Egypt. Emigrants from less favoured countries had frequently looked with
interest to the fertile Delta of the Nile, hoping that there they might
find homes free from the vicissitudes of their own. Previous to this,
one Amu had entered Egypt, perhaps from Midian, with his family,
counting thirty-seven, the little ones riding upon asses, and had sought
the protection of the reigning sovereign. It was again the experience
of Egypt to receive emigrants from the north-east, from Syria or
Northern Arabia, at a little later period, when the nomads in those
regions looked over to the south and, by contrast with their
over-peopled country, thought they saw a sort of "fairy-land of wealth,
culture, and wisdom," which they hoped to enjoy by force: and they were
not the last to seek asylum there. We shall soon have to remark on the
familiar case of the immigration of the sons of Jacob with their
households. In process of time the Semitic wanderers increased so
materially that the population in the eastern half of the Delta became
half Asiatic, prepared to submit readily to Asiatic rule and to worship
Semitic deities; they had already imposed a number of their words upon
the language of Egypt.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Adapted from Kinglake's "Eothen," p. 201.
[14] See "Speaker's Commentary," vol. i. p. 447, col. i.
VIII.
THE GREAT INVASION--THE HYKSÔS OR SHEPHERD KINGS--JOSEPH AND APEPI.
The prowess of the Egyptians had not yet been put to any severe proof.
They had themselves shown little of an aggressive spirit. Attracted by
the mineral wealth of the Sinaitic peninsula, they had indeed made
settlements in that region, which had involved them in occasional wars
with the natives, whom they spoke of as "Mena" or "Menti"; and they had
had a contest of more importance with the tribes of the south, negro and
Ethiopic, in which they had shown a decided superiority over those rude
barbarians; but, as yet, they had attempted no important conquest, and
had been subjected to no serious attack. The countries upon their
borders were but sparsely peopled, and from neither the Berber tribes of
the northern African coast, nor from the Sinaitic nomads, nor even from
the negroes of the south, with their allies--the "miserable
Cushites"--was any dangerous invasion to be apprehended. Egypt had been
able to devote herself almost wholly to the cultivation of the arts of
peace, and had not been subjected to the severe ordeal, which most
nations pass through in their infancy, of a struggle for existence with
warlike and powerful enemies.
The time was now come for a great change. Movements had begun among the
populations of Asia which threatened a general disturbance of the peace
of the world. Asshur had had to "go forth" out of the land of Shinar,
and to make himself a habitation further to the northward, which must
have pressed painfully upon other races. In Elam an aggressive spirit
had sprung up, and military expeditions had been conducted by Elamitic
kings, which started from the shores of the Persian Gulf and terminated
in Southern Syria and Palestine. The migration of the tribes which moved
with Terah and Abraham from Ur to Haran, and from Haran to Hebron, is
but one of many indications of the restlessness of the period. The
Hittites were growing in power, and required an enlarged territory for
their free expansion. It was now probably that they descended from the
hills of Cappadocia upon the region below Taurus and Amanus, where we
find them dominant in later ages. Such a movement on their part would
displace a large population in Upper Syria, and force it to migrate
southwards. There are signs of a pressure upon the north-eastern
frontier of Egypt on the part of Asiatics needing a home as early as the
commencement of the twelfth dynasty; and it is probable that, while the
dynasty lasted, the pressure was continually becoming greater. Asiatics
were from time to time received within the barrier of Amenemhat I., some
to sojourn and some to dwell. The eastern Delta was more or less
Asiaticized; and a large portion of its inhabitants was inclined to
welcome a further influx from Asia.
