THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS
JOINT EDITORS
ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
J.A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopædia
VOL. XI
ANCIENT HISTORY MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
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Table of Contents
ANCIENT HISTORY
EGYPT
MASPERO, GASTON
Dawn of Civilization
Struggle of the Nations
Passing of the Empires
JEWS
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS
Antiquities of the Jews
Wars of the Jews
MILMAN, HENRY
History of the Jews
GREECE
HERODOTUS
History
THUCYDIDES
Peloponnesian War
XENOPHON
Anabasis
GROTE, GEORGE
History of Greece
SCHLIEMANN, HEINRICH
Troy and Its Remains
ROME
CÆSAR, JULIUS
Commentaries on the Gallic War
TACITUS, PUBLIUS CORNELIUS
Annals
SALLUST, CATOS CRISPUS
Conspiracy of Catiline
GIBBON, EDWARD
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
MOMMSEN, THEODOR
History of Rome
MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
GIBBON, EDWARD
The Holy Roman Empire
EUROPE
GUIZOT, F.P.G.
History of Civilization in Europe
HALLAM, HENRY
View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages
EGYPT
LANE-POOLE, STANLEY
Egypt in the Middle Ages
ENGLAND
HOLINSHED, RAPHAEL
Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland
FREEMAN, E.A.
Norman Conquest of England
FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY
History of England
A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
of Volume XX.
* * * * *
Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment and thanks for permitting the use of the
following selections--"The Dawn of Civilisation," "The
Struggle of the Nations" and "The Passing of the Empires," by
Gaston Maspero--which appear in this volume, are hereby
tendered to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of
London, England.
* * * * *
Ancient History
GASTON MASPERO
The Dawn of Civilisation
Gaston Camille Charles Maspero, born on June 23, 1846, in
Paris, is one of the most renowned of European experts in
philology and Egyptology, having in great part studied his
special subjects on Oriental ground. After occupying for
several years the Chair of Egyptology in the École des Hautes
Études at the Sorbonne in Paris, he became, in 1874, Professor
of Egyptian Philology and Archæology at the Collège de
France. From 1881 to 1886 he acted in Egypt as director of the
Boulak Museum. It was under his superintendence that this
museum became enriched with its choicest antique treasures.
Dr. Maspero retired in 1886, but in 1899 again went to Egypt
as Director of Excavations. His works are of the utmost value,
his skill in marshalling facts and deducting legitimate
inferences being unrivalled. His masterpiece is an immense
work, with the general title of "History of the Ancient
Peoples of the Classic East," divided into three parts, each
complete in itself: (1) "The Dawn of Civilisation"; (2) "The
Struggle of the Nations"; (3) "The Passing of the Empires."
_I.--The Nile and Egypt_
A long, low, level shore, scarcely rising above the sea, a chain of
vaguely defined and ever-shifting lakes and marshes, then the triangular
plain beyond, whose apex is thrust thirty leagues into the land--this,
the Delta of Egypt, has gradually been acquired from the sea, and is, as
it were, the gift of the Nile. Where the Delta ends, Egypt proper
begins. It is only a strip of vegetable mould stretching north and south
between regions of drought and desolation, a prolonged oasis on the
banks of the river, made by the Nile, and sustained by the Nile. The
whole length of the land is shut in by two ranges of hills, roughly
parallel at a mean distance of about twelve miles.
During the earlier ages the river filled all this intermediate space;
and the sides of the hills, polished, worn, blackened to their very
summits, still bear unmistakable traces of its action. Wasted and
shrunken within the deeps of its own ancient bed, the stream now makes a
way through its own thick deposits of mud. The bulk of its waters keep
to the east, and constitutes the true Nile, the "Great River" of the
hieroglyphic inscriptions. At Khartoum the single channel in which the
river flowed divides, and two other streams are opened up in a southerly
direction, each of them apparently equal in volume to the main stream.
Which is the true Nile? Is it the Blue Nile, which seems to come down
from the distant mountains? Or is it the White Nile, which has traversed
the immense plains of equatorial Africa? The old Egyptians never knew.
The river kept the secret of its source from them as obstinately as it
withheld it from us until a few years ago. Vainly did their victorious
armies follow the Nile for months together, as they pursued the tribes
who dwelt upon its banks, only to find it as wide, as full, as
irresistible in its progress as ever. It was a fresh-water sea--_iauma,
ioma_ was the name by which they called it. The Egyptians, therefore,
never sought its source. It was said to be of supernatural origin, to
rise in Paradise, to traverse burning regions inaccessible to man, and
afterwards to fall into a sea whence it made its way to Egypt.
The sea mentioned in all the tales is, perhaps, a less extravagant
invention than we are at first inclined to think. A lake, nearly as
large as the Victoria Nyanza, once covered the marshy plain where the
Bahr-el-Abiad unites with the Sobat and with the Bahr-el-Ghazal.
Alluvial deposits have filled up all but its deepest depression, which
is known as Birket Nu; but in ages preceding our era it must still have
been vast enough to suggest to Egyptian soldiers and boatmen the idea of
an actual sea opening into the Indian Ocean.
