Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson

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Memphis was then besieged, taken, and given up to pillage. The statues
of the gods, the gold and silver, the turquoise and lapis lazuli, the
vases, censers, jars, goblets, amphorae, the stores of ivory, ebony,
cinnamon, frankincense, fine linen, crystal, jasper, alabaster,
embroidery, with which the piety of kings had enriched the
temples--especially the Great Temple of Phthah--during fifteen or twenty
centuries, were ruthlessly carried off by the conquerors, who destined
them either for the adornment of the Ninevite shrines or for their own
private advantage. Tehrak's wife and concubines, together with several
of his children and numerous officers of his court, left behind in
consequence of his hurried flight, fell into the enemy's hands. Tehrak
himself escaped, and fled first to Thebes, and then to Napata; while the
army of Esarhaddon, following closely on his footsteps, advanced up the
valley of the Nile, scoured the open country with their cavalry, stormed
the smaller towns, and after a siege of some duration took "populous
No," or Thebes, "that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters
round about it, whose rampart was the great deep" (Nahum iii. 8). All
Egypt was overrun from the Mediterranean to the First Cataract;
thousands of prisoners were taken and carried away captive; the Assyrian
monarch was undisputed master of the entire land of Mizraim from Migdol
to Syene and from Pelusium to the City of Crocodiles.

Upon conquest followed organization. The great Assyrian was not content
merely to overrun Egypt; he was bent upon holding it. Acting on the
Roman principle, "_Divide et impera_," he broke up the country into
twenty distinct principalities, over each of which he placed a governor,
while in the capital of each he put an Assyrian garrison. Of the
governors, by far the greater number were native Egyptians; but in one
or two instances the command was given to an Assyrian. For the most
part, the old divisions of the nomes were kept, but sometimes two or
more nomes were thrown together and united under a single governor.
Neco, an ancestor of the great Pharaoh who bore the same name (2 Kings
xxiii. 29-35), had Sais, Memphis, and the nomes that lay between them;
Mentu-em-ankh had Thebes and southern Egypt as far as Elephantine.
Satisfied with these arrangements, the conqueror returned to Nineveh,
having first, however, sculptured on the rocks at the mouth of the
Nahr-el-Kelb a representation of his person and an account of his
conquests.

[Illustration: FIGURE OF ESAR-HADDON AT THE NAHR-EL-KELB.]

Egypt lay at the feet of Assyria for about three or four years (B.C.
672-669). Then the struggle was renewed. Tehrak, who had bided his time,
learning that Esarhaddon was seized with a mortal malady, issued (B.C.
669) from his Ethiopian fastnesses, descended the valley of the Nile,
expelled the governors whom Esarhaddon had set up, and possessed himself
of the disputed territory. Thebes received him with enthusiasm, as one
attached to the worship of Ammon; and the priests of Phthah opened to
him the gates of Memphis, despite the efforts of Neco and the Assyrian
garrison. The religious sympathy between Ethiopia and Egypt was an
important factor in the as yet undecided contest, and helped much to
further the Ethiopic cause. But in war sentiment can effect but little.
Physical force, on the whole, prevails, unless in the rare instances
where miracle intervenes, or where patriotic enthusiasm is exalted to
such a pitch as to strike physical force with impotency.

In the conflict that was now raging patriotism had little part. Ethiopia
and Assyria were contending, partly for military pre-eminence, partly
for the prey that lay between them, inviting a master--the rich and now
weak Egyptian kingdom. Tehrak's success, communicated to the Assyrian
Court by the dispossessed governors, drew forth almost immediately a
counter effort on the part of Assyria, which did not intend to
relinquish without a struggle the important addition that Esarhaddon had
made to the empire. In B.C. 668, Asshur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of
the Greeks, having succeeded his father Esarhaddon, put the forces of
Assyria once more in motion, and swooping down upon the unhappy Egypt,
succeeded in carrying all before him, defeated Tehrak at Karbanit in the
Delta, recovered Memphis and Thebes, forced Tehrak to take refuge at
Napata, re-established in power the twenty petty kings, and restored the
country in all respects to the condition into which it had been brought
four years previously by Esarhaddon. Egypt thus passed under the
Assyrians for the second time, Ethiopia relinquishing her hold upon the
prey as soon as Assyria firmly grasped it.

