that Psammenitus endeavored 
 to raise an insurrection in Egypt, but it was probably during the 
 absence of Cambyses on his Ethiopian expedition, when the country 
 seems to have been left with few troops, except the Grecian, Phoe- 
 nician and Cyprian mercenaries. It is therefore not wonderful 
 that he treated Egypt on his return with much greater severity 
 than before. Psammenitus, who might have retained the vice- 
 royalty of Egypt, as Herodotus assures us, had he known how to 
 remain quiet 2 , was compelled to put himself to death by drinking 
 bull's blood. Thebes first felt his vengeance, and here he began 
 those outrages upon the religion of Egypt which made his name 
 odious to the priesthood. Probably they had sympathised with 
 the attempt of Psammenitus, and had ill concealed their joy at 
 the disasters of Cambyses. The temples were not only stripped 
 of their wealth in gold, silver 3 and ivory, which was carried to 
 Persia, but burnt ; and no doubt ruins which were the work of 
 time and earthquakes, and the neglect which is the lot of a deserted 
 capital, were attributed to this arch-enemy of their country and 
 religion. The rage of Cambyses against the priesthood was 
 inflamed by hatred and contempt for their rites and dogmas. 
 The Persians were not monotheists, in the sense in which the 
 Hebrews were so j they worshipped the elements, earth, air, water, 
 
 1 ? Af£/;oj v6tos cttHv trvtvar, iv hceiva tu> rrjs ipdfj[iov iirKpopet itri piya, ko.1 
 
 aipnvi^erai ret o-^eia, ovAi lariv tidevai "va %pri iroptveodai, KaBdirtp iv ncXayei, tJJ 
 ipappi?' oti cri/ieia ovk zgti Kara ri)V bSdv, ovrc nov opos, ovre Sz'vSpov, ovrs yfjXoQat 
 fitfiaioi avsorriKOTts, otf riaiv ol bSirai reKfiaipoivTO av t}]v iropziav, naQdvto ot vavrai 
 
 toTs aarpots. (Arrian, 3, 3, of the march of Alexander to Ammonium.) 
 3 Her. 3, 15. 8 Diod. 1, 46. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 393 
 
 and before all fire ; the whole circle of heaven was their supreme 
 god ; but they viewed with abhorrence the confinement of the deity 
 within the walls of a temple and his representation under a human 
 form. They offered sacrifices, but without altar, or fire, or libation, 
 or sprinkling of sacred meal, or music 1 . These differences were 
 quite sufficient to awaken the spirit of intolerance, which is natu- 
 rally the strongest, when the most opposite opinions come into 
 collision ; when the monothelst is opposed to the polytheist, the 
 iconoclast to the idolater. 2 In such conflicts a fanatical persecution 
 is the first result; interest subsequently dictates toleration, if the 
 parties have need of each other's services. 
 
 A circumstance occurred which called forth in all its bitterness 
 the contempt of the Persian for Egyptian superstition. When 
 Cambyses arrived at Memphis he found the people feasting and in 
 holiday attire, and suspecting that it was a rejoicing for his own 
 defeat, he summoned the magistrates of Memphis to his presence 
 and asked them why these festivities were going on now, though 
 be had seen nothing of the kind when he was in Memphis before. 
 They replied that a god had appeared among them as he was wont 
 to do, but at considerable intervals of time. He regarded their 
 answer as a falsehood, and commanded them to be put to death. 
 Next he sent for the priests, and as they gave him the same account, 
 he said he would know whether a god had really made his appear- 
 ance among the Egyptians in the shape of a domesticated beast 3 , and 
 ordered Apis to be brought in. When he saw a young steer fan- 
 tastically marked, he drew his short sword and aimed a blow at 
 the belly of Apis, but struck him on the thigh. " 0 stupid mor- 
 tals," he exclaimed, " are these your gods ? creatures of flesh and 
 
 1 Herod. 1, 131. 
 
 9 Cic. de Legg. 2, 10. Magi' auctoribus Xerxes inflammasse terapla 
 Graecise dicitur quod parietibus includerent deos quibus omnia deberent esse 
 patentia ac libera, quoruraque hie mundus omnis templum esset et domus, 
 
 * Ei 9e6s tis x. £l P v)t\> d7riy t <tvo; ti.-j Aiyvnrioiai. (Her. 2, 28.) 
 
 17* 
 
394 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 blood, and sensible to the touch of steel ! But ye shall not with 
 impunity make me your laughing-stock." He then commanded 
 the priests to be scourged, and every Egyptian to be put to death who 
 should be found engaged in festivity. Apis died of his wound and 
 was buried by the priests without the knowledge of Cambyses. 
 He had not before been of sound mind, and, as the Egyptians 
 said, became quite mad from the moment of this impious deed. 
 Heliopohs, the seat of the worship of the bull Mnevis, suffered 
 equally with Memphis from his fanaticism : both here and at Thebes 
 the obelisks bore marks of the fires in which the temples had been 
 consumed 1 . Various other acts are recorded of him, indicative 
 not so much of intolerance or cruelty, as of that heedlessness or 
 insolence which in the gratification of curiosity overlooks the wound 
 inflicted on the feelings of others. He went into the temple of 
 Ptah and made great sport of the deformed and pygmy image of 
 the god ; he also entered the temple of the Cabiri, the reputed 
 sons of Ptah, and burnt their wooden images. He opened many 
 of the ancient tombs and inspected the mummies. " I am quite 
 convinced," says Herodotus after relating these things, " that Cam- 
 byses was very mad ; he would not else have treated temples and 
 established usages with ridicule. For if one were to propose to all 
 men to select from all the usages in the world those which they 
 deemed the best, they would each, after deliberate comparison, fix 
 on their own. None therefore but a madman would treat these 
 things with ridicule. And that this is the judgment of all men 
 respecting their own usages I infer from many other proofs, and 
 from this instance more especially. Darius once called the Greeks 
 who were near him to his presence, and asked them for what con- 
 sideration they would devour their dead parents ; and they 
 answered for none that could be named. After this Darius called 
 the Callatian Indians, who are accustomed to eat their dead parents, 
 
 1 Strabo, 17, p. 805. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 305 
 
 and asked them by an interpreter in the presence of the Greeks, 
 for what consideration they would agree to burn their parents' 
 corpses ; and they with a loud outcry begged him not to shock 
 their ears with such horrid words. Well has Pindar written, that 
 Usage is lord of all." Had Herodotus, who here expresses the 
 feeling of his own humane and reverent mind, been acquainted 
 with the history of persecution, he would hardly have concluded 
 Cambyses to be mad, because he treated with contempt the reli- 
 gious convictions and practices of others. 
 
 The acts of cruelty which Cambyses subsequently committed, 
 his putting to death his brother Smerdis and his wife 1 , who was 
 also his sister, — his murder of the son of Prexaspes and execution 
 of twelve Persians — belong rather to Persian than Egyptian his- 
 tory. We might conclude from them that he was really frantic, 
 were there not so many parallel instances of cruelty in the acts of 
 oriental sovereigns, and even of the successors of Cambyses him- 
 self. When Oiobazus supplicated that one of his three sons might 
 remain with him, the wise and humane Darius promised that, as 
 he was his friend and his request was moderate, they should all be 
 left, and ordered them immediately to be put to death 2 . In 
 answer to a similar request, Xerxes commanded the eldest son of 
 his host, Pythius the Lydian, to be cut in half 3 , that the army 
 might march between the portions of his body. If the lust and 
 cruelty of Henry VIII. appear less brutal than those of Cambyses, 
 it is only because Christian civilization and the forms of a consti- 
 tutional government imposed a certain restraint on the Engi'sh 
 sovereign. Cambyses, no doubt, was subject to epilepsy, which 
 may have weakened his power of self-control ; but to the last he 
 showed no want of vigor or sagacity. Diodorus has rightly 
 
 1 "We may observe that the cruelty of his behavior towards his wife is 
 aggravated into brutality in the Egyptian version of the story. (Her. 
 3, 32.) 
 
 8 Her. 4, 84. 8 Her. 7, 37. 
 
396 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 described liim by saying, " that lie bad by nature a toucb of insanity 
 and mental aberration, but tbat the greatness of his power had 
 much more to do in making him cruel and insolent 1 ." 
 
 Cambyses had spent between three and four years in Egypt, 
 when he was recalled to Persia by the usurpation of the two Magi, 
 one of whom pretended to be Smerdis, the brother of Cambyses, 
 whom he had murdered by the hands of Prexaspes. He had 
 already reached a town in Syria, which Herodotus calls Ecbatana, 
 when he met the messenger who was on his way to Egypt, to call 
 on the army to renounce their allegiance to him. Leaping hastily 
 on his horse to proceed to Persia, he shook off the knob which 
 closed the lower end of the sheath in which he wore his short 
 sword, and the point protruding wounded him dangerously in the 
 thigh, precisely where he had wounded the god Apis. The bone 
 became carious, and he died in Ecbatana, according to an Egyptian 
 oracle, which he had interpreted to mean that he should end his 
 days, an old man, in the ancient capital of Media, where all his 
 treasures were laid up. Such is the account of Herodotus, which 
 was no doubt derived from the Egyptian priests, and is suspicious 
 from its exhibiting a striking proof of the vengeance of their god 
 and the infallibility of their oracle. Ctesias says, he died at Baby- 
 lon of a wound in the thigh which he gave himself while planing 
 wood for his amusement 2 . He had reigned over Egypt six years ; 
 
 1 YZafiPvaris iiv niv <pvoet paviKOi Kal irapaKCKivriKws roig \oyio-pois' iro\v Si /iiiXXov 
 avrov (i/idf Kal vnepi'iipavov enotci to rrjs 0aai\eias ptycQog. (Diod. Excerpt, p. 248.) 
 Herodotus seems to doubt whether the misdeeds of Cambyses were the 
 consequence of his outrage on Apis or of natural influences — urc 6ia rdv 
 
 *A.tiv, cite Kal aXXtdf, oia ToXXa iu>6ec dvQpuyrrovs Kaxti Kara\ap.l3dvtiv (3, 33). 
 
 3 I have not hitherto noticed Ctesias' account of the conquest of Egypt 
 by Cambyses. According to him, Amyrtseus was king of Egypt at the 
 time of the invasion. Combaphes, his chief eunuch, was induced by the 
 promise of the satrapy to betray his master, and Amyrtauis being taken 
 prisoner, was transferred to Susa, with six thousand Egyptians selected by 
 himself. This is inconsistent with the Egyptian monuments, with Manetho 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 397 
 
 no memorial of him has been found on a temple or palace of Egypt, 
 where he only destroyed ; but his shield, bearing date in his sixth 
 year, is seen with those of Darius and Xerxes, on the road to 
 Cosseir near the Red Sea 1 , mixed with some of the most ancient of 
 the Pharaohs. It was natural that his memory should be the object 
 of unmitigated hatred and abhorrence to the Egyptians ; even the 
 Persians, who had called Cyrus their father, gave Cambyses the 
 title of Lord, in token of his severe and haughty temper 2 , yet with 
 an acknowledgment of the vigour with which he governed his 
 dominions. 
 
 The conquests of Cyrus and Cambyses had been rapidly made, 
 and not consolidated by any systematic administration. In the arts 
 of government the Medes and Persians were as much inferior to the 
 Egyptians, as they were superior to them in military force, and they 
 had much to learn in civilization from their new subjects. The 
 first care of Darius (520 b. c.) was to unite the heterogeneous 
 members of the empire by a uniform system of government, which 
 should secure the prompt and effectual execution of the commands 
 of the central power, and at the same time to exchange the method 
 of irregular and indefinite contribution (called gifts) which had 
 prevailed under Cyrus and Cambyses 3 for a fixed system of imposts. 
 
 The scale of taxation for each province was fixed by the satrap ; 
 Darius gained popularity for himself by making a considerable 
 reduction upon the amount 4 . He divided his dominions into 
 and Herodotus. The only circumstance in regard to which I think Ctesias' 
 account the more authentic is the death of Cambyses, -which the Egyptians 
 had an obvious motive to misrepresent, and which would be better known 
 at Babylon than in Egypt. 
 
 1 Burton, Excerpta Hierogl. pi. viii. The land of Pars is distinctly men- 
 tioaed in the inscription. Rosellini (M. Stor. 2, 169) mentions a statue on 
 which the name of Cambyses is found, but only as a date. 
 
 2 Her. 3, 89. Aapeios f*iv Vv ko.ttti\os' Ka/i/?uo-/jff ce Jcaxor/jj' Kupoj Si narrip. 
 
 3 Her. 3, 89. 'E*i Kvpov ipx 
 
 <f>6pov ncpi dWa StZpa dyiveov, 4 Polysen. 7, 11, 3. 
 
398 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 twenty provinces, each ruled by a viceroy called a satrap, who com- 
 manded the military forces, administered the affairs of the province, 
 and collected the tribute which was systematically levied through- 
 out the empire. The satrapy of Egypt, besides the country usually 
 so called, included the coast of Libya as far as the Euesperidae, a 
 iittle westward of Cyrene, and the oases of the Libyan Desert. The 
 country between the Nile and the Red Sea must also have been 
 included in it, as the names of Persian sovereigns are found on the 
 road to Cosseir. Ethiopia above Egypt, which had been subdued 
 by Cambyses, paid no regular tribute, and was not included in the 
 satrapy ; but once in three years it brought a voluntary offering, 
 consisting of two chcenixes (three pints) of gold dust, two hundred 
 blocks of ebony, twenty tusks of ivory, and five youths 1 . The tri- 
 bute paid by the satrapy of Egypt was seven hundred talents in 
 money, independently of the produce of the fisheries of the Lake 
 Mceris, which amounted to a talent a day during the six months 
 that the water flowed in from the Nile, and a third part of that sum 
 during the efflux' 2 . Egypt had also to furnish 120,000 medimni of 
 corn as rations for the Persian troops and their auxiliaries, who were 
 stationed in the White Fort of Memphis 3 . Except in the payment 
 of this tribute (about 170,000/. sterling), which cannot be consi- 
 dered as oppressive to a country so productive as Egypt, no change 
 
 1 Her. 3, 97. 
 
 3 Her. 2, 149. According to Diodorus (1, 52) the revenue of the Lake, 
 which he reckons at a talent a day, without distinction of seasons, was 
 assigned by Mceris to his queen for the expenses of her toilette (irpds fitpa teal 
 top a\\ov KaWoiiriGjtdv). This custom appears to have been Persian (Her. 2, 
 98), not Egyptian, and Herodotus describes the revenue of the Lake, as paid 
 into the royal treasury (rd /3aaiXfiiuv). 
 
 3 Herodotus (7, 187) reckons a military ration at a choenix a day. The 
 medimnus contained forty-eight chcenixes (Bockh, Haushaltung der Athe- 
 ner, 1, 99), consequently each man consumed annually about seven and a 
 half medimni, and the garrison consisted of about 17,000 men. The allow- 
 ance of a chcenix, however, is mentioned by Herodotus as a minimum. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 399 
 
 appears to have been made in the administration. The nomarchs 
 levied the tribute and handed it over to the satrap 1 . But Egypt 
 could not reap the full benefit of the wisdom and humanity of 
 Darius under the government of a satrap, whose character was 
 more important to the country which he ruled than that of the 
 distant sovereign : we know by modern examples, that the tribute 
 rendered to a sultan may be far less onerous than the exactions of 
 a pasha. 
 
 When Cambyses was recalled to Persia by the usurpation of the 
 false Smerdis, he left Aryandes in command of Egypt, and Darius 
 continued him in his post. Little is related of his government 
 except his expedition into Libya. The jealousy which the Greeks 
 of Asia and Europe felt of the Persian power naturally extended to 
 the people of Cyrene and Barca, and they suspected their own 
 reigning family of a design to perpetuate their dominion by allying 
 themselves with Persia. The changes introduced by Demonax 2 
 into the constitution had been borne with impatience by the kings, 
 whose prerogatives were transferred to the people ; Arcesilaus III. 
 had attempted to repossess himself of the ancient prerogatives and 
 domains, and being worsted in the struggle, had fled to Samos. 
 Here he collected a force, by means of which he re-established him- 
 self at Cyrene, and having treated his enemies with great rigor, and 
 burnt alive many of them who had taken refuge in a tower, he was 
 induced by the fear of vengeance and the recollection of an oracle 
 to withdraw to Barca, where his father-in-law governed. At Barca 
 he was killed by the inhabitants and some of the exiles from Cyrene. 
 His mother Pheretime, who had fled to Cyprus when her son fled 
 to Samos, had returned, and administered the government of 
 Cyrene till his assassination. On that event she betook herself to 
 
 1 Arrian, Hist. 3, 5, 6. 
 
 * Her. 4, 161. Tu (iaoiWi Birnu rtfievea i^eXwv Kal Ipoiavvas, ra aXXa irdvra, ret 
 *p6repov cl^ov ol paaiXia, is pieov rut <5r?//a> 10t)kc 
 
400 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Egypt, and represented to Aryandes that her son had incurred the 
 hostility of his subjects by his submitting to pay tribute to Cam- 
 byses, and had been put to death because he leaned to Persia 1 . 
 Aryandes thought he saw a favorable opportunity for reducing all 
 the Libyans into a real dependence on Persia 2 ; but he first sent a 
 herald to Barca, to demand the persons who had killed Arcesilaus. 
 The Barcaeans adopted it as the act of all, and justified it by the 
 tyranny of which he had been guilty. On this Aryandes sent all 
 the disposable troops of Egypt with a fleet 3 , under the command of 
 Amasis and Badres, against Barca. They besieged it in vain for 
 nine months, and ultimately obtained possession of it by stratagem 
 and perjury. The generals were divided in opinion whether they 
 should also attack Cyrene, but Aryandes recalled them, and they 
 returned to Egypt, the land forces having been much harassed by 
 the Libyans on their march. We know not how long Aryandes 
 continued in his office of satrap. Darius had introduced a gold 
 coinage, the Daric, a thing unknown before in Asia, and Aryandes, 
 in imitation of his master, a silver coinage in Egypt. Considering 
 how much inconvenience Egypt must have suffered from the want 
 of this instrument of exchange, there seems no sufficient reason for 
 imputing to Aryandes a desire to usurp the functions of sovereignty. 
 But the actions of a satrap are watched with morbid jealousy by 
 his superior, and Aryandes had probably raised discontent among 
 the Egyptians by some disrespect to the national religion, so that 
 they T were on the point of revolting 4 . Darius, passing through the 
 Arabian Desert, came in person to Egypt, which he had not visited 
 
 1 Her. 4, 165. Tlooiff^OjiEvr] Trpotyaaiv Sia rou MqJi oy^ov 6 naT$ oi reOvrjKS. 
 
 2 Her. 4, 167. Dahlmann (Herodot, aus seinem Buehe sein Leben, 2, p. 
 164) doubts this project of Aryandes. 
 
 8 To separate the civil administration from the military power in the 
 satrapies appears to have been a subsequent refinement of Persian policy. 
 See Heeren, Ideen, 1, 1, 524, Germ. 
 
 *Polyam. 7, 11, 7. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 401 
 
 since he had attended Cambyses as one of his body-guards 1 , put 
 Aryandes to death, and conciliated the Egyptians by the offer of a 
 reward for the discovery of an Apis, whose place was at that time 
 vacant. We do not know the exact year of this visit, but that it 
 was subsequent to the Scythian expedition of Darius, which took 
 place 508 b. c, we learn from an anecdote preserved both by 
 Herodotus and Diodorus 2 . He wished to erect a statue of himself 
 at Memphis, in front of the temple of Ptah, and before that of 
 Rameses-Sesostris. The high -priest remonstrated, and ventured to 
 observe, that he had not equalled the exploits of Sesostris ; for that 
 he had not been able, like him, to subdue the Scythians. Darius 
 was so far from resenting this allusion to his unsuccessful expedi- 
 tion, that he was pleased with the priest's freedom of speech, and 
 in reference to the long reign of Sesostris replied, that if he lived as 
 long he hoped to accomplish as much. The Egyptians reckoned 
 him after Menes, Sasyches, Sesostris, Bocchoris, and Amasis, the 
 sixth of their great legislators. We may therefore conclude, not- 
 withstanding the silence of history, that he made regulations for 
 Egypt which secured its religion from the outrages to which it had 
 been exposed from the fanaticism of Cambyses and Aryandes, and 
 protected the people from oppression. " Hating," says Diodorus, 
 " the lawless violence of Cambyses against the Egyptian temples, 
 he pursued a humane and pious course of life. He associated fami- 
 liarly with the Egyptian priests, who imparted to him a knowledge 
 of their theology and the history contained in their sacred books. 
 Learning from these the magnanimity of their ancient kings and 
 their mildness towards their subjects, he imitated their course of 
 life, and was so much honored by them, that he alone of the kings 3 
 
 1 Her. 3, 139. 3 Her. 2, 110. Diod. 1, 58. 
 
 3 Diod. 1, 95. He means of course the Persian kings, who are here 
 opposed to the to xaXatop vofiijicirara (SatriXsvaaai tear Aiyvurov. Comp. 1, 90. 
 AoKOvatv A.iyviTTioi tovs lavriov 0affi\eTs irpoo-icvvetv rs kou ri^nv^ ois npos d\f\6uav 
 Suras Beovs. 
 
