sun-worship--the adoration of the visible material sun--considered as
the ruling and vivifying power in the universe, whence heat and light,
and so life, proceeded? Of all the forms of nature worship this was the
most natural, and in the old world it was widely spread. Men adored the
orb of day as the grandest object which nature presented to them, as the
great quickener of all things upon the earth, the cause of germination
and growth, of fruitage and harvest, the dispenser to man of ten
thousand blessings, the sustainer of his life and health and happiness.
With some the worship was purely and wholly material--the sun was viewed
as a huge mass of fiery matter, uninformed by any animate life,
unintelligent, impersonal; but with others, sun-worship was something
higher than this: the orb of day was regarded as informed by a good,
wise, bright, beneficent Spirit, which lived in it, and worked through
it, and was the true benefactor of mankind and sustainer of life and of
the universe. Sun-worship of this latter kind was no mean form of
natural religion. If not purged from the debasing element of
materialism, if not incompatible with a certain kind of polytheism, it
is yet consistent with the firmest belief in the absolute supremacy of
one God over all others, with the conception of that God as all-wise,
all-powerful, pure, holy, kind, loving, and with the entire devotion of
the worshipper to Him exclusively. And this latter form of sun-worship
was, quite conceivably, the religion of the "Disk worshippers." "Aten"
is probably the same as "Adon," the root of Adonis and Adonai, and has
the signification of "Lord"--a term implying personality, and when used
specially of one Being, implying absolute mastery and lordship, an
exclusive right to worship, homage, and devotion. It is not unlikely
that the "Disk-worshippers" were drawn on towards their monotheistic
creed by the presence in Egypt at the time of a large monotheistic
population, the descendants of Joseph and his brethren, who by this time
had multiplied greatly, and must have attracted attention, from their
numbers and from the peculiarity of their tenets. A historian of Egypt
remarks that "curious parallels might be drawn between the external
forms of the worship of the Israelites in the desert and those set up by
the Disk-worshippers at Tel-el-Amarna; portions of the sacred furniture,
as the 'table of shewbread,' described in the Book of Exodus as placed
within the Tabernacle, are repeated among the objects belonging to the
worship of Aten, and do not occur among the representations of any other
epoch." He further notes that the commencement of the persecution of the
Israelites in Egypt coincides nearly with the downfall of the
"Disk-worshippers" and the return of the Egyptians to their old creed,
as if the captive race had been involved in the discredit and the odium
which attached to Amenhotep and his immediate successors on account of
their religious reformation.
[Illustration: KHUENATEN WORSHIPPING THE SOLAR DISK.]
The aversion of the "Disk-worshippers" to the old Egyptian religion was
shown (1) in the change of his own name which the new monarch made soon
after his accession, from Amenhotep to Khu-en-Aten, whereby he cleared
himself from any connection with the old discarded head of the Pantheon,
and associated himself with the new supreme god, Aten; (2) in the
obliteration of the name of Ammon from monuments; and (3) in the removal
of the seat of government from the site polluted by Ammon-worship and
polytheism to a new site at Tel-el-Amarna, where Aten alone was
worshipped and alone represented in the temples. The enmity, however,
was not indiscriminate. Amenhotep took for one of his titles the
epithet, "Mi-Harmakhu," or "beloved by Harmachis," probably because he
could look on Harmachis, a purely sun-god, as a form of Aten; and to
this god he erected an obelisk at Silsilis. His monumental war upon the
old religion seems also not to have been general, but narrowly
circumscribed, being, in fact, confined to the erasure of Ammon's name,
especially at Thebes, and the mutilation of his form in a few instances;
but there does not appear to have been any such general iconoclasm
practised by the "Disk-worshippers" as by the "Shepherd Kings," or any
such absolute requirement that "one god alone should be worshipped in
all the land" as was put forth by Apepi. The "Disk-worshippers" did not
so much attempt to change the religion of Egypt as to establish for
themselves a peculiar court-religion of a pure and elevated character.
