Part 31

Ethiopia proper is highly remarkable in ancient history: in Scripture it is called Koosh, and its kings are distinguished from those of the Mauri. The country of these Mauri was in very ancient times a great state in the south of Egypt; its capital, _Meroe_, contrary to the express testimony of the ancients, has generally been placed too near Egypt; it was probably situated in the neighbourhood of Sennaar. The Meroites had a peculiar kind of civilisation; and there can be no doubt that the hieroglyphics, and all that we afterwards find as Egyptian civilisation, originated among them. At a very remote time they conquered Egypt; the ancients themselves trace to them the knowledge and religion of the Egyptians; they describe their monuments as Ethiopian, and all that can be made out by historical inquiry is confirmatory of this view. The southernmost monuments of Egypt, between the two cataracts, are the grandest and most ancient; then follows Thebes, and as we advance northward, the monuments become smaller and more insignificant. But monuments are found also higher up the river to the south of Meroe. The accounts in Diodorus about the condition of that city are perfectly credible and satisfactory. The Egyptians, like the Celtiberians, Celtoligyans and others, were a mixed people, in which one nation ruled while the other obeyed. In the Greek documents of Egypt, such as contracts, and the like, we find a singular custom, occasioned by the extremely small number of proper names: the notary, in order to prevent confusion, added a description of the persons concerned. Accordingly, we can clearly distinguish the different races, for we find such characteristics as short, yellow, flat nose, curly hair, and the like.[81] The most ancient idols resemble negroes, as, for example, the celebrated Isis of Elephantine. Among the mummies, too, there are a great many negro forms, faces altogether non-European, different both in their skulls and teeth; and this is another sign that Egypt was conquered by the Ethiopians, who settled among the conquered people. Champollion the younger is not only an honest man, but has no doubt discovered the truth. The most ancient documents we have, go back as far as the eighteenth dynasty of Manetho; and the seventeenth and eighteenth dynasties are probably the period when the yoke of the Hycsos was thrown off in consequence of this conquest. The original inhabitants were probably Libyans, who extended as far as lake Mareotis, for Mareotis is a Libyan name; and Egyptians, in the sense in which Herodotus understands the name, do not occur beyond the Canobian mouth of the Nile. The original inhabitants, therefore, may have been under the dominion of a Semitic race, which among the Egyptians bore the name of Hycsos, and was intensely hated by the later Egyptians. This expulsion of the Hycsos, which is so often represented on monuments, was the result of the establishment of the Kooshites in Upper Egypt, who thence also spread over Lower Egypt. The modern Egyptians have scarcely a trace left of the ancient physiognomy; their features are rather Libyan. The Copts have harsh and rude features, but they are just those of the Berbers, whence they are different from the Arabs and Syrians. The mummies which are brought to Europe belong to the higher castes, descended for the most part from Ethiopians—a race which has now disappeared: the great mass of the nation consisted of natives. The settlement of the Egyptian warriors (μάχιμοι) in the south of Meroe, of which Herodotus speaks, is nothing else but another instance of the confusion of the two poles in legends about migrations; arising from the fact that a tribe was found in those southern parts resembling the one ruling in Lower Egypt. The story, as it is related, is only ridiculous. This also accounts for the institution of castes, for wherever they exist they originate in conquest.

Upper and Lower Egypt differ most widely from each other: the former is a narrow and deep valley, which is but rarely overflowed by the river; Middle Egypt is more frequently exposed to inundations; and Lower Egypt, in antiquity, was put under water by every rising of the Nile; at present it is only the districts between the arms of the river and the neighbourhood of Damietta that are overflowed. This is accounted for by the circumstance that after every inundation the river leaves behind a stratum of mud, whereby the country is constantly raised: on the bank the different years may be traced by very thin strata, a fact which has been unjustly denied. In ancient times, the arms of the Nile were large rivers, while at present ships of some size cannot sail into any of the mouths of the river, because the bed has been so much elevated. But the surrounding country has been raised much more; for in the time of Herodotus all the towns were situated on hills rising above the ground which was usually inundated; but this is not the case now, the lower parts having been filled up, and the extensive marshes in the Delta having, for the most part, become arable land, while the ancient lakes are changed into marshes. Upper Egypt must have been irrigated by artificially raising the water. There is, moreover, this remarkable change in the climate of Egypt, that, while in Herodotus’ time it never rained in Upper Egypt, at present there are occasional showers, though never without violent thunderstorms.