Everything is dependent upon the river--the soil, the produce of the
soil, the species of animals it bears, the birds which it feeds--and
hence it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They
personified it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous but portly
body, such as befits the rich of high lineage. Sometimes water springs
from his breast; sometimes he presents a frog, or libation of vases, or
bears a tray full of offerings of flowers, corn, fish, or geese. The
inscriptions call him "Hapi, father of the gods, lord of sustenance, who
maketh food to be, and covereth the two lands of Egypt with his
products; who giveth life, banisheth want, and filleth the granaries to
overflowing."
He is evolved into two personages, one being sometimes coloured red, the
other blue. The former, who wears a cluster of lotus-flowers on his
head, presides over Egypt of the south; the latter has a bunch of
papyrus for his headdress, and watches over the Delta. Two goddesses,
corresponding to the two Hapis--Mirit Qimait for the Upper, and
Mirit-Mihit for the Lower Egypt--personified the banks of the river.
They are represented with outstretched arms, as though begging for the
water that should make them fertile.
_II.--The Gods of Egypt_
The incredible number of religious scenes to be found represented on the
ancient monuments of Egypt is at first glance very striking. Nearly
every illustration in the works of Egyptologists shows us the figure of
some deity. One would think the country had been inhabited for the most
part by gods, with just enough men and animals to satisfy the
requirements of their worship. Each of these deities represented a
function, a moment in the life of man or of the universe. Thus, Naprit
was identified with the ripe ear of wheat; Maskhonit appeared by the
child's cradle at the very moment of its birth; and Raninit presided
over the naming and nurture of the newly born.
In penetrating this mysterious world we are confronted by an actual
jumble of gods, many being of foreign origin; and these, with the
indigenous deities, made up nations of gods. This mixed pantheon had its
grades of noble princes and kings, each of its members representing one
of the forces constituting the world. Some appeared in human form;
others as animals; others as combinations of human and animal forms.
The sky-gods, like the earth-gods, were separated into groups, the one
composed of women: Hathor of Denderah, or Nit of Sais; the other
composed of men identical with Horus, or derived from him: Anhuri-Shu of
Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, or Horus, of the two eyes, at
Pharbæthos; Har-Sapedi, or Horus, of the zodiacal light, in the Wady
Tumilat; and, finally, Harhuditi at Edfu. Ra, the solar disc, was
enthroned at Heliopolis; and sun-gods were numerous among the home
deities. Horus the sun, and Ra the sun-god of Heliopolis, so permeated
each other that none could say where the one began and the other ended.
Each of the feudal gods representing the sun cherished pretensions to
universal dominion. The goddesses shared in supreme power. Isis was
entitled lady and mistress of Buto, as Hathor was at Denderah, and as
Nit was at Sais. The animal-gods shared omnipotence with those in human
form. Each of the feudal divinities appropriated two companions and
formed a trinity; or, as it is generally called, a triad. Often the
local deity was content with one wife and one son, but often he was
united to two goddesses. The system of triads enhanced, rather than
lowered, the prestige of the feudal gods. The son in a divine triad had
of himself but limited authority. When Isis and Osiris were his parents,
he was generally an infant Horus, whose mother nursed him, offering him
her breast. The gods had body and soul, like men; they had bones,
muscles, flesh and blood; they hungered and thirsted, ate and drank;
they had our passions, griefs, joys and infirmities; and they were
subject to age, decrepitude and death, though they lived very far beyond
the term of life of men.
The _sa_, a mysterious fluid, circulated through their members, and
carried with it divine vigour; and this they could impart to men, who
thus might become gods. Many of the Pharaohs became deities. The king
who wished to become impregnated with the divine _sa_ sat before the
statue of the god in order that this principle might be infused into
him. The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils
which death so plentifully bestows on men. The gods died; each nome
possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead deity. At Thinis there was
the mummy of Anhuri in its tomb, at Mendes the mummy of Osiris, at
Heliopolis that of Tumu. Usually, by dying, the god became another
deity. Ptah of Memphis became Sokaris; Uapuaitu, the jackal of Siut, was
changed into Anubis. Osiris first represented the wild and fickle Nile
of primitive times; but was soon transformed into a benefactor to
humanity, the supremely good being, Unnofriu, Onnophris. He was supposed
to assume the shapes not only of man, but of rams and bulls, or even of
water-birds, such as lapwings, herons, and cranes. His companion goddess
was Isis, the cow, or woman with cow's horns, who personified the earth,
and was mother of Horus.
There were countless gods of the people: trees, serpents and family
fetishes. Fine single sycamores, flourishing as if by miracle amid the
sand, were counted divine, and worshipped by Egyptians of all ranks, who
made them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers, vegetables and water.
The most famous of them all, the Sycamore of the South, used to be
regarded as the living body of Hathor on earth. Each family possessed
gods and fetishes, which had been pointed out by some fortuitous meeting
with an animal or an object; perhaps by a dream and often by sudden
intuition.
_III.--Legendary History of Egypt_
The legendary history of Egypt begins with the Heliopolitan Enneads, or
traditions of the divine dynasties of Ra, Shu, Osiris, Sit and Horus.
