1. _From the Earliest Times to the Moslem Conquest._

In the absence of a strict chronology, the epochs of Pharaonic history

are conveniently reckoned in dynasties according to Manetho's scheme,

and these dynasties are grouped into longer periods:--the Old Kingdom

(Dynasties I. to VIII.), including the Earliest Dynasties (I. to III.)

and the Pyramid Period (Dynasties IV. to VI.); the Middle Kingdom

(Dynasties IX. to XVII.), including the Heracleopolite Dynasties (IX. to

X.) and the Hyksos Period (Dynasties XV. to XVII.); the New Empire

(Dynasties XVIII. to XX.); the Deltaic Dynasties (Dynasties XXI. to

XXXI.), including the Saite and Persian Periods (Dynasties XXVI. to

XXXI.). The conquest by Alexander ushers in the Hellenistic age,

comprising the periods of Ptolemaic and Roman rule.

_The Prehistoric Age._--One of the most striking features of recent

Egyptology is the way in which the earliest ages of the civilization,

before the conventional Egyptian style was formed, have been illustrated

by the results of excavation. Until 1895 there seemed little hope of

reaching the records of those remote times, although it was plain that

the civilization had developed in the Nile valley for many centuries

before the IVth Dynasty, beyond which the earliest known monuments

scarcely reached. Since that year, however, there has been a steady flow

of discoveries in prehistoric and early historic cemeteries, and, partly

in consequence of this, monuments already known, such as the annals of

the Palermo stone, have been made articulate for the beginnings of

history in Egypt.

It is probable that certain rudely chipped flints, so-called eoliths, in

the alluvial gravels (formed generally at the mouth of wadis opening on

to the Nile) at Thebes and elsewhere, are the work of primitive man; but

it has been shown that such are produced also by natural forces in the

rush of torrents. On the surface of the desert, at the borders of the

valley, palaeolithic implements of well-defined form are not uncommon,

and bear the marks of a remote antiquity. In some cases they appear to

lie where they were chipped on the sites of flint factories. Geologists

and anthropologists are not yet agreed on the question whether the

climate and condition of the country have undergone large changes since

these implements were deposited. As yet none have been found in such

association with animal remains as would help in deciding their age, nor

have any implements been discovered in rock-shelters or in caves.

Of neolithic remains, arrowheads and other implements are found in some

numbers in the deserts. In the Fayum region, about the borders of the

ancient Lake of Moeris and beyond, they are particularly abundant and

interesting in their forms. But their age is uncertain; some may be

contemporary with the advanced culture of the XIIth Dynasty in the Nile

valley. Definite history on the other hand has been gained from the

wonderful series of "prehistoric" cemeteries excavated by J. de Morgan,

Petrie, Reisner and others on the desert edgings of the cultivated

alluvium. The succession of archaeological types revealed in them has

been tabulated by Petrie in his _Diospolis Parva_; and the detailed

publication of Reisner's unusually careful researches is bringing much

new light on the questions involved, amongst other things showing the

exact point at which the "prehistoric" series merges into the Ist

Dynasty, for, as might be surmised, in many cases the prehistoric

cemeteries continued in use under the earliest dynasties. The finest

pottery, often painted but all hand-made without the wheel, belongs to

the prehistoric period; so also do the finest flint implements, which,

in the delicacy and exactitude of their form and flaking, surpass all

that is known from other countries. Metal seems to be entirely absent

from the earliest type of graves, but immediately thereafter copper

begins to appear (bronze is hardly to be found before the XIIth

Dynasty). The paintings on the vases show boats driven by oars and sails

rudely figured, and the boats bear emblematic standards or ensigns. The

cemeteries are found throughout Upper and Middle Egypt, but as yet have

not been met with in the Delta or on its borders. This might be

accounted for by the inhabitants of Lower Egypt having practised a

different mode of disposing of the dead, or by their cemeteries being

differently placed.

Tradition, mythology and later customs make it possible to recover a

scrap of the political history of that far-off time. Menes, the founder

of the Ist Dynasty, united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. In

the prehistoric period, therefore, these two realms were separate. The

capital of Upper Egypt was Nekheb, now represented by the ruins of El

Kab, with the royal residence across the river at Nekhen

(Hieraconpolis); that of Lower Egypt was at Buto (Puto or Dep) in the

marshes, with the royal residence in the quarter called Pe. Nekhebi,

goddess of El Kab, represented the Upper or Southern Kingdom, which was

also under the tutelage of the god Seth, the goddess Buto and the god

Horus similarly presiding over the Lower Kingdom. The royal god in the

palace of each was a hawk or Horus. The spirits of the deceased kings

were honoured respectively as the jackal-headed spirits of Nekhen and

the hawk-headed spirits of Pe. As we hear also of the "spirits of On" it

is probable that Heliopolis was at one time capital of a kingdom. In

after days the prehistoric kings were known as "Worshippers of Horus"

and in Manetho's list they are the [Greek: nekues] "Dead," and [Greek:

heroes] "Heroes," being looked upon as intermediate between the divine

dynasties and those of human kings. It is impossible to estimate the

duration of the period represented by the prehistoric cemeteries; that

the two kingdoms existed throughout unchanged is hardly probable.

According to the somatologist Elliott Smith, the most important change

in the physical character of the people of Upper Egypt, in the entire

range of Egyptian archaeology, took place at the beginning of the

dynastic period; and he accounts for this by the mingling of the Lower

with the Upper Egyptian population, consequent on the uniting of the two

countries under one rule. From remains of the age of the IVth Dynasty he

is able to define to some extent the type of the population of Lower

Egypt as having a better cranial and muscular development than that of

Upper Egypt, probably through immigration from Syria. The advent of the

dynasties, however, produced a quickening rather than a dislocation in

the development of civilization.

It is doubtful whether we possess any writing of the prehistoric age. A

few names of the kings of Lower Egypt are preserved in the first line of

the Palermo stone, but no annals are attached to them. Petrie considers

that one of the kings buried at Abydos, provisionally called Nar-mer and

whose real name may be Mer or Beza, preceded Menes; of him there are

several inscribed records, notably a magnificent carved and inscribed

slate palette found at Hieraconpolis, with figures of the king and his

vizier, war-standards and prisoners. To identify him with Bezau

(Boethos) of the IInd Dynasty runs counter to much archaeological

evidence. Sethe places him next after Menes and some would identify him

with that king. Another inscribed palette may be pre-dynastic; it

perhaps mentions a king named "Scorpion."

The earliest dynasties.

_The Old Kingdom._--The names of a number of kings attributable to the

Ist Dynasty are known from their tombs at Abydos. Unfortunately, they

are almost exclusively Horus titles [HRG: tyw-O33], in place of the

personal names by which they were recorded in the lists of Abydos and

Manetho; some, however, of the latter are found, and prove that the

scribes of the New Kingdom were unable to read them correctly. Important

changes and improvements took place in the writing even during the Ist

Dynasty. The personal name of Menes [HRG: mn] is given by one only of

many relics of a king whose Horus-name was Aha, "the Fighter." Doubts

have been expressed about the identification with Menes, but it is

strongly corroborated by the very archaic style of the remains. The name

of Aha (Menes) was found in two tombs, one at Nagada north of Thebes and

nearly opposite the road to the Red Sea, the other at Abydos. Manetho

makes the Ist Dynasty Thinite, this being the capital of the nome in

which Abydos lay. Upper Egypt always had precedence over Lower Egypt,

and it seems clear that Menes came from the former and conquered the

latter. According to tradition he founded Memphis which lay on the

frontier of his conquest; probably he resided there as well as at

Abydos; at any rate relics of one of the later kings of the Ist Dynasty

have already been recognized in its vast necropolis. Of the eight kings

of the Ist Dynasty, three--the fifth, sixth and seventh in the Ramesside

list of Abydos--are positively identified by tomb-remains from Abydos,

and others are scarcely less certain. Two of the kings have also left

tablets at the copper and turquoise mines of Wadi Maghara in Sinai. The

royal tombs are built of brick, but one of them, that of Usaphais, had

its floor of granite from Elephantine. They must have been filled with

magnificent furniture and provisions of every kind, including annual

record-tablets of the reigns, carved in ivory and ebony. From a fragment

on the Palermo stone it is clear that material existed as late as the

Vth Dynasty for a brief note of the height of the Nile and other

particulars in each year of the reign of these kings.

The IInd Dynasty of Manetho appears to have been separated from the Ist

even on the Palermo stone; it also was Thinite, and the tombs of several

of its nine (?) kings were found at Abydos. The IIIrd Dynasty is given

as Memphite by Manetho. Two of the kings built huge mastaba-tombs at Bet

Khallaf near Abydos, but the architect and learned scribe Imhotp

designed for one of these two kings, named Zoser, a second and mightier

monument at Memphis, the great step-pyramid of Sakkara. In Ptolemaic

times Imhotp was deified, and the traditional importance of Zoser is

shown by a forged grant of the Dodecaschoenus to the cataract god Khnum,

purporting to be from his reign, but in reality dating from the

Ptolemaic age. With Snefru, at the end of this dynasty, we reach the

beginning of Egyptian history as it was known before the recent

discoveries. Monuments and written records are henceforth more numerous

and important, and the Palermo annals show a fuller scale of record. The

events in the three years that are preserved include a successful raid

upon the negroes, and the construction of ships and gates of cedar-wood

which must have been brought from the forests of the Lebanon. Snefru

also set up a tablet at Wadi Maghara in Sinai. He built two pyramids,

one of them at Medum in steps, the other, probably in the perfected

form, at Dahshur, both lying between Memphis and the Fayum.

The pyramid period.