We have one account only of the circumstances of the great invasion by
which Egypt fell under a foreign yoke. It purports to come from the
native historian, Manetho; but it is delivered to us directly by
Josephus, who, in his reports of what other writers had narrated, is not
always to be implicitly trusted. Manetho, according to him, declared as
follows: "There was once a king of Egypt named Timæus, in whose reign
the gods being offended, for I know not what cause, with our nation,
certain men of ignoble race, coming from the eastern regions, had the
courage to invade the country, and falling upon it unawares, conquered
it easily without a battle. After the submission of the princes, they
conducted themselves in a most barbarous fashion towards the whole of
the inhabitants, slaying some, and reducing to slavery the wives and the
children of the others. Moreover they savagely set the cities on fire,
and demolished the temples of the gods. At last, they took one of their
number called Salatis, and made him king over them. Salatis resided at
Memphis, where he received tribute both from Upper and Lower Egypt,
while at the same time he placed garrisons in all the most suitable
situations. He strongly fortified the frontier, especially on the side
of the east, since he foresaw that the Assyrians, who were then
exceedingly powerful, might desire to make themselves masters of his
kingdom. Having found, moreover, in the Sethroïte nome, to the east of
the Bubastite branch of the Nile, a city very favourably situated, and
called, on account of an ancient theological tradition, Avaris, he
rebuilt it and strengthened it with walls of great thickness, which he
guarded with a body of two hundred and forty thousand men. Each summer
he visited the place, to see their supplies of corn measured out for his
soldiers and their pay delivered to them, as well as to superintend
their military exercises, in order that foreigners might hold them in
respect."
The king, Timæus, does not appear either in the lists of Manetho or upon
the monuments, nor is it possible to determine the time of the invasion
more precisely than this--that it fell into the interval between
Manetho's twelfth and his eighteenth dynasties. The invaders are
characterized by the Egyptians as Menti or Sati; but these terms are
used so vaguely that nothing definite can be concluded from them. On the
whole, it is perhaps most probable that the invading army, like that of
Attila, consisted of a vast variety of races--"a collection of all the
nomadic hordes of Syria and Arabia"--who made common cause against a foe
known to be wealthy, and who all equally desired settlements in a land
reputed the most productive in the East. An overwhelming flood of men--a
quarter of a million, if we may believe Manetho--poured into the land,
impetuous, irresistible. All at once, a danger had come beyond all
possible previous calculation--a danger from which there was no escape.
It was as when the northern barbarians swooped down in their countless
thousands on the outlying provinces of the Roman Empire, or as when the
hordes of Jingis Khan overran Kashgar and Kharesm--the contest was too
unequal for anything that can be called a struggle to be made. Egypt
collapsed before the invader. Manetho says that there was no battle; and
we can readily understand that in the divided condition of the country,
with two or three subordinate dynasties ruling in different parts of the
Delta, and another dynasty at Thebes, no army could be levied which
could dare to meet the enemy in the field. The inhabitants fled to their
cities, and endeavoured to defend themselves behind walls; but it was in
vain. The walls of the Egyptian cities were rather banks to keep out the
inundation than ramparts to repel an enemy. In a short time the
strongholds that resisted were taken, the male population put to the
sword, the women and children enslaved, the houses burnt, the temples
ruthlessly demolished. An iconoclastic spirit possessed the conquerors.
The gods and worship of Egypt were hateful to them. Where-ever the flood
passed, it swept away the existing civilization, deeply impregnated as
it was with religion; it covered the ground with the _débris_ of temples
and shrines, with the fragments of statues and sphinxes; it crushed
existing religious usages, and for a time, as it would seem, substituted
nothing in their place. "A study of the monuments," says M. François
Lenormant, "attests the reality of the frightful devastations which took
place at the first moment of the invasion. With a solitary exception,
all the temples anterior to the event have disappeared, and no traces
can be found of them except scattered ruins which bear the marks of a
destructive violence. To say what during these centuries Egypt had to
endure in the way of upsetting of her past is impossible. The only fact
which can be stated as certain is, that not a single monument of this
desolate epoch has come down to our days to show us what became of the
ancient splendour of Egypt under the Hyksôs. We witness under the
fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties a fresh shipwreck of Egyptian
civilization. Vigorous as it had been, the impulse given to it by the
Usurtasens suddenly stops; the series of monuments is interrupted, and
Egypt informs us by her very silence of the calamities with which she
was smitten."[15]
It was, fortunately, not the entire country that was overrun. So far as
appears, the actual occupation of Egypt by the Hyksôs was confined to
the Delta, to the Lower Nile valley, and to the district of the Fayoum.
