Produced by David Widger
HISTORY OF EGYPT
From 330 B.C. to the Present Time
By S. RAPPOPORT, Doctor of Philosophy, Basel; Member of the Ecole
Langues Orientales, Paris; Russian, German, French Orientalist and
Philologist
VOL. X.
Containing over Twelve Hundred Colored Plates and Illustrations
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS, LONDON
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OSIRIS AND ISIS AND THE FOUR CHILDREN OF HORUS WITHIN A SHRINE.
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PREFACE
Professor Maspero closes his History of Egypt with the conquest of
Alexander the Great. There is a sense of dramatic fitness in this
selection, for, with the coming of the Macedonians, the sceptre of
authority passed for ever out of the hand of the Egyptian. For several
centuries the power of the race had been declining, and foreign nations
had contended for the vast treasure-house of Egypt. Alexander found the
Persians virtually rulers of the land. The ancient people whose fame
has come down to us through centuries untarnished had been forced to
bow beneath the yoke of foreign masters, and nations of alien blood were
henceforth to dominate its history.
The first Ptolemy founded a Macedonian or Greek dynasty that maintained
supremacy in Egypt until the year 30 B.C. His successors were his lineal
descendants, and to the very last they prided themselves on their
Greek origin; but the government which they established was essentially
Oriental in character. The names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra convey an
Egyptian rather than a Greek significance; and the later rulers of
the dynasty were true Egyptians, since their ancestors had lived in
Alexandria for three full centuries.
In the year 30 B.C. Augustus Cæsar conquered the last of the Ptolemies,
the famous Cleopatra. Augustus made Egypt virtually his private
province, and drew from it resources that were among the chief elements
of his power. After Augustus, the Romans continued in control until
the coming of the Saracens under Amr, in the seventh century. Various
dynasties of Mohammedans, covering a period of several centuries,
maintained control until the Mamluks, in 1250, overthrew the legitimate
rulers, to be themselves overthrown three centuries later by the Turks
under Selim I. Turkish rule was maintained until near the close of the
eighteenth century, when the French, under Napoleon Bonaparte, invaded
Egypt. In 1806, after the expulsion of the French by the English, the
famous Mehemet Ali destroyed the last vestiges of Mamluk power, and set
up a quasi-independent sovereignty which was not disturbed until toward
the close of the nineteenth century. The events of the last twenty-five
years, comprising a short period of joint control of Egypt by the French
and English, followed by the British occupation, are fresh in the mind
of the reader.
What may be termed the modern history of Egypt covers a period of more
than twenty-two centuries. During this time the native Egyptian can
scarcely be said to have a national history, but the land of Egypt, and
the races who have become acclimated there, have passed through many
interesting phases. Professor Maspero completes the history of antiquity
in that dramatic scene in which the ancient Egyptian makes his last
futile struggle for independence. But the Nile Valley has remained the
scene of the most important events where the strongest nations of the
earth contended for supremacy. It is most interesting to note that
the invaders of Egypt, while impressing their military stamp upon the
natives, have been mastered in a very real sense by the spell of
Egypts greatness; but the language, the key to ancient learning and
civilisation, still remained a well-guarded secret. Here and there one
of the Ptolemies or Greeks thought it worth his while to master the
hieroglyphic writing. Occasionally a Roman of the later period may have
done the same, but such an accomplishment was no doubt very unusual from
the first. The subordinated Egyptians therefore had no resource but to
learn the language of their conquerors, and presently it came to pass
that not even the native Egyptian remembered the elusive secrets of
his own written language. Egyptian, as a spoken tongue, remained, in
a modified form, as Koptic, but at about the beginning of our era the
classical Egyptian had become a dead language. No one any longer wrote
in the hieroglyphic, hieratic, or demotic scripts; in a word, the
hieroglyphic writing was forgotten. The reader of Professor Masperos
pages has had opportunity to learn how this secret was discovered in the
nineteenth century. This information is further amplified in the present
volumes, and we see how in our own time the native Egyptian has regained
something of his former grandeur through the careful and scientific
study of monuments, inscriptions, and works of art. Thus it will appear
in the curious rounding out of the enigmatic story that the most ancient
history of civilisation becomes also the newest and most modern human
history.
PUBLISHERS NOTE
It should be explained that Doctor Rappoport, in preparing these
volumes, has drawn very largely upon the authorities who have previously
laboured in the same field, and in particular upon the works of Creasy,
Duruy, Ebers, Lavisse, Marcel, Michaud, Neibuhr, Paton, Ram-baud, Sharp,
and Weil. The results of investigations by Professor W. M. Flinders
Petrie and other prominent Egyptologists have been fully set forth and
profusely illustrated.