It has been remarked above that the motive power which brought about
the religious revolution is probably to be found in the powerful
influence and the peculiar views of the queen mother, Tii or Taia. This
princess was of foreign origin; her complexion was fair, her eyes blue,
her hair flaxen, her cheeks rosy; she probably brought her
"disk-worship" with her from her own country, whether it were Syria, or
Arabia, or any other. Already in the lifetime of her husband, Amenhotep
III., she had prevailed on him, as his wives prevailed on Solomon (i
Kings xi. 4-8), to allow her the free exercise of her own religion, and
to provide her with the means of carrying it on with all proper pomp and
ceremony. At her instance, Amenhotep III. constructed a great lake or
basin, more than a mile long and a thousand feet broad, to be made use
of for religious purposes on the queen's special festival day. It was
proper on that festival day that "the barge of the most beautiful Disk"
should perform a voyage on a sheet of water in the presence of his
worshippers--a voyage probably representing the course of the sun
through the heavens during the year. There is evidence that this
festival was kept on the sixteenth day of the month Athor, in the
eleventh year of Amenhotep III., and that the king himself took part in
it.
So far, Queen Taia succeeded in introducing her religion into Egypt
while her husband was alive. At his death she found herself regent for
her son, or, at any rate, associated with him upon the throne, and saw
that a fresh opportunity for pushing her religious views offered itself.
Amenhotep IV. was of a most extraordinary _physique_ and physiognomy.
His appearance was rather that of a woman than of a man; he had a
slanting forehead, a long aquiline nose, a flexible projecting mouth,
and a strongly developed chin. His neck, which is represented as most
unusually long, seems scarcely equal to the support of his head; and his
spindle shanks seem ill adapted to sustain the weight of his
over-corpulent frame. He readily yielded himself to his mother's
influence, and completed her work in the manner which has been already
described. As Thebes opposed itself to his reforms, he deserted it,
withdrew his court to Tel-el-Amarna, and there raised the temples,
palaces, and other monuments, in a "very advanced" style of art, which
may be seen at the present day.
[Illustration: HEAD OF AMENHOTEP IV. (KHUENATEN).]
Amenhotep also introduced certain changes into the court ceremonial. He
surrounded himself with officials of foreign race, probably kinsmen of
his mother, and required from them an open display of submission and
servility which Egyptian courts had not witnessed previously. An abject
prostration was enforced on all, while the king posed before his
courtiers as a benevolent god, who showered down his gifts upon them
from a superior sphere, since his greatness did not permit a closer
contact. He was himself the "Light of the Solar Disk," an _apaugasma_,
or "Light proceeding from Light;" it behoved him to imitate the Sun-god,
and perpetually bestow his gifts on men, but it behoved them to veil
their faces from his radiance and receive his bounty prostrate in the
dust beneath him.
The peculiar views of Khuen-Aten, or Amenhotep IV., were maintained by
the two or three succeeding kings, who had short and disturbed reigns.
After them there arose a king called Horus, or Har-em-hebi, who utterly
swept away the "Disk-worshippers," ruined their new city, obliterated
their names, mutilated their monuments, and restored the ancient
religion of the Egyptians to its former place as the religion, not only
of the people, but of the court. Henceforth, what was called "heresy"
ceased to show itself in the land.
XV.
BEGINNING OF THE DECLINE OF EGYPT.
The internal troubles connected with the "Disk-worship" had for about
forty years distracted the attention of the Egyptians from their Asiatic
possessions; and this circumstance had favoured the development of a
highly important power in Western Asia. The Hittites, whose motto was
"reculer pour mieux sauter," having withdrawn themselves from Syria
during the time of the Egyptian attacks, retaining, perhaps, their hold
on Carchemish (Jerabus), but not seeking to extend themselves further
southward, took heart of grace when the Egyptian expeditions ceased, and
descending from their mountain fastnesses to the Syrian plains and
vales, rapidly established their dominion over the regions recently
conquered by Thothmes I. and Thothmes III. Without absorbing the old
native races, they reduced them under their sway, and reigned as lords
paramount over the entire region between the Middle Euphrates and the
Mediterranean, the Taurus range and the borders of Egypt. The chief of
the subject races were the Kharu, in the tract bordering upon Egypt; the
Rutennu, in Central and Northern Palestine; and in Southern Cœlesyria,
the Amairu or Amorites. The Hittites themselves occupied the lower
Cœlesyrian valley, and the tract reaching thence to the Euphrates. They
were at this period so far centralized into a nation as to have placed
themselves under a single monarch; and about the time when Egypt had
recovered from the troubles caused by the "Disk-worshippers," and was
again at liberty to look abroad, Saplal, Grand-Duke of Khita, a great
and puissant sovereign, sat upon the Hittite throne.