Great space is taken up with the fabulous history of Ra, the first king
of Egypt, who allows himself to be duped and robbed by Isis, destroys
rebellious men, and ascends to heaven. He dwelt in Heliopolis, where his
court was mainly composed of gods and goddesses. In the morning he went
forth in his barque, amid the acclamations of the crowd, made his
accustomed circuit of the world, and returned to his home at the end of
twelve hours after the journey. In his old age he became the subject of
the wiles of Isis, who poisoned him, and so secured his departure from
earth. He was succeeded by Shu and Sibu, between whom the empire of the
universe was divided.
The fantastic legends concocted by the priests go on to relate how at
length Egypt was civilised by Osiris and Isis. By Osiris the people were
taught agriculture; Isis weaned them from cannibalism. Osiris was slain
by the red-haired and jealous demon, Sit-Typhon, and then Egypt was
divided between Horus and Sit as rivals; and so it consisted henceforth
of two kingdoms, of which one, that of the north, duly recognised Horus,
son of Isis, as its patron deity; the other, that of the south, placed
itself under the supreme protection of Sit-Nubiti, the god of Ombos.
Elaborate and intricate and hopelessly confused are the fables relating
to the Osirian embalmment, and to the opening of the kingdom of Osiris
to the followers of Horus. Souls did not enter it without examination
and trial, as it is the aim of the famous Book of the Dead to show.
Before gaining access to this paradise each of them had to prove that it
had during earthly life belonged to a friend or to a vassal of Osiris,
and had served Horus in his exile, and had rallied to his banner from
the very beginning of the Typhonian wars.
To Menes of Thinis tradition ascribes the honour of fusing the two
Egypts into one empire, and of inaugurating the reign of the human
dynasties. But all we know of this first of the Pharaohs, beyond his
existence, is practically nothing, and the stories related of him are
mere legends. The real history of the early centuries eludes our
researches. The history as we have it is divided into three periods: 1.
The Memphite period, which is usually called the "Ancient Empire," from
the First to the Tenth dynasty: kings of Memphite origin were rulers
over the whole of Egypt during the greater part of this epoch. 2. The
Theban period, from the Eleventh to the Twentieth dynasty. It is divided
into two parts by the invasion of the Shepherds (Sixteenth dynasty). 3.
Saite period, from the Twenty-first to the Thirtieth dynasty, divided
again into two parts by the Persian Conquest, the first Saite period,
from the Twenty-first to the Twenty-sixth dynasty; the second Saite
Period, from the Twenty-eighth to the Thirtieth dynasty.
_IV.--Political Constitution of Egypt_
Between the Fayum and the apex of the Delta, the Libyan range expands
and forms a vast and slightly undulating table-land, which runs parallel
to the Nile for nearly thirty leagues. The great Sphinx Harmakhis has
mounted guard over its northern extremity ever since the time of the
followers of Horus. In later times, a chapel of alabaster and rose
granite was erected alongside the god; temples were built here and there
in the more accessible places, and round these were grouped the tombs of
the whole country. The bodies of the common people, usually naked and
uncoffined, were thrust into the sand at a depth of barely three feet
from the surface. Those of the better class rested in mean rectangular
chambers, hastily built of yellow bricks, without ornaments or
treasures; a few vessels, however, of coarse pottery contained the
provisions left to nourish the departed during the period of his
existence. Some of the wealthy class had their tombs cut out of the
mountain-side; but the great majority preferred an isolated tomb, a
"mastaba," comprised of a chapel above ground, a shaft, and some
subterranean vaults.
During the course of centuries, the ever-increasing number of tombs
formed an almost uninterrupted chain, are rich in inscriptions, statues,
and in painted or sculptured scenes, and from the womb, as it were, of
these cemeteries, the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties gradually takes
new life and reappears in the full daylight of history. The king stands
out boldly in the foreground, and his tall figure towers over all else.
He is god to his subjects, who call him "the good-god," and "the
great-god," connecting him with Ra through the intervening kings. So the
Pharaohs are blood relations of the sun-god, the "divine double" being
infused into the royal infant at birth.
The monuments throw full light on the supernatural character of the
Pharaohs in general, but tell us little of the individual disposition of
any king in particular, or of their everyday life. The royal family was
very numerous. At least one of the many women of the harem received the
title of "great spouse," or queen. Her union with the god-king rendered
her a goddess. Children swarmed in the palace, as in the houses of
private citizens, and they were constantly jealous of each other, having
no bond of union except common hatred of the son whom the chances of
birth had destined to be their ruler.
Highly complex degrees of rank are revealed to us on the monuments of
the people who immediately surrounded the Pharaoh. His person was, as it
were, minutely subdivided into compartments, each requiring its
attendants and their appointed chiefs. His toilet alone gave employment
to a score of different trades. The guardianship of the crowns almost
approached the dignity of a priesthood, for was not the urseus, which
adorned each one, a living goddess? Troops of musicians, singers,
dancers, buffoons and dwarfs whiled away the tedious hours. Many were
the physicians, chaplains, soothsayers and magicians. But vast indeed
was the army of officials connected with the administration of public
affairs. The mainspring of all this machinery was the writer, or, as we
call him, the scribe, across whom we come in all grades of the staff.
