Chapter VI. Of The Fertility Of Egypt.

Under this head, I shall treat only of some plants peculiar to Egypt, and

of the abundance of corn which it produced.

Papyrus. This is a plant, from the root of which shoot out a great many

triangular stalks, to the height of six or seven cubits. The ancients writ

at first upon palm leaves;(382) next, on the inside of the bark of trees,

from whence the word _liber_, or book, is derived; after that, upon tables

covered over with wax, on which the characters were impressed with an

instrument called Stylus, sharp-pointed at one end to write with, and flat

at the other, to efface what had been written; which gave occasion to the

following expression of Horace:

Sæpe stylum vertas, iterum quæ digna legi sint

Scripturus:

_Sat._ lib. i. x. ver. 72.

Oft turn your style, if you desire to write

Things that will bear a second reading——

The meaning of which is, that a good performance is not to be expected

without many erasures and corrections. At last the use of paper(383) was

introduced, and this was made of the bark of Papyrus, divided into thin

flakes or leaves, which were very proper for writing; and this Papyrus was

likewise called Byblus.

Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere byblos

Noverat.

Lucan.

Memphis as yet knew not to form in leaves

The wat’ry Byblos.

Pliny calls it a wonderful invention,(384) so useful to life, that it

preserves the memory of great actions, and immortalizes those who achieved

them. Varro ascribes this invention to Alexander the Great, when he built

Alexandria; but he had only the merit of making paper more common, for the

invention was of much greater antiquity. The same Pliny adds, that

Eumenes, king of Pergamus, substituted parchment instead of paper, in

emulation of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, whose library he was ambitious to

excel by this invention, which had the advantage over paper. Parchment is

the skin of a sheep dressed and made fit to write upon. It was called

Pergamenum from Pergamus, whose kings had the honour of the invention. All

the ancient manuscripts are either upon parchment, or vellum, which is

calf-skin, and a great deal finer than the common parchment. It is very

curious to see white fine paper wrought out of filthy rags picked up in

the streets. The plant Papyrus was useful likewise for sails, tackling,

clothes, coverlets, &c.(385)

Linum. Flax is a plant whose bark, full of fibres or strings, is useful in

making fine linen. The method of making this linen in Egypt was wonderful,

and carried to such perfection, that the threads which were drawn out of

them, were almost too small for the observation of the sharpest eye.

Priests were always habited in linen, and never in woollen; and all

persons of distinction generally wore linen clothes. This flax formed a

considerable branch of the Egyptian trade, and great quantities of it were

exported into foreign countries. The manufacture of flax employed a great

number of hands in Egypt, especially of the women, as appears from that

passage of Isaiah, in which the prophet menaces Egypt with a drought of so

terrible a nature, that it should interrupt every kind of labour.

“Moreover, they that work in fine flax, and they that weave network, shall

be confounded.”(386) We likewise find in Scripture, that one effect of the

plague of hail, called down by Moses upon Egypt, was the destruction of

all the flax which was then bolled.(387) This storm was in March.

Byssus. This was another kind of flax extremely fine and delicate, which

often received a purple dye.(388) It was very dear; and none but rich and

wealthy persons could afford to wear it. Pliny, who gives the first place

to the Asbeston or Asbestinum, (_i.e._ the incombustible flax,) places the

Byssus in the next rank; and says, “that the dress and ornaments of the

ladies were made of it.”(389) It appears from the Holy Scriptures, that it

was chiefly from Egypt that cloth made of this fine flax was brought:

“fine linen with broidered work from Egypt.”(390)

I take no notice of the Lotus, a very common plant, and in great request

among the Egyptians, of whose berries, in former times, they made bread.

There was another Lotus in Africa, which gave its name to the Lotophagi or

Lotus-eaters; because they lived upon the fruit of this tree, which had so

delicious a taste, if Homer may be credited, that it made those who ate it

forget all the sweets of their native country,(391) as Ulysses found to

his cost in his return from Troy.

In general, it may be said, that the Egyptian pulse and fruits were

excellent; and might, as Pliny observes,(392) have sufficed singly for the

nourishment of the inhabitants, such was their excellent quality, and so

great their plenty. And, indeed, working men lived then almost upon

nothing else, as appears from those who were employed in building the

pyramids.

Besides these rural riches, the Nile, from its fish, and the fatness it

gave to the soil for the feeding of cattle, furnished the tables of the

Egyptians with the most exquisite fish of every kind, and the most

succulent flesh. This it was which made the Israelites so deeply regret

the loss of Egypt, when they found themselves in the wilderness: “Who,”

say they, in a plaintive, and at the same time, seditious tone, “shall

give us flesh to eat? We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt

freely; the cucumbers and melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the

garlick.(393) We sat by the flesh-pots, and we did eat bread to the

full.”(394)

But the great and matchless wealth of Egypt arose from its corn, which,

even in an almost universal famine, enabled it to support all the

neighbouring nations, as it particularly did under Joseph’s

administration. In later ages, it was the resource and most certain

granary of Rome and Constantinople. It is a well-known story, how a

calumny raised against St. Athanasius, _viz._ of his having threatened to

prevent in future the importation of corn into Constantinople from

Alexandria, incensed the emperor Constantine against that holy bishop,

because he knew that his capital city could not subsist without the corn

which was brought to it from Egypt. The same reason induced all the

emperors of Rome to take so great a care of Egypt, which they considered

as the nursing mother of the world’s metropolis.

Nevertheless, the same river which enabled this province to subsist the

two most populous cities in the world, sometimes reduced even Egypt itself

to the most terrible famine: and it is astonishing that Joseph’s wise

foresight, which in fruitful years had made provision for seasons of

sterility, should not have taught these so much boasted politicians, to

adopt similar precautions against the changes and inconstancy of the Nile.

Pliny, in his panegyric upon Trajan, paints with wonderful strength the

extremity to which that country was reduced by a famine under that

prince’s reign, and his generous relief of it. The reader will not be

displeased to read here an extract of it, in which a greater regard will

be had to Pliny’s thoughts, than to his expressions.

“The Egyptians,” says Pliny, “who gloried that they needed neither rain

nor sun to produce their corn, and who believed they might confidently

contest the prize of plenty with the most fruitful countries of the world,

were condemned to an unexpected drought, and a fatal sterility; from the

greatest part of their territories being deserted and left unwatered by

the Nile, whose inundation is the source and sure standard of their

abundance. ‘They then implored that assistance from their prince which

they had been accustomed to expect only from their river.’(395) The delay

of their relief was no longer than that which employed a courier to bring

the melancholy news to Rome; and one would have imagined, that this

misfortune had befallen them only to display with greater lustre the

generosity and goodness of Cæsar. It was an ancient and general opinion,

that our city could not subsist without provisions drawn from Egypt.(396)

This vain and proud nation boasted, that though conquered, they

nevertheless fed their conquerors; that, by means of their river, either

abundance or scarcity were entirely in their own disposal. But we now have

returned the Nile his own harvests, and given him back the provisions he

sent us. Let the Egyptians be then convinced, by their own experience,

that they are not necessary to us, and are only our vassals. Let them know

that their ships do not so much bring us the provision we stand in need

of, as the tribute which they owe us. And let them never forget that we

can do without them, but that they can never do without us. This most

fruitful province had been ruined, had it not worn the Roman chains. The

Egyptians, in their sovereign, found a deliverer, and a father. Astonished

at the sight of their granaries, filled without any labour of their own,

they were at a loss to know to whom they owed this foreign and gratuitous

plenty. The famine of a people, though at such a distance from us, yet so

speedily stopped, served only to let them feel the advantage of living

under our empire. The Nile may, in other times, have diffused more plenty

on Egypt, but never more glory upon us.(397) May Heaven, content with this

proof of the people’s patience, and the prince’s generosity, restore for

ever back to Egypt its ancient fertility!”

Pliny’s reproach to the Egyptians, for their vain and foolish pride with

regard to the inundations of the Nile, points out one of their most

peculiar characteristics, and recalls to my mind a fine passage of

Ezekiel, where God thus speaks to Pharaoh, one of their kings, “Behold I

am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great Dragon that lieth in

the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is my own, and I have

made it for myself.”(398) God perceived an insupportable pride in the

heart of this prince: a sense of security and confidence in the

inundations of the Nile, independent entirely on the influences of heaven;

as though the happy effects of this inundation had been owing to nothing

but his own care and labour, or those of his predecessors: “the river is

mine, and I have made it.”

