year of his reign, had to meet a formidable, and apparently unprovoked,
attack from a combination of nations, the like of which we do not again
meet with in Egyptian history, either earlier or later. Marmaiu, son of
Deid, led against him a confederate army, consisting of three principal
tribes of the Tahennu--- the Lubu (Libyans), the Mashuash (Maxyes), and
the Kahaka--together with auxiliaries from five other tribes or peoples,
the Akausha, the Luku, the Tursha, the Shartana, and the Sheklusha. The
entire number of the army, as already stated, was probably not less than
forty thousand; they had numerous chariots, and were armed with bows and
arrows, cuirasses, and bronze or copper swords. They had skin tents, and
brought with them their wives and children, with the intention of
settling in Egypt, as the Hyksôs had done five hundred years earlier.
They had also with them a considerable number of cattle, as bulls, oxen,
and goats. The chiefs came provided with thrones, and both they and
their officers had numerous drinking vessels of bronze, of silver, and
of gold.
The attack was made on the western side of Egypt, towards the apex of
the Delta. It was at first completely successful. The small frontier
towns were taken by assault, and "turned Into heaps of rubbish;" the
Delta was entered upon, and a position taken up In the nome of
Paari-sheps, or Prosopis, which lay between the Canobic and Sebennytic
branches of the Nile, commencing at the point of their separation. From
this position Memphis and Heliopolis were alike menaced. Menephthah
hastily fortified these cities, or rather, we must suppose, strengthened
their existing defences. Meanwhile the Libyans and their allies ravaged
the open country. "The like had not been seen," as the native scribe
observes, "even in the times of the kings of Lower Egypt, when the
plague (_i.e._ the Hyksôs power) was in the land, and the kings of Upper
Egypt were unable to drive it out." Egypt was desolated; its people
"trembled like geese;" the fertile lands were overrun and wasted; the
cities were pillaged; even the harbours were in some cases ruined and
destroyed. Menephthah for a time remained on the defensive, shut up
within the walls of Memphis, whose god Phthah he viewed as his special
protector. He made, however, strenuous efforts to gather together a
powerful force; his captains collected the native troops from the
various provinces of Egypt, while he sent a number of emissaries Into
Asia, who were instructed to raise a large body of mercenaries in that
quarter. At last all was ready, and Menephthah appointed the fourteenth
day as that on which he would place himself at the head of his army and
lead them in person against the enemy; but, before the day came, his
courage failed him. He "saw in a dream"--at least so he himself
declares--"as it were a figure of the god Phthah, standing so as to
prevent his advance;" and the figure said to him, "Stay where thou art,
and let thy troops proceed against the enemy." So the pious king, in
obedience to this convenient vision, remained secure behind the walls of
Memphis, and sent his forces, native and mercenary, into the nome of
Prosopis against the Libyans. The two armies joined battle on the 3rd of
Epiphi (May 18), and a desperate engagement took place, in which, after
six hours of hard fighting, the Egyptians were victorious, and the
confederates suffered a severe defeat. Menephthah charges the Libyan
chief with cowardice, but only because, after the battle was lost, he
precipitately quitted the field, leaving behind him, not only his
camp-equipage, but his throne, the ornaments of his wives, his bow, his
quiver, and his sandals. The reproaches uttered recoil upon himself.
Whose conduct is the more cowardly, that of the man who fights at the
head of his troops for six hours against an enemy, probably more
numerous, certainly better armed and better disciplined, and only quits
the field when his forces are utterly overthrown and put to flight; or
that of one who avoids exposing himself to danger, and lurks behind the
walls of a fortress while his soldiers are affronting wounds and death
in the battlefield? There is no evidence that Marmaiu, son of Deid, in
the battle of Prosopis, conducted himself otherwise than as became a
prince and a general; there is abundant evidence that Menephthah, son of
Ramesses, who declined to be present at the engagement, showed the white
feather.
The defeat of Prosopis was decisive. Marmaiu lost in slain between eight
thousand and nine thousand of his troops, or, according to another
estimate, between twelve thousand and thirteen thousand. Above nine
thousand were made prisoners. The tents, camp-equipage, and cattle, fell
into the hands of the enemy. The expedition at once broke up and
dispersed. Marmaiu returned into his own land with a shattered remnant
of his grand army, and devoted himself to peaceful pursuits, or at any
rate abstained from any further collision with the Egyptians. The
mercenaries, whatever the races to which they in reality belonged,
learned by experience the wisdom of leaving the Libyans to fight their
own battles, and are not again found in alliance with them. The Akaiusha
and Luku appear in Egyptian history no more. The Tursha and Sheklusha do
not wholly disappear, but receive occasional mention among the races
hostile to Egypt As for the Shartana or Shardana, they were struck with
so much admiration of the Egyptian courage and conduct, that they
shortly afterwards entered the Egyptian service, and came to hold a
place among the most trusted of the Egyptian troops.