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_EGYPT UNDER THE PTOLEMIES_
_ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT--THE REIGNS OP THE
PTOLEMIES--GRADUAL GROWTH OF ROMAN INFLUENCE--INTRIGUES OF CLEOPATRA
WITH POMPEY, CAESAR, AND ANTONY_
_Alexander the Great in Egypt--Alexandria founded--The Greeks favour
the Jews--Ptolemy Soter establishes himself in Egypt and overcomes
Perdiccas--Struggles for Syria--Beginning of Egyptian coinage--Art and
Scholarship--Ptolemy resigns in favour of his son Philadelphus
--First treaty with Rome--Building of the Pharos--Growth of
Commerce--Encouragement of Learning--The library of Alexandria--Euclid
the geometer--Poets, astronomers, historians, and critics--The
Septuagint--Marriage of Philadelphus to his sister Arsinoë--Ptolemy
Euergetes plunders Asia--Egyptian temples enlarged--Religious
tolerance--Annual tribute of the Jews--Eratosthenes the
astronomer--Philosophy and Science--Culmination of Ptolemaic rule--The
dynasty declines under Philopator--Syrians invade Egypt; Philopator
retaliates; visits Jerusalem--The Jews persecuted--The kings
follies--Riots at Alexandria--Inglorious end of Philopator--The
young Ptolemy Epiphanes protected by Rome--Military revolt
suppressed--Coronation of Epiphanes--The Rosetta Stone--Marriage of
Epiphanes and Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus the Cheat--A second
rebellion repressed--Accession of Ptolemy Philometer under
the guardianship of Cleopatra--Antiochus Epiphanes defeats
Philometer--Euergetes seizes the throne and appeals to Rome--Antiochus
supports Philometor against his brother Euergetes--The brothers combine
against Antiochus--Fraternal rivalry--Philometer appeals to the Romans
who adjust the quarrel--Philometer arbitrates in a dispute between
the Jews and the Samaritans--New temples built--Egyptian
asceticism--Philometers death; Euergetes reigns alone, and divorces
his queen Cleopatra--Popular tumult in Alexandria--Euergetes
flees--Cleopatra in power--Euergetes regains the throne; conquers
Syria and makes peace with Cleopatra--The reign of Cleopatra Cocce with
Lathyrus (Ptolemy Soter II.)--Cleopatra in the ascendent--She helps
the Jews, while Lathyrus helps the Samaritans--Lathyrus flees to
Cyprus--Ptolemy Alexander I rules with Cleopatra--Death of Alexander
and restoration of Lathyrus--Accession of Cleopatra Berenicê--Ptolemy
Alexander II. bequeaths Egypt to Rome, murders Berenicê, and is slain
by his guards--Auletes succeeds--The Romans claim Egypt--Pompey assists
Auletes who is expelled by the Egyptians--Cleopatra Tryphama and
Berenicê placed on the throne--Grabinius and Mark Antony march
into Egypt and restore Auletes--The reign of Cleopatra--Pompey made
governor--The Egyptian fleet aids Pompey--Pompey is slain--Cæsar
besieged by the Alexandrians--He overcomes opposition, is captivated
by Cleopatra and establishes her authority--The Queens
extravagance--Defeat of Antony--Death of Cleopatra--Octavianus annexes
Egypt._
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
HELLENISM AND HEBRÆISM IN EGYPT UNDER THE PTOLEMIES
I.
When Alexander the Great bridged the gulf dividing Occident and Orient,
the Greeks had attained to a state of maturity in the development of
their national art and literature. Greek culture and civilisation,
passing beyond the boundaries of their national domain, crossed this
bridge and spread over the Asiatic world. To perpetuate his name, the
great Macedonian king founded a city, and selected for this purpose,
with extraordinary prescience, a spot on the banks of the Nile, which,
on account of its geographical position, was destined to become a
centre, not only of international commerce and an entrepôt between Asia
and Europe, but also a centre of intellectual culture. The policy of
Alexander to remove the barriers between the Greeks and the Asiatics,
and to pave the way for the union of the races of his vast empire, was
continued by the Lagidæ dynasty in Egypt. With her independence and
native dynasties, Egypt had also lost her political strength and unity;
she retained, however, her ancient institutions, her customs, and
religious system. The sway of Persian dominion had passed over her
without overthrowing this huge rock of sacerdotal power which, deeply
rooted with many ramifications, seemed to mock the wave of time. Out
of the ruins of political independence still towered the monuments
of civilisation of a mighty past which gave to this country moral
independence, and prevented the obliteration of nationality. It would
have mattered very little in the vast empire of Alexander if one
province had a special physiognomy. It was different, however, with the
Lagidæ: their power was concentrated in Egypt, and they were therefore
compelled to obliterate the separation existing between the conquering
and the conquered races, and fuse them, if possible, into one. A
great obstacle which confronted the Macedonian rulers in Egypt was
the religion of the country. The interest and the policy of the Lagidæ
demanded the removal of this obstacle, not by force but by diplomacy.