Saplal's power, and his threatening attitude on the north-eastern border
of Egypt, drew upon him the jealousy of Ramesses I., father of the great
Seti, and (according to the prevalent tradition) founder of the
"nineteenth dynasty." To defend oneself it is often best to attack, and
Ramesses, taking this view, in his first or second year plunged into the
enemy's dominions. He had the plea that Palestine and Syria, and even
Western Mesopotamia, belonged of right to Egypt, which had conquered
them by a long series of victories, and had never lost them by any
defeat or disaster. His invasion was a challenge to Saplal either to
fight for his ill-gotten gains, or to give them up. The Hittite king
accepted the challenge, and a short struggle followed with an indecisive
result. At its close peace was made, and a formal treaty of alliance
drawn out. Its terms are unknown; but it was probably engraved on a
silver plate in the languages of the two powers--the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, and the now well-known Hittite picture-writing--and set
up in duplicate at Carchemish and Thebes.
A brief pause followed the conclusion of the first act of the drama. On
the opening of the second act we find the _dramatis personæ_ changed.
Saplal and Ramesses have alike descended into the grave, and their
thrones are occupied respectively by the son of the one and the grandson
of the other. In Egypt, Seti-Menephthah I., the Sethos of Manetho, has
succeeded his father, Ramesses I.; in the Hittite kingdom, Saplal has
left his sceptre to his grandson Mautenar, the son of Marasar, who had
probably died before his father. Two young and inexperienced princes
confront one the other in the two neighbour lands, each distrustful of
his rival, each covetous of glory, each hopeful of success if war should
break out. True, by treaty the two kings were friends and allies--by
treaty the two nations were bound to abstain from all aggression by the
one upon the other: but such bonds are like the "green withes" that
bound Samson, when the desire to burst them seizes those upon whom they
have been placed. Seti and Mautenar were at war before the latter had
been on the throne a year, and their swords were at one another's
throats. Seti was, apparently, the aggressor. We find him at the head of
a large army in the heart of Syria before we could have supposed that he
had had time to settle himself comfortably in his father's seat.
Mautenar was taken unawares. He had not expected so prompt an attack. He
had perhaps been weak enough to count on his adversary's good faith, or,
at any rate on his regard for appearances. But Seti, as a god upon
earth, could of course do no wrong, and did not allow himself to be
trammelled by the moral laws that were binding upon ordinary mortals.
He boldly rushed into war at the first possible moment, crossed the
frontier, and having chastised the Shasu, who had recently made an
invasion of his territory, fell upon the Kharu, or Southern Syrians, and
gave them a severe defeat near Jamnia in the Philistine country. He then
pressed forward into the country of the Rutennu, overcame them in
several pitched battles, and, assisted by a son who fought constantly at
his side, slaughtered them almost to extermination. His victorious
progress brought him, after a time, to the vicinity of Kadesh, the
important city on the Orontes which, a century earlier, had been
besieged and taken by the Great Thothmes. Kadesh was at this time in
possession of the Amorites, who were tributary to the Khita (Hittites)
and held the great city as their subject allies. Seti, having carefully
concealed his advance, came upon the stronghold suddenly, and took its
defenders by surprise. Outside the city peaceful herdsmen were pasturing
their cattle under the shade of the trees, when they were startled by
the appearance of the Egyptian monarch, mounted on his war-chariot drawn
by two prancing steeds. At once all was confusion: every one sought to
save himself; the herds with their keepers fled in wild panic, while the
Egyptians plied them with their arrows. But the garrison of the town
resisted bravely: a portion sallied from the gates and met Seti in the
open field, but were defeated with great slaughter; the others defended
themselves behind the walls. But all was in vain. The disciplined troops
of Egypt stormed the key of Northern Syria, and the whole Orontes valley
lay open to the conqueror.
Hitherto the Hittites had not been engaged in the struggle. Attacked at
a disadvantage, unprepared, they had left their subject allies to make
such resistance as they might find possible, and had reserved themselves
for the defence of their own country. Mautenar had, no doubt, made the
best preparations of which circumstances admitted--he had organized his
forces in three bodies, "on foot, on horseback, and in chariots." At the
head of them, he gave battle to the invaders so soon as they attacked
him in his own proper country, and a desperate fight followed, in which
the Egyptians, however, prevailed at last. The Hittites received a
"great overthrow." The song of triumph composed for Seti on the occasion
declared: "Pharaoh is a jackal which rushes leaping through the Hittite
land; he is a grim lion exploring the hidden ways of all regions; he is
a powerful bull with a pair of sharpened horns. He has struck down the
Asiatics; he has thrown to the ground the Khita; he has slain their
princes; he has overwhelmed them in their own blood; he has passed among
them as a flame of fire; he has brought them to nought."