Still the matter was not yet settled, the conflict was not yet ended.
The petty kings themselves began now to coquet with Tehrak, and to
invite his co-operation in an attempt, which they promised they would
make, to throw off the yoke of the Assyrians. Detected in this intrigue,
Neco and two others were arrested by the Assyrian commandants, loaded
with chains, and sent as prisoners to Nineveh. But their arrest did not
check the movement. On the contrary, the spirit of revolt spread. The
commandants tried to stop it by measures of extreme severity: they
sacked the great cities of the Delta--Sais, Mendes, and Tanis or Zoan;
but all was of no avail. Tehrak once more took the field, descended the
Nile valley, recovered Thebes, and threatened Memphis. Asshur-bani-pal
upon this hastily sent Neco from Nineveh at the head of an Assyrian army
to exert his influence on the Assyrian side--which he was content to do,
since the Ninevite monarch had made him chief of the petty kings, and
conferred the principality of Athribis on his son, Psamatik. Tehrak, in
alarm retreated from his bold attempt, evacuated Thebes and returned to
his own dominions, where he shortly afterwards died (B.C. 667).

It might have been expected that the death of the aged warrior-king
would have been the signal for Ethiopia to withdraw from the struggle so
long maintained, and relinquish Egypt to her rival; but the actual
result was the exact contrary. Tehrak was succeeded at Napata by his
step-son, Rut-Ammon, a young prince of a bold and warlike temper. Far
from recoiling from the enterprize which Tehrak had adjudged hopeless,
he threw himself into it with the utmost ardour. Once more an Ethiopian
army descended the Nile valley, occupied Thebes, engaged and defeated a
combined Egyptian and Assyrian force near Memphis, took the capital,
made its garrison prisoners, and brought under subjection the greater
portion of the Delta. Neco, having fallen into the hands of the
Ethiopians, was cruelly put to death. His son, Psamatik, saved himself
by a timely flight.

History now "repeated itself." In B.C. 666 Asshur-bani-pal made, in
person, a second expedition into Egypt, defeated Rut-Ammon upon the
frontier, recovered Memphis, marched upon Thebes, Rut-Ammon retiring as
he advanced, stormed and sacked the great city, inflicted wanton injury
on its temples, carried off its treasures, and enslaved its population.
The triumph of the Assyrian arms was complete. Very shortly all
resistance ceased. The subject princes were replaced in their
principalities. Asshur-bani-pal's sovereignty was universally
acknowledged, and Ethiopia, apparently, gave up the contest.