Greek gods were therefore identified with Egyptian; Phtah became
Hephæstos; Thot, Hermes; Ra, Helios; Amon, Zeus; and, in consequence of
a dream which commanded him to offer adoration to a foreign god, Ptolemy
Soter created a new Greek god who was of Egyptian origin. Osiris at that
period was the great god of Egypt; Memphis was the religious centre of
the cult of Apis, the representative of Osiris, and who, when living,
was called Apis-Osiris, and when dead Osiris-Apis. Cambyses had killed
the god or his representative: it was a bad move. Alexander made
sacrifices to him: Ptolemy Soter did more. He endeavoured to persuade
the Egyptians that Osirapi or Osiris-Apis was also sacred to the Greeks,
and to identify him with some Greek divinity. There was a Greek deity
known as Serapis, identified with Pluton, the god of Hades. Serapis,
by a clever manouvre, a _coup de religion_, was identified with
Osiris-Apis. The lingual similarity and the fact that Osirapi was the
god of the Egyptian Hades made the identification acceptable.
Like true Greek princes, the Ptolemies had broad views and were very
tolerant. Keeping the Greek religion themselves, they were favourably
disposed towards the creeds of other nationalities under their
dominion. Thanks to this broad-mindedness and tolerance which had
become traditional in the Lagidas family, and which has only rarely been
imitated--to the detriment of civilisation--in the history of European
dynasties, Oriental and Hellenic culture could flourish side by side.
This benign government attracted many scholars, scientists, poets,
and philosophers. Alexandria became the intellectual metropolis of the
world; and it might truly be said to have been the Paris of antiquity.
At the courts of the Ptolemies, the Medicis of Egypt, the greatest
men of the age lived and taught. Demetrius Phalerius, one of the most
learned and cultured men of an age of learning and knowledge, when
driven from his luxurious palace at Athens, found hospitality at the
court of Ptolemy Soter. The foundation of the famous Museion and
library of Alexandria was most probably due to his influence. He
advised the first Ptolemy to found a building where poets, scholars, and
philosophers would have facilities for study, research, and speculation.
The Museion was similar in some respects to the Academy of Plato. It
was an edifice where scholars lived and worked together. Mental
qualification was the only requirement for admission. Nationality and
creed were no obstacles to those whose learning rendered them worthy of
becoming members of this ideal academy and of being received among the
immortals of antiquity. The Museion was in no sense a university, but an
academy for the cultivation of the higher branches of learning. It might
be compared in some respects to the College de France, or regarded as
a development of the system under which scholars had already lived and
worked together in the Ramesseum under Ramses II. The generosity of the
Lagidas provided amply for this new centre of learning and study. Free
from worldly cares, the scholars could leisurely gather information and
hand down to posterity the fruits of their researches. From all parts
of the world men flocked to this centre of fashionable learning, the
birthplace of modern science. All that was brilliant and cultured,
all the coryphées in the domain of intellect, were attracted by that
splendid court.
In the shade of the Museion a brilliant assembly--Ptolemy, Euclid,
Hipparchus, Apollonius, and Eratosthenes--made great discoveries and
added materially to the sum of human knowledge. Here Euclid wrote
his immortal Elements; and Herophilos, the father of surgery, added
valuable information to the knowledge of anatomy. The art and process
of embalming, in such vogue among the Egyptians, naturally fostered the
advance of this science. Whilst Alexandria in abstract speculation could
not rival Greece, yet it became the home of the pioneers of positive
science, who left a great and priceless legacy to modern civilisation.
The importance of this event (the foundation of the Museion), says
Draper, in his _Intellectual Development of Europe_, though hitherto
little understood, admits of no exaggeration so far as the intellectual
progress of Europe is concerned. The Museum made an impression upon the
intellectual career of Europe so powerful and enduring that we still
enjoy its results. If the purely literary productions of that age have
sometimes been looked upon with contempt, European intellectual
culture is still greatly indebted to Alexandria, and especially for the
patronage she accorded to the works of Aristotle. Whilst the speculative
mind was in later centuries allured by the supernatural, and the
discussion of the criterion of truth and the principles of morality
ended in the mystic doctrines of Neo-Platonism, the practical
tendencies of the great Alexandrine scholars were instrumental in laying
the foundations of science. To the Museion were attached the libraries:
one in the Museion itself, and another in the quarter Rhacotis in the
temple of Serapis, which contained about 700,000 volumes. New books were
continually acquired. The librarians had orders to pay any sum for the
original of the works of great masters. The Ptolemies were not only
patrons of learning but were themselves highly educated. Ptolemy Soter
was an historian of no mean talent, and his son Philadelphus, as a pupil
of the poet Philetas and the philosopher Strabo, was a man of great
learning. Ptolemy III. was a mathematician, and Ptolemy Philopator,
who had erected and dedicated a temple to Homer, was the writer of a
tragedy. The efforts of the Ptolemies to bring the two nationalities,
Hellenic and Egyptian, nearer to each other, to mould and weld them
into one if possible, to mix and mingle the two civilisations and thus
strengthen their own power, was greatly aided by the national character
of the Greeks and the political position of the Egyptians.
The Greeks found in Egypt a national culture and especially a religious
system. The pliant Hellenic genius could not remain insensible to that
ancient and marvellous civilisation with its sphinxes and hieroglyphics,
its pyramids and temples, its learning and thought, so strangely
perplexing and interesting to the Greek mind. Not only the magnificence
of Egyptian art, the majesty of her temples and palaces, but the wisdom
of her social and political institutions impressed the conquerors. They
made themselves acquainted with the institutions of the country; they
studied its history and took an interest in its religion and mythology.