Elephantine, Thebes, Abydos, escaped the destroyers, and though forced
to certain formal acts of submission, to an acknowledgment of the Hyksôs
suzerainty, and to the payment of an annual tribute, retained a
qualified independence. The Theban monuments of the eleventh and twelfth
dynasties were undisturbed. Even in Lower Egypt there were structures
that suffered little or nothing at the conqueror's hands, being too
humble to attract his attention or too massive to yield to the means of
destruction known to him. Thus the pyramids scarcely suffered, though it
is possible that at this time their sanctity was first violated and
their contents rifled. The great obelisk of Usurtasen I., which still
stands at Heliopolis, was not overthrown. The humbler tombs at Ghizeh,
so precious to the antiquary, were for the most part untouched.
Amenemhat's buildings in the Fayoum may have been damaged, but they were
not demolished. Though Egyptian civilization received a rude shock from
the invasion, it was not altogether swallowed up or destroyed; and when
the deluge had passed it emerged once more, and soon reached, and even
surpassed, its ancient glories.
The Hyksôs king who led the invasion, or who, at any rate, was brought
to the front in its course, bore, we are told, either the name of
Salatis, or that of Saites. Of these two forms the second is undoubtedly
to be preferred, since the first has in its favour only the single
authority of Josephus, while the second is supported by Africanus,
Eusebius, George the Syncellus, and to a certain extent by the
monuments. The "tablet of four hundred years" contains the name of
Sut-Aapehti as that of a king of Egypt who must have belonged to the
Middle Empire, and this name may fairly be regarded as represented in an
abbreviated form by the Greek "Saïtes." Saïtes, having made himself
absolute master of the Lower Country, and forced the king of the Upper
Country to become his tributary, fixed his residence at Memphis, at the
same time strongly fortifying and garrisoning various other towns in
important positions. Of these the most considerable was the city, called
Auaris, or Avaris, in the Sethroïte nome, which lay east of the Pelusiac
branch of the Nile, and was probably not far from Pelusium itself, if
indeed it was not identical with that city. Another strong fort, by
means of which the Delta was held and overawed, seems to have been Zan
or Tanis, now San, situated on what was called the Tanitic branch of the
Nile, the next most easterly branch to the Pelusiac. A third was in the
Fayoum, on the site now called Mit-Fares. A large body of troops must
also have been maintained at Memphis, if the king, as we are told,
ordinarily held his court there.
How long the Egyptians groaned under the tyranny of the "Shepherds," it
is difficult to say. The epitomists of Manetho are hopelessly at
variance on the subject, and the monuments are silent, or nearly so.
Moderns vary in the time, which they assign to the period between two
centuries and five. On the whole, criticism seems to incline towards the
shorter term, though why Manetho, or his epitomists, should have
enlarged it, remains an insoluble problem. There is but one dynasty of
"Shepherd Kings" that has any distinct historical substance, or to which
we can assign any names. This is a dynasty of six kings only, whose
united reigns are not likely to have exceeded two centuries. Nor does it
seem possible that, if the duration of the foreign oppression had been
much longer, Egypt could have returned, so nearly as she did, to the
same manners and customs, the same religious usages, the same rules of
art, the same system of government, even the very same proper names, at
the end of the period, as had been in use at its beginning. One cannot
but think that the _bouleversement_ which Egypt underwent has been
somewhat exaggerated by the native historian for the sake of rhetorical
effect, to enhance by contrast the splendour of the New Empire.
In another respect, too, if he has not misrepresented the rule of the
"Shepherd Kings," he has failed to do it justice. He has painted in
lurid colours the advent of the foreign race, the war of extermination
in which they engaged, the cruel usage to which they subjected the
conquered people; he has represented the invaders as rude, savage,
barbarous, bent on destruction, careless of art, the enemies of progress
and civilization. He has neglected to point out, that, as time went on,
there was a sensible change. The period of constant bitter hostilities
came to an end. Peace succeeded to war. In Lower Egypt the "Shepherds"
reigned over quiet and unresisting subjects; in Upper Egypt they bore
rule over submissive tributaries. Under these circumstances a
perceptible softening of their manners and general character took place.