Pyramids did not cease to be built in Egypt till the New Kingdom; but

from the end of the IIIrd to the VIth Dynasty is pre-eminently the time

when the royal pyramid in stone was the chief monument left by each

successive king. Zoser and Snefru have been already noticed. The

personal name enclosed in a cartouche [HRG] is henceforth the commonest

title of the king. We now reach the IVth Dynasty containing the famous

names of Cheops (q.v.), Chephren (Khafre) and Mycerinus (Menkeure),

builders respectively of the Great, the Second and the Third Pyramids of

Giza. In the best art of this time there was a grandeur which was never

again attained. Perhaps the noblest example of Egyptian sculpture in the

round is a diorite statue of Chephren, one of several found by Mariette

in the so-called Temple of the Sphinx. This "temple" proves to be a

monumental gate at the lower end of the great causeway leading to the

plateau on which the pyramids were built. A king Dedefre, between Cheops

and Chephren, built a pyramid at Abu-Roash. Shepseskaf is one of the

last in the dynasty. Tablets of most of these kings have been found at

the mines of Wadi Maghara. In the neighbourhood of the pyramids there

are numerous mastabas of the court officials with fine sculpture in the

chapels, and a few decorated tombs from the end of this centralized

dynasty of absolute monarchs are known in Upper Egypt. A tablet which

describes Cheops as the builder of various shrines about the Great

Sphinx has been shown to be a priestly forgery, but the Sphinx itself

may have been carved out of the rock under the splendid rule of the IVth

Dynasty.

The Vth Dynasty is said to be of Elephantine, but this must be a

mistake. Its kings worshipped Re, the sun, rather than Horus, as their

ancestor, and the title [HRG: zA-hrw] "son of the Sun" began to be

written by them before the cartouche containing the personal name, while

another "solar" cartouche, containing a name compounded with Re,

followed the title [HRG: sw:t-bit:t] "king of Upper and Lower Egypt."

Sahure and the other kings of the dynasty built magnificent temples with

obelisks dedicated to Re, one of which, that of Neuserre at Abusir, has

been thoroughly explored. The marvellous tales of the Westcar Papyrus,

dating from the Middle Kingdom, narrate how three of the kings were born

of a priestess of Re. The pyramids of several of the kings are known.

The early ones are at Abusir, and the best preserved of the pyramid

temples, that of Sahure, excavated by the German Orient-Gesellschaft, in

its architecture and sculptured scenes has revealed an astonishingly

complete development of art and architecture as well as of warlike

enterprise by sea and land at this remote period; the latest pyramid

belonging to the Vth Dynasty, that of Unas at Sakkara, is inscribed with

long ritual and magical texts. Exquisitely sculptured tombs of this time

are very numerous at Memphis and are found throughout Upper Egypt. Of

work in the traditional temples of the country no trace remains,

probably because, being in limestone, it has all perished. The annals of

the Palermo stone were engraved and added to during this dynasty; the

chief events recorded for the time are gifts and endowments for the

temples. Evidently priestly influence was strong at the court.

Expeditions to Sinai and Puoni (Punt) are commemorated on tablets.

The VIth Dynasty if not more vigorous was more articulate; inscribed

tombs are spread throughout the country. The most active of its kings

was the third, named Pepi or Phiops, from whose pyramid at Sakkara the

capital, hitherto known as "White Walls," derived its later name of

Memphis (MN-NFR, Mempi); a tombstone from Abydos celebrates the activity

of a certain Una during the reigns of Pepi and his successor in

organizing expeditions to the Sinai peninsula and south Palestine, and

in transporting granite from Elephantine and other quarries. Herkhuf,

prince of Elephantine and an enterprising leader of caravans to the

south countries both in Nubia and the Libyan oases, flourished under

Merenre and Pepi II. called Neferkere. On one occasion he brought home a

dwarf dancer from the Sudan, described as being like one brought from

Puoni in the time of the fifth-dynasty king Assa; this drew from the

youthful Pepi II. an enthusiastic letter which was engraved in full upon

the facade of Herkhuf's tomb. The reign of the last-named king, begun

early, lasted over ninety years, a fact so long remembered that even

Manetho attributes to him ninety-four years; its length probably caused

the ruin of the dynasty. The local princelings and monarchs had been

growing in culture, wealth and power, and after Pepi II. an ominous gap

in the monuments, pointing to civil war, marks the end of the Old

Kingdom. The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties are said to have been Memphite,

but of them no record survives beyond some names of kings in the lists.

Heracleopolite period.

_The Middle Kingdom._--The long Memphite rule was broken by the IXth and

Xth Dynasties, of Heracleopolis Magna (Hes) in Middle Egypt. Kheti or

Achthoes was apparently a favourite name with the kings, but they are

very obscure. They may have spread their rule by conquest over Upper

Egypt and then overthrown the Memphite dynasty. The chief monuments of

the period are certain inscribed tombs at Assiut; it appears that one of

the kings, whose praenomen was Mikere, supported by a fleet and army

from Upper Egypt, and especially by the prince of Assiut, was restored

to his paternal city of Heracleopolis, from which he had probably been

driven out; his pyramid, however, was built in the old royal necropolis

at Memphis. Later the princes of Thebes asserted their independence and

founded the XIth Dynasty, which pushed its frontiers northwards until

finally it occupied the whole country. Its kings were named Menthotp,

from Mont, one of the gods of Thebes; others, perhaps sub-kings, were

named Enyotf (Antef). They were buried at Thebes, whence the coffins of

several were obtained by the early collectors of the 19th century.

Nibhotp Menthotp I. probably established his rule over all Egypt. The

funerary temple of Nebhepre Menthotp III., the last but one of these

kings, has been excavated by the Egypt Exploration Fund at Deir el

Bahri, and must have been a magnificent monument. His successor

Sankhkere Menthotp IV. is known to have sent an expedition by the Red

Sea to Puoni.

The XIIth Dynasty is the central point of the Middle Kingdom, to which

the decline of the Memphite and the rise of the Heracleopolite dynasty

mark the transition, while the growth of Thebes under the XIth Dynasty

is its true starting-point. Monuments of the XIIth Dynasty are abundant

and often of splendid design and workmanship, whereas previously there

had been little produced since the VIth Dynasty that was not half

barbarous. Although not much of the history of the XIIth Dynasty is

ascertained, the Turin Papyrus and many dated inscriptions fix the

succession and length of reign of the eight kings very accurately. The

troubled times that the kingdom had passed through taught the long-lived

monarchs the precaution of associating a competent successor on the

throne. The nomarchs and the other feudal chiefs were inclined to

strengthen themselves at the expense of their neighbours; a firm hand

was required to hold them in check and distribute the honours as they

were earned by faithful service. The tombs of the most favoured and

wealthy princes are magnificent, particularly those of certain families

in Middle Egypt at Beni Hasan, El Bersha, Assiut and Deir Rifa, and it

is probable that each had a court and organization within his nome like

that of the royal palace in miniature. Eventually, in the reigns of

Senwosri III. and Amenemhe III., the succession of strong kings appears

to have centralized all authority very completely. The names in the

dynasty are Amenemhe (Ammenemes) and Senwosri (formerly read Usertesen

or Senusert). The latter seems to be the origin of the Sesostris (q.v.)

and Sesoosis of the legends. Amenemhe I., the first king, whose

connexion with the previous dynasty is not known, reigned for thirty

years, ten of them being in partnership with his son Senwosri I. He had

to fight for his throne and then reorganize the country, removing his

capital or residence from Thebes to a central situation near Lisht about

25 m. south of Memphis. His monuments are widespread in Egypt, the

quarries and mines in the desert as far as Sinai bear witness to his

great activity, and we know of an expedition which he made against the

Nubians. The "Instructions of Amenemhe to his son Senwosri," whether

really his own or a later composition, refer to these things, to his

care for his subjects, and to the ingratitude with which he was

rewarded, an attempt on his life having been made by the trusted

servants in his own palace. The story of Sinuhi is the true or realistic

history of a soldier who, having overheard the secret intelligence of

Amenemhe's death, fled in fear to Palestine or Syria and there became

rich in the favour of the prince of the land; growing old, however, he

successfully sued for pardon from Senwosri and permission to return and

die in Egypt.

Senwosri I. was already the executive partner in the time of the

co-regency, warring with the Libyans and probably in the Sudan. After

Amenemhe's death he fully upheld the greatness of the dynasty in his

long reign of forty-five years. The obelisk of Heliopolis is amongst his

best-known monuments, and the damming of the Lake of Moeris (q.v.) must

have been in progress in his reign. He built a temple far up the Nile at

Wadi Halfa and there set up a stela commemorating his victories over the

tribes of Nubia. The fine tombs of Ameni at Beni Hasan and of Hepzefa at

Assiut belong to his reign. The pyramids of both father and son are at

Lisht.

Amenemhe II. was buried at Dahshur; he was followed by Senwosri II.,

whose pyramid is at Illahun at the mouth of the Fayum. In his reign were

executed the fine paintings in the tomb of Khnemhotp at Beni Hasan,

which include a remarkable scene of Semitic Bedouins bringing eye-paint

to Egypt from the eastern deserts. In Manetho he is identified with

Sesostris (see above), but Senwosri I., and still more Senwosri III.,

have a better claim to this distinction. The latter warred in Palestine

and in Nubia, and marked the south frontier of his kingdom by a statue

and stelae at Semna beyond the Second Cataract. Near his pyramid was

discovered the splendid jewelry of some princesses of his family (see

JEWELRY ad init.). The tomb of Thethotp at El Bersha, celebrated for the

scene of the transport of a colossus amongst its paintings, was finished

in this reign.

Amenemhe III. completed the work of Lake Moeris and began a series of

observations of the height of the inundation at Semna which was

continued by his successors. In his long reign of forty-six years he

built a pyramid at Dahshur, and at Hawara near the Lake of Moeris

another pyramid together with the Labyrinth which seems to have been an

enormous funerary temple attached to the pyramid. His name was

remembered in the Fayum during the Graeco-Roman period and his effigy

worshipped there as Pera-marres, i.e. Pharaoh Marres (Marres being his

praenomen graecized). Amenemhe IV.'s reign was short, and the dynasty

ended with a queen Sebeknefru (Scemiophris), whose name is found in the

scanty remains of the Labyrinth. The XIIth Dynasty numbered eight rulers

and lasted for 213 years. Great as it was, it created no empire outside

the Nile valley, and its most imposing monument, which according to the

testimony of the ancients rivalled the pyramids, is now represented by a

vast stratum of chips.

