seize on the populations of large tracts of country, and, without any
clear cause that can be alleged, uneasy movements begin. Subdued
mutterings are heard; a tremor goes through the nations, expectation of
coming change stalks abroad; the air is rife with rumours; at last there
bursts out an eruption of greater or less violence--the destructive
flood overleaps its barriers, and flows forth, carrying devastation and
ruin in one direction of another, until its energies are exhausted, or
its progress stopped by some obstacle that it cannot overcome, and it
subsides reluctantly and perforce. Such a time was that on which
Ramesses III. was cast. Wars threatened him on every side. On his
north-eastern frontier the Shasu or Bedouins of the desert ravaged and
plundered, at once harrying the Egyptian territory and threatening the
mining establishments of the Sinaitic region. To the north-west the
Libyan tribes, Maxyes, Asbystæ, Auseis, and others, were exercising a
continuous pressure, to which the Egyptians were forced to yield, and
gradually a foreign population was "squatting" on the fertile lands, and
driving the former possessors of the soil back upon the more eastern
portion-of the Delta. "The Lubu and Mashuash," says Ramesses, "were
_seated_ in Egypt; they took the cities on the western side from Memphis
as far as Karbana, reaching the Great River along its entire course
(from Memphis northwards), and capturing the city of Kaukut For many
years had they been in Egypt" Ramesses began his warlike operations by a
campaign against the Shasu, whose country he invaded and overran,
spoiling and destroying their cabins, capturing their cattle, slaying
all who resisted him, and carrying back into Egypt a vast number of
prisoners, whom he attached to the various temples as "sacred slaves."
He then turned against the Libyans, and coming upon them unexpectedly in
the tract between the Sebennytic branch of the Nile and the Canopic, he
defeated in a great battle the seven tribes of the Mashuash, Lubu,
Merbasat, Kaikasha, Shai, Hasa, and Bakana, slaughtering them with the
utmost fury, and driving them before him across the western branch of
the river. "They trembled before him," says the native historian, "as
the mountain goats tremble before a bull, who stamps with his foot,
strikes with his horns, and makes the mountains shake as he rushes on
whoever opposes him." The Egyptians gave no quarter that memorable day.
Vengeance had free course: the slain Libyans lay in heaps upon
heaps--the chariot wheels passed over them--the horses trampled them in
the mire. Hundreds were pushed and forced into the marshes and into the
river itself, and, if they escaped the flight of missiles which
followed, found for the most part a watery grave in the strong current.
Ramesses portrays this flight and carnage in the most graphic way. The
slain enemy strew the ground, as he advances over them with his prancing
steeds and in his rattling war-car, plying them moreover with his arrows
as they vainly seek to escape. His chariot force and his infantry have
their share in the pursuit, and with sword, or spear, or javelin, strike
down alike the resisting and the unresisting. No one seeks to take a
prisoner. It is a day of vengeance and of down-treading, of fury allowed
to do its worst, of a people drunk with passion that has cast off all
self-restraint.
Even passion exhausts itself at last, and the arm grows weary of
slaughtering. Having sufficiently revenged themselves in the great
battle, and the pursuit that followed it, the Egyptians relaxed somewhat
from their policy of extreme hostility. They made a large number of the
Libyans prisoners, branded them with a hot iron, as the Persians often
did their prisoners, and forced them to join the naval service and serve
as mariners on board the Egyptian fleet. The chiefs of greater
importance they confined in fortresses. The women and children became
the slaves of the conquerors; the cattle, "too numerous to count," was
presented by Ramesses to the Priest-College of Ammon at Thebes.
So far success had crowned his arms; and it may well be that Ramesses
would have been content with the military glory thus acquired, and have
abstained from further expeditions, had not he been forced within a few
years to take the field against a powerful combination of new and
partly unheard-of enemies. The uneasy movement among the nations, which
has been already noticed, had spread further afield, and now agitated at
once the coasts and islands of South-Eastern Europe, and the more
western portion of Asia Minor. Seven nations banded themselves together,
and resolved to unite their forces, both naval and military, against
Egypt, and to attack her both by land and sea, not now on the
north-western frontier, where some of them had experienced defeat
before, but in exactly the opposite quarter, by way of Syria and
Palestine. Of the seven, three had been among her former adversaries in
the time of Menephthah, namely, the Sheklusha, the Shartana, and the
Tursha; while four were new antagonists, unknown at any former period.