The victory thus gained was followed by a treaty of peace. Mautenar and
Seti agreed to be henceforth friends and allies, Southern Syria being
restored to Egypt, and Northern Syria remaining under the dominion of
the Hittites, probably as far as the sources of the Orontes river. A
line of communication must, however, have been left open between Egypt
and Mesopotamia, for Seti still exercised authority over the Naïri, and
received tribute from their chiefs. He was also, by the terms of the
treaty, at liberty to make war on the nations of the Upper Syrian
coast, for we find him reducing the Tahai, who bordered on Cilicia,
without any disturbance of his relations with Mautenar. The second act
in the war between the Egyptians and the Hittites thus terminated with
an advantage to the Egyptians, who recovered most of their Asiatic
possessions, and had, besides, the prestige of a great victory.
The third act was deferred for a space of some thirty-five years, and
fell into the reign of Ramesses II., Seti's son and successor. Before
giving an account of it, we must briefly touch the other wars of Seti,
to show how great a warrior he was, and mention one further fact in his
warlike policy indicative of the commencement of Egypt's decline as a
military power. Seti, then, had no sooner concluded his peace with the
great power of the North, than he turned his arms against the West and
South, invading, first of all, "the blue-eyed, fair-skinned nation of
the Tahennu," who inhabited the North African coast from the borders of
Egypt to about Cyrene, and engaging in a sharp contest with them. The
Tahennu were a wild, uncivilized people, dwelling in caves, and having
no other arms besides bows and arrows. For dress they wore a long cloak
or tunic, open in front; and they are distinguished on the Egyptian
monuments by wearing two ostrich feathers and having all their hair
shaved excepting one large lock, which is plaited and hangs down on the
right side of the head. This unfortunate people could make only a poor
resistance to the Egyptian trained infantry and powerful chariot force.
They were completely defeated in a pitched battle; numbers of the
chiefs were made prisoners, while the people generally fled to their
caves, where they remained hidden, "like jackals, through fear of the
king's majesty." Seti, having struck terror into their hearts, passed on
towards the south, and fiercely chastised the Cushites on the Upper
Nile, who during the war with the Hittites had given trouble, and showed
themselves inclined to shake off the Egyptian yoke. Here again he was
successful; the negroes and Cushites submitted after a short struggle;
and the Great King returned to his capital victorious on all sides--"on
the south to the arms of the Winds, and on the north to the Great Sea."
Seti was not dazzled with his military successes. Notwithstanding his
triumphs in Syria, he recognized the fact that Egypt had much to fear
from her Asiatic neighbours, and could not hope to maintain for long her
aggressive attitude in that quarter. Without withdrawing from any of the
conquered countries, while still claiming their obedience and enforcing
the payment of their tributes, he began to made preparation for the
changed circumstances which he anticipated by commencing the
construction of a long wall on his north-eastern frontier, as a security
against invasion from Asia. This wall began at Pelusium, and was carried
across the isthmus in a south-westerly direction by Migdol to Pithom, or
Heroopolis, where the long line of lagoons began, which were connected
with the upper end of the Red Sea. It recalls to the mind of the
historical student the many ramparts raised by nations, in their
decline, against aggressive foes--as the Great Wall of China, built to
keep off the Tartars; the Roman wall between the Rhine and Danube,
intended to restrain the advance of the German tribes; and the three
Roman ramparts in Great Britain, built to protect the Roman province
from its savage northern neighbours. Walls of this kind are always signs
of weakness; and when Seti began, and Ramesses II. completed, the
rampart of Egypt, it was a confession that the palmy days of the empire
were past, and that henceforth she must look forward to having to stand,
in the main, on the defensive.