Despite his cowardice in absenting himself from the battle of Prosopis
under the transparent device of a divine vision, Menephthah took to
himself the whole credit of the victory, and gloried in it as much as if
he had really had a hand in bringing about the result. "The Lubu," he
says, "were meditating to do evil in Egypt; they were as grasshoppers;
every road was blocked by their hosts. Then I vowed to lead them
captive. Lo, I vanquished them; I slaughtered them, making a spoil of
their country. I made the land of Egypt traversable once more; I gave
breath to those who were in the cities." Egyptian generals, like Roman
poets, had to content themselves with complaining secretly, "Sic vos non
vobis."
So far as we can tell, no long period elapsed between the expedition of
Marmaiu, son of Deid, and the second great trouble in which Menephthah
was involved. Moses must have returned to Egypt from his sojourn in
Midian within a year or two of the death of Ramesses II., and cannot
have allowed any very long time to elapse before he proffered the demand
which he was divinely commissioned to make. Still, as he was timid, and
a somewhat unwilling messenger, he may have delayed both his return and
his first address to Pharaoh as long as he dared (Ex. iv. 19); and if
the invasion of Marmaiu had begun before he had summoned courage to
address Pharaoh a second time, he would then naturally wait until the
danger was past, and the king could again be approached without manifest
impropriety. In this case, the severe oppression of the Israelites,
which followed the first application of Moses (Ex. v. 5-23) may have
lasted longer than has generally been supposed; and it may not have been
till Menephthah's sixth or seventh year that the divine messenger became
urgent, and began to press his request, and to show the signs and
wonders which alone, as he had been told (Ex. vii. 2-4), would break the
spirit of the king. The signs then followed each other at moderately
short intervals, the entire series of the plagues not covering a longer
space than about six months, from October till April. None of the
plagues affected the king greatly except the last, through which he lost
his own eldest son, a bereavement mentioned in an inscription. This
loss, combined with the dread power shown in the infliction during one
night of not less than a million of deaths, produced a complete
revolution in the mind of the king, and made him as anxious at the
moment to get rid of the Israelites out of his country as he had
previously been anxious to retain them. So he called for Moses and Aaron
by night and said. "Rise up, get you forth from among my people, both ye
and the children of Israel, and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said.
Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and
bless me also" (Ex. xii. 31, 32). Moses was prepared for the event, and
had prepared his people. All were ready, with their loins girded, their
sandals on their feet, and their staves in their hands; the word was
given, and the exodus began. "The children of Israel journeyed from
Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men,
beside children; and a mixed multitude went up also with them; and
flocks, and herds, even very much cattle."
Hereupon the king's mind underwent another change. "Unstable as water,"
he was certain not to "excel." Learning that the Israelites, instead of
marching away into the desert, had after reaching its edge turned
southward, and were "entangled" in a corner of his territory, between
high mountains on the one hand, and on the other the Red Sea, which
then stretched far further to the north than at present, perhaps to Lake
Timseh, at any rate as far as the "Bitter Lakes," he thought he saw an
opportunity of following and recovering the fugitives, whose services as
bondsmen he highly valued. Rapidly calling together such troops as were
tolerably near at hand, he collected a considerable force of infantry
and chariots--of the latter more than six hundred--and following upon
the steps of the Hebrews, he caught them on the western shore of the Red
Sea, encamped "between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-Zephon."
The exact spot cannot be fixed, on account of the alterations in the bed
of the Red Sea, and the uncertainty of the ancient geography of Egypt,
in which names so often repeat themselves; but it was probably some part
of the region that is now dry land, between Suez and the southern
extremity of the Bitter Lakes. Here in high tides the sea and the lakes
communicated; but on the evening of Menephthah's arrival, an unusual ebb
of the tide, cooperating with a "strong east wind" which held back the
water of the Bitter Lakes, left the bed of the sea bare for a certain
space; and the Israelites were thus able to cross during the night from
one side of the sea to the other. As morning dawned, Menephthah, once
more carefully guarding his own person, sent his chariots in pursuit.