There were, first, the Tânauna, in whom it is usual to see either the
Danai of the Peloponnese, so celebrated in Homer, or the Daunii of
south-eastern Italy, who bordered on the Iapyges; secondly, the Tekaru,
or Teucrians, a well-known people of the Troad; thirdly, the Uashasha,
who are identified with the Oscans or Ausones, neighbours of the
Daunians; and fourthly, the Purusata, whom some explain as the Pelasgi,
and others as the Philistines. The lead in the expedition was taken by
these last. At their summons the islands and shores of the Mediterranean
gave forth their piratical hordes--the sea was covered by their light
galleys and swept by their strong pars--Tânauna, Shartana, Sheklusha,
Tursha, and Uashasha combined their squadrons into a powerful fleet,
while Purusata and Tekaru advanced in countless numbers along the land.
The Purusata were especially bent on effecting a settlement; they
marched into Northern Syria from Asia Minor accompanied by their wives
and children, who were mounted upon carts drawn by oxen, and formed a
vast unwieldy crowd. The other nations sent their sailors and their
warriors without any such encumbrances. Bursting through the passes of
Taurus, the combined Purusata and Tekaru spread themselves over Northern
Syria, wasting and plundering the entire country of the Khita, and
proceeding eastward as far as Carchemish "by Euphrates," while the ships
of the remaining confederates coasted along the Syrian shore. Such
resistance as the Hittites and Syrians made was wholly ineffectual. "No
people stood before their arms." Aradus and Kadesh fell. The conquerors
pushed on towards Egypt, anticipating an easy victory. But their fond
hopes were doomed to disappointment.
Ramesses had been informed of the designs and approach of the enemy, and
had had ample time to make all needful preparations. He had strengthened
his frontier, called out all his best-disciplined troops, and placed the
mouths of the Nile in a state of defence by means of forts, strong
garrisons, and flotillas upon the stream and upon the lakes adjacent. He
had selected an eligible position for encountering the advancing hordes
on the coast route from Gaza to Egypt, about half-way between Raphia and
Pelusium, where a new fort had been built by his orders. At this point
he took his stand, and calmly awaited his enemies, not having neglected
the precaution to set an ambush or two in convenient places. Here, as
he kept his watch, the first enemy to arrive was the land host of the
Purusata, encumbered with its long train of slowly moving bullock-carts,
heavily laden with women and children. Ramesses instantly attacked
them--his ambushes rose up out of their places of concealment--and the
enemy was beset on every side. They made no prolonged resistance.
Assaulted by the disciplined and seasoned troops of the Egyptians, the
entire confused mass was easily defeated. Twelve thousand five hundred
men were slain in the fight; the camp was taken; the army shattered to
pieces. Nothing was open to the survivors but an absolute surrender, by
which life was saved at the cost of perpetual servitude.
The danger, however, was as yet but half overcome--the snake was
scotched but not killed. For as yet the fleet remained intact, and might
land its thousands on the Egyptian coasts and carry fire and sword over
the broad region of the Delta. The Tânauna and their
confederates--Sheklusha, Shartana, and Tursha--made rapidly for the
nearest mouth of the Nile, which was the Pelusiac, and did their best to
effect a landing. But the precautions taken by Ramesses, before he set
forth on his march, proved sufficient to frustrate their efforts. The
Egyptian fleet met the combined squadrons of the enemy in the shallow
waters of the Pelusiac lagoon, and contended with them in a fierce
battle, which Ramesses caused to be represented in his sculptures--the
earliest representation of a sea-fight that has come down to us. Both
sides have ships propelled at once by sails and oars, but furl their
sails before engaging. Each ship has a single yard, constructed to
carry a single large square-sail, and hung across the vessel's single
mast at a short distance below the top. The mast is crowned by a
bell-shaped receptacle, large enough to contain a man, who is generally
a slinger or an archer, placed there to gall the enemy with stones or
arrows, and so to play the part of our own sharpshooters in the
main-tops. The rowers are from sixteen to twenty-two in number, besides
whom each vessel carries a number of fighting men, armed with shields,
spears, swords, and bows. The fight is a promiscuous _melée_, the two
fleets being intermixed, and each ship engaging that next to it, without
a thought of combined action or of manoeuvres. One of the enemy's
vessels is represented as capsized and sinking; the rest continue the
engagement. Several are pressing towards the shore of the lagoon, and
the men-at-arms on board them are endeavouring to effect a landing; but
they are met by the land-force under Ramesses himself, who greet them
with such a hail of arrows as renders it impossible for them to carry
out their purpose.