One more effort was, however, made by the southern power. On the death
of Rut-Ammon, Mi-Ammon-Nut, probably a son of Tirhakah's, became king of
Ethiopia, and resolved on a renewal of the war. Egyptian disaffection
might always be counted on, whichever of the two great powers held
temporary possession of the country; and Mi-Ammon-Nut further courted
the favour of the Egyptian princes, priests, and people, by an
ostentatious display of zeal for their religion. Assyria had allowed the
temples to fall into decay; the statues of the gods had in some
instances been cast down, the temple revenues confiscated, the priests
restrained in their conduct of the religious worship. Mi-Ammon-Nut
proclaimed himself the chosen of Ammon, and the champion of the gods of
Egypt. On entering each Egyptian town he was careful to visit its chief
temple, to offer sacrifices and gifts, to honour the images and lead
them in procession, and to pay all due respect to the college of
priests. This prudent policy met with complete success. As he advanced
down the Nile valley, he was everywhere received with acclamations. "Go
onward in the peace of thy name," they shouted, "go onward in the peace
of thy name. Dispense life throughout all the land--that the temples may
be restored which are hastening to ruin; that the statues of the gods
may be set up after their manner; that their revenues may be given back
to the gods and goddesses, and the offerings of the dead to the
deceased; that the priest may be established in his place, and all
things be fulfilled according to the Holy Ritual." In many places where
it had been intended to oppose his advance in arms, the news of his
pious acts produced a complete revulsion of feeling, and "those whose
intention it had been to fight were moved with joy." No one opposed him
until he had nearly reached the northern capital, Memphis, which was
doubtless held in force by the Assyrians, to whom the princes of Lower
Egypt were still faithful. A battle, accordingly, was fought before the
walls, and in this Mi-Ammon-Nut was victorious; the Egyptians probably
did not fight with much zeal, and the Assyrians, distrusting their
subject allies, may well have been dispirited. After the victory,
Memphis opened her gates, and soon afterwards the princes of the Delta
thought it best to make their submission--the Assyrians, we must
suppose, retired--Mi-Ammon-Nut's authority was acknowledged, and the
princes, having transferred their allegiance to him, were allowed to
retain their governments.

The consequences of this last Ethiopian invasion of Egypt appear to have
been transient. Mi-Ammon-Nut did not live very long to enjoy his
conquest, and in Egypt he had no successor. He was not even recognized
by the Egyptians among their legitimate kings. Egypt at his death
reverted to her previous position of dependence upon Assyria, feeling
herself still too weak to stand alone, and perhaps not greatly caring,
so that she had peace, which of the two great powers she acknowledged as
her suzerain. She had now (about B.C. 650) for above twenty years been
fought over by the two chief kingdoms of the earth--each of them had
traversed with huge armies, as many as five or six times, the Nile
valley from one extremity to the other; the cities had been half ruined,
harvest after harvest destroyed, trees cut down, temples rifled,
homesteads burnt, villas plundered. Thebes, the Hundred-gated, probably
for many ages quite the most magnificent city in the world, had become a
by-word for desolation (Nahum iii. 8, 9); Memphis, Heliopolis, Tanis,
Sais, Mendes, Bubastis, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis; Crocodilopolis, had
been taken and retaken repeatedly; the old buildings and monuments had
been allowed to fall into decay; no king had been firmly enough
established on his throne to undertake the erection of any but
insignificant new ones. Egypt was "fallen, fallen, fallen--fallen from
her high estate;" an apathy, not unlike the stillness of death, brooded
over her; literature was silent, art extinct; hope of recovery can
scarcely have lingered in many bosoms. As events proved, the vital spark
was not actually fled; but the keenest observer would scarcely have
ventured to predict, at any time between B.C. 750 and B.C. 650, such a
revival as marked the period between B.C. 650 and B.C. 530.

XXII.

THE CORPSE COMES TO LIFE AGAIN--PSAMATIK I. AND HIS SON NECO.

When a country has sunk so gradually, so persistently, and for so long a
series of years as Egypt had now been sinking, if there is a revival, it
must almost necessarily come from without. The corpse cannot rise
without assistance--the expiring patient cannot cure himself. All the
vital powers being sapped, all the energies having departed, the Valley
of the Shadow of Death having been entered, nothing can arrest
dissolution but some foreign stock, some blood not yet vitiated, some
"saviour" sent by Divine providence from outside the nation (Isa. xix.
20), to recall the expiring life, to revivify the paralyzed frame, to
infuse fresh energy into it, and to make it once more live, breathe,
act, think, assert itself. Yet the saviour must not be altogether from
without. He must not be a conqueror, for conquest necessarily weakens
and depresses; he must not be too remote in blood, or he will lack the
power fully to understand and sympathize with the nation which he is to
restore, and without true understanding and true sympathy he can effect
nothing; he must not be a stranger to the nation's recent history, or
he will make mistakes that will be irremediable. What is wanted is a
scion of a foreign stock, connected by marriage and otherwise with the
nation that he is to regenerate, and well acquainted with its
circumstances, character, position, history, virtues, weaknesses. No
entirely new man can answer to these requirements; he must be found, if
he is to be found at all, among the principal men of the time, whose lot
has for some considerable period been cast in with the State which is to
be renovated.