The title of scribe was of no particular value in itself, for everyone
was a scribe who knew how to read and write, was fairly proficient in
wording the administrative formulas, and could easily apply the
elementary rules of book-keeping. "One has only to be a scribe, for the
scribe takes the lead of all," said the wise man. Sometimes, however, a
talented scribe rose to a high position, like the Amten, whose tomb was
removed to Berlin by Lepsius, and who became a favourite of the king and
was ennobled.
_V.--The Memphite Empire_
At that time "the Majesty of King Huni died, and the Majesty of King
Snofrui arose to be a sovereign benefactor over this whole earth." All
we know of him is contained in one sentence: he fought against the
nomads of Sinai, constructed fortresses to protect the eastern frontier
of the Delta, and made for himself a tomb in the form of a pyramid.
Snofrui called the pyramid "Kha," the Rising, the place where the dead
Pharaoh, identified with the sun, is raised above the world for ever. It
was built to indicate the place in which lies a prince, chief, or person
of rank in his tribe or province. The worship of Snofrui, the first
pyramid-builders, was perpetuated from century to century. His
popularity was probably great; but his fame has been eclipsed in our
eyes by that of the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasty who immediately
followed him--Kheops, Khephren and Mykerinos.
Khufui, the Kheops of the Greeks, was probably son of Snofrui. He
reigned twenty-three years, successfully defended the valuable mines of
copper, manganese and turquoise of the Sinaitic peninsula against the
Bedouin; restored the temple of Hathor at Dendera; embellished that of
Babastis; built a sanctuary to the Isis of the Sphinx; and consecrated
there gold, silver and bronze statues of Horus and many other gods.
Other Pharaohs had done as much or more; but the Egyptians of later
dynasties measured the magnificence of Kheops by the dimensions of his
pyramid at Ghizel. The Great Pyramid was called Khuit, the "Horizon," in
which Kheops had to be swallowed up, as his father, the sun, was
engulfed every evening in the horizon of the west. Of Dadufri, his
immediate successor, we can probably say that he reigned eight years;
but Khephren, the next son who succeeded to the throne, erected temples
and a gigantic pyramid, like his father. He placed it some 394 feet to
the south-west of that of Kheops, and called it Uiru the Great. It is
much smaller than its neighbour, but at a distance the difference in
height disappears. The pyramid of Mykerinos, son and successor of
Khephren, was considerably inferior in height, but was built with
scrupulous art and refined care.
The Fifth dynasty manifested itself in every respect as the sequel and
complement of the Fourth. It reckons nine Pharaohs, who reigned for a
century and a half, and each of them built pyramids and founded cities,
and appear to have ruled gloriously. They maintained, and even
increased, the power and splendour of Egypt. But the history of the
Memphite Empire unfortunately loses itself in legend and fable, and
becomes a blank for several centuries.
_VI.--The First Theban Empire_
The principality of the Oleander--Naru--comprised the territory lying
between the Nile and the Bahr Yusuf, a district known to the Greeks as
the island of Heracleopolis. It, moreover, included the whole basin of
the Fayum, on the west of the valley. Attracted by the fertility of the
soil, the Pharaohs of the older dynasties had from time to time taken up
their residence in Heracleopolis, the capital of the district of the
Oleander, and one of them, Snofrui, had built his pyramid at Medum,
close to the frontier of the nome. In proportion as the power of the
Memphites declined, so did the princes of the Oleander grow more
vigorous and enterprising; and When the Memphite kings passed away,
these princes succeeded their former masters and eventually sat "upon
the throne of Horus."
The founder of the Ninth dynasty was perhaps Khiti I., who ruled over
all Egypt, and whose name has been found on rocks at the first cataract.
His successors seem to have reigned ingloriously for more than a
century. The history of this period seems to have been one of confused
struggle, the Pharaohs fighting constantly against their vassals, and
the nobles warring amongst themselves. During the Memphite and
Heracleopolitan dynasties Memphis, Elephantiné, El-Kab and Koptos were
the principal cities of the country; and it was only towards the end of
the Eighth dynasty that Thebes began to realise its power. The revolt of
the Theban. princes put an end to the Ninth dynasty; and though
supported by the feudal powers of Central and Northern Egypt, the Tenth
dynasty did not succeed in bringing them back to their allegiance, and
after a struggle of nearly 200 years the Thebans triumphed and brought
the two divisions of Egypt under their rule.
The few glimpses to be obtained of the early history of the first Theban
dynasty give the impression of an energetic and intelligent race. The
kings of the Eleventh dynasty were careful not to wander too far from
the valley of the Nile, concentrating their efforts not on conquest of
fresh territory, but on the remedy of the evils from which the country
had suffered for hundreds of years. The final overthrow of the
Heracleopolitan dynasty, and the union of the two kingdoms under the
rule of the Theban house, are supposed to have been the work of that
Monthotpu, whose name the Egyptians of Rameside times inscribed in the
royal lists as that of the founder and most illustrious representative
of the Eleventh dynasty.
