Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson

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In another respect, too, if he has not misrepresented the rule of the
"Shepherd Kings," he has failed to do it justice. He has painted in
lurid colours the advent of the foreign race, the war of extermination
in which they engaged, the cruel usage to which they subjected the
conquered people; he has represented the invaders as rude, savage,
barbarous, bent on destruction, careless of art, the enemies of progress
and civilization. He has neglected to point out, that, as time went on,
there was a sensible change. The period of constant bitter hostilities
came to an end. Peace succeeded to war. In Lower Egypt the "Shepherds"
reigned over quiet and unresisting subjects; in Upper Egypt they bore
rule over submissive tributaries. Under these circumstances a
perceptible softening of their manners and general character took place.
As the Mongols and the Mandchus in China suffered themselves by degrees
to be conquered by the superior civilization of the people whom they had
overrun and subdued, so the Hyksos yielded little by little to the
influences which surrounded them, and insensibly assimilated themselves
to their Egyptian subjects. They adopted the Egyptian dress, titles,
official language, art, mode of writing, architecture. In Tanis,
especially, temples were built and sculptures set up under the later
"Shepherd Kings," differing little in their general character from those
of purely Egyptian periods. The foreign monarchs erected their effigies
at this site, which were sculptured by native artists according to the
customary rules of Egyptian glyptic art, and only differ from those of
the earlier native Pharaohs in the head-dress, the expression of the
countenance, and a peculiar arrangement of the beard. A friendly
intercourse took place during this period between the kings of the
North, established at Tanis and Memphis, and those of the South,
resident at Thebes; frequent embassies were interchanged; and blocks of
granite and syenite were continually floated down the Nile, past Thebes,
to be employed by the "Shepherds" in their erections at the southern
capitals.

[Illustration: BUST OF A SHEPHERD KING.]

The "Shepherds" brought with them into Egypt the worship of a deity,
whom they called Sut or Sutekh, and apparently identified with the sun.
He was described as "the great ruler of heaven," and identified with
Baal in later times. The kings regarded themselves as especially under
his protection. At the time of the invasion, they do not seem to have
considered this deity as having any special connection with any of the
Egyptian gods, and they consequently made war indiscriminately against
the entire Egyptian Pantheon, plundering and demolishing all the temples
alike. But when the first burst of savage hostility was gone by, when
more settled times followed, and the manners and temper of the
conquerors grew softened by pacific intercourse with their subjects, a
likeness came to be seen between Sutekh, their own ancestral god, and
the "Set" of the Egyptians. Set in the old Egyptian mythology was
recognized as "the patron of foreigners, the power which swept the
children of the desert like a sand-storm over the fertile land." He was
a representative of physical, but not of moral, evil; a strong and
powerful deity, worthy of reverence and worship, but less an object of
love than of fear. The "Shepherds" acknowledged in this god their
Sutekh; and as they acquired settled habits, and assimilated themselves
to their subjects, they began to build temples to him, after the
Egyptian model, in their principal towns. After the dynasty had borne
rule for five reigns, covering the space perhaps of one hundred and
fifty years, a king came to the throne named Apepi, who has left several
monuments, and is the only one of the "Shepherds" that stands out for us
in definite historical consistency as a living and breathing person.
Apepi built a great temple to Sutekh at Zoan, or Tanis, his principal
capital, composed of blocks of red granite, and adorned it with obelisks
and sphinxes. The obelisks are said to have been fourteen in number, and
must have been dispersed about the courts, and not, as usual, placed
only at the entrance. The sphinxes, which differed from the ordinary
Egyptian sphinx in having a mane like a lion and also wings, seem to
have formed an avenue or vista leading up to the temple from the town.
They are in diorite, and have the name of Apepi engraved upon them.

