Part 239

From the anarchy in which the Nineteenth Dynasty came to its end, order was presently restored by the seating in power of a new family, which claimed to be of the Rameside stock. The second of its kings, who called himself Ramses III. and who is believed to be the Rhampsinitus of the Greeks, appears to have been one of the ablest of the monarchs of his line. The security and prosperity of Egypt were recovered under his reign and he left it in a state which does not seem to have promised the rapid decay which ensued. "It is difficult to understand and account for the suddenness and completeness of the collapse. … The hieratic chiefs, the high priests of the god Ammon at Thebes, gradually increased in power, usurped one after another the prerogatives of the Pharaohs, by degrees reduced their authority to a shadow, and ended with an open assumption not only of the functions, but of the very insignia of royalty. A space of nearly two centuries elapsed, however, before this change was complete. Ten princes of the name of Ramses, and one called Meri-Tum, all of them connected by blood with the great Rameside house, bore the royal title and occupied the royal palace, in the space between B. C. 1280 and B. C. 1100. Egyptian history during this period is almost wholly a blank. No military expeditions are conducted—no great buildings are reared—art almost disappears—literature holds her tongue." Then came the dynasty of the priest-kings, founded by Her-Hor, which held the throne for more than a century and was contemporary in its latter years with David and Solomon. The Twenty-Second Dynasty which succeeded had its capital at Bubastis and is concluded by Dr. Brugsch to have been a line of Assyrian kings, representing an invasion and conquest of Egypt by Nimrod, the great king of Assyria. Other Egyptologists disagree with Dr. Brugsch in this, and Professor Rawlinson, the historian of Assyria, finds objections to the hypothesis from his own point of view. {756} The prominent monarch of this dynasty was the Sheshonk of Biblical history, who sheltered Jeroboam, invaded Palestine and plundered Jerusalem. Before this dynasty came to an end it had lost the sovereignty of Egypt at large, and its Pharaohs contended with various rivals and invaders. Among the latter, power grew in the hands of a race of Ethiopians, who had risen to importance at Napata, on the Upper Nile, and who extended their power, at last, over the whole of Egypt. The Ethiopian domination was maintained for two-thirds of a century, until the great wave of Assyrian conquest broke upon Egypt in 672 B. C. and swept over it, driving the Ethiopians back to Napata and Meroë.

_G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 25._

ALSO IN: _H. Brugsch-Bey, Egypt under the Pharaohs, chapter 15-18._

_E. Wilson, Egypt of the Past, chapter 8._

See, also, ETHIOPIA.

EGYPT: B. C. 670-525. Assyrian conquest and restored independence. The Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The Greeks at Naucratis.

Although Syria and Palestine had then been suffering for more than a century from the conquering arms of the Assyrians, it was not until 670 B. C., according to Professor Rawlinson, that Esarhaddon passed the boundaries of Egypt and made himself master of that country. His father Sennacherib, had attempted the invasion thirty years before, at the time of his siege of Jerusalem, and had recoiled before some mysterious calamity which impelled him to a sudden retreat. The son avenged his father's failure. The Ethiopian masters of Egypt were expelled and the Assyrian took their place. He "broke up the country into twenty governments, appointing in each town a ruler who bore the title of king, but placing all the others to a certain extent under the authority of the prince who reigned at Memphis. This was Neco, the father of Psammetichus (Psamtik I.)—a native Egyptian of whom we have some mention both in Herodotus and in the fragments of Manetho. The remaining rulers were likewise, for the most part, native Egyptians." These arrangements were soon broken up by the expelled Ethiopian king, Tirhakah, who rallied his forces and swept the Assyrian kinglets out of the country; but Asshur-bani-pal, son and successor of Esarhaddon, made his appearance with an army in 668 or 667 B. C. and Tirhakah fled before him. Again and again this occurred, and for twenty years Egypt was torn between the Assyrians and the Ethiopians, in their struggle for the possession of her. At length, out of the chaos produced by these conflicts there emerged a native ruler—the Psammetichus mentioned above—who subjugated his fellow princes and established a new Egyptian monarchy, which defended itself with success against Assyria and Ethiopia, alike. The Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, of Sais, founded by Psammetichus, is suspected to have been of Libyan descent. It ruled Egypt until the Persian conquest, and brought a great new influence to bear on the country and people, by the introduction of Greek soldiers and traders. It was under this dynasty that the Greek city of Naucratis was founded, on the Canobic branch of the Nile.