402 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 during his lifetime was called a god by the Egyptians, and after his 
 death received the same honors as the ancient kings who had 
 reigned most equitably." The monuments confirm these accounts. 
 He is the only Persian king whose name is accompanied with a 
 titular shield, and whose phonetic shield bears the crest of the vul- 
 panser and disk, " son of the Sun." It is remarkable, however, 
 that neither his name nor that of any of the Persian monarchs, is 
 found on a public monument within the limits of Egypt. On an 
 ornament of porcelain preserved in the museum of Florence, he is 
 called " beneficent god 1 ," and this adoption of his name on an arti- 
 cle of familiar use is perhaps the strongest proof of the affection 
 which the Egyptians bore to his person. He even appears to have 
 carried his conformity so far as to offer worship to their gods. At 
 least he is represented in a sculpture with a sacerdotal ornament 
 on his head, with a lighted lamp in each hand (the emblem of fire, 
 the great divinity of Persia) before a shrine, in which stand Athor, 
 and Osiris in the form of a mummy 2 . 
 
 It was probably on occasion of this visit of Darius that the 
 Persians obtained possession of the Great Oasis and the Oasis of 
 Siwah, the temples in both bearing his inscriptions. He resumed 
 the excavation of the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, 
 which Sesostris attempted and Neco partially executed. Its 
 length, from near Bubastis to the Gulf of Suez, was four days' 
 navigation. It should seem, however, that even Darius did not 
 actually open a communication between the end of the canal and 
 the Red Sea, though he left a very narrow space between them 3 . 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, p. 170. Wilkinson, M. and C. 1, 199. The same 
 title is given to Xerxes in an inscription on the Cosseir road. (Burton, 
 Exc. Hierog. pL 14.) 
 
 3 Champollion Figeac, L'Univers, pi. 8*7. The evidence which such a 
 monument supplies of an actual offering of worship by Darius, is weakened 
 by our finding a similar representation of Tiberius. See the same work, 
 pi. 91. 
 
 8 A monument with cuneiform characters was found by the French near 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 403 
 
 He is said to have been deterred from cutting through this space, 
 by the discovery that the level of the Red Sea was higher than 
 that of Egypt 1 . The Macedonian rulers of Egypt appear to have 
 been the first who made the communication perfect, and placed a 
 lock at the entrance from the sea. The through-navigation would 
 be practicable only during a few weeks of the year, when the Nile 
 is highest. 
 
 The road from Coptos to Cosseir, judging from the inscriptions 
 bearing the names of Persian sovereigns, must have been much 
 frequented in these times, and was probably the principal channel 
 of the trade with Arabia and the shores of the Persian Gulf. The 
 increase of commercial intercourse with strangers is indicated by 
 the number of contracts in the demotic character which bear date 
 in the reign of Darius 2 . This character appears to hav^e been 
 invented for such uses, and no specimens of it are found older than 
 Psammitichus 3 . 
 
 The relations of Egypt with Greece probably remained friendly 
 during the early part of the reign of Darius ; the resort of Greeks 
 thither for commercial purposes and the pursuit of knowledge 
 continued. A change would take place after the revolt, as it is 
 called, of the Ionian cities from the Persian power, and the burn- 
 ing of Sardis in 499 b.c. 4 The Egyptians formed a part of the 
 fleet which Persia employed for the reduction of Miletus 5 . From 
 that time, Greeks, at least Ionian Greeks, the principal travellers 
 whether for profit or improvement, would be excluded from the 
 dependencies of Persia, and Egypt would not be open to them 
 again, until she regained a temporary independence under Inaros 
 and Amyrtaeus. 
 
 the Bitter Lakes. See Roziere, Deser. de l'Egypte Antiq. Mem. 1, p. 265. 
 It contains part of the name of Darius. (Lepsius, EinL 1, 354, note.) 
 
 1 Strabo, IT, p. 804, says, 66^ ipevSel ireicOsis. See p. 836 of this vol. 
 
 a Champollion Figeac, L'Univers, p. 379. 
 
 8 Rosellini, M. S. 2, 172, 174. Lepsius, Lettre a M. Rosellim, p. 19. 
 4 Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellen. sub anno. 6 Her. 6, 6. 
 
404 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 When Darius quitted Egypt, which he had probably visited in 
 the interval between his return to Susa after his Scythian expedi- 
 tion 1 and the commencement of his wars with the Ionians, he 
 appointed Amasis satrap of Egypt. lie may have been the same 
 who had led the Persian fleet against Barca ; the evidence of his 
 having held the office is, that a shield with this name and the 
 word Melek inscribed over it, has been found on the Cosseir road 8 . 
 The title is neither Coptic nor Persian, but Semitic ; that it was 
 familiar, however, to the Egyptians is evident from its occurrence 
 in the list of the nations conquered by Sheshonk 3 . Amasis, the 
 father of Psammenitus, cannot be meant, as we have his shields 
 with the full Pharaonic titles. Another shield, preceded by the 
 word Melek, has been found at the same place, and the characters 
 which it contains have been read, " Nephra son of Amasis." It 
 bears date the 30th year of Darius (b.c. 489), and therefore Nephra 
 seems to have succeeded Amasis in the satrapy. The defeat of 
 Darius' troops at Marathon in the year 490, offered to the Egyp- 
 tians a prospect of recovering their liberty, and while all Asia 
 resounded with the preparations which he made for three years to 
 invade Greece, and efface the dishonor of his arms 4 , Egypt revolted 
 (b.c. 48G). He died (b.c. 485) just when his preparations for 
 attacking Egypt and Athens were complete, and left the execution 
 of his enterprises to his son Xerxes. The latest record of Darius' 
 reign is a contract in the demotic character, dated in the month 
 Phamenoth of his 35 th year. An inscription in the Cosseir road 
 mentions his 36th year, but this was engraved under the reign of 
 Xerxes, who having recovered possession of Egypt, considered his 
 predecessor's reign as uninterrupted, notwithstanding the revolt at 
 its close 5 . Herodotus and the lists agree in assigning 36 years as 
 the length of Darius' reign. 
 
 1 Her. 5, 11, 25. 2 Burton's Exc. Hierog. pi. 3, 4. 
 
 8 See p. 293 of this vol. 4 Herod. 1, 1, 4. 
 
 5 Rosellini, M. Stor. 2, 174. Burton, Exc. Hierog. 14, 3. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 405 
 
 We know not by whom the revolt of the Egyptians was headed, 
 or what form of government was established during the brief 
 interval of its independence. The entire history of this event, 
 which was almost lost to the Greek historians in the magnitude 
 of the impending struggle between Persia and Greece, is contained 
 in a few words of Herodotus. Xerxes was disinclined from a 
 Grecian war, but Mardonius exhorted him first to tame the inso- 
 lence of the revolted Egyptians, and then to lead his army against 
 Athens. The advice was sound as regarded the order of his 
 operations. To have attacked Greece, before Egypt was reduced, 
 would have deprived him of the most valuable part of his naval 
 force except the Phoenicians : it might have added an Egyptian 
 fleet to the navy of the Greeks. In the year after the death of 
 Darius, therefore, he made an expedition against Egypt, and 
 having subdued it apparently with little difficulty (b.c. 484), 
 reduced it to a condition of much more severe dependence than it 
 had experienced under Darius 1 , and appointed his brother Achae- 
 menes satrap, who governed it for twenty-four years, till he lost 
 his life in the revolt of Inaros, b.c. 460. 
 
 In the invasion of Greece, on which Xerxes entered after four 
 years of additional preparation, by marching from Sardis in the 
 spring of the year 480 b.c, the Egyptians bore a very important 
 part. They furnished 200 ships. The Calasirians and Hermoty- 
 bians (for the old names were still kept up) served on board of them as 
 einhatae or marines, and were armed specially for this service with 
 boarding-spears and large hatchets*. They assisted in the construc- 
 tion of the bridge of boats by which the Persian army crossed the 
 Hellespont, furnishing the ropes of papyrus as the Phoenicians did 
 those of flax, and conveyed corn to the places at which magazines 
 were to be established for the supply of the army 3 . In the battle 
 of Artemisium they distinguished themselves above the whole 
 
 1 Her. 1, 7. 
 
 a Her. V, 89. 
 
 s Her. 7, 34. 25. 
 
406 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 fleet, and captured five Greek vessels with their crews 1 . None of 
 them were enrolled in the land-army of Xerxes, but when the fleet 
 lay at Phalerum, Mardonius disembarked the fighting portion of 
 the crews, and they served as swordsmen in the battle of Platea 2 . 
 The internal history of Egypt is an entire blank from this 
 time to the death of Xerxes, no doubt because all access to that 
 country was forbidden to the Greeks. The name of Achaemenes 
 is not found on any Egyptian monument, but that of Xerxes 
 occurs on the Cosseir road with the date of his seventh year 3 . 
 Early in the history of hieroglyphical discovery, Champollion read 
 the name of Xerxes in Egyptian and cuneiform characters on an 
 alabaster vase in the royal library at Paris, confirming his own 
 discoveries and those of Grotefend. 
 
 Xerxes was assassinated by Artabanus in the year B.o. 465, 
 and after an internal of a few months 4 was succeeded by Arta- 
 xerxes Longimanus, the second of his sons, in 464 b.c. The com- 
 mencement of his reign appeared to offer a favorable opportunity 
 of revolt to the Egyptians 5 . The Persian power had been greatly 
 weakened by the result of Xerxes' invasion of Greece. Not only had 
 his immense fleet and army been destroyed, but the Greeks, follow- 
 ing up their victory, had driven the Persians from the Thracian 
 Chersonesus, from Byzantium, from the coasts of Asia Minor, and 
 from Cyprus ; and Xerxes in the latter part of his reign had aban- 
 doned himself to luxury, and the baneful intrigues and jealousies 
 of his court and harem. The first care of Artaxerxes was to 
 punish the murderers of his father and brother, and substitute 
 satraps friendly to his interests in those governments from which 
 he apprehended hostility 6 . Artapanus, satrap of Bactria, made an 
 obstinate resistance, and was only subdued after two pitched 
 
 1 Her. 8, 17. 2 Her. 9, 32. 3 Burton, Exc. Hierog. pi. 14. 
 
 4 Eusebius, Chron. p. 31, ed. Scaliger, makes Artabanus to have reigned 
 seven months after his assassination of Xerxes and his eldest son Darius. 
 6 Diod. 11, 71. 6 Diod 11, 11. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 407 
 
 battles 1 . The Egyptians thus obtained time for maturing their 
 revolt. Inaros, the son of Psammitichus, probably a descendant 
 of the Saitic princes, had made himself king of the Libyans who 
 bordered on Egypt, and advanced with an army from Marea, the 
 frontier town near the later site of Alexandria 2 . He was joined 
 by nearly the whole population of Egypt, and all the Persian reve- 
 nue officers were driven out. Inaros raised a body of native 
 troops and enlisted mercenaries, but as it was evident that he would 
 have to contend with the whole force of Persia, as soon as order 
 was established at home, he was naturally led to seek an alliance 
 with Athens. At this time an Athenian fleet of 200 triremes was 
 engaged in operations against Cyprus. To them Inaros would 
 naturally make his first proposals, but it is not probable that they 
 would act upon them without authority from x\thens. According 
 to Diodorus, he promised, besides many other advantages, to share 
 with them the sovereignty of Egypt 3 . Such prospects were irre- 
 sistible to the Athenian people, in whom success had already opened 
 boundless hopes of dominion ; they could hardly plead self-defence, 
 for with the possession of Cyprus they were secure against any 
 molestation by Persia. Forty triremes 4 were accordingly detached 
 from the fleet off Cyprus. Artaxerxes in the meantime had been 
 collecting a fleet and army from all the satrapies of his empire, 
 and was about to take the command in person, but on the advice 
 of his friends gave it up to Achaemenes, who appears to have fled 
 from Egypt to Persia after the first victory of Inaros 5 . Achaemenes, 
 after a short interval employed in recruiting his army, advanced 
 
 1 Ctes. Pers. c. 31, ed. Baehr. 9 Thuc. 1, 104. 3 Diod. 11, 71. 
 
 4 Ctes. Pers. c. 32. Diod. 11, 74, says 200. The contraction of Thucy- 
 dides, 1, 104, Oi 61 erv%ov yap is Ktirpoy arparevofjicvoi pavcri SiaKoaiats t)\dov } is 
 ambiguous. 
 
 5 Diodorus, 11, 74, says that the Achaemenes who commanded the expedi- 
 tion was the son of Darius. Ctesias calls him Achsemenides, brother of 
 Artaxerxes. 
 
408 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 against Inaros, who had retired to the western side of Egypt to 
 collect his forces from Libya and avail himself of the aid of the 
 Athenians ; and here at Papremis 1 a great battle was fought, in 
 which Inaros slew Achaemenes with his own hand, and the Per- 
 sians were defeated chiefly by the valor of the Athenians. The 
 Persians fled to Memphis ; the Athenians sailed up the river in 
 pursuit of them, and having possessed themselves of two out of 
 the three regions of the city, besieged the Persians and the Egyp- 
 tians who adhered to them in the citadel called the White Fortress. 
 Artaxerxes first endeavored to oblige the Athenians to recall their 
 fleet from Egypt by sending Megabazus with gold to Sparta, to 
 induce the Peloponnesians to make an irruption into Attica. His 
 money was expended in vain; Athens had just placed .herself in 
 security by the completion of the Long Walls 3 , and had shown how 
 formidable was her naval power by sailing round the Peloponnesus 
 and burning the naval arsenal of the Lacedaemonians. On the 
 return of Megabazus, Artaxerxes collected another armament 3 , of 
 which he gave the command to Megabyzus the son of Zopyrus. 
 The fleet was equipped in Cilicia, and being joined by the army 
 which had marched from Persia, proceeded by the coasts of Syria 
 and Phoenicia to Egypt. The Athenians and Egyptians were still 
 blockading the White Citadel, which during more than a year 
 they had been unable to reduce 4 . The news of the arrival of the 
 Persians caused them to raise the siege and retire into Lower 
 Egypt 5 . They established themselves in the island Prosopitis, 
 formed by a canal from the Canopic branch of the Nile, by com- 
 manding the navigation of which they kept open their communi- 
 
 1 See Mannert, Geogr. x. 1, p. 591, for the position of Papremis in the 
 western part of the Delta. (Diod. 11, 74.) 2 Thuc. 1, 108, 109. 
 
 3 Diodorus says, of 300,000 men. This is a standing number with him. 
 (11,74,75.) 4 Diod. 11, 75. 
 
 6 Ctesias speaks of an engagement in which Inaros was wounded and 
 some of the Greeks killed (c. 33), and Thucydides agrees with him. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 40-9 
 
 cation with the sea 1 . After the experience which they had had of 
 Grecian valor, the Persians abstained from battles in the field 3 ; 
 availing themselves of the dry season, they succeeded at the end 
 of fifteen months in diverting the water from the channel in which 
 the Athenian fleet lay, and the ships being thus useless, the Egyp- 
 tians were alarmed and made conditions for themselves. The 
 Athenians burnt their triremes, and were preparing for a desperate 
 defence : as they were still 6000 in number, the Persian com- 
 manders did not desire to drive them to extremities, and agreed to 
 allow them to retire from Egypt. Through Libya they reached 
 Cyrene, but only a small remnant returned in safety to Athens 3 . 
 Inaros, and some of the Greeks, were carried to Susa ; their lives 
 were at first spared, according to the capitulation ; but Amytis, 
 the mother of Achsemenes, who had been killed by Inaros, suc- 
 ceeded after five years, in persuading the king to give up Inaros 
 to her, and he was crucified. Thannyris, the son of Inaros, suc- 
 ceeded him in his government of Libya 4 ; Sarsames was made 
 satrap of Egypt. A further misfortune befell the A them's ns ; fifty 
 triremes, destined to reinforce the armament, touched at the Mende- 
 sian mouth, in ignorance of what had happened. They were attacked 
 by the Phoenician fleet and Egyptian land-forces 5 , and nearly all 
 destroyed. These transactions occupied a space of six years, from 
 462 to 456 B.C., but the chronology of each is not easily fixed. 
 
 The Persians thus obtained possession of the greater part of 
 Egypt ; but the marsh-lands near the mouths of the Nile, being 
 extensive, difficult of access, and inhabited by a warlike popula- 
 tion, were not subdued 6 . There was in this district an island called 
 Elbo, in which Anysis many years before had taken refuge during 
 the invasion of the Ethiopians 7 . Here Amyrtseus, descended from 
 
 1 Champ., Egypte sous les Pharaons, 2, 162. Ctesias calls the place to which 
 Inaros fled Byblos, a name otherwise unknown to Egyptian topography. 
 
 2 Diod. 11, 11. * Thuc. 1, 110. 4 Herod. 3, 15. Ctes. c. 35. 
 6 Thucyd. 1, 110. 6 Thucyd. 1, 110. ' Herod. 2 ; 1 40. 
 
 VOL. II. 18 
 
410 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the Saitic dynasty, established himself and maintained his inde- 
 pendence. The Athenians, during a temporary remission of their 
 war with the states of Peloponnesus, after the peace of Five Years 
 (b. c. 450), turned their attention again to Cyprus and Egypt 1 , and 
 sent sixty ships to the latter country on the invitation of Amyr- 
 tseus. In Cyprus they were victorious 2 , but the death of Cimon 
 (b. c. 449) put an end to the expedition, and the ships that had 
 sailed to Egypt returned at the same time to Athens without hav- 
 ing accomplished anything. Amyrtaeus made submission to the 
 Persians, and his son Pausiris was allowed to succeed to his father's 
 power 3 . No monuments remain of any of these rulers. 
 
 Of the condition of Egypt under the re-established rule of Persia, 
 we obtain some incidental account from Herodotus. The inter- 
 course of the Greeks with the interior of that country had neces- 
 sarily been suspended, during the insurrection of Inaros and Amyr- 
 tseus ; it was renewed after the Athenian fleet had withdrawn, and 
 peace virtually, if not formally, been established between Greece 
 and Persia. Artaxerxes resumed the mild and tolerant policy of 
 Darius. Herodotus describes the state of things which he saw in 
 Egypt, subsequently to the battle of Papremis 4 , and probably to 
 the suppression of the revolt in 456 b. c. The country appears to 
 have been in profound peace, for Herodotus proceeded from the 
 sea to the limits of Ethiopia without molestation. A traveller 
 might even pass these limits and ascend the Nile as far as Meroe. 
 Democritus, who was a little younger than Herodotus, and spent five 
 years in Egypt, wrote a treatise on the sacred characters of Meroe 5 . 
 
 1 Thucyd. 1, 112. Plut. Cim. 18. 9 Plut. Cira. 18. 
 
 8 Herod. 3, 15. 4 3, 12. 
 
 6 Diog. Laert. 9, 49. Fynes Clinton, F. H. sub an. 460 b. c. Herod. 2, 
 29. Eusebius (Chron. p. 53, ed. Scalig.) has a singular statement respecting 
 Democritus and a Jewess learned in mysteries named Maria, which Scaliger 
 (p. 419) thinks an interpolation of the monk Panodorus. See p. 75 of this 
 vol. Jablonsk., Panth. JEjg. Prol. cxliv. 
 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 411 
 
 The frontier towns and Memphis 1 were occupied by Persian troops ; 
 but the worship at the temples, the celebration of the panegyrics, 
 w r ent on as usual ; Greeks were found in all the principal towns, 
 engaged in commerce and unmolested by the Egyptians, notwith- 
 standing the strong repulsion which manners and religion placed 
 between them 2 . 
 
 Yet on the first opportunity which the state of Persia appeared 
 to offer for throwing off the yoke, the Egyptians were eager to 
 avail themselves of it. No other nation which formed a part of 
 the Persian empire was so loosely connected with the general body 
 as Egypt. It was in contact with it at a single point only, and 
 even there difficult of access. No other nation could boast of so 
 long an antecedent independence as Egypt ; the power of the 
 Assyrians and Babylonians was of recent origin, compared with 
 the monarchy of the Pharaohs. Religion, however, was the 
 strongest obstacle to union between the Egyptians and their mas- 
 ters. Though persecution had ceased, the priests of the national 
 religion had lost the ascendency which they had once enjoyed. 
 They might possess their revenues without disturbance or diminu- 
 tion, and worship their native gods without hindrance ; but they 
 no longer chose their sovereign, enrolled him in their order, regu- 
 lated his public policy, and controlled his daily actions. The 
 tolerance which the Persians practised left the priests in possession 
 of all their ancient power over the minds of the common people, 
 whom it would be easy for them to stir up to rebellion, when a 
 favorable occasion offered itself. During the reign of Artaxerxes, 
 who governed with great vigor for forty years, they remained 
 quiet. The domestic quarrels of the Greeks, who were engaged 
 in the latter part of it in the Peloponnesian War, prevented their 
 giving aid to Egypt, which without it could have no hope of suc- 
 cess in a revolt from Persia. 
 
 1 Eer. 2, 30, 99. 
 
 8 Herod. 2, 41. 
 
412 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 On the death of Artaxerxes, b. c. 425, the usual disputes respect- 
 ing the succession distracted the monarchy. His legitimate suc- 
 cessor, Xerxes II., was immediately murdered by his brother 
 Sogdianus, and he in turn by Ochus, who possessed himself of 
 the throne under the name of Darius, and is distinguished by the 
 addition of Nothus (illegitimate), b. c. 424. He was not allowed 
 to retain it without a struggle. His brother Arsites raised a 
 revolt, and was only subdued by the help of Greek mercenaries in 
 the service of Persia. The satrap of Egypt, Arxanes 1 , had declared 
 himself for Ochus, when he rebelled against Sogdianus ; but this 
 was merely a declaration of the Persian forces in favor of one 
 sovereign and against another, in which the Egyptians had no 
 interest. When, however, a truce for fifty years had been made 
 between the Peloponnesians, Lacedcemonians and Athenians, b. c. 
 421, the hope of Athenian aid, which was now the hinge of Egyp- 
 tian policy in its relations with Persia, would naturally revive, and 
 a revolt speedily followed 2 . It began in the second year of Darius 
 Nothus ; but was either suppressed or was very limited in its 
 extent, till the tenth year of the same sovereign's reign, b. c. 414. 
 In the interval the short truce between the contending powers in 
 Greece had been broken, and the Athenians had engaged in the 
 expedition to Sicily which in the following year produced such 
 disastrous results. Egypt therefore had to struggle unaided for 
 her independence. Once more we chronicle the events of Egyp- 
 tian history by the years of a native dynasty. 
 