The history of the following period down to the rise of the New Empire

is very obscure. Manetho gives us the XIIIth (Diospolite) Dynasty, the

XIVth (Xoite from Xois in Lower Egypt), the XVth and XVIth (Hyksos) and

the XVIIth (Diospolite), but his names are lost except for the Hyksos

kings. The Abydos tablet ignores all between the XIIth and XVIIIth

Dynasties. The Turin Papyrus preserves many names on its shattered

fragments, and the monuments are for ever adding to the list, but it is

difficult to assign them accurately to their places. The Hyksos names

can in some cases be recognized by their foreign aspect, the peculiar

style of the scarabs on which they are engraved or by resemblances to

those recorded in Manetho. The kings of the XVIIth Dynasty too are

generally recognizable by the form of their name and other

circumstances. Manetho indicates marvellous crowding for the XIIIth and

XIVth Dynasties, but it seems better to suggest a total duration of 300

or 400 years for the whole period than to adopt Meyer's estimate of

about 210 years (see above, Chronology).

Amongst the kings of the XIIIth Dynasty (including perhaps the XIVth),

not a few are represented by granite statues of colossal size and fine

workmanship, especially at Thebes and Tanis, some by architectural

fragments, some by graffiti on the rocks about the First Cataract. Some

few certainly reigned over all Egypt. Sebkhotp (Sekhotp, [Greek:

Sochotes]) is a favourite name, no doubt to be connected with the god of

the Fayum. Several of the Theban kings named Antef (Enyotf) must be

placed here rather than in the XIth Dynasty. A decree of one of them

degrading a monarch who had sided with his enemies was found at Coptos

engraved on a doorway of Senwosri I.

The Hyksos period.

In its divided state Egypt would fall an easy prey to the foreigner.

Manetho says that the Hyksos (q.v.) gained Egypt without a blow. Their

domination must have lasted a considerable time, the Rhind mathematical

papyrus having been copied in the thirty-third year of a king Apophis.

The monuments and scarabs of the Hyksos kings are found throughout Upper

and Lower Egypt; those of Khian somehow spread as far as Crete and

Bagdad. The Hyksos, in whom Josephus recognized the children of Israel,

worshipped their own Syrian deity, identifying him with the Egyptian god

Seth, and endeavoured to establish his cult throughout Egypt to the

detriment of the native gods. It is to be hoped that definite light may

one day be forthcoming on the whole of this critical episode which had

such a profound effect on the character and history of the Egyptian

people. The spirited overthrow of the Hyksos ushered in the glories in

arms and arts which marked the New Empire. The XVIIth Dynasty probably

began the struggle, at first as semi-independent kinglets at Thebes.

Seqenenre is here a leading name; the mummy of the third Seqenenre, the

earliest in the great find of royal mummies at Deir el Bahri, shows the

head frightfully hacked and split, perhaps in a battle with the Hyksos.

XVIIIth Dynasty.

Queen Hatshepsut.

_The New Empire._--The epithet "new" is generally attached to this

period, and "empire" instead of "kingdom" marks its wider power. The

glorious XVIIIth Dynasty seems to have been closely related to the

XVIIth. Its first task was to crush the Hyksos power in the north-east

of the Delta; this was fully accomplished by its founder Ahmosi

(dialectically Ahmasi, Amosis or Amasis I.) capturing their great

stronghold of Avaris. Amasis next attacked them in S.W. Palestine, where

he captured Sharuhen after a siege of three years. He fought also in

Syria and in Nubia, besides overcoming factious opposition in his own

land. The principal source for the history of this time is the

biographical inscription at El Kab of a namesake of the king, Ahmosi son

of Abana, a sailor and warrior whose exploits extend to the reign of

Tethmosis I. Amenophis I. (Amenhotp), succeeding Amasis, fought in Libya

and Ethiopia. Tethmosis I. (c. 1540 B.C.) was perhaps of another family,

but obtained his title to the throne through his wife Ahmosi. After some

thirty years of settled rule uninterrupted by revolt, Egypt was now

strong and rich enough to indulge to the full its new taste for war and

lust of conquest. It had become essentially a military state. The whole

of the administration was in the hands of the king with his vizier and

other court officials; no trace of the feudalism of the Middle Kingdom

survived. Tethmosis thoroughly subdued Cush, which had already been

placed under the government of a viceroy. This province of Cush extended

from Napata just below the Fourth Cataract on the south to El Kab in the

north, so that it included the first three nomes of Upper Egypt, which

agriculturally were not greatly superior to Nubia. Turning next to

Syria, Tethmosis carried his arms as far as the Euphrates. It is

possible that his predecessor had also reached this point, but no record

survives to prove it. These successful campaigns were probably not very

costly, and prisoners, plunder and tribute poured in from them to enrich

Egypt. Tethmosis I. made the first of those great additions to the

temple of the Theban Ammon at Karnak by which the Pharaohs of the Empire

rendered it by far the greatest of the existing temples in the world.

The temple of Deir el Bahri also was designed by him. Towards the end of

his reign, his elder sons being dead, Tethmosis associated Hatshepsut,

his daughter by Ahmosi, with himself upon the throne. Tethmosis I. was

the first of the long line of kings to be buried in the Valley of the

Tombs of the Kings of Thebes. At his death another son Tethmosis II.

succeeded as the husband of his half-sister, but reigned only two or

three years, during which he warred in Nubia and placed Tethmosis III.,

his son by a concubine Esi, upon the throne beside him (c. 1500 B.C.).

After her husband's death the ambitious Hatshepsut assumed the full

regal power; upon her monuments she wears the masculine garb and aspect

of a king though the feminine gender is retained for her in the

inscriptions. On some monuments of this period her name appears alone,

on others in conjunction with that of Tethmosis III., while the latter

again may appear without the queen's; but this extraordinary woman must

have had a great influence over her stepson and was the acknowledged

ruler of Egypt. Tethmosis, to judge by the evidence of his mummy and the

chronology of his reign, was already a grown man, yet no sign of the

immense powers which he displayed later has come down to us from the

joint reign. Hatshepsut cultivated the arts of peace. She restored the

worship in those temples of Upper and Lower Egypt which had not yet

recovered from the religious oppression and neglect of the Hyksos. She

completed and decorated the temple of Deir el Bahri, embellishing its

walls with scenes calculated to establish her claims, representing her

divine origin and upbringing under the protection of Ammon, and her

association on the throne by her human father. The famous sculptures of

the great expedition by water to Puoni, the land of incense on the

Somali coast, are also here, with many others. At Karnak Hatshepsut

laboured chiefly to complete the works projected in the reigns of

Tethmosis I. and II., and set up two obelisks in front of the entrance

as it then was. One of these, still standing, is the most brilliant

ornament of that wonderful temple. A date of the twenty-second year of

her reign has been found at Sinai, no doubt counted from the beginning

of the co-regency with Tethmosis I. Not much later, in his twenty-second

year, Tethmosis III. is reigning alone in full vigour. While she lived,

the personality of the queen secured the devotion of her servants and

held all ambitions in check. Not long after her death there was a

violent reaction. Prejudice against the rule of a woman, particularly

one who had made her name and figure so conspicuous, was probably the

cause of this outbreak, and perhaps sought justification in the fact

that, however complete was her right, she had in some degree usurped a

place to which her stepson (who was also her nephew) had been appointed.

Her cartouches began to be defaced or her monuments hidden up by other

buildings, and the same rage pursued some of her most faithful servants

in their tombs. But the beauty of the work seems to have restrained the

hand of the destroyer. Then came the religious fanaticism of Akhenaton,

mutilating all figures of Ammon and all inscriptions containing his

name; this made havoc of the exquisite monuments of Hatshepsut; and the

restorers of the XIXth Dynasty, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of

the queen, had no scruples in replacing her names by those of the

associate kings Tethmosis I., II. or III. These acts of vandalism took

place throughout Egypt, but in the distant mines of Sinai the cartouches

of Hatshepsut are untouched. In the royal lists of Seti I. and Rameses

II. Hatshepsut has no place, nor is her reign referred to on any later

monument.[20]

Wars of Tethmosis III.

The immense energy of Tethmosis III. now found its outlet in war. Syria

had revolted, perhaps on Hatshepsut's death, but by his twenty-second

year the monarch was ready to lead his army against the rebels. The

revolt, headed by the city of Kadesh on the Orontes, embraced the whole

of western Syria. The movements of Tethmosis in this first campaign,

including a battle with the Syrian chariots and infantry at Megiddo and

the capture of that city, were chronicled from day to day, and an

extract from this chronicle is engraved on the walls of the sanctuary of

Karnak, together with a brief record of the subsequent expeditions. In a

series of five carefully planned campaigns he consolidated his

conquests in southern Syria and secured the ports of Phoenicia (q.v.).

Kadesh fell in the sixth campaign. In the next year Tethmosis revisited

the Phoenician ports, chastised the rebellious and received the tribute

of Syria, all the while preparing for further advance, which did not

take place until another year had gone by. Then, in the thirty-third

year of his reign, he marched through Kadesh, fought his way to

Carchemish, defeated the forces that opposed him there and crossed over

the Euphrates into the territory of the king of Mitanni. He set up a

tablet by the side of that of Tethmosis I. and turned southward,

following the river as far as Niy. Here he stayed to hunt a herd of 120

elephants, and then, marching westwards, received the tribute of

Naharina and gifts from the Hittites in Asia Minor and from the king of

Babylon. In all he fought seventeen campaigns in Syria until the spirit

of revolt was entirely crushed in a second capture of Kadesh. The wars

in Libya and Ethiopia were of less moment. In the intervals of war

Tethmosis III. proved to be a wonderfully efficient administrator, with

his eye on every corner of his dominions. The Syrian expeditions

occupied six months in most of his best years, but the remaining time

was spent in activity at home, repressing robbery and injustice,

rebuilding and adorning temples with the labour of his captives and the

plunder and tribute of conquered cities, or designing with his own hand

the gorgeous sacred vessels of the sanctuary of Ammon. In his later

years some expeditions took place into Nubia. Tethmosis died in the

fifty-fourth year of his reign. His mummy, found in the _cachette_ at

Deir el Bahri, is said to be that of a very old man. He was the greatest

Pharaoh in the New Empire, if not in all Egyptian history.