The leader of the Twelfth dynasty, Amenemhait I., was of another stamp,
showing himself to be a Pharaoh conscious of his own divinity and
determined to assert it. He inspected the whole land, restored what he
found in ruins, crushed crime, settled the bounds of towns, and
established for each its frontiers. Recognising that Thebes lay too far
south to be a suitable place of residence for the lord of all Egypt,
Amenemhait proceeded to establish himself in the heart of the country in
imitation of the glorious Pharaohs from whom he claimed descent. He took
up his abode a little to the south of Dashur, in the palace of Titoui.
Having restored peace to his country, the king in the twentieth year of
his reign, when he was growing old, raised his son Usirtasen, then very
young, to the co-regency with himself.
When, ten years later, the old king died, his son was engaged in a war
against the Libyans. He reigned alone for thirty-two years. The Twelfth
dynasty lasted 213 years; and its history can be ascertained with
greater certainty and completeness than that of any other dynasty which
ruled Egypt, although we are far from having any adequate idea of its
great achievements, for unfortunately the biographies of its eight
sovereigns and the details of their interminable wars are very
imperfectly known.
Uncertainty again shrouds the history of the country after the reign of
Sovkhoptu I. The Twentieth dynasty contained, so it is said, sixty
kings, who reigned for a period of over 453 years. The Nofirhoptus and
Sovkhoptus continued to all appearances both at home and abroad the work
so ably begun by the Amenemhaits and the Usirtasens.
During the Thirteenth dynasty art and everything else in Egypt were
fairly prosperous, but wealth exercised an injurious effect on artistic
taste. During this dynasty we hear nothing of the inhabitants of the
Sinaitic Peninsula to the east, or of the Libyans to the west; it was in
the south, in Ethiopia, that the Pharaohs expended all their superfluous
energy. The middle basin of the Nile as far as Gebel-Barkal was soon
incorporated with Egypt, and the population became quickly assimilated.
Sovkhoptu III., who erected colossal statues of himself at Tanis,
Bubastis and Thebes, was undisputed master of the whole Nile valley,
from near the spot where it receives its last tributary to where it
empties itself into the sea. The making of Egypt was finally
accomplished in his time. The Fourteenth dynasty, however, consists of a
line of seventy-five kings, whose mutilated names appear on the Turin
Papyrus. These shadowy Pharaohs followed each other in rapid sequence,
some reigning only a few months, others for certainly not more than two
and three years.
Meantime, during what appears to have been an era of rivalries between
pretenders, mutually jealous of and deposing one another, usurpers in
succession seizing the crown without strength to keep it, the feudal
lords displayed more than their old restlessness. The nomad tribes began
to show growing hostility on the frontier, and the peoples of the Tigris
and Euphrates were already pushing their vanguards into Central Syria.
While Egypt had been bringing the valley of the Nile and the eastern
corner of Africa into subjection, Chaldæa had imposed not only language
and habits, but also her laws upon the whole of that part of Eastern
Asia which separated her from Egypt. Thus the time was rapidly
approaching when these two great civilised powers of the ancient world
would meet each other face to face and come into fierce and terrible
collision.
_VII.--Ancient Chaldæa_
The Chaldæan account of Genesis is contained on fragments of tablets
discovered and deciphered in 1875 by George Smith. These tell legends of
the time when "nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when
nothing below had as yet received the name of earth. Apsu, the Ocean,
who was their first father, and Chaos-Tiamat, who gave birth to them
all, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes
which bore no fruit. In the time when the gods were not created, Lakhmu
and Lakhamu were the first to appear and waxed great for ages."
Then came Anu, the sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night;
Inlil-Bel, the king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and
the personification of wisdom. Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into
Anat, Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse
whom he had produced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these
fruitful pairs, and, the impulse once given, the world was rapidly
peopled by their descendants. Sin, Samash and Ramman, who presided
respectively over the sun, moon and air, were all three of equal rank;
next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach, Nergal, Ishtar, the
warrior-goddess, and Nebo; then a whole army of lesser deities who
ranged themselves around Anu as around a supreme master.
Discord arose. The first great battle of the gods was between Tiamat and
Merodach. In this fearful conflict Tiamat was destroyed. Splitting her
body into halves, the conqueror hung up one on high, and this became the
heavens; the other he spread out under his feet to form the earth, and
made the universe as men have known it. Merodach regulated the movements
of the sun and divided the year into twelve months.
The heavens having been put in order, he set about peopling the earth.
Many such fables concerning the cosmogony were current among the races
of the lower Euphrates, who seem to have belonged to three different
types. The most important were the Semites, who spoke a dialect akin to
Armenian, Hebrew and Phoenician. Side by side with these the monuments
give evidence of a race of ill-defined character, whom we provisionally
call Sumerians, who came, it is said, from some northern country, and
brought with them a curious system of writing which, adopted by ten
different nations, has preserved for us all that we know in regard to
the majority of the empires which rose and fell in Western Asia before
the Persian conquest. The cities of these Semites and Sumerians were
divided into two groups, one in the south, near the sea, the other more
to the north, where the Euphrates and the Tigris are separated by a
narrow strip of land. The southern group consisted of seven, Eridu lying
nearest the coast. Uru was the most important. Lagash was to the north
of Eridu. The northern group consisted of Nipur, "the incomparable,"
Borsip, Babylon (gate of the god and residence of life, the only
metropolis of the Euphrates region of which posterity never lost
reminiscence), Kishu, Kuta, Agade, and, lastly, the two Sipparas, that
of Shamash, and that of Annuit.