Before I conclude this second part, which treats of the manners of the

Egyptians, I think it incumbent on me to bespeak the attention of my

readers to different passages scattered in the history of Abraham, Jacob,

Joseph, and Moses, which confirm and illustrate part of what we meet with

in profane authors upon this subject. They will there observe the perfect

polity which reigned in Egypt, both in the court and the rest of the

kingdom; the vigilance of the prince, who was informed of all

transactions, had a regular council, a chosen number of ministers, armies

ever well maintained and disciplined, both of horse, foot, and armed

chariots; intendants in all the provinces; overseers or guardians of the

public granaries; wise and exact dispensers of the corn lodged in them; a

court composed of great officers of the crown, a captain of his guards, a

chief cup-bearer, a master of his pantry; in a word, all things that

compose a prince’s household, and constitute a magnificent court. But

above all these, the readers will admire the fear in which the

threatenings of God were held, the inspector of all actions, and the judge

of kings themselves; and the horror the Egyptians had for adultery, which

was acknowledged to be a crime of so heinous a nature, that it alone was

capable of bringing destruction on a nation.(399)

Part The Third. The History of the Kings of Egypt.

No part of ancient history is more obscure or uncertain, than that of the

first kings of Egypt. This proud nation, fondly conceited of its antiquity

and nobility, thought it glorious to lose itself in an abyss of infinite

ages, which seemed to carry its pretensions backward to eternity.

According to its own historians,(400) first, gods, and afterwards demigods

or heroes, governed it successively, through a series of more than twenty

thousand years. But the absurdity of this vain and fabulous claim is

easily discovered.

To gods and demigods, men succeeded as rulers or kings in Egypt, of whom

Manetho has left us thirty dynasties or principalities. This Manetho was

an Egyptian high priest, and keeper of the sacred archives of Egypt, and

had been instructed in the Grecian learning: he wrote a history of Egypt,

which he pretended to have extracted from the writings of Mercurius, and

other ancient memoirs, preserved in the archives of the Egyptian temples.

He drew up this history under the reign, and at the command of Ptolemy

Philadelphus. If his thirty dynasties are allowed to be successive, they

make up a series of time, of more than five thousand three hundred years,

to the reign of Alexander the Great; but this is a manifest forgery.

Besides, we find in Eratosthenes,(401) who was invited to Alexandria by

Ptolemy Euergetes, a catalogue of thirty-eight kings of Thebes, all

different from those of Manetho. The clearing up of these difficulties has

put the learned to a great deal of trouble and labour. The most effectual

way to reconcile such contradictions, is to suppose, with almost all the

modern writers upon this subject, that the kings of these different

dynasties did not reign successively after one another, but many of them

at the same time, and in different countries of Egypt. There were in Egypt

four principal dynasties, that of Thebes, of Thin, of Memphis, and of

Tanis. I shall not here give my readers a list of the kings who have

reigned in Egypt, of most of whom we have only the names transmitted to

us. I shall only take notice of what seems to me most proper, to give

youth the necessary light into this part of history, for whose sake

principally I engaged in this undertaking; and I shall confine myself

chiefly to the memoirs left us by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus,

concerning the Egyptian kings, without even scrupulously preserving the

exactness of succession, at least in the early part of the monarchy, which

is very obscure; and without pretending to reconcile these two historians.

Their design, especially that of Herodotus, was not to lay before us an

exact series of the kings of Egypt, but only to point out those princes

whose history appeared to them most important and instructive. I shall

follow the same plan, and hope to be forgiven, for not having involved

either myself or my readers in a labyrinth of almost inextricable

difficulties, from which the most able can scarce disengage themselves,

when they pretend to follow the series of history, and reduce it to fixed

and certain dates. The curious may consult the learned pieces,(402) in

which this subject is treated in all its extent.

I am to premise, that Herodotus, upon the credit of the Egyptian priests,

whom he had consulted, gives us a great number of oracles and singular

incidents, all which, though he relates them as so many facts, the

judicious reader will easily discover to be what they really are—I mean,

fictions.

The ancient history of Egypt comprehends 2158 years, and is naturally

divided into three periods.

The first begins with the establishment of the Egyptian monarchy, by Menes

or Misraim, the son of Cham,(403) in the year of the world 1816; and ends

with the destruction of that monarchy by Cambyses, king of Persia, in the

year of the world 3479. This first period contains 1663 years.

The second period is intermixed with the Persian and Grecian history, and

extends to the death of Alexander the Great, which happened in the year

3681, and consequently includes 202 years.

The third period is that in which a new monarchy was formed in Egypt by

the Lagidæ, or Ptolemies, descendants from Lagus, to the death of

Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, in 3974; and this last comprehends 293

years.

I shall now treat only of the first period, reserving the two others for

the Æras to which they belong.

(M64) THE KINGS OF EGYPT.—MENES. Historians are unanimously agreed, that

Menes was the first king of Egypt. It is pretended, and not without

foundation, that he is the same with Misraïm, the son of Cham.

Cham was the second son of Noah. When the family of the latter, after the

extravagant attempt of building the tower of Babel, dispersed themselves

into different countries, Cham retired to Africa; and it doubtless was he

who afterwards was worshipped as a god, under the name of Jupiter Ammon.

He had four children, Chus,(404) Misraïm, Phut, and Canaan. Chus settled

in Ethiopia, Misraïm in Egypt, which generally is called in Scripture

after his name, and by that of Cham,(405) his father; Phut took possession

of that part of Africa which lies westward of Egypt; and Canaan, of the

country which afterwards bore his name. The Canaanites are certainly the

same people who are called almost always Phœnicians by the Greeks, of

which foreign name no reason can be given, any more than of the oblivion

of the true one.

I return to Misraïm.(406) He is allowed to be the same with Menes, whom

all historians declare to be the first king of Egypt, the institutor of

the worship of the gods, and of the ceremonies of the sacrifices.

BUSIRIS, some ages after him, built the famous city of Thebes, and made it

the seat of his empire. We have elsewhere taken notice of the wealth and

magnificence of this city. This prince is not to be confounded with

Busiris, so infamous for his cruelties.

OSYMANDYAS. Diodorus gives a very particular description of many

magnificent edifices raised by this king;(407) one of which was adorned

with sculptures and paintings of exquisite beauty, representing his

expedition against the Bactrians, a people of Asia, whom he had invaded

with four hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse. In another part

of the edifice was exhibited an assembly of the judges, whose president

wore, on his breast, a picture of Truth, with her eyes shut, and himself

was surrounded with books—an emphatic emblem, denoting that judges ought

to be perfectly versed in the laws, and impartial in the administration of

them.

The king likewise was painted here, offering to the gods gold and silver,

which he drew every year from the mines of Egypt, amounting to the sum of

sixteen millions.(408)

Not far from hence was seen a magnificent library, the oldest mentioned in

history. Its title or inscription on the front was, _The office, or

treasury, of remedies for the diseases of the soul_. Near it were placed

statues, representing all the Egyptian gods, to each of whom the king made

suitable offerings; by which he seemed to be desirous of informing

posterity that his life and reign had been crowned with piety to the gods,

and justice to men.

His mausoleum displayed uncommon magnificence; it was encompassed with a

circle of gold, a cubit in breadth, and 365 cubits in circumference; each

of which showed the rising and setting of the sun, moon, and the rest of

the planets. For so early as this king’s reign, the Egyptians divided the

year into twelve months, each consisting of thirty days; to which they

added every year five days and six hours.(409) The spectator did not know

which to admire most in this stately monument, whether the richness of its

materials, or the genius and industry of the artists.

UCHOREUS, one of the successors of Osymandyas, built the city of

Memphis.(410) This city was 150 furlongs, or more than seven leagues in

circumference, and stood at the point of the Delta, in that part where the

Nile divides itself into several branches or streams. Southward from the

city, he raised a lofty mole. On the right and left he dug very deep moats

to receive the river. These were faced with stone, and raised, near the

city, by strong causeys; the whole designed to secure the city from the

inundations of the Nile, and the incursions of the enemy. A city so

advantageously situated, and so strongly fortified, that it was almost the

key of the Nile, and by this means commanded the whole country, became

soon the usual residence of the Egyptian kings. It kept possession of this

honour till Alexandria was built by Alexander the Great.

MŒRIS. This king made the famous lake, which went by his name, and whereof

mention has been already made,

(M65) Egypt had long been governed by its native princes, when strangers,

called Shepherd-kings, (Hycsos in the Egyptian language,) from Arabia or

Phœnicia, invaded and seized a great part of Lower Egypt, and Memphis

itself; but Upper Egypt remained unconquered, and the kingdom of Thebes

existed till the reign of Sesostris. These foreign princes governed about

260 years.

(M66) Under one of these princes, called Pharaoh in Scripture,(411) (a

name common to all the kings of Egypt,) Abraham arrived there with his

wife Sarah, who was exposed to great hazard, on account of her exquisite

beauty, which reaching the prince’s ear, she was by him taken from

Abraham, upon the supposition that she was not his wife, but only his

sister.

(M67) THETHMOSIS, or Amosis, having expelled the Shepherd-kings, reigned

in Lower Egypt.

(M68) Long after his reign, Joseph was brought a slave into Egypt, by some

Ishmaelitish merchants; sold to Potiphar; and, by a series of wonderful

events, enjoyed the supreme authority, by his being raised to the chief

employment of the kingdom. I shall pass over his history, as it is so

universally known. But I must take notice of a remark of Justin, (the

epitomizer of Trogus Pompeius,(412) an excellent historian of the Augustan

age,) _viz._ that Joseph, the youngest of Jacob’s children, whom his

brethren, through envy, had sold to foreign merchants, being endowed from

heaven(413) with the interpretation of dreams, and a knowledge of

futurity, preserved, by his uncommon prudence, Egypt from the famine with

which it was menaced, and was extremely caressed by the king.