Amenophis III.

Tethmosis III. was succeeded by his son Amenophis II., whom he had

associated on the throne at the end of his reign. One of the first acts

of the new king was to lead an army into Syria, where revolt was again

rife; he reached and perhaps crossed the Euphrates and returned home to

Thebes with seven captive kings of Tikhsi and much spoil. The kings he

sacrificed to Ammon and hanged six bodies on the walls, while the

seventh was carried south to Napata and there exposed as a terror to the

Ethiopians. Amenophis reigned twenty-six years and left his throne to

his son Tethmosis IV., who is best remembered by a granite tablet

recording his clearance of the Great Sphinx. He also warred in northern

Syria and in Cush. His son Amenophis III., c. 1400 B.C., was a mighty

builder, especially at Thebes, where his reign marks a new epoch in the

history of the great temples, Luxor being his creation, while avenues of

rams, pylons, &c., were added on a vast scale to Karnak. He married a

certain Taia, who, though apparently of humble parentage, was held in

great honour by her husband as afterwards by her son. Amenophis III.

warred in Ethiopia, but his sway was long unquestioned from Napata to

the Euphrates. Small objects with his name and that of Taia are found on

the mainland and in the islands of Greece. Through the fortunate

discovery of cuneiform tablets deposited by his successor in the

archives at Tell el-Amarna, we can see how the rulers of the great

kingdoms beyond the river, Mitanni, Assyria and even Babylonia,

corresponded with Amenophis, gave their daughters to him in marriage,

and congratulated themselves on having his friendship. The king of

Cyprus too courted him; while within the empire the descendants of the

Syrian dynasts conquered by his father, having been educated in Egypt,

ruled their paternal possessions as the abject slaves of Pharaoh. A

constant stream of tribute poured into Egypt, sufficient to defray the

cost of all the splendid works that were executed. Amenophis caused a

series of large scarabs unique in their kind to be engraved with the

name and parentage of his queen Taia, followed by varying texts

commemorating like medals the boundaries of his kingdom, his secondary

marriage with Gilukhipa, daughter of the king of Mitanni, the formation

of a sacred lake at Thebes, a great hunt of wild cattle, and the number

of lions the king slew in the first ten years of his reign. The colossi

known to the Greeks by the name of the Homeric hero Memnon, which look

over the western plain of Thebes, represent this king and were placed

before the entrance of his funerary temple, the rest of which has

disappeared. His palace lay farther south on the west bank, built of

crude brick covered with painted stucco. Towards the end of his reign of

thirty-six years, Syria was invaded by the Hittites from the north and

the people called the Khabiri from the eastern desert; some of the

kinglets conspired with the invaders to overthrow the Egyptian power,

while those who remained loyal sent alarming reports to their sovereign.

Amenophis IV.

Amenophis IV., son of Amenophis III. and Taia, was perhaps the most

remarkable character in the long line of the Pharaohs. He was a

religious fanatic, who had probably been high priest of the sun-god at

Heliopolis, and had come to view the sun as the visible source of life,

creation, growth and activity, whose power was demonstrated in foreign

lands almost as clearly as in Egypt. Thrusting aside all the

multitudinous deities of Egypt and all the mythology even of Heliopolis,

he devoted himself to the cult of the visible sun-disk, applying to it

as its chief name the hitherto rare word Aton, meaning "sun"; the

traditional divine name Harakht (Horus of the horizon), given to the

hawk-headed sun-god of Heliopolis, was however allowed to subsist and a

temple was built at Karnak to this god. The worship of the other gods

was officially recognized until his fifth year, but then a sweeping

reform was initiated by which apparently the new cult alone was

permitted. Of the old deities Ammon represented by far the wealthiest

and most powerful interests, and against this long favoured deity the

Pharaoh hurled himself with fury. He changed his own name from Amenhotp,

"Ammon is satisfied," to Akhenaton, "pious to Aton," erased the name and

figure of Ammon from the monuments, even where it occurred as part of

his own father's name, abandoned Thebes, the magnificent city of Ammon,

and built a new capital at El Amarna in the plain of Hermopolis, on a

virgin site upon the edge of the desert. This with a large area around

he dedicated to Aton in the sixth year, while splendid temples, palaces,

houses and tombs for his god, for himself and for his courtiers were

rising around him; apparently also this "son of Aton" swore an oath

never to pass beyond the boundaries of Aton's special domain. There are

signs also that the polytheistic word "gods" was obliterated on many of

the monuments, but other divine names, though almost entirely excluded

from Akhenaton's work, were left untouched where they already existed.

In all local temples the worship of Aton was instituted. The confiscated

revenues of Ammon and the tribute from Syria and Cush provided ample

means for adorning Ekhaton (Akhetaton), "the horizon of Aton," the new

capital, and for richly rewarding those who adopted the Aton teaching

fervently. But meanwhile the political needs of the empire were

neglected; the dangers which threatened it at the end of the reign of

Amenophis III. were never properly met; the dynasts in Syria were at war

amongst themselves, intriguing with the great Hittite advance and with

the Khabiri invaders. Those who relied on Pharaoh and remained loyal as

their fathers had done sent letter after letter appealing for aid

against their foes. But though a general was despatched with some

troops, he seems to have done more harm than good in misjudging the

quarrels. At length the tone of the letters becomes one of despair, in

which flight to Egypt appears the only resource left for the adherents

of the Egyptian cause. Before the end of the reign Egyptian rule in

Syria had probably ceased altogether. Akhenaton died in or about the

seventeenth year of his reign, c. 1350 B.C. He had a family of

daughters, who appeared constantly with him in all ceremonies, but no

son. Two sons-in-law followed him with brief reigns; but the second,

Tutenkhaton, soon changed his name to Tutenkhamun, and, without

abandoning Ekhaton entirely, began to restore to Karnak its ancient

splendour, with new monuments dedicated to Ammon. Akhenaton's reform had

not reached deep amongst the masses of the population; they probably

retained all their old religious customs and superstitions, while the

priesthoods throughout the country must have been fiercely opposed to

the heretic's work, even if silenced during his lifetime by force and

bribes. One more adherent of his named Ay, a priest, ruled for a short

time, but now Aton was only one of many gods. At length a general named

Harmahib, who had served under Akhenaton, came to the throne as a

whole-hearted supporter of the old religion; soon Aton and his royal

following suffered the fate that they had imposed upon Ammon; their

monuments were destroyed and their names and figures erased, while those

of Ammon were restored. From the time of Rameses II. onwards the years

of the reigns of the heretics were counted to Harmahib, and Akhenaton

was described as "that criminal of Akhetaton." Harmahib had to bring

order as a practical man into the long-neglected administration of the

country and to suppress the extortions of the official classes by severe

measures. His laws to this end were engraved on a great stela in the

temple of Karnak, of which sufficient remains to bear witness to his

high aims, while the prosperity of the succeeding reigns shows how well

he realized the necessities of the state. He probably began also to

re-establish the prestige of Egypt by military expeditions in the

surrounding countries.

XIXth Dynasty.

Rameses II.

Harmahib appears to have legitimated his rule by marriage to a royal

princess, but it is probable that Rameses I., who succeeded as founder

of the XIXth Dynasty, was not closely related to him. Rameses in his

brief reign of two years planned and began the great colonnaded hall of

Karnak, proving that he was a man of great ideas, though probably too

old to carry them out; this task he left to his son Seti I., who reigned

one year with his father and on the latter's death was ready at once to

subdue the Bedouin Shasu, who had invaded Palestine and withheld all

tribute. This task was quickly accomplished and Seti pushed onward to

the Lebanon. Here cedars were felled for him by the Syrian princes, and

the Phoenicians paid homage before he returned home in triumph. The

Libyans had also to be dealt with, and afterwards Seti advanced again

through Palestine, ravaged the land of the Amorites and came into

conflict with the Hittites. The latter, however, were now firmly

established in the Orontes valley, and a treaty with Mutallu, the king

of Kheta, reigning far away in Cappadocia, probably ended the wars of

Seti. In his ninth year he turned his attention to the gold mines in the

eastern desert of Nubia and improved the road thither. Meanwhile the

great work at Karnak projected by his father was going forward, and

throughout Egypt the injuries done to the monuments by Akhenaton were

thoroughly repaired; the erased inscriptions and figures were restored,

not without many blunders. Seti's temple at Abydos and his galleried

tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings stand out as the most

splendid examples of their kind in design and in decoration. Rameses II.

succeeded at an early age and reigned sixty-seven years, during which he

finished much that was begun by Seti and filled all Egypt and Nubia with

his own monuments, some of them beautiful, but most, necessarily

entrusted to inferior workmen, of coarse execution. The excavation of

the rock temple of Abu Simbel and the completion of the great hall of

Karnak were his greatest achievements in architecture. His wars began in

his second year, their field comprising the Nubians, the Libyans, the

Syrians and the Hittites. In his fifth year, near Kadesh on the Orontes,

his army was caught unprepared and divided by a strong force of chariots

of the Hittites and their allies, and Rameses himself was placed in the

most imminent danger; but through his personal courage the enemy was

kept at bay till reinforcements came up and turned the disaster into a

victory. The incidents of this episode were a favourite subject in the

sculptures of his temples, where their representation was accompanied by

a poetical version of the affair and other explanatory inscriptions.