_G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies: Assyria, chapter 9._

The site of Naucratis, near the Canobic branch of the Nile, was determined by excavations which Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie began in 1884, and from which much has been learned of the history of the city and of early relations between the Egyptians and the Greeks. It is concluded that the settlement of Naucratis dates from about 660 B. C.—not long after the beginning of the reign of Psammitichus—and that its Greek founders became the allies of that monarch and his successors against their enemies. "All are agreed that before the reign of Psammitichus and the founding of Naucratis, Egypt was a sealed book to the Greeks. It is likely that the Phoenicians, who were from time to time the subjects of the Pharaohs, were admitted, where aliens like the Greeks were excluded. We have indeed positive evidence that the Egyptians did not wish strange countries to learn their art, for in a treaty between them and the Hittites it is stipulated that neither country shall harbour fugitive artists from the other. But however the fact may be accounted for, it is an undoubted fact that long before Psammitichus threw Egypt open to the foreigner, the Phoenicians had studied in the school of Egyptian art, and learned to copy all sorts of handiwork procured from the valley of the Nile. … According to Herodotus and Diodorus, the favour shown to the Greeks by the King was the cause of a great revolt of the native Egyptian troops, who left the frontier fortresses, and marched south beyond Elephantine, where they settled, resisting all the entreaties of Psammitichus, who naturally deplored the loss of the mainstay of his dominions, and developed into the race of the Sebridae. Wiedemann, however, rejects the whole story as unhistorical, and certainly, if we closely consider it, it contains great inherent improbabilities. … Psammitichus died in B. C: 610, and was succeeded by his son Necho, who was his equal in enterprise and vigour. This King paid great attention to the fleet of Egypt, and Greek shipwrights were set to work on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas to build triremes for the State navy. A fleet of his ships, we are told, succeeded in sailing round Africa, a very great feat for the age. The King even attempted the task, of which the completion was reserved for the Persian Darius, the Ptolemies, and Trajan, of making a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Herodotus says that, after sacrificing the lives of 120,000 men to the labour and heat of the task, he gave it up, in consequence of the warning of an oracle that he was toiling only for the barbarians. … Necho, like his father, must needs try the edge of his new weapon, the Ionian mercenaries, on Asia. At first he was successful. Josiah, King of Judah, came out against him, but was slain, and his army dispersed. Greek valour carried Necho as far as the Euphrates. … But Nebuchadnezzar, son of the King of Babylon, marched against the invaders, and defeated them in a great battle near Carehemish. His father's death recalled him to Babylon, and Egypt was for the moment saved from counter-invasion by the stubborn resistance offered to the Babylonian arms by Jehoiakim, King of Judah, a resistance fatal to the Jewish race; for Jerusalem was captured after a long siege, and most of the inhabitants carried into captivity. Of Psammitichus II., who succeeded Necho, we should know but little were it not for the archaeological record. Herodotus only says that he attacked Ethiopia, and died after a reign of six years. {757} But of the expedition thus summarily recorded we have a lasting and memorable result in the well-known inscriptions written by Rhodians and other Greek mercenaries on the legs of the colossi at Abu Simbel in Nubia, which record how certain of them came thither in the reign of Psammitichus, pushing up the river in boats as far as it was navigable, that is, perhaps, up to the second cataract. … Apries, the Hophra of the Bible, was the next king. The early part of his reign was marked by successful warfare against the Phoenicians and the peoples of Syria; but, like his predecessor, he was unable to maintain a footing in Asia in the face of the powerful and warlike Nebuchadnezzar. The hostility which prevailed between Egypt and Babylon at this time caused King Apries to open a refuge for those Jews who fled from the persecution of Nebuchadnezzar. He assigned to their leaders, among whom were the daughters of the King of Judah, a palace of his own at Daphnae, 'Pharaoh's house at Tahpanhes,' as it is called by Jeremiah. That prophet was among the fugitives, and uttered in the palace a notable prophecy, (xliii. 9) that King Nebuchadnezzar should come and spread his conquering tent over the pavement before it. Formerly it was supposed that this prophecy remained unfulfilled, but this opinion has to be abandoned. Recently discovered Egyptian and Babylonian inscriptions prove that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt as far as Syene. … The fall of Apries as brought about by his ingratitude to the Greeks, and his contempt for the lives of his own subjects. He had formed the project of bringing under his sway the Greek cities of the Cyrenaica. … Apries despatched against Cyrene a large force; but the Cyreneans bravely defended themselves, and as the Egyptians on this occasion marched without their Greek allies, they were entirely defeated, and most of them perished by the sword, or in the deserts which separate Cyrene from Egypt. The defeated troops, and their countrymen who remained behind in garrison in Egypt, imputed the disaster to treachery on the part of Apries. … They revolted, and chose as their leader Amasis, a man of experience and daring. But Apries, though deserted by his subjects, hoped still to maintain his throne by Greek aid. At the head of 30,000 Ionians and Carians he marched against Amasis. At Momemphis a battle took place between the rival kings and between the rival nations; but the numbers of the Egyptians prevailed over the arms and discipline of the mercenaries, and Apries was defeated and captured by his rival, who, however, allowed him for some years to retain the name of joint-king. It is the best possible proof of the solidity of Greek influence in Egypt at this time that Amasis, though set on the throne by the native army after a victory over the Greek mercenaries, yet did not expel these latter from Egypt, but, on the contrary, raised them to higher favour than before. … In the delightful dawn of connected European history we see Amasis as a wise and wealthy prince, ruling in Egypt at the time when Polycrates was tyrant of Samos; and when Croesus of Lydia, the richest king of his time, was beginning to be alarmed by the rapid expansion of the Persian power under Cyrus. … In the days of Psammitichus III., the son of Amasis, the storm which had overshadowed Asia broke upon Egypt. One of the leaders of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt named Phanes, a native of Halicarnassus, made his way to the Persian Court, and persuaded Cambyses, who, according to the story, had received from Amasis one of those affronts which have so often produced wars between despots, to invade Egypt in full force."