THEBES was the ancient capital of Upper Egypt; but it had fallen from its greatness even before the Persian conquest, for Psammetichus, for the sake of commerce, had transferred the capital to Lower Egypt, and he was strong through the support of foreigners. From that time, Thebes was always in opposition to the rulers; it was eclipsed by Memphis, and afterwards by Sais, but it still regarded itself as the repository of ancient wisdom and as the venerable seat of religion. The city was greatly deserted and decayed; but there is no reason for doubting its immense magnitude; its ruins are gigantic, and its temples are as vast as cities. Thebes received its death-blow during the unfortunate rebellion against Ptolemy Physcon; under the Romans, too, it was frequently the centre of insurrection.

PTOLEMAIS, the next town after Thebes down the river, was founded by the first or second Ptolemy against the seditious disposition of the Thebans; it was a σύστημα Ἑλληνικὸν in the proper sense of the term, with Greek institutions, both public and private, and Greek was the language of the place. By means of this city, the Ptolemies endeavoured to keep Upper Egypt in subjection, while, on the other hand, they admitted colonisation to Alexandria for similar purposes, exercising their power from above through a number of local magistrates. In other respects, the Ptolemies did not favour Greek colonisation as much as the Seleucidae, for they confined it to Ptolemais and Alexandria.[82]

MEMPHIS never was comparable to Thebes in size and importance, for it contained only very few large buildings, of which at present no traces exist. All the buildings, such as royal palaces and the like, must have consisted of unburnt bricks. The city was large and populous, but it already represents a different state of things: the transfer of the capital to this place must be regarded as the epoch in which the pyramids were built, that is, as the age of Sesostris. Its citadel is called λευκὸν τεῖχος (_arx alba_, _murus albus_ is a wrong translation), just as the walls of Moscow had different colours, and as at Ecbatana the parapets of the different circles.[83]

SAIS, a still more recent capital, was built by Psammetichus and his successors, entirely with a view to be near the sea. In its vicinity were the _castra praetoria_ of the Ionians and Carians, by the aid of which those kings maintained their dominion.

ALEXANDRIA was, properly speaking, situated beyond the frontiers of Egypt, and it was only on the consideration that water of the Nile from the arm of Canobus flowed into lake Mareotis, that it could be said to belong to Egypt, for it stood in reality on Libyan ground. It had been a much frequented port even in the time of the Egyptian kings, being protected by the island of Pharos at the entrance of it; but the kings kept a garrison there for the purpose of preventing strangers from landing. The place had formerly been called _Rhacotis_. Alexander is justly praised for having perceived the advantages of the locality, which is so well fitted to form a point of communication between Africa, Europe, and Asia: he was not generally very fortunate in his choice of places. Alexandria was probably destined by him to be the capital of his empire, seeing he intended to conquer, at least, the north coast of Africa and southern Italy, and in general all countries so far as he was not checked by the temperate zone and his own ambition. Of the city founded by Alexander, every trace has disappeared, and all that remains belongs to the Roman period. The city rose with wonderful rapidity, and three distinct bodies of citizens were formed in it. The noblest consisted of Macedonians and Greeks, who, like Greek citizens, were divided into phylae and demi. The intention was that it should appear as a free city; and the Macedonians and Greeks were according to all appearance, not kept distinct. The second part, consisting of a numerous Jewish colony, formed a demos, enjoying civil, but no political, rights; these Jews were not allowed to dwell in three out of the five regions into which the city was divided. The third body, which in point of numbers was the largest, consisted of native Egyptians, who, however, were regarded almost as bondsmen, like the Lettonians and Esthonians at Reval and Riga. Cleomenes, by Alexander’s command the founder of Alexandria, was a wicked adventurer, but an able man. The city rose greatly even under the first Ptolemy; but it afterwards continued to increase in consequence of its extremely favourable situation. It was the legitimate staple of commerce, which had there its necessary centre; it was almost in the exclusive enjoyment of the trade with Egypt, Africa, Arabia, and India. Ptolemy Physcon destroyed the greater part of the Macedonian and Greek inhabitants. Caesar’s war was very destructive, for the struggle was carried on in the very streets of the city; and from that time the suburb in the island of Pharos remained deserted; at least under Tiberius it still was so. During the empire, Alexandria was the scene of several insurrections; the one occurring in the reign of Diocletian was fearful, but that emperor took such bloody revenge, that the city probably never recovered; and for a century afterwards the whole part called Bruchion was quite uninhabited. D’Anville has made a ground-plan of Alexandria.