 Twenty-eighth Dynasty. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Amyrt^bus the Saite, reigned 6 
 
 It has been supposed that this Amyrtseus is the same person who 
 
 1 Ctes. Pers. c. 4*7, ed. Baehr. 
 
 2 Syncell. p. 256 D. Aiywrroj dniarr) Hepauii/ divriput erei Ndflot Aapeiov. 
 
THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DYNASTY. 
 
 413 
 
 established himself in the marshy regions of the Delta 1 , nearly 
 forty years before, and had there maintained an independent sove- 
 reignty, till this new revolt called him forth to place himself at the 
 head of his countrymen. Nothing favors this supposition, except 
 the identity of the name, and it involves serious chronological 
 difficulties. Probably the Amyrtaeus who constitutes the twenty- 
 eighth dynasty was the grandson of him who fled into the marshes, 
 and the son of that Panaris to whom, according to Herodotus, the 
 Persians conceded the sovereignty which his father had exercised. 
 The attachment of the Egyptians to the ancient line of the Saitic 
 kings sufficiently explains their placing Amyrtaeus at the head of 
 their re-established monarchy. History is entirely silent respect- 
 ing the events by which they regained their independence. Their 
 success might be aided by the revolt of the Persian satraps of 
 Lydia and Caria, Pisuthnes and his son Amorges, whom the 
 Athenians assisted by a body of mercenary troops under Lycon 2 . 
 That they maintained friendly relations with Athens, which was 
 then engaged in hostility with Persia, is evident from the mention 
 of corn-ships sailing from Egypt to Athens, which the Pelopon- 
 nesians planned to intercept at the Triopian Promontory 3 . To pro- 
 tect themselves from invasion by land on the part of the Persians, 
 the Egyptians entered into an alliance with the Arabians, without 
 whose concurrence an army could not enter from Palestine. They 
 also endeavored, in conjunction with the Arabians, to obtain pos- 
 session of Phoenicia, the great source of the naval power of Persia ; 
 but Pharnabazus suddenly appeared on the Phoenician coast with 
 three hundred triremes and frustrated this design 4 . 
 
 In this dearth of historical information the monuments give us 
 
 1 See p. 409 of this vol. 2 Ctes. Pers. 52. Time. 8, 5. 
 
 3 Thuc. 8, 35, with Poppo's note. 
 
 4 Diod. 13, 46. From Thuc. 8, 109 (raj 6ia,3o\us ncpl rdv Qmvioauiv vtdv\ it 
 should seem as if Diodorus had confounded Pharnabazus with Tissaphernee, 
 See Ley, Fata Egypti sub imperio Persarum, p. 55. 
 
414 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 valuable aid, by showing that Amyrtseus was sovereign of the 
 whole kingdom of Egypt and its dependencies, and that Manetho 
 was justified in assigning him that rank. In the temple of Chons 
 at Karnak is an inscription, expressing that it had been repaired 
 by him, — the first record of any such work, since Thebes was 
 destroyed by Cambyses 1 . The temple of Eilithya, dedicated to 
 Sevek, bears a record of a similar restoration by the same sove- 
 reign. The shield at Karnak appears also to express that he had 
 been the conqueror of the " land of Heb," or the Great Oasis ; and 
 his name has been found on the temple in the Oasis of El Khargeh, 
 in a position which shows that it was introduced subsequently to 
 that of Darius 2 . At his death his body was placed in a magnifi- 
 cent sarcophagus of green breccia. This was one of the trophies 
 of the British expedition to Egypt, having been taken by the 
 French from the mosch which had formerly been the basilica of 
 St. Athanasius. Dr. E. D. Clarke supposed it to have been the 
 sarcophagus of Alexander the Great ; but it bears the shield of 
 Amyrtseus 3 , and by its size and beauty of execution, proves that 
 art had declined but little since the days of Psammitichus. Amyr- 
 tseus reigned only six years, and the Saite dynasty expired with 
 him (b.c. 408) ; an additional proof that he is not the Amyrtseus 
 of Herodotus, who was succeeded by his son Pausiris. 
 
 Twenty-ninth Dynasty. Four Mendesian kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Nepherites, reigned 6 
 
 2. Achoris 13 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 201. There is some obscurity in the characters, 
 but Egyptologists are generally agreed that the shield belongs to Amyrtseus. 
 (Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 383.) 
 
 3 Wilkinson, Mod. Egypt and Thebes, 2, 367. 
 
 3 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 205 ; an engraving of it is given in the great 
 French work on Egypt, Ant vol. 5, pi. 40. 
 
THE TWENTY-NINTH DYNASTY. 
 
 415 
 
 Years. 
 1 
 
 0 4 months. 
 20 4 
 
 [Eusebius in Syneellus adds a fifth, Muthis, reigning one year. In the 
 Armenian, Muthis is placed before Xepherites.] 
 
 It may appear singular that no attempt should have been made 
 by Persia to recover its dominion over Egypt, especially at the 
 extinction of the Saitic dynasty, and that a new family should have 
 been allowed quietly to possess itself of the throne. Just at this 
 time, however, the Persian power was shaken by a revolt of the 
 Medes 1 , who had endeavored in the time of Cambyses to regain 
 their lost ascendency in what was called the conspiracy of the 
 Magi, and had never been reconciled to the monopoly of the great 
 offices of government which the Persians had assumed. How 
 long the revolt lasted, and whether it was put down easily or not, we 
 are not informed, our whole knowledge of the event being derived 
 from a short passage in Xenophon ; but while it iasted it must 
 have precluded all thoughts of attempting the reduction of Egypt. 
 Darius Nothus died soon after, b.c. 405, and was succeeded by 
 Artaxerxes Mnemon. The ambition of his brother Cyrus led to 
 the expedition of the Ten Thousand Greeks, which he was prepar- 
 ing from the time of their father's death 2 , till the year b.c. 401. 
 Cyrus having perished in the battle of Cunaxa, the first care of 
 Artaxerxes was to recover his authority in Asia Minor, which had 
 been the government of Cyrus and had joined in his revolt. He 
 was thus brought into hostility with Sparta ; Clearchus, the Lace- 
 demonian, had been the leader of the Greek mercenaries of Cyrus ; 
 the oppressed cities of Ionia called for protection on Sparta, which, 
 
 1 Xen. Hell. 1, 2, ad fin. Kai b iviavros e\t)yev ovros, iv w *ai Mr?<5ot, and. 
 Aapciov, tov TiepaCiv /JaaiAcwj, dnoaTavres ndXiv Ttpoat^pnoav airy. This was 
 
 b.c. 409. 3 Xen. Anab. 1, L 
 
 3. PsAirvrcTHis 
 
 4. Nepherttes 
 
416 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 by the issue of the Peloponnesian War, had been placed in the 
 hegemonia of Greece and was protectress of its liberties. When 
 she prepared, in obedience to this call, to invade Asia, she made 
 an alliance with Nephreus, king of Egypt, the Nofreopth of the 
 monuments 1 , and Nepherites of the lists, and he sent a hundred 
 triremes and large supplies of corn 2 . The ships which conveyed it 
 entering the port of Rhodes, which was in possession of Conon, 
 who commanded the Persian fleet, were all taken. The success of 
 Dercyllidas and Agesilaus (399-394 b.c) fully occupied the Per- 
 sian arms in Asia Minor for several years, and it was not till the 
 power of Athens revived, and a league was formed in Greece 
 against Sparta by the influence of Persian gold, that Artaxerxes 
 could attend to the re-establishment of his authority in other parts 
 of his dominions. The peace of Antalcidas, concluded b.c. 387, 
 freed him from ail further apprehension on the side of Greece, by 
 sacrificing the liberty of the Asiatic cities, and leaving the principal 
 states of the mother country nearly balanced in power, and each 
 prepared to resist the ascendency of another. 
 
 His first attack, for which he had been collecting forces during 
 several years, was made on Cyprus. If held by a hostile naval 
 power, it not only gave the command of the southern coast of Asia 
 Minor, of Syria and Phoenicia, but even of Egypt. Evagoras of 
 Salamis had availed himself of the weakness of Persia, to make 
 himself master of nearly the whole island 3 . In the war which 
 resulted, Evagoras was powerfully aided by the Egyptians. Ne- 
 pherites was dead. We know nothing more of the events of his 
 reign than his alliance with Sparta, unless he is the Psammitichus 
 of whom Diodorus relates a disgraceful transaction 4 . After the 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 209. His name is not found on any building in 
 Egypt, but on a statue in the Museum of Bologna. 
 
 s Diod. 14, 79. Justin calls the king of Egypt Hercynio (6, 2). Achoris. 
 8 Isocr. Evag. ed. Battie, 2, p. 101. 4 Diod. 14, 35. 
 
THE TWESTY-XIXTH DYNASTY. 
 
 417 
 
 death of Cyrus, the satraps of Asia Minor, who had favored his 
 cause, were alarmed for their own safety, and Tamos, the satrap 
 of Ionia, had put his children and property on board ship, and 
 taken refuge in Egypt with Psammitichus, who basely seized the 
 fleet and the property, and put Tamos and his children to death, 
 notwithstanding the ancient relations of friendship between them. 
 The chronology of this period is uncertain, and we cannot tell 
 whether the infamy of the act belongs to Amyrtaeus or xSepke- 
 rites 1 . 
 
 When Evagoras sought the succor of the Egyptians, Achoris 
 was on the throne. Artaxerxes had been long preparing his 
 attack, and had collected a fleet of 300 triremes with a correspond- 
 ing land force, while Evagoras had endeavored to protect himself 
 by forming an alliance with Egypt, Arabia, Tyre and Caria 2 . 
 Achoris, besides furnishing him with supplies of corn, sent him 
 fifty triremes, which were engaged in the unsuccessful naval battle 
 fought by Evagoras with the Persians off Citium, in the year 385 
 b.c. After this defeat he visited Egypt, to arrange with Achoris 
 the means of carrying on the war. Achoris encouraged him to 
 persevere, and entered into a league against Persia with the peo- 
 ple of Barca 3 ; but the pecuniary assistance which he gave him 
 was less than Evagoras had expected, and he ultimately made 
 peace with Artaxerxes on condition that he should pay an annual 
 tribute to Persia, but retain the rank of a dependant king 4 ; and 
 
 1 Diodorus calls Psammitichus a descendant of the ancient king of that 
 name, which suits best with Amyrtaeus, who was a Saite. As the flight of 
 Tamos took place soon after the death of Cyrus (b.c. 401), it is probable 
 that it fell within the life of Amyrtseus, but that Diodorus has confounded 
 him with Psammuthis. 
 
 3 Diod. 15, 2. Bio/3a!)>)v is an unquestionable corruption for 'Apdffwp 
 Isocrates u. s. says he had taken Tyre by assault. 
 
 ' Theopompus ap. Phot, clxxvi., who seems to make the Cyprian war end 
 under Nectanebus. 
 
 4 Died. 15, 9. 'YrraKovav &>s 0a(Ti\evs (iaoiktl TrpoaraTTUpTi, 
 
 18* 
 
418 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 thus the Cyprian war ended, after eight years spent in preparation 
 and two in actual hostility 1 . Egypt, however, found an unex- 
 pected ally. Gaos, the son of Tamos, commanded the Persian fleet, 
 and dreaded the displeasure of Artaxerxes, by whom his father-in- 
 law Teribazus had been imprisoned. Availing himself of his popu- 
 larity with the fleet, he induced the commanders of the triremes 
 to revolt, and entered into a treaty with Achoris. Sparta joined 
 the league. She had brought ignominy on herself by sacrificing 
 the Asiatic Greeks to Persia in the peace of Antalcidas, and was 
 desirous of recovering her ascendancy and her reputation by a new 
 war 2 . The death of Gaos by treachery, in the year 383 3 , prevented 
 any hostile operations against Persia. Tachos succeeded to him, 
 and fortified himself on the coast of Asia Minor, between Smyrna 
 and Phocaea, but dying soon after the league fell to pieces. Sparta, 
 by a change of policy, began to court the aid of Persia, in order 
 to make herself sovereign of Greece 4 , and seized the citadel of 
 Thebes 381 b.c. During these events, Egypt was unmolested by 
 the Persians, but towards the close of the reign of Achoris, very 
 formidable preparations were made by Pharnabazus for its invasion. 
 To repel them Achoris collected a large body of Greek mercenaries, 
 twelve or twenty thousand ; and as he had no general capable of 
 commanding them, he invited Chabrias the Athenian. Chabrias 
 undertook the command, if Diodorus be correct, without the appro- 
 bation of the people, and was recalled on the remonstrances of the 
 satrap, who regarded it as a violation of the peace existing between 
 Persia and Egypt 5 . He appears, however, to have remained long 
 enough in Egypt to assist Nectanebus in establishing his power, 
 
 1 Isocr. Eva<r. p. 102, ed. Battle. Isocrates places this peace six years 
 after the naval defeat. See the chronology discussed by Mr. Fynes Clinton, 
 F. H. vol. 2, p. 278. 
 
 3 Diod. 15, 9. 8 Diod. 15, 18. 
 
 4 Diod. 15, 19. 6 Diod. 15, 29. Corn. Nep. Chabrias, 3L 
 
THE THIRTIETH BFNASTY. 
 
 419 
 
 on the extinction of the Saitic dynasty 1 , and rapidly trained the 
 Egyptians into accomplished seamen 2 . 
 
 Memorials of Achoris are found in several places, as at Medinet- 
 Aboo on a restoration of a building erected by Thothmes IV., and 
 probably destroyed by Cambyses, and among the ruins of Karnak. 
 The quarries of Mokattam also contain his shield ; and there is a 
 sphinx in the Museum of Paris, on the base of which his name is 
 found hieroglyphically written, with the addition, "beloved of 
 Kneph 3 ." 
 
 Of the short reign of Psammuthis there is no record in history, 
 but his shield has been found at Karnak 4 ; Nepherites is equally 
 unknown in history and in the monuments. The Muthis of Euse- 
 bius appears to have originated from a repetition of the last syllable 
 of Psammuthis, whom he follows in the Armenian, reigning like 
 Psammuthis one year. 
 
 Thirtieth Dynasty. Three Sebennytic kings. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Nectaxebes, reigned 18 10 (Euseb.) 
 
 2. Teos 2 2 
 
 3. Nectanebus 18 8 
 
 38 20 
 
 The accession of Nectanebes, or Nectanebus, the first king of 
 the Sebennytic dynasty, falls probably in the year b. c. 380. He 
 was immediately called upon to defend his kingdom against the 
 invasion which Pharnabazus was preparing when Achoris died. 
 
 1 Corn. Nep. Chabrias, 2. " Chabrias multa in Europa bella administra- 
 vit quum dux Atheniensium esset; in JEgypto sua sponte gessit Nam 
 Nectanabin adjutum profeetus regnum ei constituit." 
 
 3 Polysenus, 3, 2, 7. 
 
 * Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, p. 213. Charopollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 384. 
 
 * Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, p. 214. 
 
420 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 The Athenians had not only recalled Chabrias, in obedience to the 
 demands of Persia, but had sent Iphicrates to lead the Greek 
 mercenaries in the Persian service 1 . The movements of the satrap 
 w ere slow, for all his measures were subject to the control of the 
 king, and awaited his sanction for their execution. At length, 
 however, the fleet and army mustered at Acre, the nearest harbor 
 on the Syrian coast where such a fleet could lie 2 . The land-forces 
 consisted of 200,000 barbarians and 20,000 Greeks 3 ; the fleet of 
 300 triremes, 200 triacontors (galleys of thirty oars each), and a 
 great number of corn ships. They began their march at the open- 
 ing of summer, b. c. 373, the fleet accompanying the army. Necta- 
 nebes had improved the time which the long delay of Pharnabazus 
 had given him. Every navigable branch of the Nile was fortified 
 by two towers, joined by a boom which prevented the entrance of 
 a fleet. Pelusium, the key of Egypt, had been strengthened with 
 peculiar care ; the roads had been laid under water, the navigable 
 channels made dry by embankments, and every weak point protected 
 by fortifications. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates found that they had 
 no chance of capturing Pelusium, and sailed away to the Mende- 
 sian mouth. Landing here with 3000 men, they attacked the fort 
 by which the entrance was protected; the garrison, of about equal 
 numbers, marched out to give them battle, and being defeated, the 
 Persians entered the fort along with the flying Egyptians. Dis- 
 sensions arose between the generals, which prevented any results 
 of this first success. Iphicrates, who had heard from the prisoners 
 that the troops had all been withdrawn from Memphis, would have 
 
 1 Corn. Nep. Iphicrates, 2. 
 
 a IlroAe/JuTj, rjv v Ak»7«/ aM>6fia£ov npSrepov' 77 i^pcovro opfir)7Y)pUp irpdi ttiv AiyVJrrov ol 
 
 Jlipaai. (Strabo, 16, 758.) It was while the armament was mustering hero 
 that the defection of Datames from the Persians took place. (Corn. Hep. 
 Dat 5.) 
 
 8 1 give these numbers on the authority of Diodorus; they seem exagge- 
 rated. 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 421 
 
 sailed thither before they could return. Pharnabazus thought this 
 too hazardous, and wished to wait till the whole Persian army 
 came up. Iphicrates then proposed to undertake the adventure 
 with his own mercenary troops alone. This also Pharnabazus 
 refused, fearing, it is said, that Iphicrates designed to conquer 
 Egypt for himself, but as is more likely, because he did not choose, 
 on his own responsibility, to attempt a movement, which could be 
 justified only by an improbable success. Meanwhile the Egyptians 
 rallied their forces, garrisoned Memphis, and attacked the fortress 
 at the mouth of the Mendesian branch, which the Persians had 
 seized. They had the advantage in all the encounters which took 
 place ; as the summer advanced the waters of the Xile began to 
 rise, and their efflux being retarded by the strength of the Etesian 
 winds, the whole country was covered with the inundation. The 
 Athenian and Persian generals had committed the same error, 
 which led to the destruction of St. Louis and his army, in 1249, and 
 which Bonaparte avoided in his campaign of 1798 1 , and were com- 
 pelled to return into Syria. Their discomfiture produced a quarrel 
 between Pharnabazus and Iphicrates, who, fearing the fate of 
 Conon, soon after secretly embarked for Athens. Pharnabazus 
 sent an embassy thither, and accused him to the people of being 
 the cause of the ill-success of the Egyptian expedition ; they replied, 
 that if they found him guilty they would punish him ; and soon 
 1 " Les Chretiens etaient entres dans Damietta, le 7 Juin; c'est l'epoque 
 des plus basses eaux ; le 2s il ne commence a croitre que quinze jours plus 
 tard, au solstice d'ete ; et il s'Sleve lentement jusqu'a l'equinoxe, ou Ton 
 coupe ses digues. Un grand maitre dans l'art de la guerre, comparant son 
 expedition a celle de Saint Louis, nous fait sentir tout le prix du temps 
 perdu par les croises. 'Si le 8 Juin 1249,' dit Xapoleon, 'Saint Louis eut 
 manoeuvre comme ODt fait les Francais en 1798, il serait arrive le 26 Juinau 
 Caire ; il aurait conquis la Basse-Egypte dans le mois de son arrivee. II 
 aurait attendu ensuite dans l'abondance d'une capitale, le debordement, 
 puis la retraite, des eaux.' " (Sismondi, Hist, des Francais, 5, 149, ed. de 
 Bruxelles.) 
 
422 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 after gave him the command of their whole fleet 1 . We find him 
 in the autumn of the same year, b. c. 373, commanding in the 
 waters of Corcyra 2 . 
 
 If even with the aid of Grecian mercenaries, Persia could not 
 succeed in reducing Egypt, there was little likelihood that its own 
 resources should avail for this purpose. The state of Greece pre- 
 cluded the hope of obtaining aid from thence. Sparta was en- 
 gaged from 371 b.c. to the battle of Man tinea, 362 b.c, in a 
 deadly warfare with Thebes, while Artaxerxes vainly endeavored 
 to reconcile them 3 , that he might employ the Greek forces in his 
 own service. Athens, though not directly embroiled in the con- 
 flict between Sparta and Thebes, sat by, watching its events, and 
 flinging its weight alternately into the lighter scale. Egypt there- 
 fore enjoyed peace during the remainder of the life of Nectanebes. 
 His name, spelt JVacht ef neb*, occurs at Philse on a temple dedi- 
 cated to Athor, and on the rocks of the island of Beghe ; at Cop- 
 tos, in a church built out of the fragments of an old Egyptian 
 edifice ; and at Medinet Aboo in a small building of elegant work- 
 manship, in which he is represented offering to Amun Re and the 
 other gods of Thebes 5 . According to Pliny he cut out an obelisk 
 from the quarry, which Ptolemy Philadelphia afterwards floated 
 down the Nile, and erected in honor of his sister in the Arsino'te 
 nome\ Its excavation probably took place towards the end of the 
 
 1 Diod. 15, 43. 2 Clinton, F. H. sub anno. 
 
 3 Diod. 15, 70. Xen. Hist. 7, 1, 33, seq. 
 
 4 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, p. 220. 
 