The force entered on the slippery and dangerous ground, and advanced
half-way; but its progress was slow; the chariot-wheels sank into the
soft ooze, the horses slipped and floundered; all was disorder and
confusion. Before the troops could extricate themselves, the waters
returned on either hand; a high flow of the tide, the necessary
consequence of a low ebb, brought In the whelming flood from the
south-east; a strong wind from the Mediterranean, drove down upon them
the pent up waters of the Bitter Lakes from the north-west. The channel,
which had lately been dry land, became once more sea, and the entire
force that had entered it in pursuit of the Israelites perished. Safe on
the opposite shore, the Israelites saw the utter destruction of their
adversaries, whose dead bodies, driven before the gale, were cast up in
hundreds upon the coast where they sate encamped (Ex. xiv. 30).
The disaster paralyzed the monarch, and he made no further effort. If
the loss was not great numerically, it affected the most important arm
of the service, and it was the destruction of the very _élite_ of the
Egyptian troops. It was a blow in which the anger of the Egyptian gods
may well have been seen by some, while others may have regarded it as a
revelation of the incompetence of the monarch. The blow seems to have
been followed, within a short time, by revolt. Menephthah's last
monumental year is his eighth. A pretender to the crown arose in a
certain Amon-mes, or Amon-meses, who contested the throne with Seti II.,
Menephthah's son, and succeeded in establishing himself as king; but for
many years there raged in Egypt, as so often happens when a state is
suddenly weakened, civil war, bloodshed, and confusion.
The two dynasties that have last occupied us constitute the most
brilliant period of Egyptian architecture; for, as Fergusson, the latest
historian of architecture, has said, the hall of Seti at Karnak is "the
greatest of man's architectural works," the building to which it belongs
is "the noblest effort of architectural magnificence ever produced by
the hand of man," and the rock-cut temple of Ipsambul is "the finest of
its class known to exist anywhere." These works combine enormous mass
and size with a profusion of elaborate ornamentation. Covering nearly as
much ground as the greatest of the pyramids, and containing equally
enormous blocks of stone, the Theban palace-temples unite a wealth of
varied ornamentation almost unparalleled among the edifices erected by
man. Here are long avenues of sphinxes and colossi, leading to tall,
tapering obelisks which shoot upwards like the pinnacles, towers, and
spires of a modern cathedral, while beyond the obelisks are vistas of
gateways and courts, of colonnades and pillared halls, that impress the
beholder with a deep sense of the constructive imagination of the
architect who could design them, no less than with admiration of the
ruler whose resources were sufficient to make them realities.
Truly the Egyptians were, as Mr. Fergusson enthusiastically asserts,
"the most essentially a building people of all those we are acquainted
with, and the most generally successful in all that they attempted in
this way. The Greeks, it is true, surpassed them in refinement and
beauty of detail, and in the class of sculpture with which they
ornamented their buildings, while the Gothic architects far excelled
them in constructive cleverness; but with these exceptions, no other
styles can be put into competition with them. At the same time, neither
Grecian nor Gothic architects understood more perfectly all the
gradations of art, and the exact character that should be given to every
form and every detail.... They understood also better than any other
nation, how to use sculpture In combination with architecture, and to
make their colossi and avenues of sphinxes group themselves into parts
of one great design, and at the same time to use historical paintings,
fading by insensible degrees into hieroglyphics on the one hand, and
into sculpture on the other, linking the whole together with the highest
class of phonetic utterance. With the most brilliant colouring, they
thus harmonized all these arts Into one great whole, unsurpassed by
anything the world has seen during the thirty centuries of struggle and
aspiration that have elapsed since the brilliant days of the great
kingdom of the Pharaohs."
Not only did architecture and the glyphic art reach such perfection
during this period, but the arts of life made considerable progress. The
royal costumes became suddenly most elaborate; brilliant colours, costly
armlets and bracelets, many-hued collars, complicated head-dresses,
elegant sandals, jewels of price, gay sashes, and wigs with conventional
adornment, came into vogue. Luxury was exhibited in the designs of the
dwellings of the wealthy; the grounds were laid out with formal courts
and alleys, palms and vines adorned them, ponds and reservoirs gave
freshness to the summer temperature, irrigation clothed the lawns with
verdure. Inside, there was richly carved furniture covered with cushions
of delicate stuffs, and adding the harmony of colour to the luxurious
scene.
The horse, which had been introduced from Asia, helped in the march of
extravagance and refinement; the chariot took the place of the
palanquin, and there was a new opportunity for adornment in the
trappings, as well as in the construction of light or heavy vehicles.
At the same time, letters made equal progress; men of wisdom devoted
themselves to the preservation of the knowledge of the past, and to the
composition of original works in history, divinity, poetry,
correspondence, and practical philosophy, for the preservation of which
a public library was established at Thebes under a competent director.