The island of _Pharos_ was situated in front of the city, and between it and the coast there were excellent places for anchoring, which communicated with one another, but were separated by cliffs. The Ptolemies constructed a causeway across the narrow channel by means of draw-bridges. Thus arose the two harbours, the old and the new one, which are at present separated by a neck of land, but are much inferior to what they were in antiquity; they have been spoiled during a long period of barbarous neglect, and especially by throwing ballast overboard. The ships of the Mahommedans enter only the western port, which is the safer one. The island of Pharos contained the celebrated light-house, one of the improvements of an age in which the feelings and the heart had already become greatly deteriorated, but in which the mechanical arts had made considerable progress. Lucian, who often embellishes history, here also furnishes a story which is as absurd as it well can be. He says that Sostratus of Cnidus built this light-house, and that, against the will of Ptolemy, he caused his own name to be engraved under the inscription in praise of the king.[84] But according to Strabo, Sostratos was the king’s minister, and acquired the special favour of his sovereign by building the light-house at his own expense. The inscription, Σώστρατος Δεξιφανοῦς Κνίδιος θεοῖς σωτῆρσιν ὑπὲρ τῶν πλωιζομένων is quite in the style of the time; the θεοὶ σωτῆρες are Ptolemy and Berenice. The whole space between the harbour and lake Mareotis was occupied by the city of Alexandria, and in the time of Augustus a large suburb is said to have existed at a distance of thirty stadia from the city, in the direction of Canobus. Alexandria is a classical place in the history of nations and of literature: it was the residence of Eratosthenes, the first geographer we meet with in the history of the world.[85]

NAUCRATIS, below Sais in Lower Egypt, was a Greek settlement, under the supremacy of Egypt, nearly in the same manner in which Macao is a Portuguese town: Greeks dwelt there and had their own magistrate, or, so to speak, their own consul. Many authors are said to have been natives of the place; Phylarchus, e.g., is called Naucratites, but it was mere pedantry and affectation to speak of Naucratis instead of Alexandria as the Greek city.

The Egyptian towns generally had two names, one Egyptian and the other Greek; the native names are preserved in Coptic fragments, and have been made out by Champollion; a map also has been made with these names. The modern names are formed from the Arabic.

SOME MORE GREEK COLONIES.

PHASELIS, on the coast of Lycia, was a Doric colony; but the date of its foundation is unknown. The place deserves to be noticed as the frontier town between Greece and the barbarians, in what is commonly called the peace of Cimon. This peace probably never existed as a regular treaty of peace, but there certainly was a treaty between the Greeks and the satraps of Asia Minor, which the later Greeks, contrary to historical truth, extended into a peace.[86]

PAMPHYLIA is a country full of large and flourishing towns, of which we have numerous coins with a peculiar language, and an alphabet akin to the Greek; these coins have all the beauty of Greek art, and we may well ask, whether Greece ever had anything more beautiful. The Cilician coins, especially those of Tarsus, are of the same kind. We do not know to what race those people belonged; certain it is that they were not barbarians any more than the Lycians and Lydians. In regard to intellectual culture and political organisation, they were equal to the Greeks. Lycia had a very happy federative constitution, quite in the spirit and according to the principles of the Greeks.

CYPRUS.