(M69) Jacob also went into Egypt with his whole family, which met with the

kindest treatment from the Egyptians, whilst Joseph’s important services

were fresh in their memories. But after his death, say the

Scriptures,(414) “there arose up a new king, which knew not Joseph.”

(M70) RAMESES-MIAMUN, according to archbishop Usher, was the name of this

king, who is called Pharaoh in Scripture. He reigned sixty-six years, and

oppressed the Israelites in a most grievous manner. “He set over them

task-masters, to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for

Pharaoh treasure-cities,(415) Pithom and Raamses—and the Egyptians made

the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and they made their lives

bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of

service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve, was

with rigour.”(416) This king had two sons, Amenophis and Busiris.

(M71) AMENOPHIS, the eldest, succeeded him. He was the Pharaoh, under

whose reign the Israelites departed out of Egypt, and was drowned in

passing the Red-Sea.

(M72) Father Tournemine makes Sesostris, of whom we shall speak

immediately, the Pharaoh who raised the persecution against the

Israelites, and oppressed them with the most painful toils. This is

exactly agreeable to the account given by Diodorus of this prince, who

employed in his Egyptian works only foreigners; so that we may place the

memorable event of the passage of the Red-Sea, under his son Pheron;(417)

and the characteristic of impiety ascribed to him by Herodotus, greatly

strengthens the probability of this conjecture. The plan I have proposed

to follow in this history, excuses me from entering into chronological

discussions.

Diodorus, speaking of the Red-Sea,(418) has made one remark very worthy

our observation; a tradition (says that historian) has been transmitted

through the whole nation, from father to son, for many ages, that once an

extraordinary ebb dried up the sea, so that its bottom was seen; and that

a violent flow immediately after brought back the waters to their former

channel. It is evident, that the miraculous passage of Moses over the

Red-Sea is here hinted at; and I make this remark, purposely to admonish

young students, not to slip over, in their perusal of authors, these

precious remains of antiquity; especially when they bear, like this

passage, any relation to religion.

Archbishop Usher says, that Amenophis left two sons, one called Sesothis

or Sesostris, and the other Armais. The Greeks call him Belus, and his two

sons Egyptus and Danaus.

SESOSTRIS(419) was not only one of the most powerful kings of Egypt, but

one of the greatest conquerors that antiquity boasts of. His father,

whether by inspiration, caprice, or, as the Egyptians say, by the

authority of an oracle, formed a design of making his son a conqueror.

This he set about after the Egyptian manner, that is, in a great and noble

way. All the male children, born the same day with Sesostris, were, by the

king’s order, brought to court. Here they were educated as if they had

been his own children, with the same care bestowed on Sesostris, with whom

they were brought up. He could not possibly have given him more faithful

ministers, nor officers who more zealously desired the success of his

arms. The chief part of their education was, the enuring them, from their

infancy, to a hard and laborious life, in order that they might one day be

capable of sustaining with ease the toils of war. They were never suffered

to eat, till they had run, on foot or horseback, a considerable race.

Hunting was their most common exercise.

Ælian remarks(420) that Sesostris was taught by Mercury, who instructed

him in politics, and the art of government. This Mercury is he whom the

Greeks called Trismegistus, _i.e._ thrice great. Egypt, his native

country, owes to him the invention of almost every art. The two books,

which go under his name, bear such evident characters of novelty, that the

forgery is no longer doubted. There was another Mercury who also was very

famous amongst the Egyptians for his rare knowledge; and of much greater

antiquity than he of whom we have been speaking. Jamblicus, a priest of

Egypt, affirms, that it was customary with the Egyptians, to affix the

name of Hermes or Mercury to all the new books or inventions that were

offered to the public.

When Sesostris was more advanced in years, his father sent him against the

Arabians, in order to acquire military knowledge. Here the young prince

learned to bear hunger and thirst; and subdued a nation which till then

had never been conquered. The youths educated with him attended him in all

his campaigns.

Accustomed by this conquest to martial toils, he was next sent by his

father to try his fortune westward. He invaded Libya, and subdued the

greatest part of that vast country.

(M73) SESOSTRIS. During this expedition his father died, and left him

capable of attempting the greatest enterprises. He formed no less a design

than that of the conquest of the world. But before he left his kingdom, he

provided for his domestic security, in winning the hearts of his subjects

by his generosity, justice, and a popular and obliging behaviour. He was

no less studious to gain the affection of his officers and soldiers, whom

he wished to be ever ready to shed the last drop of their blood in his

service; persuaded that his enterprises would all be unsuccessful, unless

his army should be attached to his person, by all the ties of esteem,

affection, and interest. He divided the country into thirty-six

governments (called Nomi,) and bestowed them on persons of merit, and the

most approved fidelity.

In the mean time he made the requisite preparations, levied forces, and

headed them with officers of the greatest bravery and reputation, and

these were taken chiefly from among the youths who had been educated with

him. He had seventeen hundred of these officers, who were all capable of

inspiring his troops with resolution, a love of discipline, and a zeal for

the service of their prince. His army consisted of six hundred thousand

foot, and twenty-four thousand horse, besides twenty-seven thousand armed

chariots.

He began his expedition by invading Æthiopia, situated to the south of

Egypt. He made it tributary, and obliged the nations of it to furnish him

annually with a certain quantity of ebony, ivory, and gold.

He had fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail, and ordering it to advance

to the Red-Sea, made himself master of the isles and cities lying on the

coasts of that sea. He himself heading his land army, overran and subdued

Asia with amazing rapidity, and advanced farther into India than Hercules,

Bacchus, and in after-times Alexander himself, had ever done; for he

subdued the countries beyond the Ganges, and advanced as far as the Ocean.

One may judge from hence how unable the more neighbouring countries were

to resist him. The Scythians, as far as the river Tanais, as well as

Armenia, and Cappadocia, were conquered. He left a colony in the ancient

kingdom of Colchos, situated to the east of the Black Sea, where the

Egyptian customs and manners have been ever since retained. Herodotus saw

in Asia Minor, from one sea to the other, monuments of his victories. In

several countries was read the following inscription engraven on pillars:

“Sesostris, king of kings, and lord of lords, subdued this country by the

power of his arms.” Such pillars were found even in Thrace, and his empire

extended from the Ganges to the Danube. In his expeditions, some nations

bravely defended their liberties, and others yielded them up without

making the least resistance. This disparity was denoted by him in

hieroglyphical figures, on the monuments erected to perpetuate the

remembrance of his victories, agreeably to the Egyptian practice.

The scarcity of provisions in Thrace stopped the progress of his

conquests, and prevented his advancing farther in Europe. One remarkable

circumstance is observed in this conqueror, who never once thought, as

others had done, of preserving his acquisitions; but contenting himself

with the glory of having subdued and despoiled so many nations; after

having made wild havoc up and down the world for nine years, he confined

himself almost within the ancient limits of Egypt, a few neighbouring

provinces excepted; for we do not find any traces or footsteps of this new

empire, either under himself or his successors.

He returned therefore laden with the spoils of the vanquished nations,

dragging after him a numberless multitude of captives, and covered with

greater glory than any of his predecessors; that glory, I mean, which

employs so many tongues and pens in its praise; which consists in invading

a great number of provinces in a hostile way, and is often productive of

numberless calamities. He rewarded his officers and soldiers with a truly

royal magnificence, in proportion to their rank and merit. He made it both

his pleasure and duty, to put the companions of his victory in such a

condition as might enable them to enjoy, during the remainder of their

days, a calm and easy repose, the just reward of their past toils.

With regard to himself, for ever careful of his own reputation, and still

more of making his power advantageous to his subjects, he employed the

repose which peace allowed him, in raising works that might contribute

more to the enriching of Egypt, than the immortalizing his name; works, in

which the art and industry of the workman were more admired, than the

immense sums which had been expended on them.

A hundred famous temples, raised as so many monuments of gratitude to the

tutelar gods of all the cities, were the first, as well as the most

illustrious, testimonies of his victories; and he took care to publish in

the inscriptions on them, that these mighty works had been completed

without burdening any of his subjects. He made it his glory to be tender

of them, and to employ only captives in these monuments of his conquests.

The Scriptures take notice of something like this, where they speak of the

buildings of Solomon.(421) But he prided himself particularly in adorning

and enriching the temple of Vulcan at Pelusium, in acknowledgment of the

protection which he fancied that god had bestowed on him, when, on his

return from his expeditions, his brother had a design of destroying him in

that city, with his wife and children, by setting fire to the apartment

where he then lay.

His great work was, the raising, in every part of Egypt, a considerable

number of high banks or moles, on which new cities were built, in order

that these might be a security for men and beasts during the inundations

of the Nile.