As the Mongols and the Mandchus in China suffered themselves by degrees
to be conquered by the superior civilization of the people whom they had
overrun and subdued, so the Hyksôs yielded little by little to the
influences which surrounded them, and insensibly assimilated themselves
to their Egyptian subjects. They adopted the Egyptian dress, titles,
official language, art, mode of writing, architecture. In Tanis,
especially, temples were built and sculptures set up under the later
"Shepherd Kings," differing little in their general character from those
of purely Egyptian periods. The foreign monarchs erected their effigies
at this site, which were sculptured by native artists according to the
customary rules of Egyptian glyptic art, and only differ from those of
the earlier native Pharaohs in the head-dress, the expression of the
countenance, and a peculiar arrangement of the beard. A friendly
intercourse took place during this period between the kings of the
North, established at Tanis and Memphis, and those of the South,
resident at Thebes; frequent embassies were interchanged; and blocks of
granite and syenite were continually floated down the Nile, past Thebes,
to be employed by the "Shepherds" in their erections at the southern
capitals.
[Illustration: BUST OF A SHEPHERD KING.]
The "Shepherds" brought with them into Egypt the worship of a deity,
whom they called Sut or Sutekh, and apparently identified with the sun.
He was described as "the great ruler of heaven," and identified with
Baal in later times. The kings regarded themselves as especially under
his protection. At the time of the invasion, they do not seem to have
considered this deity as having any special connection with any of the
Egyptian gods, and they consequently made war indiscriminately against
the entire Egyptian Pantheon, plundering and demolishing all the temples
alike. But when the first burst of savage hostility was gone by, when
more settled times followed, and the manners and temper of the
conquerors grew softened by pacific intercourse with their subjects, a
likeness came to be seen between Sutekh, their own ancestral god, and
the "Set" of the Egyptians. Set in the old Egyptian mythology was
recognized as "the patron of foreigners, the power which swept the
children of the desert like a sand-storm over the fertile land." He was
a representative of physical, but not of moral, evil; a strong and
powerful deity, worthy of reverence and worship, but less an object of
love than of fear. The "Shepherds" acknowledged in this god their
Sutekh; and as they acquired settled habits, and assimilated themselves
to their subjects, they began to build temples to him, after the
Egyptian model, in their principal towns. After the dynasty had borne
rule for five reigns, covering the space perhaps of one hundred and
fifty years, a king came to the throne named Apepi, who has left several
monuments, and is the only one of the "Shepherds" that stands out for us
in definite historical consistency as a living and breathing person.
Apepi built a great temple to Sutekh at Zoan, or Tanis, his principal
capital, composed of blocks of red granite, and adorned it with obelisks
and sphinxes. The obelisks are said to have been fourteen in number, and
must have been dispersed about the courts, and not, as usual, placed
only at the entrance. The sphinxes, which differed from the ordinary
Egyptian sphinx in having a mane like a lion and also wings, seem to
have formed an avenue or vista leading up to the temple from the town.
They are in diorite, and have the name of Apepi engraved upon them.
The pacific rule of Apepi and his predecessors allowed Thebes to
increase in power, and her monuments now recommence. Three kings who
bore the family name of Taa, and the throne name of Ra-Sekenen, bore
rule in succession at the southern capital. The third of these, Taa-ken,
or "Taa the Victorious," was contemporary with Apepi, and paid his
tribute punctually, year by year, to his lawful suzerain. He does not
seem to have had any desire to provoke war; but Apepi probably thought
that he was becoming too powerful, and would, if unmolested, shortly
make an effort to throw off the Hyksôs yoke. He therefore determined to
pick a quarrel with him, and proceeded to send to Thebes a succession of
embassies with continually increasing demands. First of all he required
Taa-ken to relinquish the worship of all the Egyptian gods except
Amen-Ra, the chief god of Thebes, whom he probably identified with his
own Sutekh. It is not quite clear whether Taa-ken consented to this
demand, or politely evaded it. At any rate, a second embassy soon
followed the first, with a fresh requirement; and a third followed the
second. The policy was successful, and at last Taa-ken took up arms. It
would seem that he was successful, or was at any rate able to hold his
own; for he maintained the war till his death, and left it to his
successor, Aahmes.