Kadesh, however, was not captured, and after further contests, in his

twenty-first year Rameses and the Hittite king Khattusil (Kheta-sar)

made peace, with a defensive alliance against foreign aggression and

internal revolt (see HITTITES). Thanks to Winckler's discoveries, the

cuneiform text of this treaty from Boghaz Keui can now be compared with

the hieroglyphic text at Karnak. In the thirty-fourth year, c. 1250

B.C., Khattusil with his friend or subject the king of Kode came from

his distant capital to see the wonders of Egypt in person, bringing one

of his daughters to be wife of the splendid Pharaoh. Rameses II. paid

much attention to the Delta, which had been neglected until the days of

Seti I., and resided there constantly; the temple of Tanis must have

been greatly enlarged and adorned by him; a colossus of the king placed

here was over 90 ft. in height, exceeding in scale even the greatest of

the Theban colossi which he had erected in his mortuary temple of the

Ramesseum. Towards the end of the long reign the vigilance and energy of

the old king diminished. The military spirit awakened in the struggle

with the Hyksos had again departed from the Egyptian nation; mercenaries

from the Sudan, from Libya and from the northern nations supplied the

armies, while foreigners settled in the rich lands of the Delta and

harried the coasts. It was a time too when the movements of the nations

that so frequently occurred in the ancient world were about to be

particularly active. Mineptah, c. 1225 B.C., succeeding his father

Rameses II., had to fight many battles for the preservation of his

kingdom and empire. Apparently most of the fighting was finished by the

fifth year of his reign; in his mortuary temple at Thebes he set up a

stela of that date recording a great victory over the Libyan immigrants

and invaders, which rendered the much harried land of Egypt safe. The

last lines picture this condition with the crushing of the surrounding

tribes. Libya was wasted, the Hittites pacified, Canaan, Ashkelon

(Ascalon), Gezer, Yenoam sacked and plundered: "Israel is desolated, his

seed is not, Khor (Palestine) has become a widow (without protector) for

Egypt." The Libyans are accompanied by allies whose names, Sherden,

Shekelesh, Ekwesh, Lukku, Teresh, suggest identifications with

Sardinians, Sicels, Achaeans, Lycians and Tyrseni or Etruscans. The

Sherden had been in the armies of Rameses II., and are distinguished by

their remarkable helmets and apparently body armour of metal. The Lukku

are certainly the same as the Lycians. Probably they were all sea-rovers

from the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, who were willing to

leave their ships and join the Libyans in raids on the rich lands of

Egypt. Mineptah was one of the most unconscionable usurpers of the

monuments of his predecessors, including those of his own father, who,

it must be admitted, had set him the example. The coarse cutting of his

cartouches contrasts with the splendid finish of the Middle Kingdom work

which they disfigure. It may be questioned whether it was due to a wave

of enthusiasm amongst the priests and people, leading them to rededicate

the monuments in the name of their deliverer, or a somewhat insane

desire of the king to perpetuate his own memory in a singularly

unfortunate manner. Mineptah, the thirteenth son in the huge family of

Rameses, must have been old when he ascended the throne; after his first

years of reign his energies gave way, and he was followed by a quick

succession of inglorious rulers, Seti II., the queen Tuosri, Amenmesse,

Siptah; the names of the last two were erased from their monuments.

XXth Dynasty.

A great papyrus written after the death of Rameses III. and recording his

gifts to the temples briefly reviews the conditions of these troublous

times. "The land of Egypt was in the hands of chiefs and rulers of towns,

great and small slaying each other; afterwards a certain Syrian made

himself chief; he made the whole land tributary before him; he united his

companions and plundered their property (i.e. of the other chiefs). They

made the gods like men, and no offerings were presented in the temples.

But when the gods inclined themselves to peace ... they established their

son Setenkhot (Setnekht) to be ruler of every land." Of the Syrian

occupation we know nothing further. Setenkhot, c. 1200 B.C., had a very

short reign and was not counted as legitimate, but he established a

lasting dynasty (probably by conciliating the priesthood). He was father

of Rameses III., who revived the glories of the empire. The dangers that

menaced Egypt now were similar to those which Mineptah had to meet at his

accession. Again the Libyans and the "peoples of the sea" were acting in

concert. The latter now comprised Peleset (the Cretans, ancestors of the

Philistines), Thekel, Shekelesh, Denyen (Danaoi?) and Weshesh; they had

invaded Syria from Asia Minor, reaching the Euphrates, destroying the

Hittite cities and progressing southwards, while their ships gathered

plunder from the coasts of the Delta. This fleet joined the Libyan

invaders, but was overthrown with heavy loss by the Egyptians, in whose

ranks there actually served many Sherden and Kehaka, Sardinian and Libyan

mercenaries. Egypt itself was thus clear of enemies; but the chariots and

warriors of the Philistines and their associates were advancing through

Syria, their families and goods following in ox-carts, and their ships

accompanying them along the shore. Rameses led out his army and fleet

against them and struck them so decisive a blow that the migrating swarm

submitted to his rule and paid him tribute. In his eleventh year another

Libyan invasion had to be met, and his suzerainty in Palestine forcibly

asserted. His vigour was equal to all these emergencies and the later

years of his reign were spent in peace. Rameses III., however, was not a

great ruler. He was possessed by the spirit of decadence, imitative

rather than originating. It is evident that Rameses II. was the model to

which he endeavoured to conform, and he did not attempt to preserve

himself from the weakening influences of priestcraft. To the temples he

not only restored the property which had been given to them by former

kings, but he also added greatly to their wealth; the Theban Ammon

naturally received by far the greatest share, more than those of all the

other gods together. The land held in the name of different deities is

estimated at about 15% of the whole of Egypt; various temples of Ammon

owned two-thirds of this, Re of Heliopolis and Ptah of Memphis being the

next in wealth. His palace was at Medinet Habu on the west bank of Thebes

in the south quarter; and here he built a great temple to Ammon, adorned

with scenes from his victories and richly provided with divine offerings.

Although Egypt probably was prosperous on the whole, there was

undoubtedly great distress amongst certain portions of the population. We

read in a papyrus of a strike of starving labourers in the Theban

necropolis who would not work until corn was given to them, and

apparently the government storehouse was empty at the time, perhaps in

consequence of a bad Nile. Shortly before the death of the old king a

plot in the harem to assassinate him, and apparently to place one of his

sons on the throne, was discovered and its investigation ordered, leading

after his death to the condemnation of many high-placed men and women.

Nine kings of the name of Rameses now followed each other ingloriously in

the space of about eighty years to the end of the XXth Dynasty, the power

of the high priests of Ammon ever growing at their expense. At this time

the Theban necropolis was being more systematically robbed than ever

before. Under Rameses IX. an investigation took place which showed that

one of the royal tombs before the western cliffs had been completely

ransacked and the mummies burnt. Three years later the Valley of the

Tombs of the Kings was attacked and the sepulchres of Seti I. and Rameses

II. were robbed.

The Deltaic Dynasties; Libyan period.

The authority of the last king of the XXth Dynasty, Rameses XII., was

shadowy. Hrihor, the high priest in his reign, gradually gathered into

his own hands all real power, and succeeded him at Thebes, c. 1100 B.C.,

while a prince at Tanis named Smendes (Esbenteti) founded a separate

dynasty in the Delta (Dynasty XXI.). From this period dates a remarkable

papyrus containing the report of an envoy named Unamun, sent to Syria by

Hrihor to obtain cedar timber from Byblus. He took with him an image of

Ammon to bestow life and health on the prince of Byblus, but apparently

no other provision for the journey or for the negotiations beyond a

letter of recommendation to Smendes and a little gold and silver.

Smendes had trading ships in the Phoenician ports, but even his

influence was not greater than that of other commercial or pirate

centres, while Hrihor was of no account except in so far as he might pay

well for the cedar wood he required. Unamun was robbed on the voyage,

the prince of Byblus rebuffed him, and when at last the latter agreed to

provide the timber it was only in exchange for substantial gifts hastily

sent for from Egypt (including rolls of papyrus) and the promise of more

to follow. The prince, however, seems to have acknowledged to some

extent the divinity of Ammon and the debt owed by Phoenicia to Egyptian

culture, and pitied the many misfortunes of Unamun. The narrative shows

the feebleness of Egypt abroad. The Tanite line of kings generally had

the over-lordship of the high priests of Thebes; the descendants of

Hrihor, however, sometimes by marriage with princesses of the other

line, could assume cartouches and royal titles, and in some cases

perhaps ruled the whole of Egypt. Ethiopia may have been ruled with the

Thebais, but the records of the time are very scanty. Syria was wholly

lost to Egypt. The mummies from the despoiled tombs of the kings were

the object of much anxious care to the kings of this dynasty; after

being removed from one tomb to another, they were finally deposited in a

shaft near the temple of Deir el Bahri, where they remained for nearly

three thousand years, until the demand for antiquities at last brought

the plunderer once more to their hiding-place; eventually they were all

secured for the Cairo museum, where they may now be seen.

Libyan soldiers had long been employed in the army, and their military

chiefs settled in the large towns and acquired wealth and power, while

the native rulers grew weaker and weaker. The Tanite dynasty may have

risen from a Libyan stock, though there is nothing to prove it; the

XXIInd Dynasty are clearly from their names of foreign extraction, and

their genealogy indicates distinctly a Libyan military origin in a

family of rulers of Heracleopolis Magna, in Middle Egypt. Sheshonk

(Shishak) I., the founder of the dynasty, c. 950 B.C., seems to have

fixed his residence at Bubastis in the Delta, and his son married the

daughter of the last king of the Tanite dynasty. Heracleopolis seems

henceforth for several centuries to have been capital of Middle Egypt,

which was considered as a more or less distinct province. Sheshonk

secured Thebes, making one of his sons high priest of Ammon, and whereas

Solomon appears to have dealt with a king of Egypt on something like an

equal footing, Sheshonk re-established Egyptian rule in Palestine and

Nubia, and his expedition in the fifth year of Rehoboam subdued Israel

as well as Judah, to judge by the list of city names which he inscribed

on the wall of the temple of Karnak. Osorkon I. inherited a prosperous

kingdom from his father, but no further progress was made. It required a

strong hand to curb the Libyan chieftains, and divisions soon began to

show themselves in the kingdom. The XXIInd Dynasty lasted through many

generations; but there were rival kings, and M. Legrain thinks that he

has proof that the XXIIIrd Dynasty was contemporaneous with the end of

the XXIInd. The kings of the XXIIIrd Dynasty had little hold upon the

subject princes, who spent the resources of the country in feuds amongst

themselves. A native kingdom had meanwhile been established in Ethiopia.