From Memphis, as far as the sea, he cut, on both sides of the river, a

great number of canals, for the conveniency of trade, and the conveying of

provisions, and for the settling an easy correspondence between such

cities as were most distant from one another. Besides the advantages of

traffic, Egypt was, by these canals, made inaccessible to the cavalry of

its enemies, which before had so often harassed it by repeated incursions.

He did still more. To secure Egypt from the inroads of its nearer

neighbours, the Syrians and Arabians, he fortified all the eastern coast

from Pelusium to Heliopolis, that is, for upwards of seven leagues.(422)

Sesostris might have been considered as one of the most illustrious and

most boasted heroes of antiquity, had not the lustre of his warlike

actions, as well as his pacific virtues, been tarnished by a thirst of

glory, and a blind fondness for his own grandeur, which made him forget

that he was a man. The kings and chiefs of the conquered nations came, at

stated times, to do homage to their victor, and pay him the appointed

tribute. On every other occasion, he treated them with sufficient humanity

and generosity. But when he went to the temple, or entered his capital, he

caused these princes to be harnessed to his car, four abreast, instead of

horses; and valued himself upon his being thus drawn by the lords and

sovereigns of other nations. What I am most surprised at, is, that

Diodorus should rank this foolish and inhuman vanity among the most

shining actions of this prince.

Being grown blind in his old age, he died by his own hands, after having

reigned thirty-three years, and left his kingdom infinitely rich. His

empire, nevertheless, did not reach beyond the fourth generation. But

there still remained, so low as the reign of Tiberius, magnificent

monuments, which showed the extent of Egypt under Sesostris,(423) and the

immense tributes which were paid to it.(424)

I now go back to some facts which took place in this period, but which

were omitted, in order that I might not break the thread of the history,

and now I shall but barely mention them.

(M74) About the æra in question, the Egyptians settled themselves in

divers parts of the earth. The colony, which Cecrops led out of Egypt,

built twelve cities, or rather as many towns, of which he composed the

kingdom of Athens.

(M75) We observed, that the brother of Sesostris, called by the Greeks

Danaus, had formed a design to murder him, on his return to Egypt, after

his conquest. But being defeated in his horrid project, he was obliged to

fly. He thereupon retired to Peloponnesus, where he seized upon the

kingdom of Argos, which had been founded about four hundred years before,

by Inachus.

(M76) BUSIRIS, brother of Amenophis, so infamous among the ancients for

his cruelties, exercised his tyranny at that time on the banks of the

Nile; and barbarously murdered all foreigners who landed in his country:

this was probably during the absence of Sesostris.

(M77) About the same time, Cadmus brought from Syria into Greece the

invention of letters. Some pretend, that these characters or letters were

Egyptian, and that Cadmus himself was a native of Egypt, and not of

Phœnicia; and the Egyptians, who ascribe to themselves the invention of

every art, and boast a greater antiquity than any other nation, give to

their Mercury the honour of inventing letters. Most of the learned

agree,(425) that Cadmus carried the Phœnician or Syrian letters into

Greece, and that those letters were the same as the Hebraic; the Hebrews,

who formed but a small nation, being comprehended under the general name

of Syrians. Joseph Scaliger, in his notes on the _Chronicon_ of Eusebius,

proves, that the Greek letters, and those of the Latin alphabet formed

from them, derive their original from the ancient Phœnician letters, which

are the same with the Samaritan, and were used by the Jews before the

Babylonish captivity. Cadmus carried only sixteen letters(426) into

Greece, eight others being added afterwards.

I return to the history of the Egyptian kings, whom I shall hereafter rank

in the same order as Herodotus has assigned to them.

(M78) PHERON succeeded Sesostris in his kingdom, but not in his glory.

Herodotus(427) relates but one action of his, which shows how greatly he

had degenerated from the religious sentiments of his father. In an

extraordinary inundation of the Nile, which exceeded eighteen cubits, this

prince, enraged at the wild havoc which was made by it, threw a javelin at

the river, as if he intended thereby to chastise its insolence; but was

himself immediately punished for his impiety, if the historian may be

credited, with the loss of sight.

(M79) PROTEUS.(428) He was of Memphis, where, in Herodotus’s time,(429)

his temple was still standing, in which was a chapel dedicated to Venus

the Stranger. It is conjectured that this Venus was Helen. For, in the

reign of this monarch, Paris the Trojan, returning home with Helen whom he

had stolen, was driven by a storm into one of the mouths of the Nile,

called Canopic; and from thence was conducted to Proteus at Memphis, who

reproached him in the strongest terms for his base perfidy and guilt, in

stealing the wife of his host, and with her all the effects in his house.

He added, that the only reason why he did not punish him with death (as

his crime deserved) was, because the Egyptians were careful not to imbrue

their hands in the blood of strangers: that he would keep Helen, with all

the riches that were brought with her, in order to restore them to their

lawful owner: that as for himself, (Paris,) he must either quit his

dominions in three days, or expect to be treated as an enemy. The king’s

order was obeyed. Paris continued his voyage, and arrived at Troy, whither

he was closely pursued by the Grecian army. The Greeks summoned the

Trojans to surrender Helen, and with her all the treasures of which her

husband had been plundered. The Trojans answered, that neither Helen, nor

her treasures, were in their city. And, indeed, was it at all likely, says

Herodotus, that Priam, who was so wise an old prince, should choose to see

his children and country destroyed before his eyes, rather than give the

Greeks the just and reasonable satisfaction they desired? But it was to no

purpose for them to affirm with an oath, that Helen was not in their city;

the Greeks, being firmly persuaded that they were trifled with, persisted

obstinately in their unbelief: the deity, continues the same historian,

being resolved that the Trojans, by the total destruction of their city

and empire, should teach the affrighted world this lesson:(430)—THAT GREAT

CRIMES ARE ATTENDED WITH AS GREAT AND SIGNAL PUNISHMENTS FROM THE OFFENDED

GODS. Menelaus, on his return from Troy, called at the court of king

Proteus, who restored him Helen, with all her treasure. Herodotus proves,

from some passages in Homer, that the voyage of Paris to Egypt was not

unknown to this poet.

RHAMPSINITUS. What is related by Herodotus(431) concerning the treasury

built by this king, who was the richest of all his predecessors, and his

descent into hell, has so much the air of romance and fiction, as to

deserve no mention here.

Till the reign of this king, there had been some shadow, at least, of

justice and moderation in Egypt; but in the two following reigns, violence

and cruelty usurped their place.

CHEOPS and CEPHREN.(432) These two princes, who were truly brothers by the

similitude of their manners, seem to have vied with each other which of

them should distinguish himself most, by a barefaced impiety towards the

gods, and a barbarous inhumanity to men. Cheops reigned fifty years, and

his brother Cephren fifty-six years after him. They kept the temples shut

during the whole time of their long reigns; and forbid the offering of

sacrifices under the severest penalties. On the other hand, they oppressed

their subjects by employing them in the most grievous and useless works;

and sacrificed the lives of numberless multitudes of men, merely to

gratify a senseless ambition of immortalizing their names by edifices of

an enormous magnitude, and a boundless expense. It is remarkable, that

those stately pyramids, which have so long been the admiration of the

whole world, were the effect of the irreligion and merciless cruelty of

those princes.

MYCERINUS.(433) He was the son of Cheops, but of a character opposite to

that of his father. So far from walking in his steps, he detested his

conduct, and pursued quite different measures. He again opened the temples

of the gods, restored the sacrifices, did all that lay in his power to

comfort his subjects, and make them forget their past miseries; and

believed himself set over them for no other purpose but to exercise

justice, and to make them taste all the blessings of an equitable and

peaceful administration. He heard their complaints, dried their tears,

alleviated their misery, and thought himself not so much the master as the

father of his people. This procured him the love of them all. Egypt

resounded with his praises, and his name commanded veneration in all

places.

One would naturally conclude, that so prudent and humane a conduct must

have drawn down on Mycerinus the protection of the gods. But it happened

far otherwise. His misfortunes began from the death of a darling and only

daughter, in whom his whole felicity consisted. He ordered extraordinary

honours to be paid to her memory, which were still continued in

Herodotus’s time. This historian informs us, that in the city of Saïs,

exquisite odours were burnt, in the day-time, at the tomb of this

princess; and that during the night, a lamp was kept constantly burning.

He was told by an oracle, that his reign would continue but seven years.

And as he complained of this to the gods, and inquired the reason why so

long and prosperous a reign had been granted to his father and uncle, who

were equally cruel and impious, whilst his own, which he had endeavoured

so carefully to render as equitable and mild as it was possible for him to

do, should be so short and unhappy; he was answered, that these were the

very causes of it, it being the will of the gods, to oppress and afflict

Egypt during the space of one hundred and fifty years, as a punishment for

its crimes; and that his reign, which was to have been like those of the

preceding monarchs, of fifty years’ continuance, was shortened on account

of his too great lenity. Mycerinus likewise built a pyramid, but much

inferior in dimensions to that of his father.