The pacific rule of Apepi and his predecessors allowed Thebes to
increase in power, and her monuments now recommence. Three kings who
bore the family name of Taa, and the throne name of Ra-Sekenen, bore
rule in succession at the southern capital. The third of these, Taa-ken,
or "Taa the Victorious," was contemporary with Apepi, and paid his
tribute punctually, year by year, to his lawful suzerain. He does not
seem to have had any desire to provoke war; but Apepi probably thought
that he was becoming too powerful, and would, if unmolested, shortly
make an effort to throw off the Hyksos yoke. He therefore determined to
pick a quarrel with him, and proceeded to send to Thebes a succession of
embassies with continually increasing demands. First of all he required
Taa-ken to relinquish the worship of all the Egyptian gods except
Amen-Ra, the chief god of Thebes, whom he probably identified with his
own Sutekh. It is not quite clear whether Taa-ken consented to this
demand, or politely evaded it. At any rate, a second embassy soon
followed the first, with a fresh requirement; and a third followed the
second. The policy was successful, and at last Taa-ken took up arms. It
would seem that he was successful, or was at any rate able to hold his
own; for he maintained the war till his death, and left it to his
successor, Aahmes.

There was an ancient tradition, that the king who made Joseph his prime
minister, and committed into his hands the entire administration of
Egypt, was Apepi. George the Syncellus says that the synchronism was
accepted by all. It is clear that Joseph's arrival did not fall, like
Abraham's, into the period of the Old Empire, since under Joseph horses
and chariots are in use, as well as wagons or carts, all of which were
unknown till after the Hyksos invasion. It is also more natural that
Joseph, a foreigner, should have been advanced by a foreign king than by
a native one, and the favour shown to his brethren, who were shepherds
(Gen. xlvi. 32), is consonant at any rate with the tradition that it was
a "Shepherd King" who held the throne at the time of their arrival. A
priest of Heliopolis, moreover, would scarcely have given Joseph his
daughter in marriage unless at a time when the priesthood was in a state
of depression. Add to this that the Pharaoh of Joseph is evidently
resident in Lower Egypt, not at Thebes, which was the seat of government
for many hundred years both before and after the Hyksos rule.

If, however, we are to place Joseph under one of the "Shepherd Kings,"
there can be no reason why we should not accept the tradition which
connects him with Apepi. Apepi was dominant over the whole of Egypt, as
Joseph's Pharaoh seems to have been. He acknowledged a single god, as
did that monarch (Gen. xli. 38, 39). He was a thoroughly Egyptianized
king. He had a council of learned scribes, a magnificent court, and a
peaceful reign until towards its close. His residence was in the Delta,
either at Tanis or Auaris. He was a prince of a strong will, firm and
determined; one who did not shrink from initiating great changes, and
who carried out his resolves in a somewhat arbitrary way. The arguments
in favour of his identity with Joseph's master are, perhaps, not wholly
conclusive; but they raise a presumption, which may well incline us,
with most modern historians of Egypt, to assign the touching story of
Joseph to the reign of the last of the Shepherds.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient," vol i. p. 360.

IX.

HOW THE HYKSOS WERE EXPELLED FROM EGYPT.

At first sight it seems strange that the terrible warriors who, under
Set or Saites, so easily reduced Egypt to subjection, and then still
further weakened the population by massacre and oppression, should have
been got rid of, after two centuries or two centuries and a half, with
such comparative ease. But the rapid deterioration of conquering races
under certain circumstances is a fact familiar to the historian.
Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, rapidly
succeeded each other as the dominant power in Western Asia, each race
growing weaker and becoming exhausted, after a longer or a shorter
interval, through nearly the same causes. Nor are the reasons for the
deterioration far to seek. Each race when it sets out upon its career of
conquest is active, energetic, inured to warlike habits, simple in its
manners, or at any rate simpler than those which it conquers, and,
comparatively speaking, poor. It is urged on by the desire of bettering
its condition. If it meets with a considerable resistance, if the
conquest occupies a long space, and the conquered are with difficulty
held under, rebelling from time to time, and making frantic efforts to
throw off the yoke which galls and frets them, then the warlike habits
of the conquerors are kept up, and their dominion may continue for
several centuries. Or, if the nation is very energetic and unresting,
not content with its earlier conquests, or willing to rest upon its
oars, but continually seeking out fresh enemies upon its borders, and
regarding war as the normal state of its existence, then the centuries
may be prolonged into millennia, and it may be long indeed before any
tendency to decline shows itself; but, ordinarily, there is no very
prolonged resistance on the one side, and no very constant and unresting
energy on the other. A poor and hardy people, having swooped down upon
one that is softer and more civilized, easily carries all before it,
acquires the wealth and luxury which it desires, and being content with
them, seeks for nothing further, but assimilates itself by degrees to
the character and condition of the people whom it has conquered. A
standing army, disposed in camps and garrisons, may be kept up; but if
there is a cessation of actual war even for a generation, the severity
of military discipline will become relaxed, the use of arms will grow
unfamiliar, the physical type will decline, the belligerent spirit will
die away, and the conquerors of a century ago will have lost all the
qualities which secured them success when they made their attack, and
have sunk to the level of their subjects. When this point is reached,
thoughts of rebellion are apt to arise in the hearts of these latter;
the old terror which made the conqueror appear irresistible is gone, and
is perhaps succeeded by contempt--the subjects feel that they have at
least the advantage of numbers on their side; they have also probably
been leading harder and more bracing lives; they see that, man for man,
they are physically stronger than their conquerors; and at last they
rebel, and are successful.