In Egypt, at the time of which we are speaking, exactly this position
was occupied by Psamatik, son of Neco. He was, according to all
appearance, of Libyan origin; his stock was new; his name and his
father's name are unheard of hitherto in Egyptian history;
etymologically, they are non-Egyptian; and Psamatik has a non-Egyptian
countenance. He was probably of the same family as "Inarus the Libyan,"
whose father was a Psamatik. He belonged thus to a Libyan stock, which
had, however, been crossed, more than once, with the blood of the
Egyptians. The family was one of those Libyan families which had long
been domiciled at Sais, and had intermarried with the older Saites, who
were predominantly Egyptian. He had also for twenty years or more been
an important unit in the Egyptian political system, having shared the
vicissitudes of his father's fortunes from B.C. 672 to B.C. 667, and
having then been placed at the head of one of the many principalities
into which Egypt was divided. In the same, or the next, year he seems to
have succeeded his father; and he had reigned at Sais for sixteen or
seventeen years before he felt himself called upon to take any step that
was at all abnormal, or attempt in any way to change his position.

[Illustration: HEAD OF PSAMATIK I.]

Familiar with the politics and institutions of Egypt, yet, as a
semi-Libyan, devoid of Egyptian prejudices, and full of the ambition
which naturally inspires young princes of a vigorous stock, Psamatik had
at once the desire to shake off the yoke of Assyria, and reunite Egypt
under his own sway, and also a willingness to adopt any means, however
new and strange, by which such a result might be accomplished. He had
probably long watched for a favourable moment at which to give his
ambition vent, and found it at last in the circumstances that ushered in
the second half of the seventh century. Assyria was, about B.C. 651,
brought into a position of great difficulty, by the revolt of Babylon in
alliance with Elam, and was thus quite unable to exercise a strict
surveillance over the more distant parts of the Empire. The garrison by
which she held Egypt had probably been weakened by the withdrawal of
troops for the defence of Assyria Proper; at any rate, it could not be
relieved or strengthened under the existing circumstances. At the same
time a power had grown up in Asia Minor, which was jealous of Assyria,
having lately been made to tremble for its independence. Gyges of Lydia
had, in a moment of difficulty, been induced to acknowledge himself
Assyria's subject; but he had emerged triumphant from the perils
surrounding him, had reasserted his independent authority, and was
anxious that the power of Assyria should be, as much as possible,
diminished. Psamatik must have been aware of this. Casting his eyes
around the political horizon in search of any ally at once able and
willing to lend him aid, he fixed upon Lydia as likely to be his best
auxiliary, and dispatched an embassy into Asia Minor. Gyges received his
application favourably, and sent him a strong Asiatic contingent,
chiefly composed of Ionians and Carians. Both races were at this time
warlike, and wore armour of much greater weight and strength than any
which the Egyptians were accustomed to carry. It was in reliance,
mainly, on these foreigners, that Psamatik ventured to proclaim himself
"King of the Two Countries," and to throw out a gage of defiance at once
to his Assyrian suzerain and to his nineteen fellow-princes.