ASYCHIS.(434) He enacted the law relating to loans, which forbade a son to

borrow money, without giving the dead body of his father by way of

security for it. The law added, that in case the son took no care to

redeem his father’s body by restoring the loan, both himself and his

children should be deprived for ever of the rights of sepulture.

He valued himself for having surpassed all his predecessors, by the

building a pyramid of brick, more magnificent, if this king was to be

credited, than any hitherto seen. The following inscription, by its

founder’s order, was engraved upon it. COMPARE ME NOT WITH PYRAMIDS BUILT

OF STONE; WHICH I AS MUCH EXCEL AS JUPITER DOES ALL THE OTHER GODS.(435)

If we suppose the six preceding reigns (the exact duration of some of

which is not fixed by Herodotus) to comprise one hundred and seventy

years, there will remain an interval of near three hundred years, to the

reign of Sabachus the Ethiopian. In this interval, I place a few

circumstances related in Holy Scripture.

(M80) PHARAOH, king of Egypt, gave his daughter in marriage to Solomon

king of Israel; who received her in that part of Jerusalem called the city

of David, till he had built her a palace.(436)

SESACH or Shishak, otherwise called Sesonchis. (M81) It was to him that

Jeroboam fled, to avoid the wrath of Solomon, who intended to kill

him.(437) He abode in Egypt till Solomon’s death, and then returned to

Jerusalem, when, putting himself at the head of the rebels, he won from

Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, ten tribes, over whom he declared himself

king.

(M82) This Sesach, in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam, marched

against Jerusalem, because the Jews had transgressed against the Lord. He

came with twelve hundred chariots of war, and sixty thousand horse.(438)

He had brought numberless multitudes of people, who were all Libyans,(439)

Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. He made himself master of all the strongest

cities of Judah, and advanced as far as Jerusalem. Then the king, and the

princes of Israel, having humbled themselves, and implored the protection

of the God of Israel; God told them, by his prophet Shemaiah, that,

because they humbled themselves, he would not utterly destroy them as they

had deserved; but that they should be the servants of Sesach: in order

“that they might know the difference of his service, and the service of

the kingdoms of the country.”(440) Sesach retired from Jerusalem, after

having plundered the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king’s

house; he carried off every thing with him, “and even also the three

hundred shields of gold which Solomon had made.”

(M83) ZERAH, king of Ethiopia, and doubtless of Egypt at the same time,

made war upon Asa king of Judah.(441) His army consisted of a million of

men, and three hundred chariots of war. Asa marched against him, and

drawing up his army in order of battle, in full reliance on the God whom

he served: “Lord,” says he, “it is nothing for thee to help whether with

many, or with them that have no power. Help us, O Lord our God, for we

rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude; O Lord, thou

art our God, let not man prevail against thee.” A prayer offered up with

such strong faith was heard. God struck the Ethiopians with terror; they

fled, and all were irrevocably defeated, being “destroyed before the Lord,

and before his host.”

ANYSIS.(442) He was blind, and under his reign SABACHUS, king of Ethiopia,

being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and

possessed himself of it. He reigned with great clemency and justice.

Instead of putting to death such criminals as had been sentenced to die by

the judges, he made them repair the causeys, on which the respective

cities to which they belonged were situated. He built several magnificent

temples, and among the rest, one in the city of Bubastus, of which

Herodotus gives a long and elegant description. After a reign of fifty

years, which was the time appointed by the oracle, he retired voluntarily

to his old kingdom of Ethiopia, and left the throne of Egypt to Anysis,

who, during this time, had concealed himself in the fens.

(M84) It is believed that this Sabachus was the same with So, whose aid

was implored by Hoshea, king of Israel, against Shalmanezer, king of

Assyria.(443)

SETHON. He reigned fourteen years.

(M85) He is the same with Sevechus, the son of Sabacon, or So, the

Ethiopian, who reigned so long over Egypt. This prince, so far from

discharging the functions of a king, was ambitious of those of a priest;

causing himself to be consecrated high-priest of Vulcan. Abandoning

himself entirely to superstition, he neglected to defend his kingdom by

force of arms; paying no regard to military men, from a firm persuasion

that he should never have occasion for their assistance; he, therefore,

was so far from endeavouring to gain their affections, that he deprived

them of their privileges, and even dispossessed them of their revenues of

such lands as his predecessors had given them.

He was soon made sensible of their resentment in a war that broke out

suddenly, and from which he delivered himself solely by a miraculous

protection, if Herodotus may be credited, who intermixes his account of

this war with a great many fabulous particulars. Sanacharib (so Herodotus

calls this prince) king of the Arabians and Assyrians, having entered

Egypt with a numerous army, the Egyptian officers and soldiers refused to

march against him. The high priest of Vulcan, being thus reduced to the

greatest extremity, had recourse to his god, who bid him not despond, but

march courageously against the enemy with the few soldiers he could raise.

Sethon obeyed. A small number of merchants, artificers, and others who

were the dregs of the populace, joined him; and with this handful of men,

he marched to Pelusium, where Sanacharib had pitched his camp. The night

following, a prodigious multitude of rats entered the camp of the

Assyrians, and gnawing to pieces all their bowstrings, and the thongs of

their shields, rendered them incapable of making the least defence. Being

disarmed in this manner, they were obliged to fly; and they retreated with

the loss of a great part of their forces. Sethon, when he returned home,

ordered a statue of himself to be set up in the temple of Vulcan, holding

in his right hand a rat, and these words to be inscribed thereon:—LET THE

MAN WHO BEHOLDS ME LEARN TO REVERENCE THE GODS.(444)

It is very obvious that this story, as related here from Herodotus, is an

alteration of that which is told in the second book of Kings. We there

see,(445) that Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, having subdued all the

neighbouring nations, and made himself master of all the other cities of

Judah, resolved to besiege Hezekiah in Jerusalem, his capital city. The

ministers of this holy king, in spite of his opposition, and the

remonstrances of the prophet Isaiah, who promised them, in God’s name, a

sure and certain protection, provided they would trust in him only, sent

secretly to the Egyptians and Ethiopians for succour. Their armies, being

united, marched to the relief of Jerusalem at the time appointed, and were

met and vanquished by the Assyrian in a pitched battle. He pursued them

into Egypt and entirely laid waste the country. At his return from thence,

the very night before he was to have given a general assault to Jerusalem,

which then seemed lost to all hopes, the destroying angel made dreadful

havoc in the camp of the Assyrians; destroyed a hundred fourscore and five

thousand men by fire and sword; and proved evidently, that they had great

reason to rely, as Hezekiah had done, on the promise of the God of Israel.

This is the real fact. But as it was no ways honourable to the Egyptians,

they endeavoured to turn it to their own advantage, by disguising and

corrupting the circumstances of it. Nevertheless, the footsteps of this

history, though so much defaced, ought yet to be highly valued, as coming

from an historian of so great antiquity and authority as Herodotus.

The prophet Isaiah had foretold, at several times, that this expedition of

the Egyptians, which had been concerted, seemingly, with such prudence,

conducted with the greatest skill, and in which the forces of two powerful

empires were united, in order to relieve the Jews, would not only be of no

service to Jerusalem, but even destructive to Egypt itself, whose

strongest cities would be taken, its territories plundered, and its

inhabitants of all ages and sexes led into captivity. See the 18th, 19th,

20th, 30th, 31st, &c. chapters of his prophecy.

Archbishop Usher and Dean Prideaux suppose that it was at this period that

the ruin of the famous city No-Amon,(446) spoken of by the prophet Nahum,

happened. That prophet says,(447) that “she was carried away—that her

young children were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets—that

the enemy cast lots for her honourable men, and that all her great men

were bound in chains.” He observes, that all these misfortunes befell that

city, when Egypt and Ethiopia were her strength; which seems to refer

clearly enough to the time of which we are here speaking, when Tharaca and

Sethon had united their forces. However, this opinion is not without some

difficulties, and is contradicted by some learned men. It is sufficient

for me to have hinted it to the reader.

Till the reign of Sethon, the Egyptian priests computed three hundred and

forty-one generations of men;(448) which make eleven thousand three

hundred and forty years; allowing three generations to a hundred years.

They counted the like number of priests and kings. The latter, whether

gods or men, had succeeded one another without interruption, under the

name of Piromis, an Egyptian word signifying good and virtuous. The

Egyptian priests showed Herodotus three hundred and forty-one wooden

colossal statues of these Piromis, all ranged in order in a great hall.

Such was the folly of the Egyptians, to lose themselves as it were in a

remote antiquity, to which no other people could dare to pretend.

(M86) THARACA. He it was who joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army, to

relieve Jerusalem.(449) After the death of Sethon, who had sitten fourteen

years on the throne, Tharaca ascended it, and reigned eighteen years. He

was the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt.

After his death, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the

succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were

great disorders and confusions among them.