The earliest Chaldæan civilisation was confined almost to the banks of
the lower Euphrates; except at the northern boundary it did not reach
the Tigris and did not cross the river. Separated from the rest of the
world, on the east by the vast marshes bordering on the river, on the
north by the Mesopotamian table-land, on the west by the Arabian desert,
it was able to develop its civilisation as Egypt had done, in an
isolated area, and to follow out its destiny in peace.
According to Ferossasi the first king was Aloros of Babylon. He was
chosen by the god Oannes, and reigned supernaturally for ten sari, or
36,000 years, each saros being 3,600 years. Nine kings follow, each in
this mythical record reigning an enormous period. Then took place the
great deluge, 691,000 years after the creation, in consequence of the
wickedness of men, who neglected the worship of the gods, and excited
their wrath. Shamashnapishtim, king at this time in Shurippak, was saved
miraculously in a great ship. Concerning him and his voyage strange
fables are recorded. After the deluge, 86 kings ruled during 34,080
years. One of these was Nimrod, the mighty hunter of the Bible, who
appears as Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, and is the hero of extraordinary
adventures.
History proper begins with Sargon the Elder, king at the first in Agade,
who soon annexed Babylon, Sippara, Kishu, Uruk, Kuta and Nipur. His
brilliant career was like an anticipation of that of the still more
glorious life of Sargon of Nineveh. His son, Naramsin, succeeded him
about 3750 B.C. He conquered Elam and was a great builder. After him the
most famous king of that epoch was Gudea, of Lagash, the prince of whom
we possess the greatest number of monuments. But in these records we
have but the dust of history rather than history itself. The materials
are scanty in the extreme and the framework also is wanting.
_VIII.--The Temples and the Gods of Chaldæa_
The cities of the Euphrates attract no attention, like those of Egypt,
by the magnificence of their ruins. They are merely heaps of rubbish in
which no architectural outline can be traced--mounds of stiff greyish
clay, containing the remains of the vast structures that were built of
bricks set in mortar or bitumen. Stone was not used as in Egypt. While
the Egyptian temple was spread superficially over a large area, the
Chaldæan temple strove to attain as high an elevation as possible. These
"ziggurats" were composed of several immense cubes piled up on one
another, and diminishing in size up to the small shrine by which they
were crowned, and wherein the god himself was supposed to dwell.
The gods of the Euphrates, like those of the Nile, constituted a
countless multitude of visible and invisible beings, distributed into
tribes and empires throughout all the regions of the universe; but,
whereas in Egypt they were, on the whole, friendly to man, in Chaldæa
they for the most part pursued him with an implacable hatred, and only
seemed to exist in order to destroy him. Whether Semite or Sumerian, the
gods, like those of Egypt, were not abstract personages, but each
contained in himself one of the principal elements of which our universe
is composed--earth, air, sky, sun, moon and stars. The state religion,
which all the inhabitants of the same city were solemnly bound to
observe, included some dozen gods, but the private devotion of
individuals supplemented this cult by vast additions, each family
possessing its own household gods.
Animals never became objects of worship as in Egypt; some of them,
however, as the bull and the lion, were closely allied to the gods. If
the idea of uniting all these gods into a single supreme one ever
crossed the mind of a Chaldæan theologian, it never spread to the people
as a whole. Among all the thousands of tablets or inscribed stones on
which we find recorded prayers, we have as yet discovered no document
containing the faintest allusion to a divine unity. The temples were
miniature reproductions of the arrangements of the universe. The
"ziggurat" represented in its form the mountain of the world, and the
halls ranged at its feet resembled approximately the accessory parts of
the world; the temple of Merodach at Babylon comprised them all up to
the chambers of fate, where the sun received every morning the tablets
of destiny.
Every individual was placed, from the very moment of his birth, under
the protection of a god or goddess, of whom he was the servant, or
rather the son. These deities accompanied him by day and by night to
guard him from the evil genii ready to attack him on every side. The
Chaldæans had not such clear ideas as to what awaited them in the other
world as the Egyptians possessed.
The Chaldæan hades is a dark country surrounded by seven high walls, and
is approached by seven gates, each guarded by a pitiless warder. Two
deities rule within it--Nergal, "the lord of the great city," and
Peltis-Allat, "the lady of the great land," whither everything which has
breathed in this world descends after death. A legend relates that Allat
reigned alone in hades and was invited by the gods to a feast which they
had prepared in heaven. Owing to her hatred of the light she refused,
sending a message by her servant, Namtar, who acquitted himself, with
such a bad grace, that Anu and Ea were incensed against his mistress,
and commissioned Nergal to chastise her. He went, and finding the gates
of hell open, dragged the queen by her hair from the throne, and was
about to decapitate her, but she mollified him by her prayers and saved
her life by becoming his wife.
The nature of Nergal fitted him well to play the part of a prince of the
departed; for he was the destroying sun of summer, and the genius of
pestilence and battle. His functions in heaven and earth took up so much
of his time that he had little leisure to visit his nether kingdom, and
he was consequently obliged to content himself with the rôle of
providing subjects for it by dispatching thither the thousands of
recruits which he gathered daily from the abodes of men or from the
field of battle.