The gage was not taken up by Assyria. Immersed in her own difficulties,
threatened in three quarters, on the south, on the south-east, and on
the east by Babylonia, by Elam, and by Media, she had enough to do at
home in guarding her own frontiers, and seeking to keep under her
immediate neighbours, and was therefore in no condition to engage in
distant expeditions, or even to care very much what became of a remote
and troublesome dependency. Thus Assyria made no sign. But the petty
princes took arms at once. To them the matter was one of life or death;
they must either crush the usurper or be themselves swept out of
existence. So they gathered together in full force. Pakrur from Pisabtu,
and Petubastes from Tanis, and Sheshonk from Busiris, and Tafnekht from
Prosopitis, and Bek-en-nefi from Athribis, and Nakh-he from
Heracleopolis, and Pimai from Mendes, and Lamentu from Hermopolis, and
Mentu-em-ankh from Thebes, and other princes from other cities, met and
formed their several contingents into a single army, and stood at bay
near Momemphis, the modern Menouf, in the western Delta, on the borders
of the Libyan Desert. Here a great battle was fought, which was for some
time doubtful; but the valour of the Greco-Carians, and the superiority
of their equipment, prevailed. The victory rested with Psamatik; his
adversaries were defeated and dispersed; following up his first success,
he proceeded to attack city after city, forcing all to submit, and
determined that he would nowhere tolerate even the shadow of a rival.
Disintegration had been the curse of Egypt for the space of above a
century; Psamatik put an end to it. No more princes of Bubastis, or of
Tanis, or of Sais, or of Mendes, or of Heracleopolis, or of Thebes! No
more eikosiarchies, dodecarchies, or heptarchies even! Monarchy pure,
the absolute rule of one and one only sovereign over the whole of Egypt,
from the cataracts of Syene to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from
Pelusium and Migdol to Momemphis and Marea, was established, and
henceforth continued, as long as Egyptian rule endured. The lesson had
been learnt at a tremendous cost, but it had now at last been thoroughly
learnt, that only in unity is there strength--that the separate sticks
of the faggot are impotent to resist the external force which the
collective bundle might without difficulty have defied and scorned.

Psamatik had gained the object of his ambition--sovereignty over all
Egypt; he had now to consider how it might best be kept. And first, as
that which is won by the sword must be kept by the sword, he made
arrangements with the troops sent to his aid by Gyges, that they should
take permanent service under his banner, and form the most important
element in his standing army. His native troops were quartered at
Elephantine, in the extreme south, and in Marea and Daphnae, at the two
extremities of the Delta towards the west and east. The new accession to
his military strength he stationed at no great distance from the
capital, settling them in permanent camps on either side of the Pelusiac
branch of the Nile, near the city of Bubastis. We are told that this
exaltation of the new corps to the honourable position of keeping watch
upon the capital, greatly offended the native troops, and induced
200,000 of them to quit Egypt and seek service with the Ethiopians. The
facts have probably been exaggerated, for Ethiopia certainly does not
gain, or Egypt lose, in strength, either at or after this period.

Psamatik, further, for the better securing of his throne against
pretenders, thought it prudent to contract a marriage with the
descendant of a royal stock held in honour by many of his subjects. The
princess, Shepenput, was the daughter of a Piankhi, who claimed descent
from the unfortunate Bek-en-ranf, the king burnt alive by Shabak, and
who had also probably some royal Ethiopian blood in his veins. By his
nuptials with this princess, Psamatik assured to his crown the
legitimacy which it had hitherto lacked. Uniting henceforth in his own
person the rights of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth dynasties, those
of the Saites and those of the Ethiopians, he became the one and only
legal king, and no competitor could possibly arise with a title to
sovereignty higher or better than his own.