Similarly, the conquered Egyptians, who had preferred the Macedonian
ruler to their Persian oppressors, exhibited a natural desire to learn
the languages and habits of their rulers, to make themselves acquainted
with their knowledge and phases of thought, and art and science. The
interest of the Greeks was strengthened by this, and the Egyptians were
made to see their history in its proper light. To this endeavour we owe
the history of Manetho. But, in spite of the policy of the Ptolemies,
the impressionable nature of the Hellenic character and the interest of
the Egyptians,--in spite of all that tended to a fusion of Hellenism and
Orientalism, it never came to a proper amalgamation. The contradiction
between the free-thought philosophy of Greece, which was fast outgrowing
its polytheism and Olympian worship, and the deeply rooted sacerdotal
system of the Pharaonian institutions, was too great and too flagrant.
Thus there never was an Egypto-Hellenic phase of thought. But there was
another civilisation of great antiquity, possessing peculiar features,
not less interesting for the Greek mind than that of Egypt itself, with
which Hellenism found itself face to face in the ancient land of the
Pharaohs. It was the civilisation of Judæa, between which and Greek
thought a greater fusion was effected.
II.
From time immemorial the Hebrew race, with all its conservative
tendencies in religious matters, has been amenable to the influence
of foreign culture and civilian. Egypt and Phoenicia, Babylonia and
Assyria, Hellas and Rome have exercised an immense influence over it.
It still is and always has been endeavouring to bring into harmony
the exclusiveness of its national religion, with a desire to adopt the
habits culture, language, and manners of its neighbours; an attempt in
which it may be apparently successful, for a certain period at least,
but which must always have a tragic end. It is impossible to be
conservative and progressive at the same time, to be both national and
cosmopolitan. The attempts to reconcile religious formalism and free
reasoning have never succeeded in the history of human thought. It soon
led to the conviction that one factor must be sacrificed, and, as soon
as this was perceived, the party of zealots was quickly at hand to
preach reaction. In the times of the successors of Alexander, the
Diadochæ and Epigones, the Seleucidæ and the Lagidæ, who had divided the
vast dominion among them, Greek influence had spread all over Palestine.
Greek towns were founded, theatres and gymnasia established; Greek
art was admired and her philosophy studied. The Hellenic movement was
paramount, and the aristocratic families did their best to further it.
Even the high priests, like Jason and Menelaos, who were supposed to be
the guardians of the national exclusive movement, favoured Greek culture
and institutions.
In the mother country, however, the germ of reaction was always very
strong. A constant opposition was directed against the influx of
foreign modes of life and thought, which effaced and obliterated the
intellectual movement. It was different, however, in the other countries
of Macedonian dominion, and especially in Egypt. Alexander the Great,
who seems to have been favourably inclined towards the Jews, settled a
number of them in Alexandria. His policy was kept up by the descendants
of Lagos, that great general of Alexander, who made himself king of the
province which was entrusted to the care of his administration. Egypt
became the resort of many refugees from Judæa, who gradually came under
the influence of the dazzling Greek thought and culture, so new and
therefore so attractive to the Semitic mind. Hellenism and Hebraism had
known each other for some time, for Phoenician merchants and seafarers
had carried the seed of Oriental wisdom to the distant west. The
acquaintance, however, was a slight one. At the court of the Ptolemies,
on the threshold of Europe and Asia, they met at last. On the shores
of the Mediterranean, on the soil where lay the traces of the ancient
Egyptian civilisation, in the silent avenues of mysterious sphinxes,
amongst hieroglyphic-covered obelisks, Greek and Hebrew thought stood
face to face. The two civilisations embodied the principles of the
Beautiful and the Sublime, of Morality and Æstheticism, of religious
and philosophic speculation. The result of this meeting marks a glorious
page in the annals of human thought. Among the monuments of a great
historic past, the speculative spirit of the East made love to the
plastic beauty of the West, until, at last, they were united in happy
union. Hellenic taste and sense of beauty and Semitic speculation not
only evolved side by side in Egypt but mixed and commingled; their
thoughts were intertwined and interwoven, giving rise to a new
intellectual movement, a new philosophy of thought: the Judæo-Hellenic.
Alexandrian culture, during the reign of the Ptolemies, is the offspring
of a mixed marriage between two parents belonging to two widely
different races, and, as a cross breed, is endowed with many qualities.
It had the seriousness of the one parent and the delicacy of the other.