_P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _W. M. F. Petrie, Naukratis._

See, also, NAUKRATIS.

EGYPT: B. C. 525-332. Persian conquest and sovereignty.

The kings of the Twenty-Sixth or Saite Dynasty maintained the independence of Egypt for nearly a century and a half, and even revived its military glories briefly, by Necho's ephemeral conquests in Syria and his overthrow of Josiah king of Judah. In the meantime, Assyria and Babylonia had fallen and the Persian power raised up by Cyrus had taken their place. In his own time, Cyrus did not finish a plan of conquest which included Egypt; his son Cambyses took up the task. "It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B. C. 525 that he entered Egypt at the head of his troops and fought the great battle which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody [see PERSIA: B. C. 549-521]. Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not only of his Egyptian subjects, but of a large body of mercenaries besides, Greeks and Carians. … In spite of their courage and fanaticism, the Egyptian army was completely defeated. … The conquest of Egypt was followed by the submission of the neighbouring tribes. … Even the Greeks of the more remote Barca and Cyrene sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his tributaries." But Cambyses wasted 50,000 men in a disastrous expedition through the Libyan desert to Ammon, and he retreated from Ethiopia with loss and shame. An attempted rising of the Egyptians, before he had quitted their country, was crushed with merciless severity. The deities, the temples and the priests of Egypt were treated with insult and contempt and the spirit of the people seems to have been entirely broken. "Egypt became now for a full generation the obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator than the weakest, or the most contented, of the provinces."

_George Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 7._

"The Persian kings, from Cambyses to Darius II. Nothus, are enrolled as the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty of Manetho. The ensuing revolts [see ATHENS: B. C. 460-449] are recognized in the Twenty-Eighth (Saite) Dynasty, consisting only of Amyrtæus, who restored the independence of Egypt (B. C. 414-408), and the Twenty-Ninth (Mendesian) and Thirtieth (Sebennyte) Dynasties (about B. C. 408-353), of whose intricate history we need only here say that they ruled with great prosperity and have left beautiful monuments of art. The last king of independent Egypt was Nectanebo II., who succumbed to the invasion of Artaxerxes Ochus, and fled to Ethiopia (B. C. 353). The last three kings of Persia, Ochus, Arses, and Darius Codomannus, form the Thirty-First Dynasty of Manetho, ending with the submission of Egypt to Alexander the Great (B. C. 332)."

_P. Smith, Ancient History of the East (Students'), chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _S. Sharpe, History of Egypt, chapter 5._

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EGYPT: B. C. 332. Alexander's conquest.

"In the summer of 332 [after the siege and destruction of Tyre—see TYRE: B. C. 332, and MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 334-330] Alexander set forward on his march toward Egypt, accompanied by the fleet, which he had placed under the orders of Hephæstion." But, being detained on the way several months by the siege of Gaza, it was not before December that he entered Egypt. "He might safely reckon not merely on an easy conquest, but on an ardent reception, from a people who burnt to shake off the Persian tyranny. … Mazaces [the Persian commander] himself, as soon as he heard of the battle of Issus, became aware that all resistance to Alexander would be useless, and met him with a voluntary submission. At Pelusium he found the fleet, and, having left a garrison in the fortress, ordered it to proceed up the Nile as far as Memphis, while he marched across the desert. Here he conciliated the Egyptians by the honours which he paid to all their gods, especially to Apis, who had been so cruelly insulted by the Persian invaders. … He then embarked, and dropt down the western or Canobic arm of the river to Canobus, to survey the extremity of the Delta on that side, and having sailed round the lake Mareotis, landed on the narrow belt of low ground which parts it from the sea, and is sheltered from the violence of the northern gales … by a long ridge of rock, then separated from the main land by a channel, nearly a mile (seven stades) broad and forming the isle of Pharos. On this site stood the village of Racotis, where the ancient kings of Egypt had stationed a permanent guard to protect this entrance of their dominions from adventurers. … Alexander's keen eye was immediately struck by the advantages of this position for a city, which should become a great emporium of commerce, and a link between the East and the West. … He immediately gave orders for the beginning of the work, himself traced the outline, which was suggested by the natural features of the ground itself, and marked the site of some of the principal buildings, squares, palaces and temples" (see ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 332). Alexander remained in Egypt until the spring of 331, arranging the occupation and administration of the country. "The system which he established served in some points as a model for the policy of Rome under the Emperors." Before quitting the country he made a toilsome march along the coast, westward, and thence, far into the desert, to visit the famous oracle of Ammon.