In Egypt there was, further, this peculiarity--the conquered people
occupied two entirely distinct positions. In the Delta, the Fayoum, and
the northern Nile valley, they were completely reduced, and lived
intermixed with their conquerors, a despised class, suffering more or
less of oppression. In Upper Egypt the case was different. There the
people had submitted in a certain sense, acknowledged the Hyksos
monarchs as their suzerains, and indicated their subjection by the
payment of an annual tribute; but they retained their own native
princes, their own administration and government, their own religion,
their own laws; they did not live intermixed with the new comers; they
were not subject to daily insult or ill-treatment; the fact that they
paid a tribute did not hinder their preserving their self-respect, and
consequently they suffered neither moral nor physical deterioration.
Further, it would seem to have been possible for them to engage in wars
on their own account with the races living further up the Nile, or with
the wild tribes of the desert, and thus to maintain warlike habits among
themselves, while the Hyksos were becoming unaccustomed to them. The
Ra-Sekenens of Thebes, who called themselves "great" and "very great,"
had probably built up a considerable power in Upper Egypt during the
reigns of the later "Shepherd Kings;" had improved their military
system by the adoption of the horse and the chariot, which the Hyksos
had introduced; had practised their people in arms, and acquired a
reputation as warriors.

More particularly must this have been the case with Ra-Sekenen III., the
contemporary of Apepi. Ra-Sekenen the Third called himself "the great
victorious Taa." He surrounded himself with a council of "mighty chiefs,
captains, and expert leaders." He acquired so much repute, that he
provoked Apepi's jealousy before he had in any way transgressed the
duties which he owed him as a feudatory. In the long negotiation between
the two, of which the "First Sallier Papyrus" gives an account, it is
evident that, while Ra-Sekenen has committed no act whereof Apepi has
any right to complain, he has awoke in him feelings of such hostility,
that Apepi will be content with nothing less than either unqualified
submission to every demand that he chooses to make, or war _a outrance_.
Never was a subject monarch more goaded and driven into rebellion
against his inclination by over-bearing conduct on the part of his
suzerain than was Ra-Sekenen by the last "Shepherd King." The
disinclination of himself and his court to fight is almost ludicrous:
they "are silent and in great dismay; they know not how to answer the
messenger sent to them, good of ill." Ra-Sekenen, powerful as he had
become, "victorious" as he may have been against Libyans and negroes,
and even Cushites, dreaded exceedingly to engage in a struggle with the
redoubted people which, two centuries previously, had shown itself so
irresistible.

It would seem, however, that he was forced to take up arms at last. We
have, unfortunately, no description of the war which followed, so far as
it was conducted by this monarch. But it is evident that Apepi was
completely disappointed in his hope of crushing the rising native power
before it had grown too strong. He had in fact delayed too late.
Ra-Sekenen, compelled to defend himself against his aggressive suzerain,
raised the standard of national independence, invited aid from all parts
of Egypt, and succeeded in bringing a large army into the field. At the
first he simply held his own against Apepi, but by degrees he was able
to do more. The Hyksos, who marched against Thebes, found enemies rise
up against them in their rear, as first one and then another native
chief declared against them in this or that city; their difficulties
continually increased; they had to re-descend the Nile valley and to
concentrate their forces nearer home. But each year they lost ground.
First the Fayoum was yielded, then Memphis, then Tanis. At last nothing
remained to the invaders but their great fortified camp, Uar or Auaris,
which they had established at the time of their arrival upon the eastern
frontier, and had ever since kept up. In this district, which was
strongly fortified by walls and moats, and watered by canals derived
from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, they had concentrated themselves,
we are told, to the number of 240,000 men, determined to make there a
final stand against the Egyptians.