[Illustration: SEA-FIGHT IN THE TIME OF RAMESSES III.]
It would seem that Ramesses had no sooner defeated and destroyed the
army of the Purusata and Tekaru than he set off in haste for Pelusium,
and marched with such speed as to arrive in time to witness the naval
engagement, and even to take a certain part in it. The invading fleet
was so far successful as to force its way through the opposing vessels
of the Egyptians, and to press forward towards the shore; but here its
further progress was arrested. "A wall of iron," says Ramesses, "shut
them in upon the lake," The best troops of Egypt lined the banks of
the lagoon, and wherever the invaders attempted to land they were
foiled. Repulsed, dashed to the ground, hewn down or shot down at the
edge of the water, they were slain "by hundreds of heaps of corpses."
"The infantry," says the monarch in his vainglorious inscription, set up
in memory of the event, "all the choicest troops of the army of Egypt,
stood upon the bank, furious as roaring lions; the chariot force,
selected from among the heroes that were quickest in battle, was led by
officers confident in themselves. The war-steeds quivered in all their
limbs, and burned to trample the nations under their feet. I myself was
like the god Mentu, the warlike; I placed myself at their head, and they
saw the achievements of my hands. I, Ramesses the king, behaved as a
hero who knows his worth, and who stretches out his arm over his people
in the day of combat. The invaders of my territory will gather no more
harvests upon the earth, their life is counted to them as eternity.
Those that gained the shore, I caused to fall at the water's edge, they
lay slain in heaps; I overturned their vessels; all their goods sank In
the waves." After a brief combat, all resistance ceased. The empty
ships, floating at random upon the still waters of the lagoon, or stuck
fast in the Nile mud, became the prize of the victors, and were found to
contain a rich booty. Thus ended this remarkable struggle, in which
nations widely severed and of various bloods--scarcely, as one would
have thought, known to each other, and separated by a diversity of
interests--united in an attack upon the foremost power of the known
world, traversed several hundreds of miles of land or sea successfully,
neither quarrelling among themselves nor meeting with disaster from
without, and reached the country which they had hoped to conquer, but
were there completely defeated and repulsed in two engagements--one by
land, the other partly by land and partly by sea--so that "their spirit
was annihilated, their soul was taken from them." Henceforth no one of
the nations which took part in the combined attack is found in arms
against the power that had read them so severe a lesson.
It was not long after repulsing this attack upon the independence of
Egypt that Ramesses undertook his "campaign of revenge." Starting with a
fleet and army along the line that his assailants had followed, he
traversed Palestine and Syria, hunting the lion in the outskirts of
Lebanon, and re-establishing for a time the Egyptian dominion over much
of the region which had been formerly held in subjection by the great
monarchs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. He claims to have
carried his arms to Aleppo and Carchemish, in which case we must suppose
that he defeated the Hittites, or else that they declined to meet him in
the field; and he gives a list of thirty-eight conquered countries or
tribes, which are thought to belong to Upper Syria, Southern Asia Minor,
and Cyprus. In some of his inscriptions he even speaks of having
recovered Naharaina, Kush, and Punt; but there is no evidence that he
really visited--much less conquered--these remote regions.
The later life of Ramesses III. was, on the whole a time of
tranquillity and repose. The wild tribes of North Africa, after one
further attempt to establish themselves in the western Delta, which
wholly failed, acquiesced in the lot which nature seemed to have
assigned them, and, leaving the Egyptians in peace, contented themselves
with the broad tract over which they were free to rove between the
Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert. On the south Ethiopia made no sign.
In the east the Hittites had enough to do to rebuild the power which had
been greatly shattered by the passage of the hordes of Asia Minor
through their territory, on their way to Egypt and on their return from
it. The Assyrians had not yet commenced their aggressive wars towards
the north and west, having probably still a difficulty in maintaining
their independence against the attacks of Babylon. Egypt was left
undisturbed by her neighbours for the space of several generations, and
herself refrained from disturbing the peace of the world by foreign
expeditions. Ramesses turned his attention to building, commerce, and
the planting of Egypt with trees. He constructed and ornamented the
beautiful temple of Ammon at Medinet-Abou, built a fleet on the Red Sea
and engaged in trade with Punt, dug a great reservoir in the country of
Aina (Southern Palestine), and "over the whole land of Egypt planted
trees and shrubs, to give the inhabitants rest under their cool shade."