There was an ancient tradition, that the king who made Joseph his prime
minister, and committed into his hands the entire administration of
Egypt, was Apepi. George the Syncellus says that the synchronism was
accepted by all. It is clear that Joseph's arrival did not fall, like
Abraham's, into the period of the Old Empire, since under Joseph horses
and chariots are in use, as well as wagons or carts, all of which were
unknown till after the Hyksôs invasion. It is also more natural that
Joseph, a foreigner, should have been advanced by a foreign king than by
a native one, and the favour shown to his brethren, who were shepherds
(Gen. xlvi. 32), is consonant at any rate with the tradition that it was
a "Shepherd King" who held the throne at the time of their arrival. A
priest of Heliopolis, moreover, would scarcely have given Joseph his
daughter in marriage unless at a time when the priesthood was in a state
of depression. Add to this that the Pharaoh of Joseph is evidently
resident in Lower Egypt, not at Thebes, which was the seat of government
for many hundred years both before and after the Hyksôs rule.
If, however, we are to place Joseph under one of the "Shepherd Kings,"
there can be no reason why we should not accept the tradition which
connects him with Apepi. Apepi was dominant over the whole of Egypt, as
Joseph's Pharaoh seems to have been. He acknowledged a single god, as
did that monarch (Gen. xli. 38, 39). He was a thoroughly Egyptianized
king. He had a council of learned scribes, a magnificent court, and a
peaceful reign until towards its close. His residence was in the Delta,
either at Tanis or Auaris. He was a prince of a strong will, firm and
determined; one who did not shrink from initiating great changes, and
who carried out his resolves in a somewhat arbitrary way. The arguments
in favour of his identity with Joseph's master are, perhaps, not wholly
conclusive; but they raise a presumption, which may well incline us,
with most modern historians of Egypt, to assign the touching story of
Joseph to the reign of the last of the Shepherds.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient," vol i. p. 360.
IX.
HOW THE HYKSÔS WERE EXPELLED FROM EGYPT.
At first sight it seems strange that the terrible warriors who, under
Set or Saïtes, so easily reduced Egypt to subjection, and then still
further weakened the population by massacre and oppression, should have
been got rid of, after two centuries or two centuries and a half, with
such comparative ease. But the rapid deterioration of conquering races
under certain circumstances is a fact familiar to the historian.
Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, rapidly
succeeded each other as the dominant power in Western Asia, each race
growing weaker and becoming exhausted, after a longer or a shorter
interval, through nearly the same causes. Nor are the reasons for the
deterioration far to seek. Each race when it sets out upon its career of
conquest is active, energetic, inured to warlike habits, simple in its
manners, or at any rate simpler than those which it conquers, and,
comparatively speaking, poor. It is urged on by the desire of bettering
its condition. If it meets with a considerable resistance, if the
conquest occupies a long space, and the conquered are with difficulty
held under, rebelling from time to time, and making frantic efforts to
throw off the yoke which galls and frets them, then the warlike habits
of the conquerors are kept up, and their dominion may continue for
several centuries. Or, if the nation is very energetic and unresting,
not content with its earlier conquests, or willing to rest upon its
oars, but continually seeking out fresh enemies upon its borders, and
regarding war as the normal state of its existence, then the centuries
may be prolonged into millennia, and it may be long indeed before any
tendency to decline shows itself; but, ordinarily, there is no very
prolonged resistance on the one side, and no very constant and unresting
energy on the other. A poor and hardy people, having swooped down upon
one that is softer and more civilized, easily carries all before it,
acquires the wealth and luxury which it desires, and being content with
them, seeks for nothing further, but assimilates itself by degrees to
the character and condition of the people whom it has conquered. A
standing army, disposed in camps and garrisons, may be kept up; but if
there is a cessation of actual war even for a generation, the severity
of military discipline will become relaxed, the use of arms will grow
unfamiliar, the physical type will decline, the belligerent spirit will
die away, and the conquerors of a century ago will have lost all the
qualities which secured them success when they made their attack, and
have sunk to the level of their subjects. When this point is reached,
thoughts of rebellion are apt to arise in the hearts of these latter;
the old terror which made the conqueror appear irresistible is gone, and
is perhaps succeeded by contempt--the subjects feel that they have at
least the advantage of numbers on their side; they have also probably
been leading harder and more bracing lives; they see that, man for man,
they are physically stronger than their conquerors; and at last they
rebel, and are successful.