It was when affairs were in this position that Ra-Sekenen died, and was
succeeded by a king of a different family, the first monarch of the
"Eighteenth Dynasty," Aahmes. Aahmes was a prince of great force of
character, brave, active, energetic, liberal, beloved by his subjects.
He addressed himself at once to the task of completing the liberation of
his country by dislodging the Hyksos from Auaris, and driving them
beyond his borders. With this object he collected a force, which is said
to have amounted to nearly half a million of men, and at the same time
placed a flotilla of ships upon the Nile, which was of the greatest
service in his later operations. Auaris was not only defended by broad
moats connected with the waters of the Nile, but also bordered upon a
lake, or perhaps rather a lagoon, of considerable dimensions. Hence it
was necessary that it should be attacked not only by land, but also by
water. Aahmes seems to have commanded the land forces in person, riding
in a war-chariot, the first of which we have distinct mention. A
favourite officer, who bore the same name as his master, accompanied
him, sometimes marching at his side as he rode in his chariot, sometimes
taking his place in one of the war-vessels, and directing the movements
of the fleet. After a time formal siege was laid to Auaris; the fleet
was ordered to attack the walls on the side of the lagoon, while the
land force was engaged in battering the defences elsewhere. Assaults
were made day after day with only partial success; but at last the
defenders were wearied out--a panic seized them, and, hastily evacuating
the place, they retired towards Syria, the quarter from which they had
originally come. Aahmes may have been willing that they should escape:
since, if they had been completely blocked in and driven to bay, they
might have made a desperate resistance, and caused the Egyptians an
enormous loss. He followed, however, upon their footsteps, to make sure
that they did not settle anywhere in his neighbourhood, and was not
content till they had crossed the desert and entered the hill country of
Palestine. Even then he still hung upon their rear, harassing them and
cutting off their stragglers; finally, when they made a stand at
Sharuhen in Southern Palestine, he laid siege to the town, took it, and
made a great slaughter of the hapless defenders.

The war did not terminate until the fifth year of Aahmes' reign. Its
result was the complete defeat of the invading hordes which had held
Lower and Middle Egypt for so long, and their expulsion from Egypt with
such ignominy and loss that they made no effort to retaliate or to
recover themselves. Vast numbers must have been slain in the battles, or
have perished amid the hardships of the retreat; and many thousands
were, no doubt, made prisoners and carried back into Egypt as slaves. It
is thought that these captives were so numerous as to become an
important element in the population of the eastern Delta, and even to
modify the character of the Egyptian race in that quarter. The lively
imagination of M. Francois Lenormant sees their descendants in the
"strange people, with robust limbs, an elongated face, and a severe
expression, which to this day inhabits the tract bordering on Lake
Menzaleh."[16]

It is probable that Aahmes had for allies in his war with the
"Shepherds" the great nation which adjoined Egypt on the south, and
which was continually growing in power--the Kashi, Cushites, or
Ethiopians. His wife appears by her features and complexion to have been
a Cushite princess, and the marriage is likely to have been less one of
inclination than of policy. The Egyptians admired fair women rather than
dark ones, as is plain from the unduly light complexions which the
artists, in their desire to flatter, ordinarily assign to women, as well
as from the attractiveness of Sarah, even in advanced age. When a Theban
king contracted marriage with an Ethiopian of ebon blackness, we are
entitled to assume a political motive; and the most probable political
motive under the circumstances of the time was the desire for military
assistance. Though in the early wars between the Kashi and the Egyptians
the prowess of the former is not represented as great, and the
designation of "miserable Cushites" is evidently used in depreciation of
their warlike qualities, yet the very use of the epithet implies a
feeling of hostility which could scarcely have been provoked by a weak
people. And the Cushites certainly advanced in prowess and in military
vigour as time went on. They formed the most important portion of the
Egyptian troops for some centuries; at a later period they conquered
Egypt, and were the dominant power for a hundred years; still further
on, they defied the might of Persia when Egypt succumbed to it. Aahmes,
in contracting his marriage with the Ethiopian princess, to whom he gave
the name of Nefertari-Aahmes--or "the good companion of Aahmes"--was,
we may be tolerably sure, bent on obtaining a contingent of those
stalwart troops whose modern representatives are either the Blacks of
the Soudan or the Gallas of the highlands of Abyssinia. The "Shepherds"
thus yielded to a combination of the North with the South, of the
Egyptians with the Ethiopians, such as in later times, on more than one
occasion, drove the Assyrians out of the country.