(M87) At last,(450) twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together,

seized upon the kingdom, and divided it amongst themselves into as many

parts. It was agreed by them, that each should govern his own district

with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade

or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this

agreement, and to bind it with the most dreadful oaths, to elude the

prediction of an oracle, which had foretold, that he among them who should

offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the

sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned together fifteen years in the utmost

harmony: and to leave a famous monument of their concord to posterity,

they jointly, and at a common expense, built the famous labyrinth, which

was a pile of building consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many

edifices underground as appeared above it. I have spoken elsewhere of this

labyrinth.

One day, as the twelve kings were assisting at a solemn and periodical

sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priests, having presented

each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting; when

Psammetichus,(451) without any design, supplied the want of this bowl with

his brazen helmet, (for each wore one,) and with it performed the ceremony

of the libation. This accident struck the rest of the kings, and recalled

to their memory the prediction of the oracle above mentioned. They thought

it therefore necessary to secure themselves from his attempts, and

therefore, with one consent, banished him into the fenny parts of Egypt.

After Psammetichus had passed some years there, waiting a favourable

opportunity to revenge himself for the affront which had been put upon

him, a courier brought him advice, that brazen men were landed in Egypt.

These were Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon

the coasts of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets,

cuirasses, and other arms of brass. Psammetichus immediately called to

mind the oracle, which had answered him, that he should be succoured by

brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt but the prediction was now

fulfilled. He therefore made a league with these strangers; engaged them

with great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces; and

put these Greeks at their head; when giving battle to the eleven kings, he

defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.

(M88) PSAMMETICHUS. As this prince owed his preservation to the Ionians

and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, (from which all foreigners hitherto

had been excluded;) and, by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed

revenues, he made them forget their native country.(452) By his order,

Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and

on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a

correspondence with the Greeks; and from that æra, the Egyptian history,

which, till then, had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice

of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater

truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war

against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two

empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been

conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that

separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as

afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ. They were

eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger.

Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and

having restored the ancient form of government,(453) thought it high time

for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Assyrian,

his neighbour, whose power increased daily. For this purpose, he entered

Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident related

by Diodorus;(454) that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on

the right wing by the king himself, in preference to them, quitted the

service, to the number of upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired

into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement.

Be this as it will, Psammetichus entered Palestine,(455) where his career

was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which

gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty-nine

years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in

ancient history.

This was anciently one of the five capital cities of the Philistines. The

Egyptians, having seized it some time before, had fortified it with such

care, that it was their strongest bulwark on that side. Nor could

Sennacherib enter Egypt, till he had first made himself master of this

city,(456) which was taken by Tartan, one of his generals. The Assyrians

had possessed it hitherto; and it was not till after the long siege just

now mentioned, that the Egyptians recovered it.

In this period,(457) the Scythians, leaving the banks of the Palus Mæotis,

made an inroad into Media, defeated Cyaxares, the king of that country,

and deprived him of all Upper Asia, of which they kept possession during

twenty-eight years. They pushed their conquests in Syria as far as to the

frontiers of Egypt. But Psammetichus marching out to meet them, prevailed

so far, by his presents and entreaties, that they advanced no farther, and

by that means delivered his kingdom from these dangerous enemies.

Till his reign,(458) the Egyptians had imagined themselves to be the most

ancient nation upon earth. Psammetichus was desirous to prove this

himself, and he employed a very extraordinary experiment for this purpose.

He commanded (if we may credit the relation) two children, newly born of

poor parents, to be brought up (in the country) in a hovel, that was to be

kept continually shut. They were committed to the care of a shepherd,

(others say, of nurses, whose tongues were cut out,) who was to feed them

with the milk of goats; and was commanded not to suffer any person to

enter into this hut, nor himself to speak even a single word in the

hearing of these children. At the expiration of two years, as the shepherd

was one day coming into the hut to feed these children, they both cried

out, with hands extended towards their foster-father, _beccos, beccos_.

The shepherd, surprised to hear a language that was quite new to him, but

which they repeated frequently afterwards, sent advice of this to the

king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he

himself might be a witness to the truth of what was told him; and

accordingly both of them began, in his presence, to stammer out the sounds

above mentioned. Nothing now was wanting but to ascertain what nation it

was that used this word; and it was found that the Phrygians called bread

by this name. From this time they were allowed the honour of antiquity, or

rather of priority, which the Egyptians themselves, notwithstanding their

jealousy of it, and the many ages they had possessed this glory, were

obliged to resign to them. As goats were brought to these children, in

order that they might feed upon their milk, and historians do not say that

they were deaf, some are of opinion that they might have learnt the word

_bec_, or _beccos_, by mimicking the cry of those creatures.

Psammetichus died in the 24th year of Josias, king of Judah, and was

succeeded by his son Nechao.

(M89) NECHAO.(459) This prince is often mentioned in Scripture under the

name of Pharaoh-Necho.(460)

He attempted to join the Nile to the Red-Sea, by cutting a canal from one

to the other. The distance which separates them is at least a thousand

stadia.(461) After a hundred and twenty thousand workmen had lost their

lives in this attempt, Nechao was obliged to desist; the oracle which had

been consulted by him, having answered, that this new canal would open a

passage to the Barbarians (for so the Egyptians called all other nations)

to invade Egypt.

Nechao was more successful in another enterprise.(462) Skilful Phœnician

mariners, whom he had taken into his service, having sailed from the

Red-Sea in order to discover the coasts of Africa, went successfully round

it; and the third year after their setting out, returned to Egypt through

the Straits of Gibraltar. This was a very extraordinary voyage, in an age

when the compass was not known. It was made twenty-one centuries before

Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, (by discovering the Cape of Good Hope, in the

year 1497,) found out the very same way to sail to the Indies, by which

these Phœnicians had come from thence into the Mediterranean.

The Babylonians and Medes, having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the

empire of the Assyrians, were thereby become so formidable, that they drew

upon themselves the jealousy of all their neighbours.(463) Nechao, alarmed

at the danger, advanced to the Euphrates, at the head of a powerful army,

in order to check their progress. Josiah, king of Judah, so famous for his

uncommon piety, observing that he took his route through Judea, resolved

to oppose his passage. With this view, he raised all the forces of his

kingdom, and posted himself in the valley of Megiddo, (a city on this side

Jordan, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, and called Magdolus by

Herodotus.) Nechao informed him, by a herald, that his enterprise was not

designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had

undertaken this war in the name of God, who was with him; that for this

reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war, for fear

lest it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not

moved by these reasons: he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful

an army through Judea, would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that

the victor, after the defeat of the Babylonians, would fall upon him, and

dispossess him of part of his dominions. He therefore marched to engage

Nechao; and was not only overthrown by him, but unfortunately received a

wound, of which he died at Jerusalem, whither he had ordered himself to be

carried.

Nechao, animated by this victory, continued his march, and advanced

towards the Euphrates. He defeated the Babylonians; took Carchemish, a

large city in that country; and securing to himself the possession of it

by a strong garrison, returned to his own kingdom, after having been

absent from it three months.

Being informed in his march homeward, that Jehoahaz had caused himself to

be proclaimed king at Jerusalem, without first asking his consent, he

commanded him to meet him at Riblah in Syria.(464) The unhappy prince was

no sooner arrived there, than he was put in chains by Nechao’s order, and

sent prisoner to Egypt, where he died. From thence, pursuing his march, he

came to Jerusalem, where he placed Eliakim, (called by him Jehoiakim,)

another of Josiah’s sons, upon the throne, in the room of his brother: and

imposed an annual tribute on the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and

one talent of gold.(465) This being done, he returned in triumph to Egypt.

Herodotus, mentioning this king’s expedition,(466) and the victory gained

by him at Magdolus,(467) (as he calls it,) says, that he afterwards took

the city Cadytis, which he represents as situated in the mountains of

Palestine, and equal in extent to Sardis, the capital at that time not

only of Lydia, but of all Asia Minor: this description can suit only

Jerusalem, which was situated in the manner above described, and was then

the only city in those parts that could be compared to Sardis. It appears

besides from Scripture, that Nechao, after his victory, made himself

master of this capital of Judea; for he was there in person, when he gave

the crown to Jehoiakim. The very name Cadytis, which in Hebrew signifies

the Holy, clearly denotes the city of Jerusalem, as is proved by the

learned Dean Prideaux.(468)

(M90) Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, observing that, since the taking of

Carchemish by Nechao, all Syria and Palestine had shaken off their

allegiance to him, and that his years and infirmities would not permit him

to march against the rebels in person, he therefore associated his son

Nabuchodonosor, or Nebuchadnezzar, with him in the empire, and sent him at

the head of an army into those countries. This young prince vanquished the

army of Nechao near the river Euphrates, recovered Carchemish, and reduced

the revolted provinces to their allegiance, as Jeremiah had foretold.(469)

Thus he dispossessed the Egyptians of all that belonged to them,(470) from

the little river(471)(472) of Egypt to the Euphrates, which comprehended

all Syria and Palestine.

Nechao dying after he had reigned sixteen years, left the kingdom to his

son.