Being now personally secure, he could turn his attention to the
restoration and elevation of the nationality of which he had taken it
upon him to assume the direction. He could cast his eyes over the
unhappy Egypt--depressed, down-trodden, well-nigh trampled to death--and
give his best consideration to the question what was to be done to
restore her to her ancient greatness. There she lay before his eyes in a
deplorable state of misery and degradation. All the great cities, her
glory and her boast in former days, had suffered more or less in the
incessant wars; Memphis had been besieged and pillaged half a dozen
times; Thebes had been sacked and burnt twice; from Syene to Pelusium
there was not a town which had not been injured in one or other of the
many invasions. The canals and roads, carefully repaired by Shabak, had
since his decease met with entire neglect; the cultivable lands had been
devastated, and the whole population decimated periodically. Out of the
ruins of the old Egypt, Psamatik had to raise up a new Egypt. He had to
revivify the dead corpse, and put a fresh life into the stiff and
motionless limbs. With great energy and determination he set himself to
accomplish the task. Applying himself, first of all, to the restoration
of what was decayed and ruined, he re-established the canals and the
roads, encouraged agriculture, favoured the development of the
population. The ruined towns were gradually repaired and rebuilt, and
vast efforts made everywhere to restore, and even to enlarge and
beautify the sacred edifices. At Memphis, Psamatik built the great
southern portal which gave completeness to the ancient temple of the god
Phthah, and also constructed a grand court for the residence of the
Apis-Bulls, surrounded by a colonnade, against the piers of which stood
colossal figures of Osiris, from eighteen to twenty feet in height. At
Thebes he re-erected the portions of the temple of Karnak, which had
been thrown down by the Assyrians; at Sais, Mendes, Heliopolis, and
Philae he undertook extensive works. The entire valley of the Nile became
little more than one huge workshop, where stone-cutters and masons,
bricklayers and carpenters, laboured incessantly. Under the liberal
encouragement of the king and of his chief nobles, the arts recovered
themselves and began to flourish anew. The engraving and painting of the
hieroglyphics were resumed with success, and carried out with a
minuteness and accuracy that provokes the admiration of the beholder.
Bas-reliefs of extreme beauty and elaboration characterize the period.
There rests upon some of them "a gentle and almost feminine tenderness,
which has impressed upon the imitations of living creatures the stamp of
an incredible delicacy both of conception and execution." Statues and
statuettes of merit were at the same time produced in abundance. The
"Saitie art", as that of the revival under the Psamatiks has been
called, is characterized by an extreme neatness of manipulation in the
drawings and lines, the fineness of which often reminds us of the
performances of a seal-engraver, by grace, softness, tenderness, and
elegance. It is not the broad, but somewhat realistic style of the
Memphitic period, much less the highly imaginative and vigorous style of
the Ramesside kings; but it is a style which has quiet merits of its
own, sweet and pure, full of refinement and delicacy.

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEFS OF THE TIME OF PSAMATIK I.]

Egypt was thus rendered flourishing at home; her magnificent temples and
other edifices put off their look of neglect; her cities were once more
busy seats of industry and traffic; her fields teemed with rich
harvests; her population increased; her whole aspect changed. But the
circumstances of the time led Psamatik to attempt something more. His
employment of Greek and Carian mercenaries naturally led him on into an
intimacy with foreigners, and into a regard and consideration for them
quite unknown to previous Pharaohs, and in contradiction to ordinary
Egyptian prejudices. Egypt was the China of the Old World, and had for
ages kept herself as much as possible aloof from foreigners, and looked
upon them with aversion. Foreign vessels were, until the time of
Psamatik, forbidden to enter any of the Nile mouths, or to touch at an
Egyptian port. Psamatik saw that the new circumstances required an
extensive change. The mercenaries, if they were to be content with
their position, must be allowed to communicate freely with the cities
and countries from which they came, and intercourse between Greece and
Egypt must be encouraged rather than forbidden. Accordingly the Greeks
were invited to make settlements in the Delta, and Naucratis, favourably
situated on the Canopic branch of the Nile, was specially assigned to
them as a residence. Most of the more enterprizing among the commercial
states of the time took advantage of the opening, and Miletus, Phocaea,
Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Mytilene, Halicarnassus, and AEgina established
factories at the locality specified, built temples there to the Greek
gods, and sent out a body of colonists. A considerable trade grew up
between Egypt and Greece. The Egyptians of the higher classes especially
appreciated the flavour and quality of the Greek wines, which were
consequently imported into the country in large quantities. Greek
pottery and Greek glyptic art also attracted a certain amount of favour.
On her side Egypt exported corn, alum, muslin and linen fabrics, and the
excellent paper which she made from the _Cyperus Papyrus_.

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