_IX.--Chaldæan Civilisation_
The Chaldæan kings, unlike their contemporaries, the Pharaohs, rarely
put forward any pretension to divinity. They contented themselves with
occupying an intermediate position between their subjects and the gods.
While the ordinary priest chose for himself a single deity as master,
the priest-king exercised universal sacerdotal functions. He officiated
for Merodach here below, and the scrupulously minute devotions daily
occupied many hours. On great days of festival or sacrifice they laid
aside all insignia of royalty and were clad as ordinary priests.
Women do not seem to have been honoured in the Euphratean regions as in
Egypt, where the wives of the sovereign were invested with that
semi-sacred character that led the women to be associated with the
devotions of the man, and made them indispensable auxiliaries in all
religious ceremonies. Whereas the monuments on the banks of the Nile
reveal to us princesses sharing the throne of their husbands, whom they
embrace with a gesture of frank affection, in Chaldæa, the wives of the
prince, his mother, sisters, daughters and even his slaves, remain
absolutely invisible to posterity. The harem in which they were shut up
by force of custom rarely, if ever, opened its doors; the people seldom
caught sight of them; and we could count on our fingers the number of
these whom the inscriptions mention by name.
Life was not so pleasant in Chaldæa as in Egypt. The innumerable
promissory notes, the receipted accounts, the contracts of sale and
purchase--these cunningly drawn-up deeds which have been deciphered by
the hundred, reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, litigious,
and almost exclusively absorbed in material concerns. The climate, too,
variable and oppressive in summer and winter alike, imposed on the
Chaldæan painful exactions, and obliged him to work with an energy of
which the majority of Egyptians would not have felt themselves capable.
And the plague of usury raged with equal violence in city and country.
In proportion, however, as we are able to bring this wonderful
civilisation to light we become more and more conscious that we have
indeed little or nothing in common with it. Its laws, customs, habits
and character, its methods of action and its modes of thought, are so
far apart from those of the present day that they seem to belong to a
humanity utterly different from our own. It thus happens that while we
understand to a shade the classical language of the Greeks and of the
Romans, and can read their works almost without effort, the great
primitive literatures of the world, the Egyptian and Chaldæan, have
nothing to offer us for the most part but a sequence of problems to
solve or of enigmas to unriddle with patience.
* * * * *
The Struggle of the Nations
Maspero in this work gives us the second volume of his great
historical trilogy. He shows in parallel views the part played
in the history of the ancient world by the first Chaldæan
Empire, by Syria, by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, of Egypt,
and by the first Cossæan kings who established the greatness
of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The great Theban dynasty
is then exhibited in its romantic rise under the Pharaohs.
Maspero writes not as a mere chronicler or reciter of events,
but as a philosophical historian. He makes the reader
understand how fatally the chronic militarism of these
competing empires drained each of its manhood and brought
Babylon and Assyria simultaneously into a hopeless condition
of national anæmia. Equally pathetic is the picture drawn of
the gradual but sure decay of the grand empire of the
Pharaohs. Maspero, with masterly skill, passes a processional
of these despots before our eyes.
_I.--The Chaldæan Empire and the Hyksos_
Some countries seem destined from their origin to become the
battlefields of the contending nations which environ them. Into such
regions neighbouring peoples come to settle their quarrels, and bit by
bit they appropriate it, so that at best the only course open to the
inhabitants is to join forces with one of the invaders. From remote
antiquity this was the experience of Syria, which was thus destined to
become subject to foreign rule. Chaldæa, Egypt, Assyria and Persia in
turn presided over its destinies. Semites dwelt in the south and the
centre, while colonies from beyond the Taurus occupied the north. The
influence of Egypt never penetrated beyond the provinces lying nearest
the Dead Sea. The remaining populations looked rather to Chaldæa, and
received the continuous impress of the kingdoms of the Euphrates.
The lords of Babylon had, ordinarily, a twofold function, the priest at
first taking precedence of the soldier, but gradually yielding to the
latter as the city increased in power. Each ruler was obliged to go in
state to the temple of Bel Merodach within a year of his accession,
there to do homage to the divine statue. The long lists of early kings
contain semi-legendary names, including those of mythical heroes.
Towards the end of the twenty-fifth century, however, before the
Christian era, a dynasty arose of which all the members come within the
range of history.
The first of these kings, Sumuabim, has left us some contracts bearing
the dates of one or other of the fifteen years of his reign. Of the ten
kings who followed during the period embraced between the years 2416
B.C. and 2112 B.C., the one who ruled for the longest term was the.
famous and fortunate Khammurabi (son of Sinmuballit), who was on the
throne for fifty-five years.
While thus the first Chaldean Empire was being established, Egypt,
separated from her confines only by a narrow isthmus, loomed on the
horizon, and appeared to beckon to her rival. But she had strangely
declined from her former greatness, and had been attacked and subdued by
invaders appearing like a cloud of locusts on the banks of the Nile, to
whom was applied the name Hiq Shausu, from which the Greeks derived the
term Hyksos for this people. Modern scholars have put forward many
conflicting hypotheses as to the identity of this race of conquerors.