The highest perfection thus reached in the arts of peace seems to have
been coincident with an advance in sensualism; indecency in apparel was
common, polygamy increased, woman lost her former degree of purity;
cruelty and barbarism were more and more common in war; taxation bore
heavily and without pity upon the lower orders, and the wretched
fellahin were beaten by the severest of tyrants, the irresponsible
tax-gatherer; women as well as men were stripped for the indignity and
pain of the terrible bastinado; and even dead enemies were mutilated for
the purpose of preserving evidence of their numbers.
XVII.
THE DECLINE OF EGYPT UNDER THE LATER RAMESSIDES.
The troublous period which followed the death of Menephthah issued
finally in complete anarchy, Egypt broke up into nomes, or cantons, the
chiefs of which acknowledged no superior. It was as though in England,
after centuries of centralized rule, the Heptarchy had suddenly returned
and re-established itself. But even this was not the worst. The suicidal
folly of internal division naturally provokes foreign attack; and it was
not long before Aarsu, a Syrian chieftain, took advantage of the state
of affairs in Egypt to extend his own dominion over one nome after
another, until he had made almost the whole country subject to him.
Then, at last, the spirit of patriotism awoke. Egypt felt the shame of
being ruled by a foreigner of a race that she despised; and a prince was
found after a time, a descendant of the Ramesside line, who unfurled the
national banner, and commenced a war of independence. This prince, who
bore the name of Set-nekht, or "Set the victorious," is thought by some
to have been a son of Seti II., and so a grandson of Menephthah; but the
evidence is insufficient to establish any such relationship. There is
reason to believe that the blood of the nineteenth dynasty, of Seti I.
and Ramesses II., ran in his veins; but no particular relationship to
any former monarch can be made out. And certainly he owed his crown less
to his descent than to his strong arm and his stout heart. It was by
dint of severe fighting that he forced his way to the throne, defeating
Aarsu, and gradually reducing all Egypt under his power.
Set-nekht's reign must have been short He set himself to "put the whole
land in order, to execute the abominables, to set up the temples, and
re-establish the divine offerings for the service of the gods, as their
statutes prescribed," But he was unable to effect very much. He could
not even discharge properly the main duty of a king towards himself,
which was to prepare a fitting receptacle for his remains when he should
quit the earth. To excavate a rock-tomb in the style fashionable at the
day was a task requiring several years for its due accomplishment;
Set-nekht felt that he could not look forward to many years--perhaps not
even to many months--of life. In this difficulty, he felt no shame in
appropriating to himself a royal tomb recently constructed by a king,
named Siphthah, whom he looked upon as a usurper, and therefore as
unworthy of consideration. In this sepulchre we see the names of
Siphthah and his queen, Taouris, erased by the chisel from their
cartouches, and the name of Set-nekht substituted in their place. By one
and the same act the king punished an unworthy predecessor, and provided
himself with a ready--made tomb befitting his dignity.
It was also, probably, on account of his advanced age at his accession,
that he almost immediately associated in the kingdom his son Ramesses, a
prince of much promise, whom he made "Chief of On," and viceroy over
Lower Egypt, with Heliopolis (On) for his residence and capital.
Ramesses the Third, as he is commonly called, was one of the most
distinguished of Egyptian monarchs, and the last who acquired any great
glory until we come down to the time of the Ethiopians, Shabak and
Tirhakah. He reigned as sole monarch for thirty-one years, during the
earlier portion of which period he carried on a number of important
wars, while during the later portion he employed himself in the
construction of those magnificent buildings, which have been chiefly
instrumental in carrying his name down to posterity, and in other works
of utility. Lenormant calls him "the last of the great sovereigns of
Egypt," and observes with reason, that though he never ceased, during
the whole time that he occupied the throne, to labour hard to
re-establish the integrity of the empire abroad, and the prosperity of
the country at home, yet his wars and his conquests had a character
essentially defensive; his efforts, like those of the Trajans, the
Marcus Aurelius's and the Septimius Severus's of history, were directed
to making head against the ever rising flood of barbarians, which had
already before his time burst the dykes that restrained it, and though
once driven back, continued to dash itself on every side against the
outer borders of the empire, and to presage its speedy overthrow. His
efforts were, on the whole, successful; he was able to uphold and
preserve for some considerable time longer the territorial greatness
which the nineteenth dynasty had built up a second time. The monumental
temple of Medinet-Abou, near Thebes, is the Pantheon erected to the
glory of this great Pharaoh. Every pylon, every gateway, every chamber,
relates to us the exploits which he accomplished. Sculptured
compositions of large dimensions represent his principal battles.