 5 "Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 1, 209, quotes a Greek papyrus in 
 the possession of Signor Anastasy, which describes Nectanebus as restoring 
 the temple of Mars at Sebennvtua with great splendor, in obedience to a 
 dream. 
 
 6 He calls the king Necthhebis (36, 8), and according to the common 
 reading (36, 13), makes him to have lived 500 years before Alexander the 
 Great The Bamberg MS. reads — " Xeohthebis regis D ante Alexandrum 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 423 
 
 reign of Nectanebes, as it remained without an inscription. The 
 celebrated Lions of the Fontana di Termini at Rome, now placed 
 in the Museum of Egyptian antiquities in the Vatican, show that 
 the art of sculpture, in the execution of animals, had declined but 
 little ; they are the last specimen of Egyptian sculpture executed 
 under native princes 1 . 
 
 Eusebius has shortened the duration of the Sebennytic dynasty 
 from thirty-eight years to twenty, and the reign of Xectanebes 
 from eighteen to ten. That the Greek text of Manetho is correct 
 is in part proved by a stele preserved at Rome, on which his thir- 
 teenth year is mentioned 2 . 
 
 Teos (361 b.c), the successor of Nectanebes according to Ma- 
 netho, is evidently the Tachos of the Greek historians. In what 
 relation he stood to his predecessor we are not informed, probably 
 that of son. The empire of Artaxerxes was at this time surround- 
 ed with enemies 3 . The maritime provinces of Asia had before 
 revolted, and the generals and satraps, Ariobarzanes of Phrygia, 
 Mausolus of Caria, Orontes of Mysia, were preparing to march 
 against the Great King. The Syrians and Phoenicians, and the 
 adjacent litoral states of Cilicia, Pisidia and Lycia, had joined the 
 league. The Spartans were hostile to him, because he had de- 
 manded that the Messenians should be included in the terms of 
 the peace made in 3G1 after the battle of Mantinea 4 . The nuances 
 of Persia were disordered by the loss of revenue arising from so 
 
 Magnum;" and Bunsen supposes that Pliny wrote "regis A," i. e. fourth 
 king, copying some Greek author. (Urkundenbueh, p. 84, 89. Germ.) 
 
 1 Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 2, 222. 
 
 8 Champollion-Figeac, L'Univers, p. 885. 
 
 3 Dk>d. 15, 90. 'Ytto tqv airov kuioov tbti Trpog rt rov t^s Alyv-rov 0aai\ta 
 ito\cptiv K<ii ~pos rat Kara ri> 'A.~tav 'EA>r; Mas ttoXii; koi AaKeSatfioviovs *ai tovs 
 Toirtiiv Zvpii&xovg aarpa-as koli arparriyovSf tovs ap%ovras piv tuv napa6a\aooi<av 
 t6it(x)v ) avvredeifitvovs ci Kowonpayiav 
 
 * Diod. 15, 89. Xen. Ages. 2, 28. 
 
424 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 many revolts, and the necessity of great armaments to suppress 
 them. These circumstances appear to have emboldened Tachos 
 no longer to act on the defensive, but to attack Persia. Rheomi- 
 thres was sent to him on the part of Orontes and the other revolted 
 satraps, and received from him 500 talents of silver and fifty ships 
 of war. With these he sailed to Leuce on the coast of Asia Minor, 
 but on his arrival seized the rebel chiefs and sent them bound to 
 Artaxerxes, making his own peace by giving up to the king the 
 money with which he had been furnished to carry on war against 
 him 1 . Tachos raised a fleet of 200 sail, with an army of 80,000 
 Egyptians and 10,000 Greek mercenaries. The Greek troops he 
 placed under the command of Agesilaus, who at the age of eighty, 
 and with a body maimed and scarred by war, undertook this 
 office, through restlessness and love of gain 2 . If we may believe 
 Xenophon, Tachos had promised him the supreme command ; on 
 his arrival with a thousand Spartan hoplites, he found that only 
 the subordinate command of the Greek mercenaries was destined 
 for him, Chabrias the Athenian commanding the fleet, and the 
 king himself being supreme 3 . This first gave him offence, and a 
 difference of opinion soon arose between him and Tachos respect- 
 \ ing the conduct of the war. Agesilaus advised that Tachos should 
 remain in Egypt, and commit active operations to his generals — 
 advice that we cannot wonder Tachos should have declined, since 
 
 1 Diod. 15, 92. 3 Plut. Agesilaus, 36. 
 
 3 Diodorus says, that Chabrias took the command of the fleet without 
 
 authority from Athens. TuO Si vovtikov r> arparriyiav Ei,£^Eipt(TE Xa/?pta tw 
 'A0i7vui'w, Srifiocria /xiv v n d rfjs tt a r p 1 6 o s ovk d tt £ a r a A fi ev a> } iSia 6i 
 vtto tov /3a(Ti\ia}s avarparcvuv ireireionLvM (15, 92). This so closely resembles 
 15, 29, where, speaking of Achoris, Diodorus says, Ovk k'xtov a-parriydv 
 d£i6%pewv pcrsTTtifJj'aTo Xu/?pj'af tov A.0r)vaiov' ovtos avtv r fj s tov Sfifinv 
 y / co ft t] i irpocrSe^d^evog ri)v arparriyiav dd>r)yeiTO tlov kit Aiyvirrov 
 
 Jwd/itwi/, that he has probably repeated himself. It is not likely that Cha- 
 biias should twice have gone to Egypt unauthorized. It is certain that he 
 was here now, without a commission from the state. See Plut. Ages. 37. 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 425 
 
 two of-these generals were foreigners, of a nation notoriously ready- 
 to embrace the side which policy or profit recommended. He 
 placed Nectanebus, his brother or brother-in-law 1 , at the head of 
 the Egyptian land-forces, and advanced into Phoenicia. The mea- 
 sures which he had adopted to raise money for this expedition on 
 the recommendation of Chabrias had been very unpopular. The 
 Athenian general had represented to him how much money that 
 might be usefully employed for the service of the state was expend- 
 ed on religious rites, and recommended the abolition of many of 
 the priesthoods. The priests, unwilling to renounce their offices, 
 gave up their private property to the king. But when they had 
 made this sacrifice, he ordered them to expend in future only a 
 tenth part of what they had been accustomed to lay out on reli- 
 gious rites, and to make a loan of the rest to him, till the expira- 
 tion of the war with Persia. P>esides this, Chabrias advised him 
 to impose a house-tax and a poll-tax, a duty of an obolus on the 
 sale of every artaba (nine gallons) of corn, and a tax of a tenth 
 of the profits of navigation, manufactures, and every kind of occu- 
 pation. All the gold and silver bullion was to be brought to the 
 king, who gave an assignment on the nomarchs for its repayment 
 from the taxes 2 . These devices of the Athenian financier must 
 have been very distasteful to the Egyptians, who appear hitherto 
 to have been lightly taxed 3 . A people enthusiastic in the defence 
 of their religion and their liberties have submitted cheerfully to 
 much greater sacrifices, but the Egyptians were not threatened by 
 any imminent danger, and might reasonably regard Tachos as 
 engaged in a war of ambition rather than of self-defence. The 
 
 1 The Nectanebus who revolted was nephew to Tachos. (Pint. Ages. 
 87.) 
 
 8 Aristotelis (sive Anonymi) Ouovo/m-a. c. 23, ed. Goettling, where many 
 singular expedients, on the part of states and financiers for raising money, 
 are collected. 
 
 9 See p. 29 of this vol. 
 
426 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 general who had been left in command of Egypt during his ab- 
 sence, though so nearly related to him 1 , perceiving the discontent 
 of the' people, sent a message to his son Nectanebus, exhorting 
 him to claim the crown. Nectanebus had been detached with 
 some Egyptian troops to besiege the strong places of Syria, and 
 adopting the suggestion of his father 2 , induced the generals by 
 gifts and the soldiers by promises to espouse his cause. He 
 endeavored to persuade Agesilaus and Chabrias to employ their 
 forces also for the establishment of his power. Chabrias was 
 desirous of supporting Tachos ; Agesilaus had been mortified and 
 offended by him, and as the Egyptians generally had declared for 
 Nectanebus, refused to fight against those whom he had been sent 
 to aid 3 . He dispatched messengers to Sparta, instructed to make 
 representations favorable to Nectanebus ; the rivals also sent each 
 his ambassador. The Spartans, after deliberation, left it to Agesi- 
 laus to act as he thought most advantageous for his country. He 
 carried over not only the Spartans, but all the mercenaries to the 
 side of Nectanebus, and the Athenians, at the instigation of 
 Persia, recalled Chabrias 4 . Tachos, thus abandoned by his troops, 
 native and foreign, first retired to Sid on 5 , and then crossing the 
 Desert, which extends on both sides of the Euphrates 6 , came to the 
 king at Babylon or Susa by whom he was favorably received, and 
 according to Diodorus, entrusted with the command of an expedi- 
 tion against Egypt 
 
 This expedition Artaxerxes Mnemon did not live to carry into 
 execution. He died in the year b. c. 359, and was succeeded by 
 
 1 See note 1, p. 425. 2 Diod. 15, 92. 9 Plut, Agesil. 37. 
 
 4 I refer to this period what Diodorus (15, 29) relates of the reign of 
 Achoi'is. See notes, p. 419 and 424. 
 6 Xenoph. Ages. 2, 30. 
 
 6 Diod. 15, 92. 'O T*^WS K(iran\ay£\ iroXpi^ire Sia rrjs Apa0ias dva,8rji/ai -rrpds 
 
 dv 0aai\ea. This is the Arahia of Xenophon's Anabasis (1, 5), lying south 
 of the Araxes. 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 427 
 
 his son Darius Ochus, sometimes also known by the name of Arta- 
 xerxes. He was at once cruel and unwarlike 1 ; he had secured 
 his own succession by murders surpassing the ordinary measure 
 of oriental barbarity ; the kingdom was distracted by the revolt 
 of the satraps which we have already mentioned. He suspended 
 therefore all operations against Egypt ; Tachos was retained at the 
 Persian court, and soon ended his days there, a victim to indul- 
 gence in its luxuries, so different from the simple habits of the 
 Egyptians 2 . But though delivered for the present from a foreign 
 invasion, Egypt was divided by a civil war. A native of Mendes, 
 whose name has not been preserved, had risen up in opposition to 
 Nectanebus, had been proclaimed king, and raised a large army, 
 composed, like that which Sethos led against Sennacherib, not of 
 hereditary soldiery, but of the unwarlike population 3 . The inha- 
 bitants of a country like Egypt, however, covered with trenches 
 and embankments, soon grow dexterous in the use of the spade for 
 fortification. Agesilaus, who was now in the service of Nectane- 
 bus, became suspected by him, in consequence of a message from 
 the Mendesian, tempting his fidelity, and though urged by Agesi- 
 laus to attack the enemy forthwith, Nectanebus left the open 
 country and took possession of a large town, where, as Agesilaus 
 foresaw, the numbers of the enemy and their familiarity with the 
 art of entrenchment would enable them to hem him in 4 . This 
 they had nearly accomplished, and supplies began to fail. Nec- 
 
 1 Diod. 16, 40. 
 
 3 .Mian, V. Hist. 5, 1. Diodorus makes him return to Egypt and recover 
 his throne by the aid of Agesilaus (15, 93), but the best authorities are 
 against him. See Wesseling ad loe. 
 
 8 M-iyaSes Kal Qavavaoi Kal Si dneipiav evKara<pp6vi]T0i. (Plut. Ages,' 38.) These 
 were the class especially aggrieved by £he new system of taxation. 
 
 * KcXewoi/T'S airov Siajia-^taBai ri]v Ta-^iar^v, xai jxf) ^p5vu> iroXenuv npog 
 dvdpwnovs airupovs dycjyoy, 7roAt)^E(fna Si nepteXOeiv /cat nepiracppevaai Svvaficvovs, drr«- 
 y&pr\Qtv eis ttoXiv cvepicfj Kal [ityav e%oV(rav nepiffoXov. (Plut. Ages. 38.) 
 
428 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tanebus was now eager to march out and give battle, and the 
 Greeks joined with him in demanding it. But Agesilaus saw that 
 the trench which the besiegers had drawn around the town, with 
 the exception of a single point, would prevent their own forces 
 from being concentrated. At nightfall therefore he persuaded 
 Nectanebus to join him in an united and rapid attack on the part 
 which remained open, and they forced their way through, routing 
 the troops opposed to them, before the others could assemble to 
 support them. Soon after he gained a decisive victory by supe- 
 riority of tactics. Being greatly outnumbered by the Egyptians, 
 he took post where both his flanks were covered by a canal, and 
 thus avoiding the danger of being surrounded, he easily defeated 
 those who attacked him in front, and routed them with great 
 slaughter. Nectanebus II. was thus secured on the throne. 
 
 Agesilaus immediately set sail on his return to Sparta. As it 
 was already mid-winter, he coasted along Libya, not venturing to 
 stand straight across the Carpathian sea, and had reached the port 
 of Menelaus, opposite to Crete, on his way to Cyrene, where he 
 died in his 84th year 1 . With the departure of the Greeks, in the 
 end 2 of the year 359 B.C., our knowledge of the internal state of 
 Egypt, during the reign of Nectanebus, ceases, till 350 B.C., when 
 Persia resumed and carried into effect the project of reconquest. 
 It is probable that hostilities never entirely ceased between the 
 kingdoms. Ochus made more than one unsuccessful attempt to 
 enter Egypt 3 , and was defeated by the skill of Lamius of Sparta 
 and Diophantus of Athens, whom Nectanebus placed at the head 
 of his forces 4 . 
 
 1 Plut. Ages. 40. 
 
 3 Mecrov xeifiMvoi oVrof dnon'Xu aixaSe (Xenoph. Ages. 2, 31.) 
 
 3 ' A.iroGTt\\(i)v 6vi>ajjt£is Kai (TTpaTrjyovs, KoXXaxiS uTTCTvy^ave. (Diod. 16, 40.) 
 
 The language of Isocrates, 1, p. 280, ed. Battie, may seem to imply that 
 Ochus had commanded in person. 
 
 4 Diod. 16, 48. 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 429 
 
 Ochus was an indolent and un warlike prince, but the ridicule 
 with which he had been covered by the defeat of his attacks on 
 Egypt, roused him at last to make a great effort. Xot only had 
 his name become a by-word among the Egyptians for heaviness 
 and sloth 1 , but the dependent rulers of Cyprus and Phcenice were 
 encouraged to follow the example of Egypt 2 . The Persian empire 
 was evidently in danger of dissolution, but the vigorous exertions 
 to which Ochus was stimulated preserved it for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. He began by reducing Cyprus and Phoenicia. Sidon, the 
 most nourishing of the Phoenician cities, had made great pre- 
 parations for defence, but it was surrendered by the treachery 
 of its king Tennes, and the inhabitants, having first destroyed 
 their fleet, burnt themselves, their wives, and children, and slaves 3 . 
 Cyprus was also subdued 4 . The states of Greece were invited to 
 furnish mercenaries ; Athens and Sparta promised neutrality, but 
 declined co-operation ; the Thebans, Argives and Asiatic Greeks 
 sent together 10,000 men, and Ochus, after the destruction of 
 Sidon, advanced by the same route as Cambyses to the desert 
 which separates Egypt from Palestine 5 . In passing the Serbonian 
 Lake, part of his army were lost in the quicksands called Barathra 
 which border the coast 6 . Had Tennes, the king of Sidon, been 
 alive, he might have saved the Persians from this disaster, for he 
 was well acquainted with the approaches to Egypt and the proper 
 points for making a descent 7 . Nectanebus had not neglected the 
 
 1 " , £l%ov ol Kiyvirrioi rrj eiTt^copicp fcovrj r Ovov tK.iXovv, to vwOU olvtov t?jj yvwftns 
 
 SiafiaXXovTti. (JElian, V. EL 4, 8.) The Coptic for ass is Eio. 
 
 2 Diod. 16, 40. 3 Diod. 16, 45. 4 Diod. 16, 46. 
 
 6 It appears to me that the account quoted by Longinus from Theopom- 
 pus (p. 378 of this voL), describes the expedition of Ochus. 
 
 6 This is probably the event, which Diodorus (1, 30) has exaggerated into 
 the swallowing up of whole armies. Comp. Par. Lost, 2, 593, ..." the 
 Serbonian bog, Where armies whole have sunk." 
 
 7 Diod. 16, 43. 
 
430 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 means of defence. He had under arms 60,000 of the Hermoty- 
 bians aud Calasirians, 20,000 Libyans, and an equal number of 
 Greek mercenaries. In sea-going ships he was far inferior to the 
 Persians, who had the command of the Cyprian and Phoenician 
 navies, but he had a large fleet of boats adapted for fighting on 
 the branches of the Nile; and he had rendered the frontier 
 towards Arabia nearly impregnable, by a continuous chain of 
 entrenchments and fortifications. Pelusium was garrisoned by 
 5000 Greeks, under the command of Philopbron. The Thebans 
 in the Persian army, eager to maintain the glory which they had 
 acquired at Leuctra and Mantinea, advanced alone and rashly, 
 across a deep canal to attack Pelusium. The garrison sallied out 
 and a fierce conflict ensued, which lasted till night. Next day the 
 whole body of Greek mercenaries were brought up in three divi- 
 sions, each under the joint command of a Greek and a Persian. 
 Lacrates, who commanded the Thebans, cut the banks of the canal, 
 letting off the water, and having filled it up with earth, planted 
 his military engines on the embankment. These soon made 
 breaches in the walls ; but the besieged rapidly raised new walls 
 behind, and erected wooden towers upon them. Ochus might have 
 returned again discomfited, but in the meantime a great calamity 
 had befallen Nectanebus. It was evidently his policy to avoid a 
 pitched battle and let the enemy exhaust their strength, in endea- 
 voring to reduce the number of strong positions which he occu- 
 pied ; but the eagerness of his Greek auxiliaries to fight prevented 
 his carrying this plan into execution, and he was outmanoeuvred 
 by the enemy. With 30,000 Egyptians, 5000 Greeks, and half 
 the Libyan auxiliaries, he was guarding an important passage. 
 Nicostratus, the commander of the Argives who were before Pelu- 
 sium, was guided by some Egyptians whose wives and children 
 were in the power of the Persians as hostages, to an obscure 
 branch of the river, by which he brought up his fleet and secretly 
 fortified himself on the Egyptian side. When he was discovered, 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 431 
 
 the garrison of a neighboring fortress, Greek mercenaries to the 
 number of 5000, under the command of Cleinias of Cos, marched 
 out against them, and a pitched battle ensued, in which the troops 
 of Nectanebus were nearly all cut to pieces. He was alarmed, and 
 apprehending that the rest of the Persian forces might cross the 
 river and cut off his retreat on Memphis, marched thither with all 
 his army. Diodorus severely censures him, and alleges that he 
 was ruined by the over-confidence arising from previous success — 
 success of which the merit belonged not to him, but to Diophan- 
 tus and Lamius. His own narrative, however, justifies no other 
 censure on Xectanebus, than perhaps a want of vigilance in allow- 
 ing Nicostratus to fortify a position in his rear. When that posi- 
 tion was made good by a victory, nothing appears to have been 
 left for Xectanebus but to retire on Memphis, before he was inter- 
 cepted. The garrison of Pelusium perceived that any further 
 resistance was vain, and surrendered to Lacrates on condition that 
 they should be transported to Greece with their property 
 untouched. This condition was violated by the Persian troops, 
 who endeavored to plunder the Greeks as they marched out. 
 Lacrates, indignant at this breach of his pledged word, attacked 
 the Persians and killed some of them. Bagoas, their commander, 
 complained to Ochus, but he justified the Greeks, and ordered the 
 Persians who had broken the truce to be put to death. Mentor, 
 the commander of another division of the Persian army, soon 
 reduced Bubastis and the other cities of Lower Egypt. They were 
 all occupied by mixed garrisons of Greeks and Egyptians, and as 
 he caused the rumor to be spread that those who surrendered 
 should be treated with kindness, while a more terrible fate than 
 that of Sidon awaited all who made resistance, they were eager to 
 anticipate each other in submission. Nectanebus found that he 
 could not maintain himself at Memphis, and fled into Ethiopia, 
 having reigned between eight and nine years. His flight closed 
 
432 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the Thirty Dynasties of the Pharaohs — a succession unexampled 
 in ancient or modern times 1 . 
 
 Ochus took possession of all Egypt, razed the walls of the prin- 
 cipal towns, and plundered the temples. It is said that he imi- 
 tated the outrages of Cambyses, killed Apis and gave his flesh to 
 the cooks, and commanded an ass to receive the honors due to the 
 god. When he subsequently fell a victim to assassination by 
 Bagoas, who made dagger-handles of his thigh-bones, and gave 
 his flesh to cats, superstition saw in this a retribution correspond- 
 ing to that which fell on Cambyses 2 . The temples were not only 
 stripped of the gold and silver which they contained, but rifled of 
 their ancient records, which Bagoas subsequently restored for a 
 large sum to the priests 3 . The Greek mercenaries were dismissed 
 •with munificent rewards ; Pherendates was made satrap of Egypt, 
 and Ochus in 350 B.C., led back his army in triumph to Babylon. 
 