Our first knowledge of it is at this moment, when the Ethiopian king

Pankhi already held the Thebais. The energetic prince of Sais, Tefnakht,

followed by most of the princes of the Delta, subdued most of Middle

Egypt, and by uniting these forces threatened the Ethiopian border.

Heracleopolis Magna, however, with its petty king Pefteuaubasti, held

out against Tefnakht, and Pankhi coming to its aid not only drove

Tefnakht out of Middle Egypt, but also captured Memphis and received the

submission of the princes and chiefs; in all these included four "kings"

and fourteen other chiefs. According to Diodorus the Ethiopian state was

theocratic, ruled through the king by the priests of Ammon. The account

is probably exaggerated; but even in Pankhi's record the piety of the

king, especially towards Ammon, is very marked.

Ethiopian Dynasty.

The XXIVth Dynasty consisted of a single Saite king named Bocchoris

(Bekerrinf), son of Tefnachthus, apparently the above Tefnakht. Another

Ethiopian invader, Shabako (Sabacon), is said to have burnt Bocchoris

alive. The Ethiopian rule of the XXVth Dynasty was now firmly

established, and the resources of the two countries together might have

been employed in conquest in Syria and Phoenicia; but at this very time

the Assyrian empire, risen to the highest pitch of military greatness,

began to menace Egypt. The Ethiopian could do no more than encourage or

support the Syrians in their fight for freedom against Sargon and

Sennacherib. Shabako was followed by Shebitku and Shebitku by Tirhaka

(Tahrak, Taracos). Tirhaka was energetic in opposing the Assyrian

advance, but in 670 B.C. Esarhaddon defeated his army on the border of

Egypt, captured Memphis with the royal harem and took great spoil. The

Egyptian resistance to the Assyrians was probably only half-hearted; in

the north especially there must have been a strong party against the

Ethiopian rule. Tirhaka laboured to propitiate the north country, and

probably rendered the Ethiopian rule acceptable throughout Egypt.

Notwithstanding, the Assyrian king entrusted the government and

collection of tribute to the native chiefs; twenty princes in all are

enumerated in the records, including one Assyrian to hold the key of

Egypt at Pelusium. Scarcely had Esarhaddon withdrawn before Tirhaka

returned from his refuge in the south and the Assyrian garrisons were

massacred. Esarhaddon promptly prepared a second expedition, but died on

the way to Egypt in 668 B.C.; his son Assur-bani-pal sent it forward,

routed Tirhaka and reinstated the governors. At the head of these was

Necho (Niku), king of Sais and Memphis, father of Psammetichus, the

founder of the XXVIth Dynasty. We next hear that correspondence with

Tirhaka was intercepted, and that Necho, together with Pekrur of Psapt

(at the entrance to the Wadi Tumilat) and the Assyrian governor of

Pelusium, was taken to Nineveh in chains to answer the charge of

treason. Whatever may have occurred, it was deemed politic to send Necho

back loaded with honours and surrounded by a retinue of Assyrian

officials. Upper Egypt, however, was loyal to Tirhaka, and even at

Memphis the burial of an Apis bull was dated by the priests as in his

reign. Immediately afterwards he died. His nephew Tandamane, received by

the Upper country with acclamations, besieged and captured Memphis,

Necho being probably slain in the encounter. But in 661 (?)

Assur-bani-pal drove the Ethiopian out of Lower Egypt, pursued him up

the Nile and sacked Thebes. This was the last and most tremendous

visitation of the Assyrian scourge.

XXVIth Dynasty.

Psammetichus (Psammetk), 664-610 B.C., the son of Necho, succeeded his

father as a vassal of Assyria in his possessions of Memphis and Sais,

allied himself with Gyges, king of Lydia, and aided by Ionian and Carian

mercenaries, extended and consolidated his power.[21] By the ninth year

of his reign he was in full possession of Thebes. Assur-bani-pal's

energies throughout this crisis were entirely occupied with revolts

nearer home, in Babylon, Elam and Arabia. The Assyrian arms again

triumphed everywhere, but at the cost of complete exhaustion. Under the

firm and wise rule of Psammetichus, Egypt recovered its prosperity after

the terrible losses inflicted by internal wars and the decade of

Assyrian invasions. The revenue went up by leaps and bounds.

Psammetichus guarded the frontiers of Egypt with three strong garrisons,

placing the Ionian and Carian mercenaries especially at the Pelusiac

Daphnae in the N.E., from which quarter the most formidable enemy was

likely to appear. The Assyrians did not move against him, but a great

Scythian horde, destroying all before it in its southward advance, is

said by Herodotus to have been turned back by presents and entreaties.

Diplomacy backed up by vigorous preparations may have deterred the

Scythians from the dangerous enterprise of crossing the desert to Egypt.

Before his death Psammetichus had advanced into southern Palestine and

captured Azotus.

When Psammetichus began to reign the situation of Egypt was very

different from what it had been under the Empire. The development of

trade in the Mediterranean and contact with new peoples and new

civilizations in peace and war had given birth to new ideas among the

Egyptians and at the same time to a loss of confidence in their own

powers. The Theban supremacy was gone and the Delta was now the wealthy

and progressive part of Egypt; piety increased amongst the masses,

unenterprising and unwarlike, but proud of their illustrious antiquity.

Thebes and Ammon and the traditions of the Empire savoured too much now

of the Ethiopian; the priests of the Memphite and Deltaic dynasty

thereupon turned deliberately for their models to the times of the

ancient supremacy of Memphis, and the sculptures and texts on tomb and

temple had to conform as closely as possible to those of the Old

Kingdom. In other than religious matters, however, the Egyptians were

inventing and perhaps borrowing. To enumerate a few examples of this

which are already definitely known: we find that the forms of legal and

business documents became more precise; the mechanical arts of casting

in bronze on a core and of moulding figures and pottery were brought to

the highest pitch of excellence; and portraiture in the round on its

highest plane was better than ever before and admirably lifelike,

revealing careful study of the external anatomy of the individual.

Psammetichus died in the fifty-fourth year of his reign and was

succeeded by his son Necho, 610-594 B.C. Taking advantage of the

helpless state of the Assyrians, whose capital was assailed by the Medes

and the Babylonians, the new Pharaoh prepared an expedition to recover

the ancient possessions of the Empire in Syria. Josiah alone, faithful

to the king of Assyria, opposed him with his feeble force at Megiddo and

was easily overcome and slain. Necho went forward to the Euphrates, put

the land to tribute, and, in the case of Judah at any rate, filled the

throne with his own nominee (see JEHOIAKIM). The fall of Nineveh and the

division of the spoil gave to Nabopolasser, king of Babylon, the

inheritance of the Assyrians in the west, and he at once despatched his

son Nebuchadrezzar to fight Necho. The Babylonian and Egyptian forces

met at Carchemish (605), and the rout of the latter was so complete that

Necho relinquished Syria and might have lost Egypt as well had not the

death of Nabopolasser recalled the victor to Babylon. Herodotus relates

that in Necho's reign a Phoenician ship despatched from Egypt actually

circumnavigated Africa, and the attempt was made to complete a canal

through the Wadi Tumilat, which connected the Mediterranean and Red Seas

by way of the Lower Egyptian Nile. (See SUEZ.) The next king,

Psammetichus II., 594-589 B.C., according to one account made an

expedition to Syria or Phoenicia, and apparently sent a mercenary force

into Ethiopia as far as Abu Simbel. Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), 589-570

B.C., fomented rebellion against the Babylonian suzerainty in Judah, but

accomplished little there. Herodotus, however, describes his reign as

exceedingly prosperous. The mercenary troops at Elephantine mutinied and

attempted to desert to Ethiopia, but were brought back and punished.

Later, however, a disastrous expedition sent to aid the Libyans against

the Greek colony of Cyrene roused the suspicion and anger of the native

soldiery at favours shown to the mercenaries, who of course had taken no

part in it. Amasis (Ahmosi) II. was chosen king by the former (570-525

B.C.), and his swarm of adherents overcame the Greek troops in Apries'

pay (see AMASIS). None the less Amasis employed Greeks in numbers, and

cultivated the friendship of their tyrants. His rule was confined to

Egypt (and perhaps Cyprus), but Egypt itself was very prosperous. At the

beginning of his long reign of forty-four years he was threatened by

Nebuchadrezzar; later he joined the league against Cyrus and saw with

alarm the fall of his old enemy. A few months after his death, 525 B.C.,

the invading host of the Persians led by Cambyses reached Egypt and

dethroned his son Psammetichus III.

The Persian period, XXVIIth Dynasty.

Cambyses at first conciliated the Egyptians and respected their

religion; but, perhaps after the failure of his expedition into

Ethiopia, he entirely changed his policy, and his memory was generally

execrated. He left Egypt so completely crushed that the subsequent

usurpation of the Persian throne was marked by no revolt in that

quarter. Darius, 521-486 B.C., proved himself a beneficent ruler, and in

a visit to Egypt displayed his consideration for the religion of the

country. In the Great Oasis he built a temple to Ammon. The annual

tribute imposed on the satrapy of Egypt and Cyrene was heavy, but it was

probably raised with ease. The canal from the Nile to the Red Sea was

completed or repaired, and commerce flourished. Documents dated in the

thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth years of Darius are not uncommon, but

apparently at the very end of his reign, some years after the disaster

of Marathon, Egypt was induced to rebel. Xerxes, 486-467 B.C., who put

down the revolt with severity, and his successor Artaxerxes, 466-425

B.C., like Cambyses, were hateful to the Egyptians. The disorders which

marked the accession of Artaxerxes gave Egypt another opportunity to

rebel. Their leaders were Inaros the Libyan of Marea and the Egyptian

Amyrtaeus. Aided by an Athenian force, Inaros slew the satrap Achaemenes

at the battle of Papremis and destroyed his army; but the garrison of

Memphis held out, and a fresh host from Persia raised the siege and in

turn besieged the Greek and Egyptian forces on the island of Papremis.