The only Greek colonies in that eastern part of the sea occur in Cyprus; but we are not informed by any one author at what time they were established. The statement, that Teucer founded Salamis, refutes itself, and all the traditions about colonies referring to the Trojan times are worthless; they either mean generally that the colonies belong to a very early time, or they are inventions. We cannot now determine in what manner Salamis in Cyprus arose, and we are not in a condition to say as to whether the island of Salamis off the coast of Attica ever was sufficiently flourishing to send out colonies. The Greek settlements in Cyprus were connected with very great difficulties. We see this from the prophets, for their Chittim is no doubt Cyprus; subsequently the name became more extended, for in the books of Maccabees it also comprises Greece, including even Macedonia. Hence the name of _Citium_, the Phoenician capital of the island, is nothing else but Chittim. In the time of the prophets, the island was under the dominion of the Phoenician cities; and we may ask, how could Greeks establish themselves there? This question may be answered from the Old Testament and from the fragments of Berosus in Eusebius. It can have been no other period than that during which Nebuchadnezzar carried on his protracted wars in Phoenicia and Syria, and destroyed ancient Tyre, in consequence of which the Phoenicians were very much reduced. It is also possible that the somewhat earlier expeditions of Sanherib and Assarhaddon may have been the occasion. We know, from Berosus, that, in Olymp. 20, a Greek army landed in Cilicia, which is a sign of a commotion among the Greeks at that time, about which history furnishes no information. I connect these movements with the extensive emigration of the Greeks and Carians who entered the service of Psammetichus in Egypt. Accordingly, we may assume that the Greek settlements in Cyprus were founded between Olymp. 20 and 40; and we cannot wonder that, one hundred and twenty years later, during the war of Darius Hystaspis, the Greek towns of Cyprus had already become great.

The principal places, _Salamis_ and _Amathus_, were as purely Greek as the cities in Asia Minor; _Lapathos_ and others were smaller. In the time of Evagoras, after the Peloponnesian war, Salamis was the ruling city of the island, and in reality sovereign. _Soli_ is absurdly connected with Solon.

In later times, Greeks and Phoenicians lived peaceably together in the island. _Citium_ was the capital of the Phoenicians, and the native place of the philosopher Zeno. We have no information about the race of the native Cyprians; but, under the predominating influence of the two ruling nations, they became partly Hellenised and partly Punicised.

Cyprus is justly called by the ancients one of the most blessed countries in the world; there are but few parts of it which are unhealthy. Its rich copper mines and its timber were of particular importance to the ancients.

PHOENICIA.

The Phoenicians extended from the frontiers of the Philistines to those of Cilicia near Myriandros. It is an ancient tradition, that they had immigrated into that country from a distance, and this tradition is confirmed by its situation; it is quite clear that they cannot have been the original natives. Of the northern towns, it is quite certain, that they were colonies of those in the south. Would that we had their history, which was quite authentic up to a very remote period! They were a nation which had been pressed onward from the south towards the north. According to a tradition in Herodotus, they had come from the Red Sea, and according to another, from the Persian gulf. The latter of these, which has much engaged the attention of modern historians, is of no value at all. It would seem most probable, that they were one of those nations that were pressed onward by the emigration of the Hycsos.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Hist. of Rome_, vol. i. p. 130.

[2] “Not _Junia Norbana_. Laws with two qualifying adjectives always had two authors, but our law originated with L. Junius Norbanus.” According to a more recent view, the Norbani belonged to the Vibii, and the name _Junia_ in our law is derived from M. Junius Silanus, who was consul in A.D. 19.—ED.

[3] _Hist. of Rome_, vol. i. p. 81, foll.

[4] Sismondi, _Hist. des Republ. Italiennes_, i. p. 249; but he explains the name to mean _la grande côte_; it moreover belongs to the ninth century as a surname of Grimoald II.—ED.

[5] _Hist. of Rome_, i. p. 194, note 560.

[6] _Hist. of Rome_, vol. i. p. 389, foll.

[7] “I am of opinion that this hill did not belong to the Aventine: I have heard this at Rome from a man, in whom I do not place much confidence; he may perhaps have read it somewhere: there is so much that is indifferent in books, that we often pass over that which is of importance because we imagine it to be indifferent.”

[8] _Lect. on Rom. Hist._, vol. i. p. 60, 3d edit.

[9] Respecting this flight of steps, however, see Urlichs in the _Beschreibung der Stadt Rom._ vol. iii. 2, p. 373, and the same author in his _Beschreib. Roms_, p. 256.

[10] v. § 153, ed. Müller, who, however, gives his own conjecture _ad muri speciem_ instead of the common reading _a muri parte_. The MSS. have _a muris partem_.—ED.