 Of the administration of the Persians in Egypt during the 
 remainder of the reign of Ochus and that of Darius Codomannus, 
 nothing is known. The long struggles of Sparta, Athens, and 
 Thebes, for supremacy in Greece, had ended in their subjugation 
 by Macedonia, and one of the first uses which Philip made of the 
 command which he acquired by the battle of Chaeronea, was to 
 prepare an expedition against Persia. His own assassination by 
 Perdiccas prevented his execution of this plan, but it was resumed 
 
 1 Lynceus (who lived 280 B.C. See Clinton, F. H. 3, 498) says that Nec- 
 tanebus was taken prisoner and invited to supper by Ochus. The feast 
 appeared mean to Xectanebus, who requested to be allowed to order his 
 former cooks to prepare an Egyptian supper. When Ochus had partaken 
 of it he exclaimed, " 0 Egyptian, what folly to leave such feasts as these, 
 and set your heart on a more spare diet!" (Athen. 4, p. 150.) Persian diet, 
 however, was more hixurious than Egyptian. 
 
 2 ^Elian, V. Hist. 6, 8. Suid. a v. Aa/W ^x 0 ^- ^han. Hist. Anim. 
 10, 28. 
 
 3 Diod. Sic. 16, 15. 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 433 
 
 by Alexander, who crossed the Hellespont in 334 B.C. The battle 
 of the Granicus gave him possession of Asia Minor ; that of Issus, 
 of Syria ; the sieges of Tyre and Gaza, of the coast of Phoenicia, 
 Palestine, and the Idumean Arabia 1 . Seven days' march brought 
 him from Gaza to Pelusium, the fleet accompanying hin. Maza- 
 ces, whom Darius had appointed satrap of Egypt, did not attempt 
 resistance. The Persian armies had been driven across the 
 Euphrates, and the Egyptians were prepared to welcome the con- 
 querors of their own masters. Having placed a garrison in Pelu- 
 sium, he marched through the desert country along the eastern 
 bank of the Nile to Heliopolis, and crossing the river there came 
 to Memphis, where his fleet, which had sailed up the Nile, was 
 awaiting him. Greek philosophy had banished fanaticism from 
 his mind, and policy clearly dictated that he should conciliate the 
 Egyptians, whose religious feelings had been deeply wounded by 
 the Persians. Having sacrificed to the other gods and Apis, he 
 descended the Nile by the Canopic branch, and fixed the site of 
 the new city, which still preserves his name and attests his 
 sagacity. Hence, after founding a temple to Isis, he set out for the 
 oracle of the Libyan Ammon, a divinity whom Greeks and 
 Egyptians agreed to honor. His expedition was performed along 
 the coast of Libya as far as Parse tonium, thence through the 
 Desert to the Oasis of Siwah. On his return he avoided the dan- 
 gers to which he had exposed himself, and took the shorter route 
 by the Natron Lakes to Memphis 2 . Here, while recruits were 
 
 1 Anrian, Hist. 3, 1. 
 
 2 On the point whether Alexander returned by Parsetonium or the Natron 
 Lakes, two generals of Alexander, Aristobulus and Ptolemy Lagi, were at 
 variance in their memoirs. Aristobulus did not write his history, however, 
 till he was 84 (see St Croix, Examen Critique, p. 43), and may have for- 
 gotten minute circumstances. I have followed Ptolemy, whose account is 
 the more probable. Curtius agrees with Aristobulus, and makes Alexan- 
 der found Alexandria on his way home (4, 33). 
 
 VOL. II. 19 
 
434 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 raising in Greece, to repair the losses which his army had sustained 
 in the battles of the Granicus and Issus, and the sieges of Tyre 
 and Gaza, he employed himself in arranging the future adminis- 
 tration of Egypt. Two Egyptians, Doloaspis and Petisis, were 
 appointed monarchs of Upper and Lower Egypt ; but Petisis 
 declining the office, the whole kingdom was placed under Doloas- 
 pis. Cleomenes, a native of Naucratis, had the chief administra- 
 tion of the finances, and was instructed to allow the kingdom to be 
 governed entirely according to its ancient laws and customs ; the 
 inferior nomarchs collected the tribute and paid it to Cleomenes, 
 by whom it was transferred to the Macedonians. Thus foreigners 
 were prevented from coming into collision with the Egyptians, in 
 the odious character of tax-gatherers, but all real power was 
 placed in the hands of the Macedonians. A fleet of thirty tri- 
 remes and four thousand men 1 sufficed to maintain his conquest. 
 The command of the garrisons of Pelusium and Memphis was 
 given to companions of the king ; other Greeks held the offices of 
 praefect of Libya and Arabia, the command of the army, the mer- 
 cenaries, and the fleet. Alexander introduced the principle, which 
 the Romans afterwards carried out in the administration of Egypt, 
 not to allow any one man to have sole authority in a kingdom so 
 fertile and so strong by natural position, and from various causes 
 so prone to revolt 2 . Cleomenes, however, the pnefect of Arabia, 
 after Alexander's departure, appears to have availed himself of the 
 power which his office as chief financier gave him, to usurp a kind 
 of supremacy 3 , and various acts of extortion are recorded of him, 
 in the interval between the conquest of Egypt and the establish- 
 ment of the Ptolemaic monarchy 4 . He repeated the threat of 
 
 1 Q. Curt. 4, 33. 
 
 3 Tac. Hist. 1, 11; Ann. 2, 59. Ita visum expedire provinciara aditu 
 difficilem, annonce foecundam, superstitione ac laseivia discordem ac mobi- 
 lem, insciam legum, dorm retinere. (Arrian, 3, 5, 10.) 
 
 * K.\eofici>T)i Aiyimrov aarpanevcov. (Arist. CEconom. c. 32.) * Arist. u. & 
 
THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY. 
 
 435 
 
 Nectanebus, to suppress some of the priesthoods on account of 
 their number, and the largeness of the sums expended on religious 
 ceremonies, and thus obtained from the priests considerable sums, 
 not only from their private property, but from the treasures of the 
 temples. 
 
 Alexander left Memphis early in the spring of 331 B.C., and 
 having crossed the Nile and its various canals on bridges, passed 
 the Desert, and at Tyre joined his fleet, which had preceded him. 
 He never again visited Egypt ; but his corpse was brought hither 
 from Babylon and deposited at Alexandria in a sarcophagus 1 , 
 within a funeral hypogseum 2 . In the division of his empire Egypt 
 was chosen for his portion by Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, with 
 whom begins a new period of its history. 
 
 1 Juvenal, Sat. 10, 172. 
 
 9 Lucan, Pharsal. 10, 19, speaking of Julius Caesar, — 
 
 Effossum tumulis cupide descendit in antrum. 
 Illie Pellaei proles vesana Philippi 
 Felix prsedo jacet. 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Ababdeh, the, L 54. 
 Abaris (Auaris), iL 153, 163, 269. 
 Aboosimbel (Aboccis), L 20 ; iL 390 
 note. 
 
 , Greek inscription there, iL 346. 
 
 , temple of; iL 232. 
 
 Abydos, L 38. 
 
 Tablet of, ii 90, 135, 170. 
 
 Acacia, L 122. 
 Achoris, iL 417. 
 Actisanes, iL 308 note, 
 Adonis, mourning for, L 348. 
 ^Egyptus, ii. 261. 
 
 iEra, not used by the Egyptians, iL 79. 
 jEsculapius, i. 333. 
 
 , -worship paid to his serpent, 
 
 ii. 2. 
 
 Africa, whether circumnavigated by 
 
 the Phoenicians, iL 338. 
 Africanus, Julius, ii. 74. 
 Agesilaus, his campaign in Egypt^ iL 
 
 424. 
 
 Alabaster, quarries of, L 41. 
 
 Alabastron, L 41, 196. 
 
 Alexander, his supposed sarcopha- 
 gus, ii. 414. 
 
 Alexandria, its population, L 151. 
 
 , foundation of, iL 433. 
 
 Alluvium, deposit of, i. 66, 127. 
 
 Alphabetical characters, when ar- 
 ranged, iL 271. 
 
 Alumni. 61 ; ii. 363. 
 
 Amasis, ii. 357. 
 
 , his laws, ii. 39. 
 
 (satrap), ii. 404. 
 
 Amenmeses, iL 284 note. 
 
 Amenophis I., ii. 174. 
 
 IL, iL 196. 
 
 III., ii. 197. 
 
 Amenthe, L 330, 406. 
 
 Ammonium, i. 59. 
 
 Ammonium, expedition of Cambyses 
 
 against, ii. 390. 
 Amosis, iL 172. 
 Aniun, L 310. 
 
 Amun Khem, L 315 ; iL 275. 
 Amunt, L 321. 
 Amuntuanch, ii. 211. 
 Amyrtaeus, ii. 409, 412. 
 Anaglyphs, i. 268. 
 
 Anatomy, whether known in Egypt, 
 
 L 228 ; ii. 103. 
 Anaxatroras, his doctrine concerning 
 
 God, L 367. 
 Androsphinx, L 115, 145. 
 Animals, sanctity of, in India, iL 9. 
 
 , Egyptian worship of, ii. 1-21. 
 
 , as military ensigns, iL 6. 
 
 Anouke, L 323. 
 Anubis, i. 356. 
 
 with head of jackal, L 356. 
 
 Anysis, iL 304 
 Aphrodite, Celestial, i. 324. 
 Apion, ii. 152 
 
 Apis, his worship when introduced, 
 ii. 5. 
 
 , honors paid to him, ii 18. 
 
 , his marks, iL 18. 
 
 , Epiphaneia of, iL 326, 393. 
 
 , mummies of, ii. 20. 
 
 Apollodorus, his list of kings, iL 81, 
 
 164 note. 
 Arabic numerals, L 290. 
 Arch, its antiquity, L 217. 
 Ark of the Covenant, L 386. 
 Armais, ii. 262. 
 Aroeris, see Haroeris. 
 Art, Egyptian, L 171; ii. 295, 326 
 , , influenced by religion, 
 
 L 223, 225. 
 , , its progress the same as 
 
 that of civilization, i. 229. 
 
 , decline of, ii. 285, 423. 
 
 Artaxerxes Mnemon, iL 423. 
 
438 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Arutu, nation, ii. 188. 
 Ases (Asseth), i. 278 ; ii. 160 note. 
 Ashes, criminals plunged in, ii. 126. 
 Asp, emblem of the Sun, ii. 17. 
 Asphaltum, its use in embalmment, 
 
 i. 413. 
 
 Assyrian empire, ii. 284. 
 Assyrians, their power, ii. 157, 179. 
 Atet, fortress, ii. 218. 
 Atinre, ii. 211. 
 
 Athens, whether a colony from Sais, 
 
 ii. 331. 
 
 , its alliances with Egypt, ii 
 
 408, 413. 
 Athom, i. 330. 
 Athor, i. 325. 
 
 Atlantis, island, its submersion, ii. 
 
 338, 369. 
 Atmoo, i. 330. 
 
 Atmosphere of Egypt, its effect on 
 
 colors, i. 220. 
 Auaris (Abaris), ii. 153. 
 Automoli, ii. 330, 331. 
 Azotus, siege of, 328. 
 
 B. 
 
 B, pronounced as ou, i. 329. 
 Bab, its signification, i. 140. 
 Babylon, ii. 191. 
 
 , Egyptian, ii. 241. 
 
 Babylonians, their inventions, i. 286. 
 Bagoas, ii. 431. 
 Bahr-be-la-Ma, i. 58, 66. 
 Bahr-Jusuf, i. 37, 95, 124. 
 Barabras, i. 87. 
 Barathra, ii. 429. 
 
 Barbarians, all other nations so call- 
 ed by the Egyptians, ii. 209. 
 Ban, i. 177, 385, 420, 426. 
 Basalt, i 221. 
 Basis, ii. 106. 
 
 Bas-relief, Egyptian, its peculiarity, 
 
 i. 228. 
 
 Beans, an impure vegetable, i. 37 5. 
 Beard, absence of, in African nations, 
 
 ii. 141. 
 
 Beitoualli, temple of, ii. 226. 
 Belzoni, i. 20, 108. 
 
 , tomb discovered by, i. 141. 
 
 Berbers, ii. 209. 
 Besa, i. 381. 
 
 Birket-el-Kerur, i. 42; ii. 131. 
 
 Blemmyes, i. 23. 
 
 Bocchoris, ii. 301, 303. 
 
 , his legislation, ii. 47. 
 
 Boeckh, his view of Manetho's chro- 
 nology, ii. 77 note. 
 
 Bonaparte, his campaign in Egyp^ 
 ii. 421. 
 
 Book of the Dead, i. 407. 
 
 Books not in common use in Egypt* 
 
 i. 239. 
 
 Bow, mode of drawing, i. 189. 
 Breccia, quarries of, i. 53. 
 Bridge in Egyptian monuments, ii. 
 218 note. 
 
 of boats over the Hellespont, 
 
 ii. 405. 
 
 Bridges, none on the Nile, i. 178. 
 
 Bubastis, ii. 290. 
 
 Bull, of what a type, ii. 15. 
 
 Bunsen, his mode of reconciling Era- 
 tosthenes and Manetho, ii. 82, 110 
 note. 
 
 Busiris, king, ii. 66. 
 
 , city, i. 47. 
 
 Buto, goddess, i. 321. 
 Byblos, i. 344, 348. 
 
 C. 
 
 Cabiri, i. 319, 333. 
 Cadmus, the historian, ii. 56. 
 Calasirians, i. 187 ; ii. 34, 327, 405. 
 Camels in Egypt, i. 63 ; ii. 378. 
 Canal, between the Nile and the 
 
 Red Sea, ii. 245, 335, 402. 
 Cancer, Tropic of, i. 23. 
 Candace, her war with the Romans, 
 
 ii. 389. 
 Canopi, i. 341. 
 
 Canopic mouth, first frequented by 
 
 the Greeks, ii. 52. 
 Captives represented on furniture, i. 
 
 198. 
 
 Caravan routes from Egypt to Meroe, 
 
 i. 21 ; ii. 388. 
 Carchemish, battle of, ii. 342. 
 Carians in Egypt, i. 390. 
 , their settlement in Egypt, ii. 
 
 321. 
 
 Caricature, i. 226. 
 
 Carthaginians, their naval power, ii. 
 
 382. _ 
 Casluhim, ii. 161. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 Caste, law of, ii. 23, 36, 37. 
 Cat, sanctity of, ii. 3. 
 
 , consecrated to the moon, ii. 17. 
 
 Cataracts, i. 12, 16, 18, 26. 
 Cavalry, not used in Esrvpt, i. 191. 
 Cedar, oil of, i. 414, 417. 
 Ceilings, astronomical, i. 142, 143. 
 Cemeteries, Egyptian, on the western 
 
 side of the Sile, L 420, 421. 
 Cerberus, i. 342. 
 
 Chabrias, his campaigns in Egypt, 
 ii. 418, 424. 
 
 Chaerernon, his work on Hierogly- 
 phics, ii. 306 note. 
 
 Charon, L 426. 
 
 Chebros, ii. 176. 
 
 Cherubim, i. 386. 
 
 Cliemi, name of Egypt, ii. 97. 
 
 Chemistry, origin of the name, L 182. 
 
 Chesebt, metal, ii. 192, 218. 
 
 Chinese writing, i. 259. 
 
 Chiun, worship of, ii. 272. 
 
 Coachutaj (not Cholehyta), L 423. 
 
 Chons, i. 322. 
 
 Chronicle, the Old Egyptian, ii. 79. 
 Chronology, Egyptian, ii. 75, 77, 
 166. 
 
 Circesium, battle of, ii. 342. 
 
 Circumcision, i. 376, 378. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, his enumera- 
 tion of Egyptian priests, ii. 85. 
 
 Coinage not known in Egypt, i. 290. 
 
 introduced by the Persians, ii. 
 
 400. 
 
 Colchians, their similarity to the 
 
 Egyptians, ii. 238. 
 Colossal in art, its effect, i. 224. 
 Color, conventional, of the male and 
 
 female in Egyptian painting, L 82. 
 
 applied to sculpture, i. 220. 
 
 Comasiae, i. 384. 
 Comastes, L 25 ; ii. 384. 
 Concharis, ii. 160. 
 
 Concubines, their children legiti- 
 mate, ii. 47. 
 
 Constellations, influence of, L 382. 
 
 Copper mines, i. 51 ; ii. 118. 
 
 Coronation, ceremonies of, ii. 274. 
 
 Corslet, linen, of Amasis, L 182; ii. 
 362. 
 
 Cosseir road, inscriptions in, iL 12^, 
 403, 404, 405. 
 
 Cotton, whether used in bandages, 
 i. 414. 
 
 , whether grown in E^vpt, L 
 
 159; ii. 362. 
 
 Cranium, the Egyptian, distinguisha- 
 ble by its hardness, i. 208 note. 
 
 Criosphinx, i. 115, note 145. 
 
 Crocodile, not now found in Lower 
 Egypt, L 79. 
 
 , mode of its capture, L 172. 
 
 , its import in mythology, i. 330. 
 
 , worship of, i. 29; iL 16. 
 
 , symbol of Typhon, ii. 15. 
 
 , of darkness, L 383. 
 
 , ornaments bestowed upon, iL 
 
 13. 
 
 Crown of Upper and Lower Egvpt, 
 
 L 208 note. 
 Cubit, Egyptian, i. 290. 
 Cycle, Sothiac, i. 280. 
 
 , its commencement, ii. 247. 
 
 Cynocephalus, i. 359. 
 
 , emblem of Thoth, ii. 15. 
 
 Cyprus, conquest of, ii. 276. 
 
 , its relations to Persia, ii. 407, 
 
 416. 
 
 Cyrene, foundation of, ii. 353. 
 
 war of Apnea against, ii. 356. 
 
 , of Aryandes against, ii. 399. 
 
 D. 
 
 Daha3, ii. 188. 
 
 Danaides bring the mysteries of De- 
 meter to the Peloponnesus, i. 392. 
 
 Danaus, story of his migration, ii. 52, 
 260. 
 
 Darius Hvstaspis, ii. 397. 
 
 Oehus, ii. 427. 
 
 Codomannus, ii. 438. 
 
 Dead, state of, according to the He- 
 brews, i. 397, 399 note. 
 
 , according to the early Greeks, 
 
 i. 398. 
 
 Debtor and creditor, law of, ii. 47. 
 Decans, L 287. 
 Delta, apex of, 45. 
 
 , its formation, i. 66 ; ii. 105, 106. 
 
 Demigods, their reigns, ii. 93. 
 Democritus, ii. 63. 
 
 , his visit to Egypt, ii. 410. 
 
 Demotic character, when first intro- 
 duced, iL 403. 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Desert, the, Vet ween Palestine and 
 
 Egypt, iL 377. 
 -, between Egypt and Ethiopia, 
 
 ii. 388. 
 
 Dialect, sacred, i. 265, 268. 
 
 Dicrearchus, ii. 64, 139. 
 
 Diodorus, ii. 64-72. 
 
 , variations between him and 
 
 Herodotus, ii. 70. 
 
 Divination, i. 380. 
 
 Doric order, its origin, i. 214. 
 
 Draughts, game of, i. 204 ; ii. 281. 
 
 Dromon, i. 219. 
 
 Dynasty, its meaning, ii. 94. 
 
 Dynasties of Manetho, whether con- 
 temporaneous, ii. 80, 156. 
 
 E. 
 
 Egypt, extent of its coast, i. 49. 
 
 , want of harbors, i. 49. 
 
 , fertility of its soil, i. 72. 
 
 , temperature, i. 77, 79. 
 
 , healthiness, i. 77. 
 
 , cheapness of living, i. 153. 
 
 , native name of, i. 182. 
 
 , fecundity of women in, i. 153 
 
 note. 
 
 , its monarchy one, ii. 80. 
 
 , taxation under the Persians, i. 
 
 397. 
 
 , amount of population, i. 151. 
 
 , state under the Persians, ii 411. 
 
 Eimopth, i. 333. 
 
 Eibo, island of, ii. 305, 318. 
 
 Election of kings, ii. 24. 
 
 Elephant, found in Egyptian pictures, 
 
 ii. 187. 
 Elephantiasis, i. 79. 
 Eleusinian Mysteries, i. 394. 
 Elians, their visit to Egypt, ii. 346. 
 Embalmment, its antiquity, ii. 103. 
 
 , its purpose, i 399. 
 
 , different mode of, i 412. 
 
 Emeph, L 313 
 Emeralds, mines of, i. 53. 
 Epagomena?, i. 278. 
 Epiphaneia of Apis, ii. 18. 
 Eratosthenes, ii. 64, 81. 
 Ergamenes, i. 22. 
 Etesian winds, i. 68, 292. 
 Ethiopia, conception of, in the age of 
 
 Herodotus, ii 383. 
 
 Ethiopian monarchy, extent of, ii 
 
 305. 
 
 Ethiopians, visit of gods to, i 385. 
 Ethiopic language, ii. 308 note. 
 Eunuchs, whether known in ancient 
 
 Egypt, ii. 138. 
 Evagoras, his alliance with Egypt, ii 
 
 417. 
 
 Eusebius, his chronology, ii. 74. 
 
 , arbitrary changes in, ii. 151 
 
 note. 
 
 Exodus of the Israelites, ii. 262-272. 
 Eye of Osiris, i. 337. 
 Eyes, artificial, i. 417. 
 " Eyes of the King," ii. 244 note. 
 Ezekiel, his prophecy against Egypt, 
 ii. 352. 
 
 F. 
 
 Factories of the Greeks in Egypt, 
 
 ii. 362. 
 Famine in Egypt, i. 71. 
 Fanbearers, ii. 28. 
 
 Feast of the gods with the Ethiopi- 
 ans, i. 385. 
 
 Fekkaroo, ii. 277, 279. 
 
 Fish forbidden to priests, i. 375. 
 
 Fish of the Nile, their species, i. 173. 
 
 Flint knives, i. 411. 
 