The Ptolemies encouraged the movement towards fusion. The result was
that the Jews in Egypt, not being hampered by reactionary endeavours
from the side of conservative parties, and with an adaptability peculiar
to their race, soon acquired the language of the people in whose midst
they dwelt. They conversed and wrote in Greek; they moulded and shaped
their own thoughts into Greek form; they clothed the Semitic mode of
thinking in Hellenic garb. The immediate result was the translation of
the Pentateuch into Greek. Vanity, of which no individual or race is
free, had embellished this literary production, which has acquired a
high degree of importance alike among Jews and Christians, with many
legends. This translation, known as the Septuaginta (LXX), was followed
by independent histories relating to Biblical events. One of the best
known authors is the chronographer Demetrius, who lived in the second
half of the third century, and whose work Flavius Josephus is supposed
to have utilised. Not to speak of the Greek authors in Judæa and Syria,
we may mention Artapanos, who, following the fashion of the day, wrote
history in the form of a romance, and showed traces of an apologetic
character. He endeavoured to attribute all that was great in Egyptian
civilisation to Moses. This was due to the fact that Manetho, the
Egyptian historian, and others following his example, had spread fables
and venomous tales about the ancient sojourn and exodus of the Hebrews
and their leader. To counterbalance these accusations, fables had to
be interwoven into history, and history became romance. Moses was
thus identified with Hermes, and made out to be the father of Egyptian
wisdom. But, if the close acquaintanceship of Hebraism and Hellenism
began with a mere flirtation, encouraged by the rulers of the land and
kept up by the Jews, who wished to gain the favour of the conquering
race and to show themselves and their history in as favourable a light
as possible, it soon ended in a serious attachment. The Hebrews made
themselves acquainted with Hellenic life and thought. They studied Homer
and Hesiod, Empedocles and Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle, and they
were startled by the discovery that in Greek thought there were many
elements, moral and religious, familiar to them: this enhanced the
attraction. The narrowness and exclusiveness to which strict nationality
always gives rise, engendering contempt and hatred for everything
foreign--which made even the Greeks, with all their intellectual
culture, draw a line of demarcation between Greek and barbarian--gave
way to a spirit of cosmopolitan breadth of view which has only very
rarely been equalled in history. Hellenic and Hebrew forms of
thought were brought into friendly union, and gave birth to ideas
and aspirations of which humanity may always be proud. Greek æsthetic
judgment and Semitic mysticism, different phases of thought in
themselves, were welded into one. The religious conceptions of Moses
and the Prophets were expressed in the language of the philosophical
schools; an attempt was made to bring into harmony the dogmas of
supernatural revelation and the fruits of human speculative thought.
Such an attempt is a great undertaking, for, if sincerely and
relentlessly pursued, it must end in breaking down the barriers of
separation, in the establishment of a common truth, and in the sacrifice
of cherished ideals and convictions which prove to be wrong. If carried
to its logical conclusion, such a cosmopolitan broad-mindedness, such
a cross-fertilisation of intellectual products, must give rise to the
ennobling idea that there is only one truth, and that the external forms
are only fleeting waves upon the vast ocean of human ideals. The
attempt was made in Alexandria by the Judæo-Hellenic philosophers.
Unfortunately, however, the Hebrews, with all their adaptability, have
not yet carried this attempt to its logical conclusion. The spirit
of reaction has ever and anon been ready to crush in its infancy the
endeavour of truth and sincerity, of broad-mindedness and tolerance.
When placed before the question to be or not to be, to be logical or
illogical, it has chosen the latter, and striven after the impossible:
the reconciliation of what cannot be reconciled without alterations,
rejections, and selections. The happy marriage of Hellenism and Hebraism
in Egypt had a tragic end. The union was dissolved, not, however,
without having produced its issue: the Alexandrian culture, which was
carried to Rome by Philo Judæus, and thus influenced later European
thought and humanity at large.
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CHAPTER I--EGYPT CONQUERED BY THE GREEKS
_Alexander the Great.--Cleomenes.--B.C. 332-323_
The way for the Grecian conquest of Egypt had been preparing for many
years. Ever since the memorable march of Xenophon, who led, in the face
of unknown difficulties, ten thousand Greeks across Asia Minor, the
Greek statesman had suspected that the Hellenic soldier was capable of
undreamed possibilities.
When the young Alexander, succeeding his father Philip on the throne
of Macedonia, got himself appointed general by the chief of the Greek
states, and marched against Darius Codomanus, King of Persia, at the
head of the allied armies, it was not difficult to foresee the result.
The Greeks had learned the weakness of the Persians by having been so
often hired to fight for them. For a century past, every Persian army
had had a body of ten or twenty thousand Greeks in the van, and
without this guard the Persians were like a flock of sheep without the
shepherds dog. Those countries which had trusted to Greek mercenaries
to defend them could hardly help falling when the Greek states united
for their conquest.
Alexander defeated the Persians under Darius in a great and memorable
battle near the town of Issus at the foot of the Taurus, at the pass
which divides Syria from Asia Minor, and then, instead of marching upon
Persia, he turned aside to the easier conquest of Egypt. On his way
there he spent seven months in the siege of the wealthy city of Tyre,
and he there punished with death every man capable of carrying arms, and
made slaves of the rest. He was then stopped for some time before the
little town of Gaza, where Batis, the brave governor, had the courage to
close the gates against the Greek army. His angry fretfulness at being
checked by so small a force was only equalled by his cruelty when he had
overcome it; he tied Batis by the heels to his chariot, and dragged him
round the walls of the city, as Achilles had dragged the body of Hector.