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 50._

EGYPT: B. C. 323-30. The kingdom of the Ptolemies.

In the division of the empire of Alexander the Great between his generals, when he died, Ptolemy Lagus—reputed to be a natural son of Alexander's father Philip—chose Egypt (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316), with a modesty which proved to be wise. In all the provinces of the Macedonian conquest, it was the country most easily to be held as an independent state, by reason of the sea and desert which separated it from the rest of the world. It resulted from the prudence of Ptolemy that he founded a kingdom which lasted longer and enjoyed more security and prosperity than any other among the monarchies of the Diadochi. He was king of Egypt, in fact, for seventeen years before, in 307, B. C., he ventured to assume the name (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301). Meantime, he had added to his dominion the little Greek state of Cyrene, on the African coast with Phœnicia, Judæa, Cœle-Syria, and the island of Cyprus. These latter became disputed territory, fought over for two centuries, between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, sometimes dominated by the one and sometimes by the other (see SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224, and 224-187). At its greatest extent, the dominion of the Ptolemies, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Lagus, included large parts of Asia Minor and many of the Greek islands. Egypt and Cyrene they held, with little disturbance, until Rome absorbed them. Notwithstanding the vices which the family of Ptolemy developed, and which were as rank of their kind as history can show, Egypt under their rule appears to have been one of the most prosperous countries of the time. In Alexandria, they more than realized the dream of its Macedonian projector. They made it not only the wealthiest city of their day, but the greatest seat of learning,—the successor of Athens as the capital of Greek civilization in the ancient world.

_S. Sharpe, History of Egypt, chapters 7-12._

The first Ptolemy abdicated in favor of his son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, in 284 B. C., and died in the second year following.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280.

"Although the political constitution of Egypt was not greatly altered when the land fell into Greek hands, yet in other respects great changes took place. The mere fact that Egypt took its place among a family of Hellenistic nations, instead of claiming as of old a proud isolation, must have had a great effect on the trade, the manufactures, and the customs of the country. To begin with trade. Under the native kings Egypt had scarcely any external trade, and trade could scarcely spring up during the wars with Persia. But under the Ptolemies, intercourse between Egypt and Sicily, Syria or Greece, would naturally and necessarily advance rapidly. Egypt produced manufactured goods which were everywhere in demand; fine linen, ivory, porcelain, notably that papyrus which Egypt alone produced, and which was necessary to the growing trade in manuscripts. Artificial barriers being once removed, enterprising traders of Corinth and Tarentum, Ephesus and Rhodes, would naturally seek these goods in Egypt, bringing in return whatever of most attractive their own countries had to offer. It seems probable that the subjects of the Ptolemies seldom or never had the courage to sail direct down the Red Sea to India. In Roman times this voyage became not unusual, but at an earlier time the Indian trade was principally in the hands of the Arabs of Yemen and of the Persian Gulf. Nevertheless the commerce of Egypt under the Ptolemies spread eastwards as well as westwards. The important towns of Arsinoë and Berenice arose on the Red Sea as emporia of the Arabian trade. And as always happens when Egypt is in vigorous hands, the limits of Egyptian rule and commerce were pushed further and further up the Nile. The influx into Alexandria and Memphis of a crowd of Greek architects, artists, and artizans, could not fail to produce movement in that stream of art which had in Egypt long remained all but stagnant. … If we may trust the somewhat over-coloured and flighty panegyrics which have come down to us, the material progress of Egypt under Ptolemy Philadelphus was most wonderful. We read, though we cannot for a moment trust the figures of Appian, that in his reign Egypt possessed an army of 200,000 foot soldiers and 40,000 horsemen, 300 elephants and 2,000 chariots of war. The fleet at the same period is said to have included 1,500 large vessels, some of them with twenty or thirty banks of oars. Allowing for exaggeration, we must suppose that Egypt was then more powerful than it had been since the days of Rameses."

_P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapter 7._

See, also, ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246; and EDUCATION, ANCIENT: ALEXANDRIA.

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