 Flowers in Egypt not fragrant, i. 75. 
 
 , their symbolical import, ii. 12. 
 
 Forest, petrified, near Cairo, i. 66. 
 
 Fortification, art of, i. 195 note. 
 
 Fowl, domestic, whether known in 
 Egypt, i. 174. 
 
 Frog, emblem of Life, i. 349. 
 
 Fruits of Egypt, i. 167. 
 
 Furniture, buried with deceased per- 
 sons, i. 423. 
 
 Fyoum, i. 42. 
 
 a 
 
 Gardening, art of, i. 168. 
 Gardens of Solomon, i. 169. 
 Germanicus, his visit to Thebes, ii 
 192. 
 
 Giligammae, ii. 256. 
 Gloves, worn by northern captives, 
 ii 186. 
 
 Gods, division of, i. 307, 308. 
 , reign of, ii. 95. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Gold mines, i. 54. 
 
 Goshen, its position, ii. 195. 
 
 Grain, what species cultivated in 
 Egypt, i. 158. 
 
 Granite, quarries of, L 27. 
 
 Greeks, their contempt for barbari- 
 ans, ii. 63. 
 
 , their neglect of foreign lan- 
 guages, ii. 324. 
 
 Grottos of Benihassan, L 39. 
 
 of Koul-el-Ahmar, i. 41. 
 
 Gymnastic exercises, L 189, 200, 203, 
 228. 
 
 H. 
 
 Ham, name of, i. 81. 
 Hapimoou, i. 332. 
 Harka, i. 323. 
 Haroeris, i. 329, 353. 
 Harper's Tomb, ii. 280. 
 Harpocrates, i. 345, 354. 
 Hatching by artificial heat, i. 175. 
 Hawk, emblem of Horus, ii. 15. 
 Head-stool, used by the Egyptians, 
 i. 199. 
 
 Heavens, emblematic figure of, 142, 
 331. 
 
 HeeaUeus of Miletus, L 85 ; ii 56. 
 Hellanicus, ii. 57. 
 
 Hellenion, factory of the Greeks in 
 
 Egypt, il 362. 
 Henneh, use of, 211. 
 Heracleopolis, ii. 130. 
 Hermapion, his interpretation of an 
 
 obelisk, i. 245. 
 Hermes, books of, ii. 85. 
 Hermes Trismegistus, i. 358. 
 Hermotybians, i. 190; if. 34. 
 Herodotus, ii. 56-62. 
 , his deficiency in calculation, ii 
 
 331. 
 
 Heroes, worship of, L 362. 
 
 , reign of, ii 95. 
 
 Hestia, L 323. 
 
 Hieroglyphics, i. 238-272. 
 
 , knowledge of them how far 
 
 diffused, i. 240; ii. 62. 
 
 order of reading them, i. 260. 
 
 Hierogrammateus, i. 378; ii. 86. 
 
 Hincks, I>r. E, il 134. 
 
 , his modifications of Champol- 
 
 lion's system, i. 272. 
 
 Hipparchus, discoverer of the pre- 
 cession of the equinoxes, i. 283. 
 
 Hippopotamus, L 171. 
 
 , symbol of crime, ii. 100. 
 
 , symbol of darkness, i. 342. 
 
 Hippy s of Rhegium, ii 56 note. 
 
 Homer, his account of Thebes, i. 150 ; 
 ii. 54. 
 
 , his account of Pharos, ii 53. 
 
 Horapollo, i. 242. 
 Hor-hat, his emblem, i. 219, 329. 
 Horologium, L 276; ii. 86. 
 Horoscopus, i. 378, 383; ii 85. 
 Horse, its use, i. 166, 167. 
 Horns, god, i. 353. 
 
 , king, ii. 208. 
 
 , "the golden," ii. 125. 
 
 Hyksos, their invasion, ii. 153. 
 
 L 
 
 Iamblichus, i. 302. 
 Iatromathematic, i 292. 
 Ibis, emblem of Thoth, ii. 16. 
 Ichneumon, ii. 132. 
 Ichthvophagi, act as interpreters, ii. 
 384. 
 
 Idumseans, ii. 377. 
 
 Illumination in honor of Xeith, i. 
 
 391. 
 Inaros, ii. 407. 
 
 India, supposed early connexion 
 
 with Egypt, i. 89, 92. 
 
 , tenure of land in, ii. 22. 
 
 , sanctity of plants and animals 
 
 in, il 9. 
 Interest, rate of, ii. 48. 
 Interpreters, caste of, ii 36, 324. 
 Io, legend of, ii. 1, 51. 
 Ionic order, its origin, i. 215. 
 Iphi crates, his campaigns in Egypt, 
 
 ii. 420. 
 
 Is, bituminous springs of, ii. 1 92. 
 Isaiah, his prophecies against Egypt, 
 
 il 315. 
 Isiac rites, i. 394. 
 Isis, i. 340. 
 
 Islands of the Blessed, i. 51, 404, 408. 
 J. 
 
 Jablonskv, Pantheon /Egyptiorum, 
 1 298, 311. 
 
442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jebusites, ii. 159. 
 
 Jehovah, his name unknown to the 
 Jews in the time of Moses, ii. 272. 
 
 Jeremiah, his prophecy against 
 Apries, ii. 350. 
 
 Jerusalem, capture of, by Sheshonk, 
 ii. 292. 
 
 , , by Neco, ii. 340. 
 
 , , by Nebuchadnezzar, ii. 
 
 349. 
 
 Jews, not the same as the Hyksos, 
 ii. 158. 
 
 , their departure from Egypt, ii. 
 
 263. 
 
 , Manetho's account of, ii. 207. 
 
 , employed in brickmaking, ii. 
 
 194. 
 
 Jewish laws, resemblance to the 
 
 Egyptian, ii. 43. 
 Josephus, his unfairness, ii. 158, 159, 
 
 166. 
 
 Judgment of kings, posthumous, ii. 
 27. 
 
 Judgment-scene, i. 341, 360. 
 Jukasa, land of, ii. 192. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kan ana, land of, ii. 216. 
 
 Karnak, royal tablet of, ii. 90, 193. 
 
 , statistical tablet of, ii. 187. 
 
 Khamsin, i. 57 note. 
 Kings of Egypt, their mode of life, 
 ii. 25. 
 
 , number of, ii. 160 note. 
 
 Kneph, i. 313. 
 Korosko, Akaba of, 388. 
 Kufa, nation, ii. 186. 
 Kuphi, i. 374. 
 
 L. 
 
 Labyrinth, i. 44 ; ii. 144, 148, 322. 
 Lacrates, commands the Theban 
 
 troops in Egypt, ii. 430. 
 Lakes, the Bitter, ii. 335. 
 Land, threefold division of, ii. 22, 29. 
 
 , tenure of, in Egypt, ii. 22. 
 
 Lark, crested, venerated by the 
 
 Lemnians, ii. 14. 
 Laterculus of Syncellus, ii. 79, 164 
 
 note. 
 
 Latus, the fish, i. 34. 
 
 Law, administration of, ii. 33, 41. 
 
 , Egyptian, its humanity, ii. 43. 
 
 Layard's Nineveh, ii. 190, 285. 
 Legislators, Egyptian, ii. 20. 
 Lemanen, nation, ii. 191. 
 Leopard's skin, worn by priests, i. 
 421. 
 
 Lepidotus, the fish, i. 345. 
 Leprosy among the Jews, ii. 270. 
 Lepsius, his discovery of marks of 
 
 rise of the Nile in Nubia, i. 18 
 
 note. 
 
 , reading of the name Osortasen, 
 
 ii. 135. 
 
 , of the name of the builder 
 
 of the Labyrinth, ii. 146. 
 
 , of the name Set, ii. 215. 
 
 Leto, i. 323. 
 
 Lex talionis, ii. 44. 
 
 Library of the Rameseion, i. 131. 
 
 Libyans, ii. 99. 
 
 Linan t, his discoveries in the Fyoum, 
 
 i. 42; ii. 131. 
 Lion-hunt, ii. 278. 
 
 Lion, tamed, accompanying the king, 
 
 i. 194 note. 
 Lions, of the Fontana di Termini, ii. 
 
 423. 
 
 Lotus, the sacred, i. 76. 
 
 , its use for food, i. 161. 
 
 Ludim, nation, ii. 222. 
 Ludnu, nation, ii. 187, 217. 
 Lydia, had a partly Semitic popula- 
 tion, ii. 218. 
 
 M. 
 
 Magicians of Egypt, i. 382. 
 
 Mandoulis, i. 331. 
 
 Mandoo, i. 331. 
 
 Maneros, song of, i. 201. 
 
 Manes, reign of, ii. 76. 
 
 Manetho, ii. 73, 76. 
 
 , whether his dynasties were 
 
 consecutive, ii. 79-82. 
 ■ , duration of his dynasties, ii. 
 
 91, 149. 
 Manmisi, i. 32, 214; ii. 200. 
 Manoskh, i. 148. 
 
 Marriage of sisters and brothers, ii. 
 46. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 443 
 
 Mars, i. 364, 390. 
 
 , worship of, at Papremis, i. 
 
 390. 
 
 Marshes of* Egypt, character of the 
 
 population of, ii. 52, 409. 
 Mashiosa, ii. 276. 
 Mauthemva, ii. 197, 200, 207. 
 Medicine, i. 290. 
 
 Megabazus, his mission to Sparta, ii. 
 408. 
 
 Melampus, i. 335, 337, 391 ; ii 262. 
 Melek, on Egyptian monuments, ii. 
 
 371 note, 404. 
 Memnon, ii. 203-208. 
 Memnonia, unhealthy employments 
 
 carried on there, i. 412. 
 Memphis, etymology of, ii. 96. 
 Mendes, worship of the goat there, 
 
 ii. 5, 106. 
 Mennahom, nation, ii. 276. 
 Menzaleh, lake of, i. 46. 
 Meroe, i. 8, 88 ; ii. 305. 
 , whether the civilization of 
 
 Egypt was derived thence, ii. 41 
 
 note, 144. 
 Metempsychosis, i. 91, 400, 406 ; ii. 
 
 8. 
 
 Mexican writing, i. 259. 
 
 Milesians, their settlement in Egypt, 
 
 ii. 301, 322. 
 Military age, i. 152. 
 Mines, the working of, ii. 44. 
 
 , emerald, i. 53. 
 
 Minotaur, legend of, ii. 1. 
 Mizraim, ii. 97. 
 Mnevis, worship of, ii. 5. 
 Mceris, lake, i. 43; ii. 131, 193. 
 
 , its fisheries, i. 173. 
 
 , etymology of, ii. 131. 
 
 Mokattam, quarries of, i. 116. 
 Moloch, his worship, ii. 272. 
 Momemphis, ii. 322. 
 Mons Casius, ii. 162 note. 
 Months, Egyptian, their names, i. 
 
 277 note. 
 
 Monuments, public, their superiority 
 
 to all other evidence, ii. 169. 
 Mora, game of, i. 205. 
 Mountains of the Moon, i. 6. 
 Mourning, i. 411. 
 
 Mouse, an emblem of destruction, ii. 
 313. 
 
 Mummies of animals, i. 120, 121, 
 
 140 ; ii. 4. 
 Mummies, pledged for debt, ii. 48. 
 
 , kept in houses, i. 419. 
 
 , Greek, i. 415 note. 
 
 Mummy, derivation of, i. 418 note. 
 
 , introduced at banquets, i. 201. 
 
 Mysteries, i 392. 
 
 , Eleusinian, i. 395. 
 
 N. 
 
 Namia, metrical, i. 411 note. 
 
 Naharaina, ii. 178, 183, 192. 
 
 Nahsi, ii. 218, 256. 
 
 Namhu, ii. 218. 
 
 Nantef, ii. 144. 
 
 Napata, i. 15; ii. 389. 
 
 Nasamones, ii. 256. 
 
 Natron Lakes, i. 59. 
 
 Natron, its use in embalmment, i. 413. 
 
 Naucratis, ii. 54. 
 
 Navigation, disesteemed in Egypt, 
 ii. 36. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, his invasion of 
 
 Egypt, ii. 352. 
 Nectanebus I., ii. 420. 
 Nectanebus II, ii. 428. 
 Nefruatep, ii. 144, 161. 
 Negro in Egyptian monuments, ii. 
 
 185. 
 
 physiognomy different from 
 
 the Egyptian, i. 82. 
 Neith, i 326. 
 
 Nemroud, Egyptian tablets found at, 
 
 ii. 190, 285 note. 
 Nemt-amen, peculiarity of, ii. 179. 
 Nenii, supposed Nineveh, ii. 190. 
 Neocoros, ii. 25. 
 Neo-Platonists, i. 297. 
 Nepenthe, ii. 53. 
 Nephra, son of Amasis, ii. 404. 
 Nephthys, i. 355. 
 Netpe, i. 334, 416. 
 Nevopth, tomb of, i. 40 ; ii. 142. 
 Niger, the, confounded, with the 
 
 Nile, i. 5. 
 Nile, its changes of color, i. 73. 
 
 , figure of, i. 333 ; ii. 201. 
 
 Nile-water, i. 73, 200. 
 
 Nile, omens derived from, ii 10T. 
 
 Niloa, i. 332, 388. 
 
444 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kilometer, i. 28. 
 
 Nil os, town, i. 332. 
 
 "Nine Bows," nation of, ii. 178, 213, 
 
 257 note. 
 Nineveh, capture of, ii. 342. 
 Nitocris, her history, ii. 126. 
 
 , queen of Babvlon, ii. 371. 
 
 No- Amnion, i. 128 
 Nofre, i. 331. 
 
 Nomes, their division, ii. 40. 
 
 , twelve predominant, ii. 41. 
 
 Noph, ii. 286. 
 
 North, symbol of, ii. 292. 
 
 Nubia, its climate and soil, i. 24. 
 
 O. 
 
 Oaths by vegetables, ii. 12. 
 Obelisk of St. John Lateran, i. 230 ; 
 ii. 184. 
 
 of Nectanebus, ii. 422. 
 
 1 of Luxor, i. 144. 
 
 of Heliopolis, i. 46. 
 
 of the Fyoum, i. 43; ii. 134. 
 
 of Karnak, i. 145. 
 
 of Monte Citorio, i. 230 ; ii. 326. 
 
 of Apnea, i. 230. 
 
 of the Piazza del Popolo, i. 232. 
 
 of Philte, i. 26, 251. 
 
 Obelisks, placed in pairs, i. 144. 
 
 in the quarries of Syene, i. 185. 
 
 of the Roman times, i. 232 note. 
 
 , mode of raising, i. 288. 
 
 Obliteration of names, i. 350. 
 Ocean, whether an Egyptian name 
 
 for the Nile, i. 425. 
 Officers of state, ii. 28. 
 Onions, whether worshiped in 
 
 Egypt, ii. 11. 
 Orphic doctrines, i. 318, 320, 325, 
 
 337, 400. 
 Osarsiph, ii. 269. 
 
 " Osirian," appellation of deceased 
 
 persons, i. 408; ii. 249. . 
 Osiride columns, i. 216. 
 Osiris, i. 334, 342. 
 
 , forty-two assessors of, i. 143, 
 
 342. 
 
 , mythe of, i. 343. 
 
 , porcelain figures of, i. 415. 
 
 , eye of, i. 422. 
 
 Osvmandyas, tomb of, i. 130, 131 ; ii. 
 236. 
 
 Osymandyas, circle of, i. 286. 
 Otsch, fortress, ii. 218. 
 Oxyrrynchus, town, i. 41. 
 Oxyrrynchus, fish, ii. 15. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paamyles, i. 343. 
 Paamylia, i. 392. 
 Painting, art of, i. 139, 227. 
 
 of tombs, i. 139. 
 
 Pallaces, of Jupiter, i. 143. 
 Palm, emblematic, i. 359. 
 Palm-tree, its uses, i. 74. 
 
 , Theban (Doum), i. 79, 168. 
 
 Panegyries, hall of, i. 148. 
 
 , where held, i. 389. 
 
 Papremis, i. 364, 390. 
 
 Papyri, age of the earliest, ii. 85. 
 
 , funeral, i. 408. 
 
 Papyrus, its manufacture, i. 75. 
 
 , use for food, i. 161. 
 
 of Sallier, ii. 242. 
 
 Paraschistes, i. 413. 
 
 Pastophori, i. 378; ii. 87. 
 
 Pathros, i. 325 note. 
 
 Patnouphis, title of Hermes, i. 358 
 
 note. 
 Pepi, ii. 123. 
 Persea, i. 167; ii. 10. 
 Perseus, i. 39. 
 
 •, tower of, i. 48. 
 
 Persian conquest of Egypt, its effect, 
 
 ii. 56. 
 
 Perspective, its neglect in Egyptian 
 
 art, i. 226. 
 Petesuchis, ii. 147. 
 Pethempainenthes, title of Osiris, i. 
 
 340, 349. 
 
 Petronius, his expedition against 
 
 Napata, ii. 389. 
 Phagrus, the fish, i. 345. 
 Phanes, his treachery, ii. 377. 
 Pharos, Homeric description of, ii. 
 
 53. 
 
 Pheron, ii. 246, 254, 282. 
 Philistus, ii. 63. 
 Philitis, ii. 162. 
 
 Phoenicians, said to have circumna- 
 vigated Africa, ii. 337. 
 
 , their connexion with Egypt, 
 
 ii. 162. 
 
 Phoenix, i. 280. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 445 
 
 Phre, i. 328 note. 
 
 Phrygians, claim superior antiquity 
 to the Egyptians, ii. 332. 
 
 Physicians, i. 290 ; ii. 31. 
 
 Pilgrimages, i. 390. 
 
 Pindar, his doctrine of transmigra- 
 tion, i. 403. 
 
 Pi-thorn, ii. 195. 
 
 Plague, the, i. 78. 
 
 Plants, sanctity of, ii. 10. 
 
 Plato, his testimony to the antiquity 
 of Egypt, i. 2. 
 
 , of the forms of Egyptian art, 
 
 i. 222. 
 
 , his visit to Egypt, i. 45. 
 
 , his doctrine of transmigration, 
 
 i. 405. 
 
 Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, i. 296. 
 Plutus and Pluto the same, i. 337. 
 Poetry, historical, in Egypt, ii. 89. 
 Polycrates of Samos, his history, ii. 
 364. 
 
 Polygamy, i 378 ; ii. 47. 
 Potipherah, i. 328 note. 
 Pount, land, ii. 185. 
 Precession of the equinoxes, i. 283. 
 Premnis (Primis Magna), ii. 389. 
 Priesthood, effects of their ppwer, ii. 
 27. 
 
 , their condition and influence, 
 
 ii. 29. 
 
 Priests, whether judges, ii. 33. 
 Primis (Ibrim), ii. 396 note. 
 Processions, i 384. 
 Prophetes, i. 379, 381 ; ii. 25, 86. 
 Proscynema, i. 422. 
 Prussian Expedition, their discove- 
 ries, i 112, 131. 
 Psammitichus I., ii. 320. 
 IL, ii. 345. 
 
 ILL, assassinates Tamos, ii. 417. 
 
 Pschent, i, 208 note, 329 ; ii. 275. 
 Pthuris (Farras), ii. 390 note. 
 Pulley, whether known to the 
 
 Egyptians, i. 288 note. 
 Pylon, meaning of, i. 31. 
 Pyramids, proportions of, i. 100. 
 
 ■, mode of erecting, i. 106. 
 
 , their number, i 112. 
 
 , in Upper Egypt, i. 125. 
 
 , builders of, ii. 111-116. 
 
 , Ethiopian, i. 10. 
 
 Pyramidion of obelisk gilded, ii. 184. 
 Pylhagoras, his visit to Earypt, ii 
 325 note. 
 
 , his residence in Esrvpt and 
 
 doctrine, i 234, 274, 275, 286, 
 294, 367, 400 ; ii. 54. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Qoorneh, sepulchres of, i. 138. 
 Quails in Egypt and the Desert of 
 
 Sinai, L 174. 
 Queens, their prerogatives, ii. 107. 
 
 R. 
 
 Pa, i 328. 
 
 Raameses, city, ii. 195. 
 Rain in Egypt, i 79. 
 Rameses I, ii. 211. 
 
 I., ii. 226. 
 
 III., ii. 228. 
 
 IV., ii. 272. 
 
 V.-XIV., ii. 282-284. 
 
 Rampsinitus, ii. 282. 
 Ranpo, i. 365. 
 Re, i. 328. 
 
 Rebo, nation, ii. 279. 
 Records, antiquity of, in Egypt, ii. 
 83. 
 
 Red Sea, routes from Egypt to, i. 36, 
 52. 
 
 Rehearsing, sign of, in Egyptian pic- 
 tures, ii. 274 note. 
 Rekamai, i. 39. 
 Remai, ii. 124. 
 
 Remanen, nation, ii. 191, 217. 
 Rent, its proportion to produce, ii. 
 22. 
 
 , its amount in Egypt, ii. 22. 
 
 Resurrection, doctrine of, i. 397, 410. 
 Rhadamanthys, etymology of, i 408. 
 Rhodopis, ii. 128. 
 Rot, ii. 218. 
 
 Rotno, nation, ii. 187, 217. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabaco, ii. 308. 
 
 Sacrifices, human, i. 369, 371 ; ii 52. 
 
 Sacrilege, law of, ii. 45. 
 
 Saf, "Lady of Letters," i 131 ; ii. 201. 
 
446 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sagdas, i. 374. 
 
 Sais, ii. 318, 319. 
 
 Samaritan Pentatexich, ii. 264. 
 