The general decline of Egypt must, however, be regarded as having
commenced in his reign. His Eastern conquests were more specious than
solid, resulting in a nominal rather than a real subjection of Palestine
and Syria to his yoke. His subjects grew unaccustomed to the use of
arms during the last twenty, or five and twenty, years of his life.
Above all, luxury, intrigue, and superstition invaded the court, where
the eunuchs and concubines exercised a pernicious influence. Magic was
practised by some of the chief men in the State, and the belief was
widely spread that it was possible by charms, incantations, and the use
of waxen images, to bewitch men, or paralyse their limbs, or even to
cause their deaths. Hags were to be found about the court as wicked as
Canidia, who were willing to sell their skill in the black art to the
highest bidder. The actual person of the monarch was not sacred from the
plottings of this nefarious crew, who planned assassinations and hatched
conspiracies in the very purlieus of the royal palace. Ramesses himself
would, apparently, have fallen a victim to a plot of the kind, had not
the parties to it been discovered, arrested, tried by a Royal
Commission, and promptly executed.
The descendants of Ramesses III. occupied the throne from his death
(about B.C. 1280) to B.C. 1100. Ten princes of the name of Ramesses, and
one called Meri-Tum, bore sway during this interval, each of them
showing, if possible, greater weakness than the last, and all of them
sunk in luxury, idle, effeminate, sensual. Ramesses III. provoked
caricature by his open exhibition of harem-scenes on the walls of his
Medinet-Abou palace. His descendants, content with harem life, scarcely
cared to quit the precincts of the royal abode, desisted from all war,
and even devolved the task of government on other shoulders. The
Pharaohs of the twentieth dynasty became absolute _fainéants_, and
devolved their duties on the high-priests of the great temple of Ammon
at Thebes, who "set themselves to play the same part which at a distant
period was played by the Mayors of the Palace under the later French
kings of the Merovingian line."
In an absolute monarchy, the royal authority is the mainspring which
controls all movements and all actions in every part of the State. Let
this source of energy grow weak, and decline at once shows itself
throughout the entire body politic. It is as when a fatal malady seizes
on the seat of life in an individual--instantly every member, every
tissue, falls away, suffers, shrinks, decays, perishes. Egyptian
architecture is simply non-existent from the death of Ramesses III. to
the age of Sheshonk; the "grand style" of pictorial art disappears;
sculpture in relief becomes a wearisome repetition of the same
stereotyped religious groups; statuary deteriorates and is rare; above
all, literature declines, undergoing an almost complete eclipse. A
galaxy of literary talent had, as we have seen, clustered about the
reigns of Ramesses II. and Menephthah, under whose encouragement authors
had devoted themselves to history, divinity, practical philosophy,
poetry, epistolary correspondence, novels, travels, legend. From the
time of Ramesses III.--nay, from the time of Seti II.--all is a blank:
"the true poetic inspiration appears to have vanished," literature is
almost dumb; instead of the masterpieces of Pentaour, Kakabu, Nebsenen,
Enna, and others, which even moderns can peruse with pleasure, we have
only documents in which "the dry official tone" prevails--abstracts of
trials, lists of functionaries, tiresome enumerations in the greatest
detail of gifts made to the gods, together with fulsome praises of the
kings, written either by themselves or by others, which we are half
inclined to regret the lapse of ages has spared from destruction. At the
same time morals fall off. Sensuality displays itself in high places.
Intrigue enters the charmed circle of the palace. The monarch himself is
satirized in indecent drawings. Presently, the whole idea of a divinity
hedging in the king departs; and a "thieves' society" is formed for
rifling the royal tombs, and tearing the jewels, with which they have
been buried, from the monarchs' persons. The king's life is aimed at by
conspirators, who do not scruple to use magical arts; priests and high
judicial functionaries are implicated in the proceedings. Altogether,
the old order seems to be changed, the old ideas to be upset; and no
new principles, possessing any vital efficacy, are introduced. Society
gradually settles upon its lees; and without some violent application of
force from without, or some strange upheaval from within, the nation
seems doomed to fall rapidly into decay and dissolution.
[Illustration: CARICATURE OF THE TIME OF RAMESSES III.]
XVIII.
THE PRIEST-KINGS--PINETEM AND SOLOMON.