(M91) PSAMMIS. His reign was but of six years’ duration; and history has

left us nothing memorable concerning him, except that he made an

expedition into Ethiopia.(473)

It was to this prince that the Eleans sent a splendid embassy, after

having instituted the Olympic games. They had established all the

regulations, and arranged every circumstance relating to them, with such

care, that, in their opinion, nothing seemed wanting to their perfection,

and envy itself could not find any fault with them. However, they did not

desire so much to have the opinion, as to gain the approbation of the

Egyptians, who were looked upon as the wisest and most judicious people in

the world.(474) Accordingly, the king assembled the sages of his nation.

After every thing had been heard which could be said in favour of this

institution, the Eleans were asked, whether citizens and foreigners were

admitted indifferently to these games; to which answer was made, that they

were open to every one. To this the Egyptians replied, that the rules of

justice would have been more strictly observed, had foreigners only been

admitted to these combats; because it was very difficult for the judges,

in their award of the victory and the prize, not to be prejudiced in

favour of their fellow citizens.

(M92) APRIES. In Scripture he is called Pharaoh-Hophra. He succeeded his

father Psammis, and reigned twenty-five years.(475)

During the first years of his reign, he was as fortunate as any of his

predecessors. He turned his arms against the island of Cyprus; besieged

the city of Sidon by sea and land; took it, and made himself master of all

Phœnicia and Palestine.(476)

So rapid a success elated his heart to a prodigious degree, and, as

Herodotus informs us, swelled him with so much pride and infatuation, that

he boasted, it was not in the power of the gods themselves to dethrone

him; so great was the idea he had formed to himself of the firm

establishment of his own power. It was with a view to these arrogant

notions, that Ezekiel put the vain and impious words following into his

mouth: “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.”(477) But the

true God proved to him afterwards that he had a master, and that he was a

mere man; and he had threatened him long before, by his prophets, with all

the calamities he was resolved to bring upon him, in order to punish him

for his pride.

Shortly after Hophra had ascended the throne, Zedekiah, king of Judah,

sent an embassy, and concluded an alliance with him; and the year

following, breaking the oath of fidelity which he had taken to the king of

Babylon, he rebelled openly against him.(478)

Notwithstanding God had so often forbidden his people to have recourse to

the Egyptians, or to put any confidence in that people; notwithstanding

the repeated calamities which had ensued upon the various attempts which

they had made to procure assistance from them; they still thought this

nation their most sure refuge in danger, and accordingly could not forbear

applying to it. This they had already done in the reign of the holy king

Hezekiah; which gave occasion to God’s message to his people, by the mouth

of his prophet Isaiah: “Wo to them that go down to Egypt for help, and

stay on horses and trust in chariots, because they are many; but they look

not unto the holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. The Egyptians are

men, and not God; and their horses flesh, not spirit: when the Lord shall

stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is

holpen shall fall down, and they shall fail together.”(479) But neither

the prophet nor the king were heard; and nothing but the most fatal

experience could open their eyes, and make them see evidently the truth of

God’s threatenings.

The Jews behaved in the very same manner on this occasion. Zedekiah,

notwithstanding all the remonstrances of Jeremiah to the contrary,

resolved to conclude an alliance with the Egyptian monarch; who, puffed up

with the success of his arms, and confident that nothing could resist his

power, declared himself the protector of Israel, and promised to deliver

it from the tyranny of Nabuchodonosor. But God, offended that a mortal had

dared to intrude himself into his place, thus declared himself to another

prophet: “Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and

prophesy against him, and against all Egypt. Speak and say, Thus saith the

Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great

dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is

my own, and I have made it for myself. But I will put hooks in thy

jaws,”(480) &c. God, after comparing him to a reed, which breaks under the

man who leans upon it, and wounds his hand, adds, “Behold, I will bring a

sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee; the land of Egypt

shall be desolate, and they shall know that I am the Lord, because he hath

said, The river is mine, and I have made it.”(481) The same prophet, in

several succeeding chapters, continues to foretell the calamities with

which Egypt was going to be overwhelmed.(482)

Zedekiah was far from giving credit to these predictions. When he heard of

the approach of the Egyptian army, and saw Nabuchodonosor raise the siege

of Jerusalem, he fancied that his deliverance was completed, and

anticipated a triumph. His joy, however, was but of short duration; for

the Egyptians seeing the Chaldeans advancing, did not dare to encounter so

numerous and well-disciplined an army. (M93) They therefore marched back

into their own country, and left the unfortunate Zedekiah exposed to all

the dangers of a war in which they themselves had involved him.(483)

Nabuchodonosor again sat down before Jerusalem, took and burnt it, as

Jeremiah had prophesied.

(M94) Many years after, the chastisements with which God had threatened

Apries (Pharaoh-Hophra) began to fall upon him.(484) For the Cyrenians, a

Greek colony, which had settled in Africa, between Libya and Egypt, having

seized upon, and divided among themselves, a great part of the country

belonging to the Libyans, forced these nations, who were thus dispossessed

by violence, to throw themselves into the arms of this prince, and implore

his protection. Immediately Apries sent a mighty army into Libya to oppose

the Cyrenians; but this army being defeated and almost cut to pieces, the

Egyptians imagined that Apries had sent it into Libya, only to get it

destroyed; and by that means to attain the power of governing his subjects

without check or control. This reflection prompted the Egyptians to shake

off the yoke of a prince, whom they now considered as their enemy. But

Apries, hearing of the rebellion, despatched Amasis, one of his officers,

to suppress it, and force the rebels to return to their allegiance. But

the moment Amasis began to address them, they placed a helmet upon his

head, in token of the exalted dignity to which they intended to raise him,

and proclaimed him king. Amasis having accepted the crown, staid with the

mutineers, and confirmed them in their rebellion.

Apries, more exasperated than ever at this news, sent Patarbemis, another

of his great officers, and one of the principal lords of his court, to put

Amasis under an arrest, and bring him before him; but Patarbemis not being

able to carry off Amasis from the midst of the rebel army, by which he was

surrounded, was treated by Apries, at his return, in the most ignominious

and inhuman manner; for his nose and ears were cut off by the command of

that prince, who never considered, that only his want of power had

prevented his executing his commission. So barbarous an outrage, committed

upon a person of such high distinction, exasperated the Egyptians so much,

that the greatest part of them joined the rebels, and the insurrection

became general. Apries was now forced to retire into Upper Egypt, where he

supported himself some years, during which Amasis made himself master of

the rest of his dominions.

The troubles which thus distracted Egypt, afforded Nabuchodonosor a

favourable opportunity to invade that kingdom; and it was God himself who

inspired him with the resolution. This prince, who was the instrument of

God’s wrath (though he did not know himself to be so) against a people

whom he was resolved to chastise, had just before taken Tyre, where

himself and his army had laboured under incredible difficulties. To

recompense their toils, God abandoned Egypt to their arms. It is wonderful

to hear the Creator himself revealing his designs on this subject. There

are few passages in Scripture more remarkable than this, or which give a

clearer idea of the supreme authority which God exercises over all the

princes and kingdoms of the earth: “Son of man, (says the Almighty to his

prophet Ezekiel,) Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, caused his army to

serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every

shoulder was peeled:(485) yet had he no wages, nor his army,(486) for the

service he had served against it. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God:

Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of

Babylon, and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her

prey, and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of

Egypt for his labour, wherewith he served against it, because they wrought

for me, saith the Lord God.”(487) Says another prophet: “He shall array

himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment, and

he shall go forth from thence in peace.”(488) Thus shall he load himself

with booty, and thus cover his own shoulders, and those of his fold, with

all the spoils of Egypt. Noble expressions! which show the ease with which

all the power and riches of a kingdom are carried away, when God appoints

the revolution; and shift, like a garment, to a new owner, who has no more

to do but to take it, and clothe himself with it.

The king of Babylon, taking advantage, therefore, of the intestine

divisions which the rebellion of Amasis had occasioned in that kingdom,

marched thither at the head of his army. He subdued Egypt from Migdol or

Magdol, a town on the frontiers of the kingdom, as far as Syene, in the

opposite extremity where it borders on Ethiopia. He made a horrible

devastation wherever he came; killed a great number of the inhabitants,

and made such dreadful havoc in the country, that the damage could not be

repaired in forty years. Nabuchodonosor, having loaded his army with

spoils, and conquered the whole kingdom, came to an accommodation with

Amasis; and leaving him as his viceroy there, returned to Babylon.