Before acquiescing wholly in this conclusion, Ramesses II., who, after
reigning conjointly with his father for several years, was now sole
king, resolved on a desperate and prolonged effort to re-assert for
Egypt that dominant position in Western Asia which she had held and
obtained under the third Thothmes. Mautenar, the adversary of Seti,
appears to have died, and his place to have been taken by his brother,
Khita-sir, a brave and enterprizing monarch. Khita-sir, despite the
terms of alliance on which the Hittites stood with Egypt, had commenced
a series of intrigues with the nations bordering on Upper Syria, and
formed a confederacy which had for its object to resist the further
progress of the Egyptians, and, if possible, to drive them from Asia.
This confederacy embraced the Naïri, or people of Western Mesopotamia,
reckoned by the Egyptians among their subjects; the Airatu or people of
Aradus; the Masu or inhabitants of the Mous Masius; the Leka, perhaps
Lycians; the inhabitants of Carchemish, of Kadesh on the Orontes, of
Aleppo, Anaukasa, Akarita, &c.--all warlike races, and accustomed to the
use of chariots. Khitasir's proceedings, having become known to
Ramesses, afforded ample grounds for a rupture, and quite justified him
in pouring his troops into Syria, and doing his best to meet and
overcome the danger which threatened him. Unaware at what point his
enemy would elect to meet him, he marched forward cautiously, having
arranged his troops in four divisions, which might mutually support each
other. Entering the Cœlesyrian valley from the south, he had proceeded
as far as the lake of Hems, and neighbourhood of Kadesh, before he
received any tidings of the position taken up by the confederate army.
There his troops captured two of the enemy's scouts, and on questioning
them were told that the Hittite army had been at Kadesh, but had retired
on learning the Egyptian's advance and taken up a position near Aleppo,
distant nearly a hundred miles to the north-east. Had Ramesses believed
the scouts, and marched forward carelessly, he would have fallen into a
trap, and probably suffered defeat; for the whole confederate army was
massed just beyond the lake, and there lay concealed by the embankment
which blocks the lake at its lower end. But the Egyptian king was too
wary for his adversary. He ordered the scouts to be examined by
scourging, to see if they would persist in their tale, whereupon they
broke down and revealed the true position of the army. The battle had
thus the character of a regular pitched engagement, without surprise or
other accident on either side. Khitasir, finding himself foiled, quitted
his ambush, and marched openly against the Egyptians, with his troops
marshalled in exact and orderly array, the Hittite chariots in front
with their lines carefully dressed, and the auxiliaries and irregulars
on the flanks and rear. Of the four divisions of the Egyptian army, one
seems to have been absent, probably acting as a rear-guard; Ramesses,
with one, marched down the left bank of the stream, while the two
remaining divisions proceeded along the right bank, a slight interval
separating them. Khitasir commenced the fight by a flank movement to the
left, which brought him into collision with the extreme Egyptian right,
"the brigade of Ra," as it was called, and enabled him to engage that
division separately. His assault was irresistible. "Foot and horse of
King Ramesses," we are told, "gave way before him," the "brigade of Ra"
was utterly routed, and either cut to pieces or driven from the field.
Ramesses, informed of this disaster, endeavoured to cross the river to
the assistance of his beaten troops; but, before he could effect his
purpose, the enemy had anticipated him, had charged through the Orontes
in two lines, and was upon him. The adverse hosts met. The chariot of
Ramesses, skilfully guided by his squire, Menna, seems to have broken
through the front line of the Hittite chariot force; but his brethren in
arms were less fortunate, and Ramesses found himself separated from his
army, behind the front line and confronted by the second line of the
hostile chariots, in a position of the greatest possible danger. Then
began that Homeric combat, which the Egyptians were never tired of
celebrating, between a single warrior on the one hand, and the host of
the Hittites, reckoned at two thousand five hundred chariots, on the
other, in which Ramesses, like Diomed or Achilles, carried death and
destruction whithersoever he turned himself. "I became like the god
Mentu," he is made to say; "I hurled the dart with my right hand, I
fought with my left hand; I was like Baal in his fury against them. I
had come upon two thousand five hundred pairs of horses; I was in the
midst of them; but they were dashed in pieces before my steeds. Not one
of them raised his hand to fight; their heart shrank within them; their
limbs gave way, they could not hurl the dart, nor had they strength to
thrust with the spear. As crocodiles fall into the water, so I made them
fall; they tumbled headlong one over another. I killed them at my
pleasure, so that not one of them looked back behind him, nor did any
turn round. Each fell, and none raised himself up again."