 Sandstone rock, its extent in Egypt, 
 
 i. 29. 
 Sasychis, ii, 290. 
 Sataspes, voyage of, ii. 338. 
 Scape-goat, L 372. 
 Scarabaeus, sanctity of, ii. 9, 17. 
 Scythians, their invasion of Egypt, 
 
 ii. 333. 
 Seb, i. 334. 
 Sebek, i. 329. 
 
 Sebekatep, sovereigns of this name, 
 
 when they lived, ii. 161. 
 Semneh, ii. 182. 
 Sennacherib, ii. 311. 
 Septuagint, its variation from the 
 
 Hebrew, ii. 264. 
 Serapis, i. 362. 
 Serbonian bog, ii. 429. 
 Serpent, emblem of Agathodaemon, 
 
 i. 314. 
 
 of ^Esculapius, ii. 2. 
 
 Serpents, winged, ii. 16. 
 Sesonchis, ii. 291. 
 Sesonchosis, ii. 122. 
 Sesostris, ii. 138. 
 
 , his emblems, ii. 140. 
 
 Set, name of Typhon, i. 351 ; ii. 214. 
 Sethos, ii. 311. 
 Sethroite nome, ii. 153, 157. 
 Shairetaan, ii. 278. 
 Sharu or Kharu, nation, ii. 227. 
 Sharpe, Samuel, i. 216 note; ii. 176 
 note. 
 
 Sheol of the Hebrews, i. 336. 
 Shepherd kings, ii. 152. 
 Shepherds, disesteemed in Egypt, 
 
 ii. 267. 
 
 Sheshonk, his invasion of Judaea, 
 ii. 91. 
 
 Sheto, nation, ii. 234, 243, 319. 
 Shields, royal, titular, and phonetic, 
 
 ii. 124. 
 Shishak, ii. 290. 
 Shos, ii. 216, 227. 
 
 Sidon, capture of, by Ochus, ii. 429. 
 Sidonians, ii. 187. 
 
 Silco, king of the Blemmyes, i. 23 
 note. 
 
 Silphium, ii. 256, 355. 
 
 Simoum, i. 57 note. 
 Sinai, peninsula of, i. 51. 
 Singara, ii. 192, 222. 
 Skhai, ii. 212. 
 
 Slaves, protected by law, ii. 43. 
 
 did not attend on the king, ii. 
 
 26. 
 
 Socari, i. 320. 
 
 Soldiery, Egyptian, their migration 
 
 to Ethiopia, ii. 330. 
 Solomon, his connexion with Egypt, 
 
 ii. 288. 
 
 Sothiac period, ii. 77 note, 247. 
 Sothis (Isis and Dog-star), i. 281. 
 , spurious work of Manetho, 
 
 ii. 73 note. 
 Soul, wicked, its punishment, i. 403. 
 South, symbol of, ii. 292. 
 Sphinx, meaning of, i. 115. 
 
 , female, i. 115. 
 
 Sphragistes, i. 371. 
 
 Stability, emblem of, i. 319, 349. 
 
 Standard of kings, ii. 125. 
 
 Stele, its meaning, ii. 190 note. 
 
 Stibium, use of, i. 211. 
 
 Stolistes, ii. 86. 
 
 Stork, veneration of, ii. 14. 
 
 Suchus, i. 329. 
 
 Sukiim, ii. 291 note. 
 
 Sun, a divinity, i. 331. 
 
 , Fountain of the, i. 60. 
 
 worshipers, ii. 91, 212. 
 
 in a state of weakness during 
 
 winter, i. 352. 
 Swine, use of, in agriculture, i. 156. 
 
 , herds of, i. 388 note. 
 
 , sacrifice of, i. 336, 391. 
 
 , emblem of gluttony, i. 403. 
 
 Swineherds, excluded from temples, 
 
 ii. 36. 
 
 Syncellus, George the, ii. 75. 
 "Syrians of Palestine," the Jews, 
 ii 376. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tablet of Abydos, i. 38 ; ii. 90. 
 
 of Karnak, ii. 90. 
 
 , statistical, of Karnak, ii. 187. 
 
 Tachos, ii. 423, 427. 
 Tahai, nation, ii. 187. 
 Taia, ii. 198, 207. 
 Tamhu, nation, ii. 218. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 447 
 
 Tamos, his assassination by Psammi- 
 
 tichus III., ii. 417. 
 Tanis, iL 286. 
 Taochi, ii. 188. 
 Taricheutee, i 412. 
 Tav, or crux ansata, its signification, 
 
 L 247 note, 254. 
 Tan, placed on the tongue, ii. 25. 
 Taxation in Egypt, ii. 28. 
 Thammuz, mourning for, L 348. 
 Thebes, origin of the name, i. 126 
 
 note. 
 
 , once co-extensive with Egypt, 
 
 ii. 81. 
 
 Theology, Egyptian, its threefold 
 
 source, i. 309. 
 Theosophy, Egyptian, L 304. 
 Thermuthis, i. 322, 365. 
 Thesmophoria, i. 392. 
 Thieves, how organized in Egypt, iL 
 
 45. 
 
 This, its site, ii. 95. 
 Thoth, i. 358. 
 
 , worshiped in Nubia, i. 19, 
 
 24 
 
 Thothmes I, ii. 176. 
 
 II., ii. 180. 
 
 III., ii. 181. 
 
 IV., ii. 197. 
 
 Thunder, rare in Egypt, i. 382. 
 Thuoris, ii. 254. 
 Tides at Suez, ii. 336 note. 
 Timseus, king of Egypt, ii. 160. 
 Tirhakah, i. 13, 46, 136; ii. 197, 
 310. 
 
 Tithrambo, i. 365. 
 
 Titular name, whether incorporated, 
 
 ii. 136 note. 
 Tohen, nation, ii. 218, 270. 
 Tokari, nation, ii. 278. 
 Tombs, royal, i. 141. 
 Tools, buried with artificers, 423. 
 Toparchies, ii. 41. « 
 Tourah, quarries of, i. 118. 
 Tpe, L 416. 
 
 Transmigration of souls, i. 401. 
 Trees, sanctity of, ii. 10. 
 Triaconterides, i. 396. 
 Troglodytes, i. 55. 
 Tropic of Cancer, i. 23, 28. 
 Trumpet, of late introduction in 
 Greece, i. 235. 
 
 Truth, goddess of, i. 342, 360, 374, 
 
 427 ; ii 43. 
 Turin, papyrus of, iL 86. 
 Turks, their similarity to the Hyksos, 
 
 ii. 165. 
 
 Typhon, his emblem, L 350. 
 
 , mythe of, 343-352. 
 
 Typhonia, i. 214, 219. 
 Tyre, siege of, by Shalmaneser, ii. 
 350. 
 
 , , by Nebuchadnezzar, ii. 
 
 351. 
 
 Tyrians, camp of, ii. 324. 
 
 U. 
 
 Uchoreus, ii. 85. 
 
 Unity of God, L 367. 
 
 Urim and Thummim, ii. 43 note. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vava, nation, ii. 188. 
 
 Venus, Egyptian, i. 324. 
 
 Viscera, the, considered as the cause 
 
 of sin, i. 409. 
 , their embalmment, i. 409. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wadi Magara, i. 54; ii. 118. 
 
 Water, mode of raising, i. 160. 
 
 Weeks, reckoning by, i. 283. 
 
 Wells, Artesian, L 61. 
 
 Winckelmann, his opinions of Egyp- 
 tian art, i. 223 note. 
 
 Wine, its growth in Egypt, i. 161. 
 
 Women, their condition in Egypt, 
 ii. 46. 
 
 , whether admitted to the priest- 
 hood, i. 379 ; ii. 30. 
 
 , never appear reading or writ- 
 ing, L 239. 
 
 Wood, semicircle of, used to support 
 the head, i. 199. 
 
 Woods used in carpentry, i. 186. 
 
 Wool, its use for garments, i. 164. 
 
 Woollen wrappers of mummies, i. 
 110, 118, 413. 
 
 Worship of animals among the Afri- 
 can nations, ii. 9. 
 
 Wounding the forehead in mourning, 
 L 390. 
 
448 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Writing, art cf, its antiquity in 
 Egypt, ii 84, 119. 
 
 X. 
 
 Xois, ii. 152, 156. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Young, Dr., his discoveries in hiero- 
 glyphics, i. 249. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zagreus, i. 337. 
 Zerach, ii. 297. 
 Zet, ii. 300. 
 Zoan, ii. 285. 
 Zodiac, signs of, i. 286. 
 , not known to ancient Egyp- 
 tians, ii. 7. 
 Zoega, i. 298. 
 Zuchis, ii. 353 note. 
 
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 loos, Lantara, Wafteau, La Motte, Dehle, Abbe Trublet, BuflTon, Dorat, Cardinal de 
 Bernis, Crebillon the Gay, Marie Antoinette, Made, de Pompadour, Vade, Mile. Ca- 
 margo, Mile. Clairon, Mad. de la Popeliniere, Sophie Arnould, Crebillon the Tragic, 
 Mile. Guimard, Three Pages in the Life of Dancourt, A Promenade in the Palais-Royal, 
 the Chevalier de la Clos. 
 
 " A more fascinating book than this rarely issues from the teeming press. Fascina- 
 ting in its subject ; fascinating in its style : fascinating in its power to lead the reader into 
 castle-huilding of the most gorgeous and bewitching description." — Courier f<- Enquirer. 
 
 "This is a most welcome book, full of information and amusement, in the form of 
 memoirs, comments, and anecdotes. It has the style of light literature, with the use- 
 fulness of the gravest It should be in every library, and the hands of every reader." 
 Boston Commonwealth. 
 
 " A Book of Books. — Two deliciously spicy volumes, that are a perfect bonne boucht 
 for an epicure in reading.*' — Home Journal. 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 CLOVERNOOK; 
 
 Or, Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West. By Alice 
 Carey. Illustrated by Darley. One vol., 12mo., price $1.00. 
 (Third edition.) 
 
 " In this volume there is a freshness which perpetually charms the reader. You seem 
 to be made free of western homes at once." — Old Colony Memorial. 
 
 "They bear the true stamp of genius— simple, natural, truthful — and evince a keen 
 sense of the humor and pathos, of the comedy and tragedy, of life in the country."— J 
 Q Wkittier. 
 
 DREAM-LAND BY DAY-LIGHT: 
 
 A Panorama of Romance. By Caroline Chesebro'. Illustrated 
 by Darley. One vol., 12mo., price $1.25. (Second edition.) 
 
 "These simple and beautiful stories are nil highly endued with an exquisite percep- 
 tion of natural beauty, with which is combined an appreciative sense of its relation to 
 the highest moral emotions."— A Ibany State Register. 
 
 " Gladly do we greet this floweret in the field of our literature, for it is fragi-ant with 
 sweet and bright with hues that mark it to be of Heaven's own planting." — Courier and 
 Enquirer. 
 
 "There is a depth of sentiment and feeling not ordinarily met with, and some of the 
 noblest faculties and affections of man's nature are depicted and illustrated by the skil- 
 ful pen of the authoress." — Churchman. 
 
 LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS. 
 
 By William E. Aytoun, Professor of Literature and Belles-Let- 
 tres in the University of Edinburgh and Editor of Blackwood's 
 Magazine. One vol., 12mo. cloth, price $1.00. 
 
 " Since Lockhart and Macaulay's ballads, we have had no metrical work to be com- 
 pared in spirit, vigor, and rhythm with this. These ballads knbi dy and embalm the 
 chief historical incidents of Scottish history — literally in 1 thoughts that breathe and 
 words that burn.' They are full of lyric energy, graphic description, and genuine feel- 
 ing." — Howe Journal. 
 
 " The fine ballad of ' Montrose' in this collection i9 alone worth the price of the book." 
 Bostsn Transcript. 
 
 THE BOOK OF BALLADS. 
 By Bon Gaultier. One volume, 12mo., cloth, price 75 cents. 
 
 "Here is a book for everybody who loves classic fun. It is made up of ballads of 
 all sorts, each a capital parody upon the style of some one ot the best lyric writers of 
 the time, from the thundering versification of Lockhart and Macaulay to the sweetest 
 and simplest strains of Wordsworth and Tennyson. The author is one of the first 
 echolars, and one of the most finished writers of the day, and this production is but the 
 frolic of his genius in play-time " — Courier and Enquirer. 
 
 " We do not know to whom belongs this nom de plume, but he is certainly a humorist 
 Of no commcn power."— Providence Journal 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 THE MASTER BUILDER; 
 
 Or, Life in the City. By Day Kellogg Lee, author of " Sum- 
 merfield, or Life on the Farm." One vol., 12mo, price $1.00. 
 
 " He is a powerful and graphic writer, and from what we have seen of the pases of 
 the ' Master builder.' it is a romance of excellent aim and success." — State Register. 
 
 " The ■ Master Builder' is the master production. It is romance into which is instilled 
 the reality of life : and incentives are put forth to noble exertion and virtue. The story 
 is pleasing — almost fascinating ; the moral is pure and undefined." — Daily Times. 
 
 "Its descriptions are, many of them, strikingly beautiful; commingling in good pro- 
 portions, the witty, the grotesque, the pathetic, and the heroic. It may be read with 
 profit as well as pleasure." — Argus. 
 
 "The work before us will commend itself to the masses, depicting as it does most 
 graphically the struggles and privations which await the unknown and uncared-for 
 Mechanic in his journey through life. It is what might be called a romance, but not of 
 love, jealousy and revenge order." — Lockport Courier. 
 
 " The whole scheme of the story is well worked up and very instructive." — Albany 
 Express. 
 
 The Uses and Abuses of Air: showing its Influence in Sustaining 
 Life, and Producing Disease, with Remarks on the Ventilation 
 of Houses, and the best Methods of Securing a Pure and Whole- 
 some Atmosphere inside of Dwellings, Churches, Workshops, &c. 
 By Joh>- H. Griscom, M. D. One vol. 12mo, $1.00. 
 
 "This comprehensive treatise should be read by all who wish to secure health, 
 and especially by those constructing churches, lecture-rooms, school-houses, &c— It 
 is undoubted, that many diseases are created and spread in consequence of the little 
 attention paid to proper ventilation. Dr. G. writes knowingly and plainly upon this all- 
 important topic." — Newark Advertiser. 
 
 '• The whole book is a complete manual of the subject of which it treats ; and we 
 venture to say that the builder or contriver of a dwelling, school-house, church, thea- 
 tre, ship, or steamboat, who neglects to inform himself of the momentous truths it 
 asserts, commits virtually a crime auain-t society." — N. Y. Metropolis. 
 
 " Whf n shall we learn to estimate at their proper value, pure water and pure air, 
 which God provided fur man hefore he made man, and a very long time before he 
 permitted the existence of a doctor ? We commend the Uses and Abuses of Air to our 
 readers, assuring them that they will find it to contain directions for the ventilation of 
 dwellings, which every one who vaiues health and comfort should put in practice." — 
 N. Y. Dispatch. 
 
 By Alice Carey, author of " Clovernook," " Lyra, and Other 
 Poems" &c. One vol., 12mo, price $1.00. 
 
 "A story of rural and domestic life, abounding in humor, pathos, and that natural- 
 nes- in character and conduct which made ' Clovernook' so great a favorite last season. 
 Pa=.-aL'es in ' Hagar' are written with extraordinary power, its moral is striking and 
 jusr. and the book will inevitably be one of the most popular productions of the sea- 
 eon." 
 
 " Rhe has a fine, rich, and purely original genius. Her country stories are almost 
 untqualed ." — Knickerbocker Magazine 
 
 " The Times speaks of Alice Carey as standing at the head of the living female wri- 
 ters of America. We go even farther in our favorable judgment, and express the opin- 
 ion that among those living or dead, she has had no equal in this country ; and we know 
 of few in the annals of English literature who have exhibited superior gifts of real po- 
 etic genius."— The (Portland, Me.) Eclectic 
 
 GRISCOM ON VENTILATION. 
 
 HAGAR, A STORY OF TO-DAY. 
 
redfield's new and popular publications 
 
 LYRA, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 By Alice Carey. In one volume, 12mo, cloth, price 75 cts. 
 
 "Whether poetry be defined as the rhythmical creation of beauty, as passion or elo' 
 quence in harmonious numbers, or as thought and feeling manifested by processee of 
 the imagination, Alice Carey is incontestably and incomparably the first living American 
 poetess— fresh, indigenous, national — rich beyond precedent in suitable and sensuous im- 
 agery—of the finest and highest qualities of feeling, and such powers of creation as the 
 Almighty has seen fit to bestow but rarely or in far-separated countries."— Bosi. Trans. 
 
 "The genuine inspiration of poetic feeling, ... replete with tenderness and beauty, 
 earnestness and truthful simplicity, and all the attributes of a powerful imagination and 
 vivid fancy. We know of no superior to Miss Carey among the female authors of this 
 country." — New York Journal of Commerce. 
 
 '« Alice Carey's book is full of beautiful thoughts : there is draught after draught of, 
 pure pleasure for the lover of sweet, tender fancies, and imagery which captivates 
 while it enforces truth."— New York Courier and Inquirer. 
 
 " - Lyra and other Poems,' just published by Redfield, attracts everywhere, a remark- 
 able degree of attention. A dozen of the leading journals, and many eminent critics, 
 have pronounced the authoress the greatest poetess living.' - — New York Mirror. 
 
 LILLIAN, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 By Winthrop Mackworth Praed. Now first Collected. One 
 Volume l2mo. Price One Dollar. 
 
 " A timely publication is this volume. A more charming companion (in the shape of 
 n book) can scarcely be found for the summer holydays."— New York Tribune. 
 
 " They are amusing sketches, gay and sprightly in their character, exhibiting great 
 facility of composition, and considerable powers of satire." — Hartford Courant. 
 
 " There is a brilliant play of fancy in ' Lillian,' and a moving tenderness in ' Josephine,' 
 for which it would be hard to find equals. We welcome, therefore, this first collected 
 edition of his works." — Albany Express. 
 
 '• As a writer of vers de socirte he is pronounced to be without an equal among Eng- 
 lish authors." — Syracuse Daily Journal. 
 
 " The author of this volume was one of the most fluent and versatile English poets that 
 have shone in the literary world within the last century. His versification is astonish- 
 ingly easy and airy, and his imagery not less wonderfully graceful and aerial." — Albany 
 State Register. 
 
 THE CAVALIERS OF ENGLAND; 
 
 Or, the Times of the Revolutions of 1642 and 1688. By Henrt 
 William Herbert. One vol., 12mo., price $1.25. 
 
 " They are graphic stories, and in the highest degree attractive to the imagination as 
 well as instructive, and can not fail to be popular." — Commercial. 
 
 " These tales are written in the popular author's best style, and give us a vivid and 
 thrilling idea of the customs and influences of the chivalrous age." — Christian Freeman. 
 
 " Bia narrative is always full of great interest; his descriptive powers are of an un- 
 common order ; the romance of history loses nothing at his hands ; he paints with the 
 power, vigor, and effect of a master." — The Times. 
 
 " They bring the past days of old England vividly before the reader, and impress upon 
 the mind with Indelible force, the living images of the puritans as well as the cavaliers, 
 whose earnest character and noble deeds lend such a lively interest to the legends of 
 the times in which they lived and fought, loved and hated, prayed and revelled." — New. 
 ark Daily. 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF FITZ- GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 New and only Complete Edition, containing several New Poems, 
 together with many now first collected. One vol., 12mo., price 
 one dollar. 
 
 "Halleck is one of the brightest stars in our American literature, and his name is 
 like a household word wherever the English language is spoken." — Albany Express. 
 
 " There are few poems to be found, in any language, that surpass, in beauty of 
 thought and structure, some of these."— Boston Commonwealth. 
 
 " To the numerous admirers of Mr. Halleck, this will be a welcome book ; for it is a 
 characteristic desire in human nature to have the productions of our favorite authors 
 in an elegant and substantial form." — Christian Freeman. 
 
 " Mr. Halleck never appeared in a better dress, and few poets ever deserved a better 
 one." — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 THE STUDY OF WORDS. 
 By Archdeacon R. C. Trench. One vol., 12mo., price 75 ct9. 
 
 " He discourses in a truly learned and lively manner upon the original unity of lan- 
 guage, and the origin, derivation, and history of words, with their morality and sep- 
 arate spheres of meaning." — Evening Post 
 
 " This is a noble tribute to the divine faculty of speech. Popularly written, for use 
 as lectures, exact in its learning, and poetic in its vision, it is a book at once for the 
 scholar and the general reader." — New York Evangelist. 
 
 " It is one of the most striking and original publications of the day, with nothing of 
 hardness, dullness, or dryness about it, but altogether fresh, lively, and entertaining." 
 —Boston Evening Traveller. 
 
 BRONCHITIS, AND KINDRED DISEASES. 
 
 In lan^ua^e adapted to common readers. By W. W. Hall, M. D. 
 One vol., 12 mo, price $1.00. 
 
 "It is written in a plain, direct, common-sense style, and is free from the quackery 
 which marks many of the popular medical books of the day. It will prove useful to 
 those who need it " — Central Ch. Herald. 
 
 " Those who are clergymen, or who are preparing for the sacred calling, and public 
 speakers generally, should not fail of securing this work." — Ch. Ambassador. 
 
 " It is full of bints on the nature of the vital organs, and does away with much super- 
 stitious dread in regard to consumption." — Greene County Whig. 
 
 - This work gives some valuable instruction in regard to food and hygienic influ- 
 ences."— Nashua Oasis. 
 
 KNIGHTS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND SCOTLAND. 
 By Henry William Herbert. One vol., 12mo., price $1.25. 
 