On the seventh day after leaving Gaza he reached Pelusium, the most
easterly town in Egypt, after a march of one hundred and seventy miles
along the coast of the Mediterranean, through a parched, glaring desert
which forms the natural boundary of the country; while the fleet kept
close to the shore to carry the stores for the army, as no fresh water
is to be met with on the line of march. The Egyptians did not even try
to hide their joy at his approach; they were bending very unwillingly
under the heavy and hated yoke of Persia. The Persians had long been
looked upon as their natural enemies, and in the pride of their success
had added insults to the other evils of being governed by the satrap of
a conqueror. They had not even gained the respect of the conquered by
their warlike courage, for Egypt had in a great part been conquered and
held by Greek mercenaries.
The Persian forces had been mostly withdrawn from the country by
Sabaces, the satrap of Egypt, to be led against Alexander in Asia Minor,
and had formed part of the army of Darius when he was beaten near the
town of Issus on the coast of Cilicia. The garrisons were not strong
enough to guard the towns left in their charge; the Greek fleet easily
overpowered the Egyptian fleet in the harbour of Pelusium, and the town
opened its gates to Alexander. Here he left a garrison, and, ordering
his fleet to meet him at Memphis, he marched along the rivers bank to
Heliopolis. All the towns, on his approach, opened their gates to him.
Mazakes, who had been left without an army, as satrap of Egypt, when
Sabaces led the troops into Asia Minor, and who had heard of the death
of Sabaces, and that Alexander was master of Phoenicia, Syria, and the
north of Arabia, had no choice but to yield. The Macedonian army crossed
the Nile near Heliopolis, and then entered Memphis.
[Illustration: 019.jpg TRANSPORTING GRAIN ON THE NILE]
Memphis had long been the chief city of all Egypt, even when not the
seat of government. In earlier ages, when the warlike virtues of the
Thebans had made Egypt the greatest kingdom in the world, Memphis and
the lowland corn-fields of the Delta paid tribute to Thebes; but,
with the improvements in navigation, the cities on the coast rose in
importance; the navigation of the Red Sea, though always dangerous,
became less dreaded, and Thebes lost the toll on the carrying trade of
the Nile. Wealth alone, however, would not have given the sovereignty
to Lower Egypt, had not the Greek mercenaries been at hand to fight for
those who would pay them. The kings of Saïs had guarded their thrones
with Greek shields; and it was on the rash but praiseworthy attempt
of Amasis to lessen the power of these mercenaries that they joined
Cambyses, and Egypt became a Persian province. In the struggles of the
Egyptians to throw off the Persian yoke, we see little more than the
Athenians and Spartans carrying on their old quarrels on the coasts
and plains of the Delta; and the Athenians, who counted their losses
by ships, not by men, said that in their victories and defeats together
Egypt had cost them two hundred triremes. Hence, when Alexander, by
his successes in Greece, had put a stop to the feuds at home, the
mercenaries of both parties flocked to his conquering standard, and
he found himself on the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt without any
struggle being made against him by the Egyptians. The Greek part of
the population, who had been living in Egypt as foreigners, now found
themselves masters. Egypt became at once a Greek kingdom, as though
the blood and language of the people were changed at the conquerors
bidding.
Alexanders character as a triumphant general gains little from this
easy conquest of an unwarlike country, and the overthrow of a crumbling
monarchy. But as the founder of a new Macedonian state, and for
reuniting the scattered elements of society in Lower Egypt after the
Persian conquest, in the only form in which a government could be
made to stand, he deserves to be placed among the least mischievous of
conquerors. We trace his march, not by the ruin, misery, and anarchy
which usually follow in the rear of an army, but by the building of
new cities, the more certain administration of justice, the revival of
trade, and the growth of learning. On reaching Memphis, his first care
was to prove to the Egyptians that he was come to re-establish their
ancient monarchy. He went in state to the temple of Apis, and sacrificed
to the sacred bull, as the native kings had done at their coronations;
and gamed the good-will of the crowd by games and music, Performed by
skilful Greeks for their amusement.
[Illustration: 021.jpg PHTAH the god of Memphis]
But though the temple of Phtah at Memphis, in which the state ceremonies
were performed, had risen in beauty and importance by the repeated
additions of the later kings, who had fixed the seat of government in
Lower Egypt, yet the Sun, or Amon-Ra, or Kneph-Ra, the god of Thebes, or
Jupiter-Amnion, as he was called by the Greeks, was the god under whose
spreading wings Egypt had seen its proudest days. Every Egyptian king
had called himself the son of the Sun; those who had reigned at Thebes
had boasted that they were beloved by Amon-Ra; and when Alexander
ordered the ancient titles to be used towards himself, he wished to lay
his offerings in the temple of this god, and to be acknowledged by the
priests as his son. As a reader of Homer, and the pupil of Aristotle,
he must have wished to see the wonders of Egyptian Thebes, the proper
place for this ceremony; and it could only have been because, as a
general, he had not time for a march of five hundred miles, that he
chose the nearer and less known temple of Kneph-Ra, in the oasis of
Ammon, one hundred and eighty miles from the coast.