At last, after two years, having diverted the river from its channel,

they captured and burnt the Athenian ships and quickly ended the

rebellion. The reigns of Xerxes II. and Darius II. are marked by no

recorded incident in Egypt until a successful revolt about 405 B.C.

interrupted the Persian domination.

Monuments of the Persian rule in Egypt are exceedingly scanty. The

inscriptions of Pefteuauneit, priest of Neith at Sais, and from his

position the native authority who was most likely to be consulted by

Cambyses and Darius, tells of his relations with these two kings. For

the following reigns Egyptian documents hardly exist, but some papyri

written in Aramaic have been found at Elephantine and at Memphis. Those

from the former locality show that a colony of Jews with a temple

dedicated to Yahweh (Jehovah) had established themselves at that

garrison and trading post (see ASSUAN). Herodotus visited Egypt in the

reign of Artaxerxes, about 440 B.C. His description of Egypt, partly

founded on Hecataeus, who had been there about fifty years earlier, is

the chief source of information for the history of the Saite kings and

for the manners of the times, but his statements prove to be far from

correct when they can be checked by the scanty native evidence.

(F. Ll. G.)

Dynasties XXVIII.-XXXI.

Amyrtaeus (Amnertais) of Sais, perhaps a son of Pausiris and grandson of

the earlier Amyrtaeus, revolted from Darius II. c. 405 B.C., and Egypt

regained its independence for about sixty years. The next king Nefeuret

(Nepherites I.) was a Mendesian and founded the XXIXth Dynasty. After

Hakor and Nefeuret II. the sovereignty passed to Dynasty XXX., the last

native Egyptian line. Monuments of all these kings are known, and art

flourished particularly under the Mendesian kings Nekhtharheb

(Nectanebes or Nectanebus I.) and Nekhtnebf (Nectanebes II.). The former

came to the throne when a Persian invasion was imminent, 378 B.C. Hakor

had already formed a powerful army, largely composed of Greek

mercenaries. This army Nekhtharheb entrusted to the Athenian Chabrias.

The Persians, however, succeeded in causing his recall and in gaining

the services of his fellow-countryman Iphicrates. The invading army

consisted of 200,000 barbarians under Pharnabazus and 20,000 Greeks

under Iphicrates. After the Egyptians had experienced a reverse,

Iphicrates counselled an immediate advance on Memphis. His advice was

not followed by Pharnabazus; the Egyptian king collected his forces and

won a pitched battle near Mendes. Pharnabazus retreated and Egypt was

free.

Nekhtharheb was succeeded by Tachos or Teos, whose short reign was

occupied by a war with Persia, in which the king of Egypt secured the

services of a body of Greek mercenaries under the Spartan king Agesilaus

and a fleet under the Athenian general Chabrias. He entered Phoenicia

with every prospect of success, but having offended Agesilaus he was

dethroned in a military revolt which gave the crown to Nekhtnebf or

Nectanebes II., the last native king of Egypt. At this moment a revolt

broke out. The prince of Mendes almost succeeded in overthrowing the new

king. Agesilaus defeated the rival pretender and left Nekhtnebf

established on the throne. But the opportunity of a decisive blow

against Persia was lost. The new king, Artaxerxes III. Ochus, determined

to reduce Egypt. A first expedition was defeated by the Greek

mercenaries of Nekhtnebf, but a second, commanded by Ochus himself,

subdued Egypt with no further resistance than that of the Greek garrison

of Pelusium. Nekhtnebf, instead of endeavouring to relieve them,

retreated to Memphis and fled thence to Ethiopia, 340 (?) B.C. Thus

miserably fell the monarchy of the Pharaohs, after an unexampled

duration of 3000 years, or as some think far longer. More than 2000

years have since passed, and though Egypt has from time to time been

independent, not one native prince has sat on the throne of the

Pharaohs. "There shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt" (Ezek.

xxx. 13) was prophesied in the days of Apries as the final state of the

land.

Ochus treated his conquest barbarously. From this brief re-establishment

of Persian dominion (counted by Manetho as Dynasty XXXI.) no document

survives except one papyrus that appears to be dated in the reign of

Darius III.

See J. H. Breasted, _A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the

Persian Conquest_ (New York and London, 1905); _A History of the

Ancient Egyptians_ (New York and London, 1908); _Ancient Records of

Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian

Conquest, collected, edited and translated_ (5 vols., Chicago,

1906-1907); W. M. F. Petrie, _A History of Egypt_ (from the earliest

times to the XXXth Dynasty) (3 vols., London, 1899-1905); E. A. W.

Budge, _A History of Egypt_, vols. i-vii. (London, 1902); G. Maspero,

_Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'orient_ (6th ed., 1904), _The Dawn

of Civilization, The Struggle of the Nations, The Passing of the

Empires_ (London, 1904, &c.); P. E. Newberry and J. Garstang, _A Short

History of Ancient Egypt_ (London, 1904); G. Steindorff, _Die

Blutezeit des Pharaonenreiches_ (Dyn. XVIII.) (Bielefeld and Leipzig,

1900); H. Winckler, _The Tell el Amarna Letters_ (Berlin, London and

New York, 1896).

_The Conquest by Alexander._--When, in 332 B.C., after the battle of

Issus, Alexander entered Egypt, he was welcomed as a deliverer. The

Persian governor had not forces enough to oppose him, and he nowhere

experienced even the show of resistance. He visited Memphis, founded

Alexandria, and went on pilgrimage to the oracle of Ammon (Oasis of

Siwa). The god declared him to be his son, renewing thus an old Egyptian

convention or belief; Olympias was supposed to have been in converse

with Ammon, even as the mothers of Hatshepsut and Amenophis III. are

represented in the inscriptions of the Theban temples to have received

the divine essence. At this stage of his career the treasure and tribute

of Egypt were of great importance to the Macedonian conqueror. He

conciliated the inhabitants by the respect which he showed for their

religion; he organized the government of the natives under two officers,

who must have been already known to them (of these Petisis, an Egyptian,

soon resigned his share into the charge of his colleague Doloaspis, who

bears a Persian name.) But Alexander designed his Greek foundation of

Alexandria to be the capital, and entrusted the taxation of Egypt and

the control of its army and navy to Greeks. Early in 331 B.C. he was

ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia. A granite gateway

to the temple of Khnum at Elephantine bears his name in hieroglyphic,

and demotic documents are found dated in his reign.

_The Ptolemaic Period._--On the division of Alexander's dominions in 323

B.C., Egypt fell to Ptolemy the son of Lagus, the founder of the

Ptolemaic dynasty (see PTOLEMIES). Under these rulers the rich kingdom

was heavily taxed to supply the sinews of war and to support every kind

of lavish expenditure. Officials, and the higher ones were nearly all

Greeks, were legion, but the whole system was so judiciously worked that

there was little discontent amongst the patient peasantry. During the

reign of Philadelphus the land gained from the bed of the lake of Moeris

was assigned to veteran soldiers; the great armies of the Ptolemies were

rewarded or supported by grants of farm lands, and men of Macedonian,

Greek and Hellenistic extraction were planted in colonies and garrisons

or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper

Egypt, farthest from the centre of government, was probably least

affected by the new influences, though the first Ptolemy established the

Greek colony of Ptolemais to be its capital. Intermarriages, however,

gradually had their effect; after the revolt of the natives in the reign

of Ptolemy V., we find the Greek and Egyptian elements closely

intermingled. Ptolemy I. had established the cult of the Memphite

Serapis in a Graeco-Egyptian form, affording a common ground for native

and Hellenistic worshippers. The greater number of the temples to the

native deities in Upper Egypt and in Nubia (to 50 m. south of the

Cataract, within the Dodecaschoenus) were built under the Ptolemies. No

serious effort was made to extend the Ptolemaic rule into Ethiopia, and

Ergamenes, the Hellenizing king of Ethiopia, was evidently in alliance

with Philopator; in the next reign two native kings, probably supported

by Ethiopia, reigned in succession at Thebes. That famous city lost all

except its religious importance under the Ptolemies; after the

"destruction" or dismantling by Lathyrus it formed only a series of

villages. The population of Egypt in the time of Ptolemy I. is put at

7,000,000 by Diodorus, who also says that it was greater then than it

ever was before; at the end of the dynasty, in his own day, it was not

much less though somewhat diminished. Civil wars and revolts must have

greatly injured both Upper and Lower Egypt. It is remarkable that, while

the building and decoration of temples continued in the reigns of

Ptolemy Auletes and the later Ptolemies and Cleopatra, papyri of those

times whether Greek or Egyptian are scarcely to be found.

Christianity.

_The Roman Period._--In 30 B.C. Augustus took Egypt as the prize of

conquest. He treated it as a part of his personal domain, free from any

interference by the senate. In the main lines the Ptolemaic organization

was preserved, but Romans were gradually introduced into the highest

offices. On Egypt Rome depended for its supplies of corn; entrenched

there, a revolting general would be difficult to attack, and by simply

holding back the grain ships could threaten Rome with starvation. No

senator therefore was permitted to take office or even to set foot in

the country without the emperor's special leave, and by way of

precaution the highest position, that of prefect, was filled by a Roman

of equestrian rank only. As the representative of the emperor, this

officer assumed the place occupied by the king under the old order,

except that his power was limited by the right of appeal to Caesar. The

first prefect, Cornelius Gallus, tamed the natives of Upper Egypt to the

new yoke by force of arms, and meeting ambassadors from Ethiopia at

Philae, established a nominal protectorate of Rome over the frontier

district, which had been abandoned by the later Ptolemies. The third

prefect, Gaius Petronius, cleared the neglected canals for irrigation;

he also repelled an invasion of the Ethiopians and pursued them far up

the Nile, finally storming the capital of Napata. But no attempt was

made to hold Ethiopia. In succeeding reigns much trouble was caused by

jealousies and quarrels between the Greeks and the Jews, to whom

Augustus had granted privileges as valuable as those accorded to the

Greeks. Aiming at the spice trade, Aelius Gallus, the second prefect of

Egypt under Augustus, had made an unsuccessful expedition to conquer

Arabia Felix; the valuable Indian trade, however, was secured by

Claudius for Egypt at the expense of Arabia, and the Red Sea routes were

improved. Nero's reign especially marks the commencement of an era of

prosperity which lasted about a century. Under Vespasian the Jewish

temple at Leontopolis in the Delta, which Onias had founded in the reign

of Ptolemy Philometor, was closed; worse still, a great Jewish revolt

and massacre of the Greeks in the reign of Trajan resulted, after a

stubborn conflict of many months with the Roman army under Marcius

Livianus Turbo, in the virtual extermination of the Jews in Alexandria

and the loss of all their privileges. Hadrian, who twice visited Egypt

(A.D. 130, 134), founded Antinoe in memory of his drowned favourite.