 " They arp partly the romance of history and partly fiction, forming, when blended, 
 portraitures, valuable from the correct drawing of the times they illustrate, and interest- 
 ing from their romance." — Albany Knickerbocker. 
 
 " They are spirit-stirring productions, which will be read and admired by all who 
 are pleased with historical tales written in a vigorous, bold, and dashing style." — Boston 
 Journal. 
 
 " These legends of love and chivalry contain some of the finest tales which the 
 graphic and powerful pen of Herbert has yet given to the lighter literature of the day." 
 -Detroit Free Press. 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 CHARACTERS IN THE GOSPEL, 
 
 Illustrating Phases of Character at the Present Day. By Rev. fi. 
 H. Chapin. One vol., 12mo., price 50 cents. (Second edition.) 
 
 "As we read his pages, the reformer, the sensualist, the skeptic, the man of the 
 world, the seeker, the sister of charity and of faith, stand out from the Scriptures, and 
 join themselves with our own living world." — Christian Enquirer. 
 
 "Mr. Chapin has an easy, graceful style, neatly touching the outlines of his pictures, 
 and giving great consistency and beauty to the whole. The reader will find admirable 
 descriptions, some most wholesome lessons, and a fine spirit." — N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 " Its brilliant vivacity of style forms an admirable combination with its soundness of 
 thought and depth of feeling."— Tribune. 
 
 * 
 
 LADIES OF THE COVENANT: 
 
 Memoirs of Distinguished Scottish Females, embracing the Period 
 of the Covenant and the Persecution. By Rev. James Ander- 
 son. One vol., 12mo., price $1.25. 
 
 •'It is a record which, while it confers honor on the sex, will elevate the heart, and 
 strengthen it to the better performance of every duty." — Religious Herald. (Va.) 
 
 " It is a book of great attractiveness, having not only the freshness of novelty, but 
 every element of historical interest." — Courier and Enquirer. 
 
 " It is written with great spirit and a hearty sympathy, and abounds in incidents of 
 more than a romantic interest, while the type of piety it discloses is the noblest and 
 most elevated."— JV. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 TALES AND TRADITIONS OF HUNGARY. 
 
 By Theresa Pulszky, with a Portrait of the Author. One vol., 
 price $1.25. 
 
 The above contains, in addition to the English publication, a new Preface, and 
 Tales, now first printed from the manuscript of the Author, who has a direct interest 
 in the publication. 
 
 " This work claims more attention than is ordinarily given to books of its class. Such 
 is the fluency and correctness — nay. even the nicety and felicity of style— with which 
 Madame Pulszky writes the English language, that merely in this respect the tales here 
 collected form a curious study. But they contain also highly suggestive illustrations of 
 national literature and character." — London Examiner. 
 
 "Freshness of subject is invaluable in literature — Hungary is still fresh ground. It 
 has been trodden, but it is not yet a common highway. The tales and legends are very 
 various, from the mere traditional anecdote to the regular legend, and they have the 
 sort of interest which all national traditions excite." — London Leader. 
 
 SORCERY AND MAGIC. 
 
 Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, from the most Authentic Sources. 
 By Thomas Wright, A.M., &c. One vol. 12mo., price $1.25. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in pronouncing this one of the most interesting works which 
 has lor a lonsr time issued from the press." — Albany Express. 
 
 "The narratives are intensely interesting, and the more so, as they are evidently writ- 
 ten by a man whose object is simply to tell the truth, and who is not himself bewitched 
 by any favorite theory."— N Y. Recorder 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 ISA, A PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 By Caroline Chesebro'. One vol., 12mo., cloth, price $1.00. 
 
 *' The Pilgrimage is fraught throughout with scenes of thrilling interest — romantic, 
 yet possessing a naturalness that Beems to stamp them as real ; the style is flowing and 
 easy, chaste and beautiful." — Troy Daily Times. 
 
 '• Miss Chesebro' is evidently a thinker— she skims not the mere surface of life, but 
 plunges boldly into the hidden mysteries of the spirit, by which she is warranted in 
 making her startling revelations of human passion." — Christian Freeman. 
 
 "There comes out in this book the evidence of an inventive mind, a cultivated taste, 
 an exquisite sensibility, and a deep knowledge of human nature."— Albany Argus. 
 
 " It is a charming book, pervaded by a vein of pure ennobling thought." — Troy Whig. 
 
 " There is no one who will doubt that this is a courageous and able work, displaying 
 genius and depth of feeling, and striking at a high and noble aim." — N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 " There is a fine vein of tenderness running through the story, which is peculiarly 
 one of passion and sentiment." — Arthur's Home Gazette. 
 
 By Henry James. One vol., 12mo., cloth, price $1.25. 
 
 " A series of essays by one of the most generous thinkers and sincere lovers of truth 
 in the country. He looks at society from an independent point of view, and with the 
 noblest and most intelligent sympathy." — Home Journal. 
 
 "This is the production oi a mind richly endowed of a very peculiar mould. All 
 will concede to him the merit of a vigorous and brilliant intellect." — Albany Argus. 
 
 "A perusal of the essays leads us to think, not merely because of the ideas which 
 they contain, but more because the ideas are earnestly put forth, and the subjects dis- 
 cussed are interesting and important to every one." — Worcester National Mgis. 
 
 " They have attracted much attention both here and in Europe, where the author is 
 considered as holding a distinctive and prominent position in the school of modern 
 philosophy." — Albany Atlas. 
 
 " The writer wields a masterly and accurate pen, and his style is good."— Boston 
 Olive Branch. 
 
 " It will have many readers, and almost as many admirers." — N. Y. Times. 
 
 History of the War in the Peninsula, and in the South of France, 
 from the Year 1807 to 1814. By W. F. P. Napier, C. B., Col. 
 43d Reg., &c. Complete in one vol., 8vo., price $3.00. 
 
 " We believe the Literature of War has not received a more valuable augmentation 
 this century than Col. Napier's justly celebrated work. Though a gallant combatant in 
 the field, he is an impartial historian." — Tribune. 
 
 " Napier's History, in addition to its superior literary merits and truthful fidelity, 
 presents strong claims upon the attention of all American citizens ; because the author 
 is a large-souled philanthropist and an inflexible enemy to ecclesiastical tyranny and 
 secular despots." — Pott. 
 
 " The excellency of Napier's History results from the writer's happy talent for im- 
 petuous, straight-forward, soul-stirring narrative and picturing forth of characters 
 The military manoeuvre, march, and fiery onset, the whole whirlwind vicissitudes o* 
 the desperate fight, he describes with dramatic force."— Merchants' Magazine. 
 
 LECTURES AND MISCELLANIES. 
 
 NAPIER'S PENINSULAR WAR. 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 REICHENBACH ON DYNAMICS. 
 
 Phvsico-Physiological Researches on the Dynamics of Magnetism, 
 Electricity, Heat, Light, Crystallization, and Chemism, in their 
 relation to Vital Force: By Baron Charles Von Reichenbach. 
 With the Addition of a Preface and Critical Notes, by John 
 Ashburner, M. D. With all the Plates. In one Volume, 
 12mo, 456 pp. Price, $1.25. 
 
 " This book is a valuable addition to scientific knowledge upon subjects that have hith 
 erto been involved in obscurity and mysticism. Charlatans have so long availed them 
 selves of a slight knowledge of the phenomena of magnetism for mercenary purposes, 
 that discredit has been thrown upon the whole subject, and men of science have been 
 deterred from pursuing, or at least from publishing their researches. The work before 
 us gives the result of a vast number of experiments conducted with great philosophical 
 acumen, testing the truth of both modern theories and ancient superstitions. Phenom- 
 ena attributed in past ages to a supernatural agency, and by the superficial skepticism 
 of later times dismissed as mere impostures, are in many instances traced with great 
 clearness to natural and explicable causes. It requires, and is eminently worthy of an 
 attentive perusal."— City Item. 
 
 Or, Secrets of the World to Come, revealed through Magnetism ; 
 wherein the Existence, the Form, and the Occupations of the Soul, 
 after its Separation from the Body, are proved by Many Years' 
 Experiments, by the Means of eight Ecstatic Somnambulists, who 
 had eighty Perceptions of thirty-six Deceased Persons of various 
 Conditions. A description of them, their Conversation, etc., with 
 Proofs of their Existence in the Spiritual World. By L. Alph. 
 Cahagnet. In one volume, 12mo, 410 pp. Price $1.25. 
 
 " Mr. Cahagnet has certainly placed the human race under a vast debt of obligation 
 to himself, by the vast amount of information vouchsafed respecting our hereafter. 
 What we have read in this volume has exceedingly interested us in many ways and for 
 many reasons — chiefly, perhaps, because we have perused it as we would any other 
 able work of fiction. As a work of imagination, it is almost incomparable, i^ome of 
 the revelations are as marvellous and interesting as those, or that, of Poe's M. Valde- 
 mar. We commend this work to lovers of the wild and incredible in romance." — 
 Ontario Repository. 
 
 Theory of Pneumatology ; in Reply to the Qnestion, What ought to 
 be believed or disbelieved concerning Presentiments, Visions, and 
 Apparitions, according to Nature, Reason, and Scripture. By 
 Doet. Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling. Translated from the 
 German, with copious Notes, by Samuel Jackson. Edited by 
 Rev. George Bush. In one vol., 12mo, 300 pp. Price $1. 
 
 "We have in the course of the discussion, a philosophical account of the magnetic 
 influence, a* showing the influence of mind upon mind, as well as of various other an- 
 alogous subjects. The array of facts brought forward by the author is curious, and the 
 work will interest anv one who is engaged in studying the different phases of the hu> 
 man mind."— State Register. 
 
 THE CELESTIAL TELEGRAPH: 
 
 STTLLIN&S PNEUMATOLOGY. 
 
redfield's new and popular publications. 
 
 THE NIGHT-SIDE ON NATURE; 
 
 Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers. By Catharine Crowe. One vol., 
 12mo., price $1.25. 
 
 "In this remarkable work, Miss Crowe, who writes with the vigor ard grace of a 
 woman of strong sense and high cultivation, collects the most remarkable and best au- 
 thenticated accounts, traditional and recorded, of preternatural visitations and appear- 
 ances." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 " An almost unlimited fund of interesting illustrations and anecdotes touching the 
 spiritual world." — New Orleans Bee. 
 
 THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE ; 
 
 Complete in Three Volumes, with a Portrait, a Memoir by James 
 Russell Lowell, and an Introductory Essay by N. P. Willis; edit- 
 ed by Rufus W. Griswold. 12mo., price $4.00. 
 
 '• We need not say that these volumes will be found rich in intellectual excitements, 
 and abounding in remarkable specimens of vigorous, beautiful, and highly suggestive 
 composition ; they are all that remain to us of a man whose uncommon genius it would 
 be folly to deny ."— N. JT. Tribune. 
 
 "Mr. Poe's intellectual character — his genius — is stamped upon all his productions, 
 and we shall place these his works in the library among those books not to be parted 
 with." — iV Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 " These productions will live. They bear the stamp of true genius ; and if their repu- 
 tation begins with a 'fit audience though few,' the circle will be constantly widening, 
 and they will retain a prominent place in our literature." — Rev. Dr. Kip. 
 
 CHAPMAN S AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK. 
 
 The American Drawing-Book, intended for Schools, Academies, and 
 Self-Instruction. By John G. Chapman, N. A. Three Parts 
 now published, price 50 cents each. 
 
 This Work will be issued in Parts ; and will contain Primary Instruction and Rudi- 
 ments of Drawing : Drawing from Nature — Materials and Methods : Perspective — 
 Composition — Landscape — Figures, etc. : Drawing, as applicable to the Mechanic Arts : 
 Painting in Oil and Water Colors : The Principles of Light and Shade : External Anato- 
 my of the Human Form, and Comparative Anatomy : The Various Methods of Etching, 
 Engraving, Modelling, &c. 
 
 " It has received the sanction of many of our most eminent artists, and can scarcely 
 be commended too highly ." — N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 ■'■ But so clearly are its principles developed in the beautiful letter-press, and so exquis- 
 itely are they illustrated by the engravings, that the pupil's way is opened most invi- 
 tingly to a thorough knowledge of both the elements and application." — Home Journal. 
 
 " The engravings are superb, and the typography unsurpassed by any book with 
 which we are acquainted. It is an honor to the author and publisher, and a credit to 
 our common country." — Scientific American. 
 
 " This work is so distinct and progressive in its instructions that we can not well see 
 how it could fail to impart a full and complete knowledge of the art. Nothing can vie 
 with it in artistic and mechanical execution." — Knickerbocker Magazine. 
 
RED FIELDS 
 
 TOY BOOKS, 
 
 FOUR SERIES OF TWELVE BOOKS EACH, 
 
 FROM DESIGNS BY A. G CHAPMAN. 
 
 First Series— Price One Cent. 
 
 1. Tom Thumb's Picture Alphabet, in Rhyme. 
 
 2. Rhymes for the Nursery. 
 
 3. Pretty Rhymes about Birds and Animals, for little Boys and Girls. 
 
 4. Life on the Farm, in Amusing Rhyme. 
 
 5. The Story-Book for Good Little Girls. 
 
 6. The Beacon, or Warnings to Thoughtless Boys. 
 
 7. The Picture Book, with Stories in Easy Words, for Little Readere. 
 
 8. The Little Sketch-Book, or Useful Objects Illustrated. 
 
 9. History of Domestic Animals. 
 
 10. The Museum of Birds. 
 
 11. The Little Keepsake, a Poetic Gift for Children. 
 
 12. The Book of the Sea, for the Instruction of Little Sailors. 
 
 Second Series— Price Two Cents. 
 
 1. The A B C in Verse, for Young Learners. 
 
 2. Figures in Verse, and Simple Rhymes, for Little Learners. 
 
 3. Riddles for the Nursery. 
 
 4. The Child's Story-Book. 
 
 5. The Christmas Dream of Little Charle3. 
 
 6. The Basket of Strawberries. 
 
 7. Story for the Fourth of July, an Epitome of American History 
 
 8. The Two Friends, and Kind Little James. 
 
 9. The Wagon-Boy, or Trust in Providence. 
 
 10. Paulina and Her Pets. 
 
 11. Simple Poems for Infant Minds. 
 
 12. Little Poems for Little Children. 
 
 Third Series— Price Four Cents. 
 
 1. The Alphabet in Rhyme. 
 
 2. The Multiplication Table in Rhyme, for Young Arithmeticians. 
 
 3. The Practical Joke, or the Christmas Story of Uncle Ned. 
 
 4. Little George, or Temptation Resisted. 
 
 5. The Young Arithmetician, or the Reward of Perseverance. 
 
 6. The Traveller's Story, or the Village Bar-Room. 
 
 7 The Sagacity and Intelligence of the Horse. 
 
 8 The Young Sailor, or the Sea-Life of Tow Bowline. 
 
 9. The Selfish Girl, a Tale of Truth. 
 
 10. Manual or Finger Alphabet, used by the Deaf and Dumb. 
 11 The Story-Book in Verse. 
 
 12. The Flower- Vase, or Pretty Poems for Good little Children. 
 Fourth Scries— Price Six Cents. 
 
 1. The Book of Fables, in Prose and Verse 
 
 2. The Little Casket, filled with Pleasant Stories. 
 
 3. Home Pastimes, or Enigmas, Charades, Rebuses, Conundrums, etc. 
 
 4. The Juvenile Sunday-Book, adapted to the Improvement of the Young 
 
 5. William Seaton and the Buttertly, with its Interesting History. 
 
 6. The Young Girl's Book of Healthful Amusements and Exercises. 
 
 7. Theodore Carleton, or Perseverance against Ill-Fortune. 
 
 8 The Aviary, or Child's Book of Birds. 
 
 9 The Jungle, or Child's Book of Wild Animals. 
 
 10. Sagacity and Fidelity of the Dog, Illustrated by Interesting Anecdotea 
 
 11. Coverings for the Head and Feet, in all Ages and Countries. 
 
 12. Romance of Ind ; nn History, or Incidents in the Early Settlements. 
 
CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 MEN OF THE TIME, 
 
 OK SKETCHES OF LIVING ROTABLES, 
 
 AUTHORS ENGINEERS ' PHILANTHROPISTS 
 
 ARCHITECTS JOURNALISTS PREACHERS 
 ARTISTS MINISTERS SAVANS 
 
 COMPOSERS MONARCH S STATESMEN 
 
 DEMAGOGUES NOVELISTS TRAVELLERS 
 DIVINES POLITICIANS VOYAGERS 
 
 DRAMATISTS POETS WARRIORS 
 
 In One Vol., \2mo, containing nearly Xine Hundred Biograph- 
 ical Sketches — Price $1.50. 
 
 "I am glad to learn that you are publishing this work. It is precisely that kind of 
 information that every public and intelligent man desires to see, especially in reference 
 to the distinguished men of Europe, but which I have found it extremely difficult to 
 obtain " — Extract from a Letter of the President of the United States to the publisher. 
 
 «• In its practical usefulness this work will supply a most important desideratum." — 
 Courier \ Enquirer. 
 
 " It forms a valuable manual for reference, especially in the American department, 
 which we can not well do without ; we commend it to the attention of our ' reading 
 public.' " — Tribune. 
 
 Just the book we have desired a hundred times, brief, statistical and biographical 
 sketches of men now living, in Europe and America." — New York Observer. 
 
 " It is a book of reference which every newspaper reader should have at his elbow — 
 as indi-pensable as a map or a d'crionarv — and from which the best-informed will de- 
 rive instruction and pk asure." — Evangelist. 
 
 "This book therefore tills a place in literature ; and once published, we do not see 
 how any one could do without it." — Albany Express. 
 
 "It is evidently compiled with great care and labor, and every possible means seems 
 to have been used to secure the big! est degree of correctness. It contains a crcat deal 
 of valuable information, and is admirable as a book of reference." — Albany Argus. 
 
 "It is, to our notion, the most valuable collection of contemporary biographies yet 
 made in this or any other country The author acknowledges that its compilation was 
 a 'labor of care and responsibility ' We believe him. and we give him credit for hav 
 ins executed that labor after a fashion that will command general and lasting approv- 
 al " — Sunday Times, and Noah's Weekly Messenger. 
 
 " This is one of the most valuable works lately issued— valuable not only for general 
 reading and study, but as a book of reference. It is certainly the fullest collection of 
 contemporary Biographies yet made in this country." — Troy Daily Times. 
 
 " This is emphatically a book worthy of the name, and will secure an extended pop- 
 ularity." — Detroit Daily Advertiser. 
 
 "A book of refer- nee un< quail, d in either value or interest. It is indeed a grand sup- 
 plement and appendix to the modern histories, to the reviews, to the daily newspapers 
 — a book which a m* n anxious to he regarded as intelligent and well-informed, can no 
 more do without than a churchman can do without his prayer book, a sailor his navi- 
 gator, or a Wall street man his almanac and interest tables." — New York Day Book. 
 
 "The volume once known will be found indispensable, and will prove a constant 
 source of information to readers at large." — N. Y. Reveille. 
 
 "For a book of reference, this volume will recommend itself as an invaluable com- 
 panion in the library, office, and studio." — Northern Budget. 
 
 " It is a living breathins epitome of the day, a directory to that wide phantasmagoria 
 we call the world-" — Wall Street Journal. 
 
 " We know of no more valuable book to authors, editors, statemen, and all who 
 would be 'up with the time,' than this." — Spirit of the Times. 
 
 " Men of all nations, cree.is and parties, appear to be treated in a kindly spirit. The 
 work will be found a useful supplement to the ordinary biographical dictionaries." — 
 Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 '■ The value of such a work ran scarcely be over-estimated. To the statesman and 
 philanthropist, as well as the scholar and business man, it will be found of great con- 
 venience as a reference book, and mast soon be considered as indispensable to a library 
 as Webster's Dictionary." — Lockport Courier. 
 
WORKS IN PREPARATION. 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES. 
 
 By Arsene Houssaye. With beautifully-engraved Portraits of 
 Voltaire and Mad. Parabere. Two vols., 12mo. 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSIOGNOMY; 
 
 Or Resemblances between Men and Animals. By J. W. Redfield, 
 M. D. In one vol., 8vo, with several hundred illustrations. 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS. 
 By John Kendrick, M. A. In 2 vols., 12mo. 
 
 FATHER MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY 
 
 And Exploration of the Valley and River of the Mississippi. By 
 John J. Shea. With fac-similes and a copy of his Map. Now 
 first translated from the original manuscripts. In 1 vol., 8vo. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 
 
 By Joseph Francois Michaud. Translated by Robson. Three 
 vols., 12mo. 
 
 NEWMAN'S REGAL ROME. 
 In 1 vol., 12mo. Price 75 cents. 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 
 
 A new work by Caroline Chesebro', author of " Isa, a Pilgrim- 
 age," and " Dream Land by Daylight." 
 
 THE CHEVALIERS OF FRANCE; 
 
 From the Crusaders to the Mareschals of Louis XIV. Br Henry 
 William Herbert. One vol., 12mo. 
 
 THE PURITANS OF NEW ENGLAND: 
 
 An Historical Romance of the Days of Witchcraft. By Henry 
 William Herbert, Author of "Cavaliers of England," " Mar- 
 maduke Wyvil," &c. One vol., 12mo, price $1.25. 
 
 HOLLAND AND FLEMISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The History of Painters and Painting in Holland and Flanders 
 By Arsene Houssaye. With a beautifully-engraved Portrait 
 of Rubens, from the picture of himself. One vol., 12mo. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 By Arsene Houssaye. Four vols., 12mo, with Portraits. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 
 -4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DEMCO 38-297 
 
DT83 .K36 v.2 
 
 Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs. 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00051 2717