Accordingly, he floated down the river from Memphis to the sea,
taking with him the light-armed troops and the royal band of
knights-companions. When he reached Canopus, he sailed westward along
the coast, and landed at Rhacotis, a small village on the spot where
Alexandria now stands. Here he made no stay; but, as he passed through
it, he must have seen at a glance, for he was never there a second time,
that the place was formed by nature to be a great harbour, and that with
a little help from art it would be the port of all Egypt. The mouths of
the Nile were too shallow for the ever increasing size of the merchant
vessels which were then being built; and the engineers found the deeper
water which was wanted, between the village of Rhacotis and the little
island of pharos. It was all that he had seen and admired at Tyre, but
it was on a larger scale and with deeper water. It was the very spot
that he was in search of; in every way suitable for the Greek colony
which he proposed to found as the best means of keeping Egypt in
obedience. Even before the time of Homer, the island of Pharos had
given shelter to the Greek traders on that coast. He gave his orders
to Hinocrates the architect to improve the harbour, and to lay down
the plan of his new city; and the success of the undertaking proved
the wisdom both of the statesman and of the builder, for the city of
Alexandria subsequently became the most famous of all the commercial and
intellectual centres of antiquity. From Rhacotis Alexander marched along
the coast to Parastonium, a distance of about two hundred miles
through the desert; and there, or on his way there, he was met by the
ambassadors from Cyrene, who were sent with gifts to beg for peace,
and to ask him to honour their city with a visit. Alexander graciously
received the gifts of the Cyrenæans, and promised them his friendship,
but could not spare time to visit their city; and, without stopping, he
turned southward to the oasis.
At Memphis Alexander received the ambassadors that came from Greece to
wish him joy of his success; he reviewed his troops, and gave out his
plans for the government of the kingdom. He threw bridges of boats over
the Nile at the ford below Memphis, and also over the several branches
of the river. He divided the country into two nomarchies or judgeships,
and to fill these two offices of nomarchs or chief judges, the highest
civil offices in the kingdom, he chose Doloaspis and Petisis, two
Egyptians. Their duty was to watch over the due administration of
justice, one in Upper and the other in Lower Egypt, and perhaps to hear
appeals from the lower judges.
He left the garrisons in the command of his own Greek generals;
Pantaleon commanded the counts, or knights-companions, who garrisoned
Memphis, and Pole-mon was governor of Pelusium. These were the chief
fortresses in the kingdom: Memphis overlooked the Delta, the navigation
of the river, and the pass to Upper Egypt; Pelusium was the harbour for
the ships of war, and the frontier town on the only side on which Egypt
could be attacked. The other cities were given to other governors;
Licidas commanded the mercenaries, Peucestes and Balacrus the other
troops, Eugnostus was secretary, while Æschylus and Ephippus were left
as overlookers, or perhaps, in the language of modern governments, as
civil commissioners. Apollonius was made prefect of Libya, of which
district Parætonium was the capital, and Cleomenes prefect of Arabia at
Heroopolis, in guard of that frontier. Orders were given to all these
generals that justice was to be administered by the Egyptian nomarchs
according to the common law or ancient customs of the land. Petisis,
however, either never entered upon his office or soon quitted it, and
Doloaspis was left nomarch of all Egypt.
Alexander sent into the Thebaid a body of seven thousand Samaritans,
whose quarrels with the Jews made them wish to leave their own country.
He gave them lands to cultivate on the banks of the Nile which had
gone out of cultivation with the gradual decline of Upper Egypt; and he
employed them to guard the province against invasion or rebellion. He
did not stay in Egypt longer than was necessary to give these orders,
but hastened towards the Euphrates to meet Darius. In his absence Egypt
remained quiet and happy. Peucestes soon followed him to Babylon with
some of the troops that had been left in Egypt; and Cleomenes, the
governor of Heroopolis, was then made collector of the taxes and prefect
of Egypt. Cleomenes was a bad man; he disobeyed the orders sent from
Alexander on the Indus, and he seems to have forgotten the mild feelings
which guided his master; yet, upon the whole, after the galling yoke of
the Persians, the Egyptians must have felt grateful for the blessings of
justice and good government.
At one time, when passing through the Thebaid in his barge on the Nile,
Cleomenes was wrecked, and one of his children bitten by a crocodile. On
this plea, he called together the priests, probably of Crocodilopolis,
where this animal was held sacred, and told them that he intended
to revenge himself upon the crocodiles by having them all caught
and killed; and he was only bought off from carrying his threat into
execution by the priests giving him all the treasure that they could
get together. Alexander had left orders that the great market should be
moved from Canopus to his new city of Alexandria, as soon as it should
be ready to receive it. As the building went forward, the priests and
rich traders of Canopus, in alarm at losing the advantages of their
port, gave Cleomenes a large sum of money for leave to keep their
market open. This sum he took, and, when the building at Alexandria was
finished, he again came to Canopus, and because the traders would not or
could not raise a second and larger sum, he carried Alexanders orders
into execution, and closed the market of their city.