[Illustration: HEAD OF NEFERTARI-AAHMES.]

FOOTNOTES:

[16] "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient," vol. i. p. 368.

X.

THOTHMES I., THE FIRST GREAT EGYPTIAN CONQUEROR.

Thothmes I. was the grandson of the Aahmes who drove out the Hyksos. He
had thus hereditary claims to valour and military distinction. The
Ethiopian blood which flowed in his veins through his grandmother,
Nefertari-Aahmes, may have given him an additional touch of audacity,
and certainly showed itself in his countenance, where the short
depressed nose and the unduly thick lips are of the Cushite rather than
of the Egyptian type. His father, Amen-hotep I., was a somewhat
undistinguished prince; so that here, as so often, where superior talent
runs in a family, it seems to have skipped a generation, and to have
leapt from the grand-sire to the grandson. Thothmes began his military
career by an invasion of the countries upon the Upper Nile, which were
still in an unsettled state, notwithstanding the campaigns which had
been carried on, and the victories which had been gained in them, during
the two preceding reigns, by King Aahmes, and by the generals of
Amen-hotep. He placed a flotilla of ships upon the Nile above the Second
Cataract, and supporting it with his land forces on either side of the
river, advanced from Semneh, the boundary established by Usurtasen III.,
which is in lat. 21 deg. 50' to Tombos, in lat. 19 deg., conquering the tribes,
Nubian and Cushite, as he proceeded, and from time to time
distinguishing himself in personal combats with his enemies. On one
occasion, we are told, "his majesty became more furious than a panther,"
and placing an arrow on his bowstring, directed it against the Nubian
chief so surely that it struck him, and remained fixed in his knee,
whereupon the chief "fell fainting down before the royal diadem." He was
at once seized and made a prisoner; his followers were defeated and
dispersed; and he himself, together with others, was carried off on
board the royal ship, hanging with his head downwards, to the royal
palace at the capital This victory was the precursor of others;
everywhere "the Petti of Nubia were hewed in pieces, and scattered all
over their lands," till "their stench filled the valleys." At last a
general submission was made, and a large-tract of territory was ceded.
The Egyptian terminus was pushed on from the twenty-second parallel to
the nineteenth, and at Tombos, beyond Dongola, an inscription was set
up, at once to mark the new frontier, and to hand down to posterity the
glory of the conquering monarch. The inscription still remains, and is
couched in inflated terms, which show a departure from the old official
style. Thothmes declares that "he has taken tribute from the nations of
the North, and from the nations of the South, as well as from _those of
the whole earth_; he has laid hold of the barbarians; he has not let a
single one of them escape his gripe upon their hair; the Petti of Nubia
have fallen beneath his blows; he has made their waters to flow
backwards; he has overflowed their valleys like a deluge, like waters
which mount and mount. He has resembled Horus, when he took possession
of his eternal kingdom; all the countries included within the
circumference of the entire earth are prostrate under his feet." Having
effected his conquest, Thothmes sought to secure it by the appointment
of a new officer, who was to govern the newly-annexed country under the
title of "Prince of Cush," and was to have his ordinary residence at
Semneh.

[Illustration: BUST OF THOTHMES I.]

Flushed with his victories in this quarter, and intoxicated with the
delight of conquest, Thothmes, on his return to Thebes, raised his
thoughts to a still grander and more adventurous enterprize. Egypt had
a great wrong to avenge, a huge disgrace to wipe out. She had been
Invaded, conquered, plundered, by an enemy whom she had not provoked by
any aggression; she had seen her cities laid in ashes, her temples torn
down and demolished, the images of her gods broken to pieces, her soil
dyed with her children's blood; she had been trampled under the iron
heel of the conqueror for centuries; she had been exhausted by the
payment of taxes and tribute; she had had to bow the knee, and lick the
dust under the conqueror's feet--was not retribution needed for all
this? True, she had at last risen up and expelled her enemy, she had
driven him beyond her borders, and he seemed content to acquiesce in his
defeat, and to trouble her no more; but was this enough? Did not the law
of eternal justice require something more:

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