The position of the priests in Egypt was, from the first, one of high
dignity and influence. Though not, strictly speaking, a caste, they
formed a very distinct order or class, separated by important
privileges, and by their habits of life, from the rest of the community,
and recruited mainly from among their own sons, and other near
relatives. Their independence and freedom was secured by a system of
endowments. From a remote antiquity a considerable portion of the land
of Egypt--perhaps as much as one-third--was made over to the priestly
class, large estates being attached to each temple, and held as common
property by the "colleges," which, like the chapters of our cathedrals,
directed the worship of each sacred edifice. These priestly estates
were, we are told, exempt from taxation of any kind; and they appear to
have received continual augmentation from the piety or superstition of
the kings, who constantly made over to their favourite deities fresh
"gardens, orchards, vineyards, fields," and even "cities."
The kings lived always in a considerable amount of awe of the priests.
Though claiming a certain qualified divinity themselves, they yet could
not but be aware that there were divers flaws and Imperfections in
their own divinity--"little rifts within the lute"--which made it not
quite a safe support to trust to, or lean upon, entirely. There were
other greater gods than themselves--gods from whom their own divinity
was derived; and they could not be certain what power or influence the
priests might not have with these superior beings, in whose existence
and ability to benefit and injure men they had the fullest belief.
Consequently, the kings are found to occupy a respectful attitude
towards the priests throughout the whole course of Egyptian history,
from first to last; and this respectful attitude Is especially
maintained towards the great personages in whom the hierarchy
culminates, the head officials, or chief priests, of the temples which
are the principal centres of the national worship--the temple of Ra, or
Tum, at Heliopolis, that of Phthah at Memphis, and that of Ammon at
Thebes. According to the place where the capital was fixed for the time
being, one or other of these three high-priests had the pre-eminence;
and, in the later period of the Ramessides, Thebes having enjoyed
metropolitan dignity for between five and six centuries, the Theban
High-Priest of Ammon was recognized as beyond dispute the chief of the
sacerdotal order, and the next person in the kingdom after the king.
It had naturally resulted from this high position, and the weight of
influence which it enabled its possessor to exercise, that the office
had become hereditary. As far back as the reign of Ramesses IX., we find
that the holder of the position has succeeded his father in it, and
regards himself as high-priest rather by natural right than by the will
of the king. The priest of that time, Amenhotep by name, the son of
Ramesses-nekht, undertakes the restoration of the Temple of Ammon at
Thebes of his own proper motion, "strengthens its walls, builds it anew,
makes its columns, inserts in its gates the great folding-doors of
acacia wood." Formerly, the kings were the builders, and the
high-priests carried out their directions and then in the name of the
gods gave thanks to the kings for their pious munificence. Under the
ninth Ramesses the order was reversed--"now it is the king who testifies
his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his
temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and
maintenance of the older ones." The initiative has passed out of the
king's hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is
passive; all the glory is Amenhotep's; the king merely comes in at the
close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain
dignity to the final ceremony.
[Illustration: HEAD OF HER-HOR.]
Under the last of the Ramessides the High-Priest of Ammon at Thebes was
a certain Her-hor. He was a man of a pleasing countenance, with features
that were delicate and good, and an expression that was mild and
agreeable. He had the art so to ingratiate himself with his sovereign as
to obtain at his hands at least five distinct offices of state besides
his sacred dignity. He was "Chief of Upper and Lower Egypt," "Royal son
of Gush," "Fanbearer on the right hand of the King," "Principal
Architect," and "Administrator of the Granaries," Some of these offices
may have been honorary; but the duties of others must have been
important, and their proper discharge would have required a vast amount
of varied ability. It is not likely that Herhor possessed all the
needful qualifications; rather we must presume that he grasped at the
multiplicity of appointments in order to accumulate power, so far as was
possible, in his own hands, and thereby to be in a better position to
seize the royal authority on the monarch's demise. If Ramesses III. died
without issue, his task must have been facilitated; at any rate, he
seems to have had the skill to accomplish it without struggle or
disturbance; and if, as some suppose, he banished the remaining
descendants of Ramesses III. to the Great Oasis, at any rate he did not
stain his priestly hands with bloodshed, or force his way to the throne
through scenes of riot and confusion. Egypt, so far as appears, quietly
acquiesced in his rule, and perhaps rejoiced to find herself once more
governed by a prince of a strong and energetic nature.