From this reign onwards buildings in the Graeco-Roman style were erected

throughout the country. A new Sothic cycle began in A.D. 139. Under

Marcus Aurelius a revolt of the Bucolic or native troops recruited for

home service was taken up by the whole of the native population and was

suppressed only after several years of fighting. The Bucolic war caused

infinite damage to the agriculture of the country and marks the

beginning of its rapid decline under a burdensome taxation. The province

of Africa was now of equal importance with Egypt for the grain supply of

the capital. Avidius Cassius, who led the Roman forces in the war,

usurped the purple, and was acknowledged by the armies of Syria and

Egypt. On the approach of Marcus Aurelius, the adherents of Cassius slew

him, and the clemency of the emperor restored peace. After the downfall

of the house of the Antonines, Pescennius Niger, who commanded the

forces in Egypt, was proclaimed emperor on the death of Pertinax (A.D.

193). Severus overthrew his rival (A.D. 194) and, the revolt having been

a military one, did not punish the province; in 202 he gave a

constitution to Alexandria and the nome capitals. In his reign the

Christians of Egypt suffered the first of their many persecutions. When

Christianity was planted in the country we do not know, but it must very

early have gained adherents among the learned Jews of Alexandria, whose

school of thought was in some respects ready to welcome it. From them it

rapidly passed to the Greeks. Ultimately the new religion spread to the

Egyptians; their own creed was worn out, and they found in Christianity

a doctrine of the future life for which their old belief had made them

not unready; while the social teaching of Christianity came with special

fitness to a subject race. The history of the Coptic Version has yet to

be written. It presents some features of great antiquity, and, unlike

all others, has the truly popular character of being written in the

three dialects of the language. Side by side there grew up an

Alexandrian church, philosophic, disputative, ambitious, the very centre

of Christian learning, and an Egyptian church, ascetic, contemplative,

mystical. The two at length influenced one another; still we can

generally trace the philosophic teachers to a Greek origin, the mystics

to an Egyptian.

Caracalla, in revenge for an affront, massacred all the men capable of

bearing arms in Alexandria. His granting of the Roman citizenship to all

Egyptians in common with the other provincials was only to extort more

taxes. Under Decius, A.D. 250, the Christians again suffered from

persecution. When the empire broke up in the weak reign of Gallienus,

the prefect Aemilianus, who took the surname Alexander or Alexandrinus,

was made emperor by the troops at Alexandria, but was conquered by the

forces of Gallienus. In his brief reign of only a few months he had

driven back an invasion of the Blemmyes. This predatory tribe, issuing

from Nubia, was long to be the terror of Upper Egypt. Zenobia, queen of

Palmyra, after an unsuccessful invasion, on a second attempt conquered

Egypt, which she added to her empire, but lost it when Aurelian made war

upon her (A.D. 272). The province was, however, unsettled, and the

conquest of Palmyra was followed in the same year by the suppression of

a revolt in Egypt (A.D. 273). Probus, who had governed Egypt for

Aurelian and Tacitus, was subsequently chosen by the troops to succeed

Tacitus, and is the first governor of this province who obtained the

whole of the empire. He expelled the Blemmyes, who were dominating the

whole of the Thebaid. Diocletian invited the Nobatae to settle in the

Dodecaschoenus as a barrier against their incursions, and subsidized

both Blemmyes and Nobatae. The country, however, was still disturbed,

and in A.D. 296 a formidable revolt broke out, led by Achilleus, who as

emperor took the name Domitius Domitianus. Diocletian, finding his

troops unable to determine the struggle, came to Egypt, captured

Alexandria and put his rival to death (296). He then reorganized the

whole province, and the well-known "Pompey's Pillar" was set up by the

grateful and repentant Alexandrians to commemorate his gift to them of

part of the corn tribute.

The Coptic era of Diocletian or of the Martyrs dates from the accession

of Diocletian (A.D. 284). The edict of A.D. 303 against the Christians,

and those which succeeded it, were rigorously carried out in Egypt,

where Paganism was still strong and face to face with a strong and

united church. Galerius, who succeeded Diocletian in the government of

the East, implacably pursued his policy, and this great persecution did

not end until the persecutor, perishing, it is said, of the dire malady

of Herod and Philip II. of Spain, sent out an edict of toleration (A.D.

311).

By the edict of Milan (A.D. 313), Constantine, with the agreement of his

colleague Licinius, acknowledged Christianity as having at least equal

rights with other religions, and when he gained sole power he wrote to

all his subjects advising them, like him, to become Christians (A.D.

324). The Egyptian Church, hitherto free from schism, was now divided by

a fierce controversy, in which we see two Greek parties, rather than a

Greek and an Egyptian, in conflict. The council of Nicaea was called

together (A.D. 325) to determine between the Orthodox and the party of

the Alexandrian presbyter Arius. At that council the native Egyptian

bishops were chiefly remarkable for their manly protest against

enforcing celibacy on the clergy. The most conspicuous controversialist

on the Orthodox side was the young Alexandrian deacon Athanasius, who

returned home to be made archbishop of Alexandria (A.D. 326). After

being four times expelled by the Arians, and once by the emperor Julian,

he died, A.D. 373, at the moment when an Arian persecution began. So

large a proportion of the population had taken religious vows that under

Valens it became necessary to abolish the privilege of monks which

exempted them from military service. The reign of Theodosius I.

witnessed the overthrow of Arianism, and this was followed by the

suppression of Paganism, against which a final edict was promulgated

A.D. 390. In Egypt, the year before, the temple of Serapis at Alexandria

had been captured after much bloodshed by the Christian mob and turned

into a church. Generally the Coptic Christians were content to build

their churches within the ancient temples, plastering over or effacing

the sculptures which were nearest to the ground and in the way of the

worshippers. They do not seem to have been very zealous in the work of

destruction; the native religion was already dead and they had no fear

of it. The prosperity of the church was the sign of its decay, and

before long we find persecution and injustice disgracing the seat of

Athanasius. Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria (A.D. 415), expelled the

Jews from the capital with the aid of the mob, and by the murder of the

beautiful philosopher Hypatia marked the lowest depth to which ignorant

fanaticism could descend. A schism now produced lengthened civil war and

alienated Egypt from the empire. The distinction between religion and

politics seemed to be lost, and the government grew weaker and weaker.

The system of local government by citizens had now entirely disappeared.

Offices, with new Byzantine names, were now almost hereditary in the

wealthy land-owning families. The Greek rulers of the Orthodox faith

were unable to protect the tillers of the soil, and these being of the

Monophysite persuasion and having their own church and patriarch, hated

the Orthodox patriarch (who from the time of Justinian onwards was

identical with the prefect) and all his following. Towards the middle of

the 5th century, the Blemmyes, quiet since the reign of Diocletian,

recommenced their incursions, and were even joined in them by the

Nobatae. These tribes were twice brought to account severely for their

misdoings, but not effectually checked. It was in these circumstances

that Egypt fell without a conflict when attacked by Chosroes (A.D. 616).

After ten years of Persian dominion the success of Heraclius restored

Egypt to the empire, and for a time it again received a Greek governor.

The Monophysites, who had taken advantage of the Persian occupation,

were persecuted and their patriarch expelled. The Arab conquest was

welcomed by the native Christians, but with it they ceased to be the

Egyptian nation. Their language is still used in their churches, but it

is no longer spoken, and its literature, which is wholly ecclesiastical,

has been long unproductive.

The decline of Egypt was due to the purely military government of the

Romans, and their subsequent alliance with the Greek party of

Alexandria, which never represented the country. Under weak emperors,

the rest of Egypt was exposed to the inroads of savages, and left to

fall into a condition of barbarism. Ecclesiastical disputes tended to

alienate both the native population and the Alexandrians. Thus at last

the country was merely held by armed force, and the authority of the

governor was little recognized beyond the capital, except where

garrisons were stationed. There was no military spirit in a population

unused to arms, nor any disinclination to be relieved from an arbitrary

and persecuting rule. Thus the Moslem conquest was easy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Hellenistic Period._--See the special articles

ALEXANDRIA, &c., and especially PTOLEMIES; J. P. Mahaffy, _The Empire

of the Ptolemies_ (London, 1895), _A History of Egypt under_ _the

Ptolemaic Dynasty_ (London, 1899); A. Bouche-Leclercq, _Histoire des

Lagides_ (4 vols., Paris, 1903- ); E. A. W. Budge, _A History of

Egypt_, vols. vii.-viii. (London, 1902); J. G. Milne, _A History of

Egypt under Roman Rule_ (London, 1898); E. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall

of the Roman Empire_ (edited by J. B. Bury) (London, 1900). The

administration and condition of Egypt under the Ptolemaic and Roman

rules are abundantly illustrated in recently discovered papyri, see

especially the English publications of B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt

(_Memoirs of the Graeco-Roman Branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund_)

and F. G. Kenyon (British Museum Catalogues); also Mr Kenyon's annual

summaries in the _Archaeological Report of the Egypt Exploration

Fund_. An ample selection of the Greek inscriptions from Egypt is to

be found in W. Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae_

(2 vols., Leipzig, 1903-1905). (R. S. P.; F. Ll. G.)