But instances such as these, of a public officer making use of dishonest
means to increase the amount of the revenue which it was his duty to
collect, might unfortunately be found even in countries which were for
the most part enjoying the blessings of wise laws and good government;
and it is not probable that, while Alexander was with the army in
Persia, the acts of fraud and wrong should have been fewer in his own
kingdom of Macedonia. The dishonesty of Cleomenes was indeed equally
shown toward the Macedonians, by his wish to cheat the troops out of
part of their pay. The pay of the soldiers was due on the first day of
each month, but on that day he took care to be out of the way, and
the soldiers were paid a few days later; and by doing the same on each
following month, he at length changed the pay-day to the last day of the
month, and cheated the army out of a whole months pay.
Another act for which Cleomenes was blamed was not so certainly wrong.
One summer, when the harvest had been less plentiful than usual, he
forbade the export of grain, which was a large part of the trade of
Egypt, thereby lowering the price to the poor so far as they could
afford to purchase such costly food, but injuring the landowners. On
this, the heads of the provinces sent to him in alarm, to say that they
should not be able to get in the usual amount of tribute; he therefore
allowed the export as usual, but raised the duty; and he was reproached
for receiving a larger revenue while the landowners were suffering from
a smaller crop.
[Illustration: 027.jpg LIGHTHOUSE AT ALEXANDRIA]
At Ecbatana, the capital of Media, Alexander lost his friend Hephæstion,
and in grief for his death he sent to Egypt to enquire of the oracle at
the temple of Kneph in the oasis of Ammon, what honours he might pay
to the deceased. The messengers brought him an answer, that he might
declare Hephæstion a demigod, and order that he should be worshipped.
Accordingly, Alexander then sent an express command to Cleomenes that
he should build a temple to his lost favourite in his new city of
Alexandria, and that the lighthouse which was to be built on the island
of Pharos should be named after him; and as modern insurances against
risks by sea usually begin with the words In the name of God; Amen;
so all contracts between merchants in the port of Alexandria were to
be written solemnly In the name of Hephæstion. Feeling diffident
of enforcing obedience at the mouth of the Nile, while he was himself
writing from the sources of the Indus, he added that if, when he came to
Egypt he found his wish carried into effect, he would pardon Cleomenes
for those acts of misgovernment of which he had been accused, and for
any others which might then come to his ears.
A somatophylax in the Macedonian army was no doubt at first, as the
word means, one of the officers who had to answer for the kings safety;
perhaps in modern language a colonel in the body-guards or household
troops; but as, in unmixed monarchies, the faithful officer who was
nearest the kings person, to whose watchfulness he trusted in the hour
of danger, often found himself the adviser in matters of state, so,
in the time of Alexander, the title of somatophylax was given to those
generals on whose wisdom the king chiefly leaned, and by whose advice
he was usually guided. Among these, and foremost in Alexanders love and
esteem, was Ptolemy, the son of Lagus. Philip, the father of Alexander,
had given Arsinoë, one of his relations, in marriage to Lagus; and her
eldest son Ptolemy, born soon after the marriage, was always thought to
be the kings son, though never so acknowledged. As he grew up, he was
put into the highest offices by Philip, without raising in the young
Alexanders mind the distrust which might have been felt if Ptolemy
could have boasted that he was the elder brother. He earned the good
opinion of Alexander by his military successes in Asia, and gained his
gratitude by saving his life when he was in danger among the Oxydracæ,
near the river Indus; and moreover, Alexander looked up to him as the
historian whose literary powers and knowledge of military tactics were
to hand down to the wonder of future ages those conquests which he
witnessed.
Alexanders victories over Darius, and march to the river Indus, are no
part of this history: it is enough to say that he died at Babylon eight
years after he had entered Egypt; and his half-brother Philip Arridæus,
a weak-minded, unambitious young man, was declared by the generals
assembled at Babylon to be his successor. His royal blood united more
voices in the army in his favour than the warlike and statesmanlike
character of any one of the rival generals. They were forced to be
content with sharing the provinces between them as his lieutenants;
some hoping to govern by their power over the weak mind of Arridæus, and
others secretly meaning to make themselves independent.
In this weighty matter, Ptolemy showed the wisdom and judgment which
had already gained him his high character. Though his military rank and
skill were equal to those of any one of Alexanders generals, and his
claim by birth perhaps equal to that of Arridæous, he was not one of
those who aimed at the throne; nor did he even aim at the second place,
but left to Perdiccas the regency, with the care of the kings person,
in whose name that ambitious general vainly hoped to govern the whole of
Alexanders conquests. But Ptolemy, more wisely measuring his strength
with the several tasks, chose the province of Egypt, the province which,
cut off as it was from the rest by sea and desert, was of all others
the easiest to be held as an independent kingdom against the power of
Perdiccas. When Egypt was given to Ptolemy by the council of generals,
Cleomenes was at the same time and by the same power made second in
command, and he governed Egypt for one year before Ptolemys arrival,
that being in name the first year of the reign of Philip Arridæus, or,
according to the chronologers mode of dating, the first year after
Alexanders death.
[Illustration: 031.jpg PAGE IMAGE]