The monuments represent them with the Mongoloid type of feature. The
problem remains unsolved, and the origin of the Hyksos is as mysterious
as ever.
About this time took place that entrance into Egypt of the Beni-Isræl,
or Isrælites, which has since acquired a unique position in the world's
history. A comparatively ancient tradition relates that the Hebrews
arrived in Egypt during the reign of Aphobis, a Hyksos king, doubtless
one of the Apopi. The Hyksos were ousted by a hero named Ahmosis after a
war of five years. The XVIIIth Dynasty was inaugurated by the Pharaohs,
whose policy was so aggressive that Egypt, attacked by enemies from
various quarters, and roused, as it were, to warlike frenzy, hurled her
armies across all her frontiers simultaneously, and her sudden
appearance in the heart of Syria gave a new turn to human history. The
isolation of the kingdoms of the ancient world was at an end; and the
conflict of the nations was about to begin.
_II.--Beginning of the Egyptian Conquest_
The Egyptians had no need to anticipate Chaldæan interference when,
forsaking their ancient traditions, they penetrated for the first time
into the heart of Syria. Babylonian rule ceased to exercise direct
control when the line of sovereigns who had introduced it disappeared.
When Ammisatana died, about the year 2099 B.C., the dynasty of
Khammurabi became extinct, and kings of the semi-barbarous Cossæan race
gained the throne which had been occupied since the days of Khammurabi
by Chaldæans of the ancient stock.
The Cossæan king who seized on Babylon was named Gandish. He and his
tribe came from the mountainous regions of Zagros, on the borders of
Media. The Cossæan rule over the countries of the Euphrates was
doubtless similar in its beginnings to that which the Hyksos exercised
at first over the nomes of Egypt. The Cossæan kings did not merely bring
with them their army, but their whole nation, who spread over the whole
land. As in the case of the Hyksos, the barbarian conquerors thus became
merged in the more civilised people which they had subdued. But the
successors of Gandish were unable permanently to retain their ascendancy
over all the districts and provinces, and several of these withdrew
their allegiance. Thus in Syria the authority of Babylon was no longer
supreme when the encroachments of Egypt began, and when Thutmosis
entered the region the native levies which he encountered were by no
means formidable.
The whole country consisted of a collection of petty states, a complex
group of peoples and territories which the Egyptians themselves never
completely succeeded in disentangling. We are, however, able to
distinguish at the present time several of these groups, all belonging
to the same family, but possessing different characteristics--the
kinsfolk of the Hebrews, the children of Ishmæl and Edom, the Moabites
and Ammonites, the Arameans, the Khati and the Canaanites. The
Canaanites were the most numerous, and had they been able to confederate
under a single king, it would have been impossible for the Egyptians to
have broken through the barrier thus raised between them and the rest of
Asia.
_III.--The Eighteenth Theban Dynasty_
The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thutmosis I. in Asia,
a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting if we
could lay our hands on it. We know that this king succeeded in reaching
on his first campaign a limit which none of his successors was able to
surpass. The results of the campaign were of a decisive character, for
Southern Syria accepted its defeat, and Gaza was garrisoned as the
secure door of Asia for future invasions. Freed from anxiety in this
quarter, Pharaoh gave his whole time to the consolidation of his power
in Ethiopia, where rebellion had become rife. Subduing this southern
region and thus extending the supremacy of Egypt in the regions of the
upper Nile, Thutmosis was able to end his days in the enjoyment of
profound peace. Thutmosis II. did not long survive him. His chief wife,
Queen Hatshopsitu, reigned for many years with great ability while the
new Pharaoh, Thutmosis III., was still a youth.
After the death of Hatshopsitu, the young Pharaoh set out with his army.
It was at the beginning of the twenty-fourth year of his reign that he
reached Gaza. Marching forward he reached the spurs of Mount Carmel and
won a decisive victory at Megiddo over the allied Syrian princes. The
inscriptions at Karnak contain long lists of the titles of the king's
Syrian subjects. The Pharaoh had now no inclination to lay down his
arms, and we have a record of twelve military expeditions of this king.
When the Syrian conquest had been effected, Egypt gave permanency to its
results by means of a series of international decrees, which established
the constitution of her empire, and brought about her concerted action
with the Asiatic powers. She had already occupied an important position
among them when Thutmosis III. died in the fifty-fifth year of his
reign.
Of his successors the most prosperous was the renowned Amenothes III.,
who is immortalised by the wonderful monumental relics of his long and
peaceful reign. Amenothes devoted immense energy to the building of
temples, palaces and shrines, and gave very little of his time to war.
_IV.--The Last Days of the Theban Empire_
When the male line failed, there was no lack of princesses in Egypt, of
whom any one who happened to come to the throne might choose a consort
after her own heart, and thus become the founder of a new dynasty. By
such a chance alliance Harmhabi, himself a descendant of Thutmosis III.,
was raised to the kingly office as first Pharaoh of the XIXth Dynasty.
He displayed great activity both within Egypt and beyond it, conducting
mighty building enterprises and also undertaking expeditions against
recalcitrant tribes along the Upper Nile.