[11] In one set of notes, the following passage occurs on p. 53, after the word “necropolis,” line 17 from foot, and may perhaps be introduced here: “There was no road between the Aventine and the river; outside the Porta Collina, Esquilina, Caelimontana, and Carmentalis no enlargement of the city could take place.”—ED.

[12] Compare Bunsen in the _Beschreib. der Stadt Rom_, i. p. 646, foll.

[13] Some MSS. here have a name, which seems to suggest the _Porta Pia_. Bunsen says, “at the juncture of the street of the Porta Pia with the street of Porta Salara” (_Beschreib. d. Stadt Rom_, i. p. 625).—ED.

[14] See the _Beschreib. der Stadt Rom_, iii. 1. p. 490.

[15] Compare above, p. 58.

[16] I have supplied this name, the MSS. containing something which is evidently quite misunderstood.—ED.

[17] Comp. _Hist. of Rome_, vol. iii. p. 304, note 518.

[18] “I will mention only one example, to show how rich the Roman gildings were. In the Forum of Trajan the letters of an inscription were cut into the rock, and the letters themselves consisting of gilt metal were sunk into the openings. This is the method according to which the letters of inscriptions were generally put. In others the bronze letters were nailed to the wall, traces of which are still visible on the triumphal arch at Nismes, and French scholars have very ingeniously attempted from these holes of the nails to make out the whole inscription. In the Forum of Trajan a bronze letter has been found, the gilding of which was valued at a ducat; all the rest had of course been carried off as plunder.”

[19] See, however, the _Beschreib. d. Stadt Rom_, iii. 1. p. 22, foll.

[20] In one MS. the words “the Curia” are here added; is perhaps the Curia Julia meant?—ED.

[21] _Fast._ i. 707; some MSS. have Dionysius.—ED.

[22] _Calig._ 22. I owe this reference to the kindness of Professor Urlichs, who further observes: “Niebuhr was thinking of this passage, and combines two facts contained in it, for Suetonius does not expressly say, that the arch built by Caligula passed over the temple of Castor.”—ED.

[23] Bunsen in the _Beschreib. der Stadt Rom_, Pref. xl., iii. 2. p. 33.—ED.

[24] Compare Bunsen, _l. c._ Pref. p. xxiix.—ED.

[25] More accurately in 1257; comp. _Beschreib. d. Stadt. Rom_, i. p. 247.—ED.

[26] The so-called _Basis Capitolina_, Gruter, _Inscript._ CCL., reprinted in Becker’s _Handbuch d. Röm. Alterthümer_, vol. i. p. 717; compare Bunsen in the _Beschreib. d. Stadt Rom_, vol. i. p. 174.—ED.

[27] Livy, i. 35.

[28] “We still want a political history of Rome, which would show that a very great deal that is praiseworthy is to be said of many a pope.”

[29] Epist. xiii. 1.

[30] Muratori, _Antiq. Ital. med. aevi_, i., p. 101; the passage here quoted occurs in p. 108; Pertz, _Monum. Germ. Legum_, ii., p. 187, who assigns this _Ordo Coronationis_ to the year 1191; the book of Cencius, _Liber censuum Romanae Ecclesiae_, was written in 1192.—ED.

[31] See _Hist. of Rome_, vol. i., p. 204.

[32] Vol. ii. p. 507, foll.; comp. _Lect. on Rom. Hist._ vol. i. p. 248, 3d edit.—ED.

[33] Comp. _Lect. on Rom. Hist._, vol. i. p. 149, 3d edit, which passage belongs to the Lectures delivered in 1828-29. In the _Hist. of Rome_, vol. i. p. 101, and ii. p. 82, however, the Sabine origin of the Hernicans is considered more probable. The number forty also is connected with this view, because the number four is Sabine. I will therefore not suppress the fact, that most of my MSS. have _fourteen_ instead of _forty_, which may possibly contain a different combination, though I have been unable to divine what it can be.—ED.

[34] In the third vol. of the new edition; as for the special passages, see the Index to it.—ED.

[35] _Aen._ vii. 744.

[36] _Aen._ x. 708.

[37] Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 206.

[38] _Hist. of Rome_, vol. ii. p. 93, notes 194 and 195.—ED.