APRIES (Pharaoh-Hophra) now leaving the place where he had concealed

himself, advanced towards the sea-coast, (probably on the side of Libya;)

and hiring an army of Carians, Ionians, and other foreigners, he marched

against Amasis, to whom he gave battle near Memphis; but being overcome,

Apries was taken prisoner, carried to the city of Sais, and there

strangled in his own palace.(489)

The Almighty had given, by the mouth of his prophets, an astonishing

relation of the several circumstances of this mighty event. It was He who

had broken the power of Apries, which was once so formidable; and put the

sword into the hand of Nabuchodonosor, in order that he might chastise and

humble that haughty prince. “I am,” said he, “against Pharaoh king of

Egypt, and will break his arms, which were strong, but now are broken; and

I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.”(490)—“But I will

strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword into his

hand.”(491)—“And they shall know that I am the Lord.”(492)

He enumerates the towns which were to fall a prey to the victors; Pathros,

Zoan, No, (called in the Vulgate Alexandria,) Sin, Aven, Phibeseth,

&c.(493)(494)

He takes notice particularly of the unhappy end of the king, who was to be

delivered up to his enemies. Thus saith the Lord; “Behold, I will give

Pharaoh-Hophra, the king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, and into

the hand of them that seek his life.”(495)

Lastly, he declares, that during forty years the Egyptians shall be

oppressed with every species of calamity, and be reduced to so deplorable

a state, “That there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.”(496)

The event verified this prophecy, which was gradually accomplished. Soon

after the expiration of these forty years, Egypt was made a province of

the Persian empire, to which its kings, though natives of the country,

were tributary, and thus the accomplishment of the prediction began. It

was completely fulfilled on the death of Nectanebus, the last king of

Egyptian extraction, A.M. 3654.

Since that time, Egypt has constantly been governed by foreigners. For

since the ruin of the Persian monarchy, it has been subject, successively,

to the Macedonians, the Romans, the Saracens, the Mamalukes, and lastly,

to the Turks, who possess it to this day.

God was not less punctual in the accomplishment of his prophecies, with

regard to such of his own people as had retired, contrary to his

prohibition, into Egypt, after the taking of Jerusalem; and had forced

Jeremiah along with them.(497) The instant they had reached Egypt, and

were arrived at Tahpanhes, (or Tanis,) the prophet, after having hid in

their presence (by God’s command) stones in a grotto, which was near the

king’s palace, declared to them, that Nabuchodonosor should soon arrive in

Egypt, and that God would establish his throne in that very place; that

this prince would lay waste the whole kingdom, and carry fire and sword

into all places; that themselves should fall into the hand of these cruel

enemies, when one part of them would be massacred, and the rest led

captive to Babylon; that only a very small number should escape the common

desolation, and be at last restored to their country. All these prophecies

had their accomplishment in the appointed time.

(M95) AMASIS. After the death of Apries, Amasis became peaceable possessor

of Egypt, and reigned over it forty years. He was, according to Plato, a

native of the city of Sais.(498)

As he was but of mean extraction, he met with no respect in the beginning

of his reign, but was only contemned by his subjects:(499) he was not

insensible of this; but, nevertheless, thought it his interest to subdue

their tempers by management and address, and win their affections by

gentleness and reason. He had a golden cistern, in which himself and those

persons who were admitted to his table, used to wash their feet: he melted

it down, and had it cast into a statue, and then exposed the new god to

public worship. The people hasted in crowds to pay their adoration to the

statue. The king having assembled the people, informed them of the vile

uses to which this statue had once been put, which, nevertheless, was now

the object of their religious prostrations: the application was easy, and

had the desired success; the people thenceforward paid the king all the

respect that is due to majesty.

He always used to devote the whole morning to public business, to receive

petitions, give audience, pronounce sentence, and hold his councils: the

rest of the day was given to pleasure: and as Amasis, in hours of

diversion, was extremely gay, and seemed to carry his mirth beyond due

bounds, his courtiers took the liberty to represent to him the

unsuitableness of such a behaviour; when he answered, that it was as

impossible for the mind to be always serious and intent upon business, as

for a bow to continue always bent.(500)

It was this king who obliged the inhabitants of every town to enter their

names in a book, kept by the magistrate for that purpose, with their

profession, and manner of living. Solon inserted this custom among his

laws.

He built many magnificent temples, especially at Sais, the place of his

birth. Herodotus admired especially a chapel there formed of one single

stone, which was twenty-one cubits(501) in front, fourteen in depth, and

eight in height; its dimensions within were not quite so large; it had

been brought from Elephantina, and two thousand men had employed three

years in conveying it along the Nile.

Amasis had a great esteem for the Greeks. He granted them large

privileges; and permitted such of them as were desirous of settling in

Egypt, to live in the city of Naucratis, so famous for its harbour. When

the rebuilding of the temple of Delphi, which had been burnt, was debated

on, and the expense was computed at three hundred talents,(502) Amasis

furnished the Delphians with a very considerable sum towards discharging

their quota, which was the fourth part of the whole charge.

He made an alliance with the Cyrenians, and married a wife from among

them.

He is the only king of Egypt who conquered the island of Cyprus, and made

it tributary.

Under his reign Pythagoras came into Egypt, being recommended to that

monarch by the famous Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, who had contracted a

friendship with Amasis, and will be mentioned hereafter. Pythagoras,

during his stay in Egypt, was initiated in all the mysteries of the

country; and instructed by the priests in whatever was most abstruse and

important in their religion. It was here he imbibed his doctrine of the

Metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls.

In the expedition in which Cyrus conquered so great a part of the world,

Egypt doubtless was subdued, like the rest of the provinces; and Xenophon

positively declares this in the beginning of his _Cyropædia_, or

institution of that prince.(503) Probably, after that the forty years of

desolation, which had been foretold by the prophet, were expired, Egypt

beginning gradually to regain strength, Amasis shook off the yoke, and

recovered his liberty.

Accordingly, we find, that one of the first cares of Cambyses, the son of

Cyrus, after he had ascended the throne, was to carry his arms into Egypt.

On his arrival there, Amasis was just dead, and succeeded by his son

Psammenitus.

(M96) PSAMMENITUS. Cambyses, after having gained a battle, pursued the

enemy to Memphis; besieged the city, and soon took it: however, he treated

the king with clemency, granted him his life, and assigned him an

honourable pension; but being informed that he was secretly concerting

measures to reascend his throne, he put him to death. Psammenitus reigned

but six months: all Egypt submitted immediately to the victor. The

particulars of this history will be related more at large, when I come to

that of Cambyses.

Here ends the succession of the Egyptian kings. From this æra the history

of this nation, as was before observed, will be blended with that of the

Persians and Greeks, till the death of Alexander. At that period, a new

monarchy will arise in Egypt, founded by Ptolemy the son of Lagus, which

will continue to Cleopatra, that is, for about three hundred years. I

shall treat each of these subjects, in the several periods to which they

belong.

BOOK THE SECOND. THE HISTORY OF THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Part The First. Character, Manners, Religion, And Government Of The

Carthaginians.

SECT. I. CARTHAGE FORMED AFTER THE MODEL OF TYRE, OF WHICH THAT CITY WAS A

COLONY. The Carthaginians were indebted to the Tyrians, not only for their

origin, but for their manners, language, customs, laws, religion, and

their great application to commerce, as will appear from every part of the

sequel. They spoke the same language with the Tyrians, and these the same

with the Canaanites and Israelites, that is, the Hebrew tongue, or at

least a language which was entirely derived from it. Their names had

commonly some particular meaning:(504) thus _Hanno_ signified _gracious_,

_bountiful_; Dido, _amiable_, or _well-beloved_; Sophonisba, _one who

keeps faithfully her husband’s secrets_. From a spirit of religion, they

likewise joined the name of God to their own, conformably to the genius of

the Hebrews. Hannibal, which answers to Hananias, signifies _Baal_, [or

_the Lord_] _has been gracious to me_. Asdrubal, answering to Azarias,

implies, _the Lord will be our succour_. It is the same with other names,

Adherbal, Maharbal, Mastanabal, &c. The word Pœni, from which Punic is

derived, is the same with Phœni, or Phœnicians, because they came

originally from Phœnicia. In the _Pœnulus_ of Plautus, is a scene written

in the Punic tongue, which has very much exercised the learned.(505)

But the strict union which always subsisted between the Phœnicians and

Carthaginians, is still more remarkable. When Cambyses had resolved to

make war upon the latter, the Phœnicians, who formed the chief strength of

his fleet, told him plainly that they could not serve him against their

countrymen; and this declaration obliged that prince to lay aside his

design.(506) The Carthaginians, on their side, were never forgetful of the

country from whence they came, and to which they owed their origin. They

sent regularly every year to Tyre a ship freighted with presents, as a

quit-rent, or acknowledgment paid to their ancient country; and an annual

sacrifice was offered to the tutelar gods of Tyre, by the Carthaginians,

who considered them as their protectors likewise.(507) They never failed

to send thither the first fruits of their revenues, nor the tithe of the

spoils taken from their enemies, as offerings to Hercules, one of the

principal gods of Tyre and Carthage. The Tyrians, to secure from Alexander

(who was then besieging their city) what they valued above all things, I

mean their wives and children, sent them to Carthage, where, though at a

time when the inhabitants of the latter were involved in a furious war,

they were received and entertained with such a kindness and generosity as

might be expected from the most tender and opulent parents. Such

uninterrupted testimonies of a warm and sincere gratitude, do a nation

more honour, than the greatest conquests and the most glorious victories.

SECT. II. THE RELIGION OF THE CARTHAGINIANS.—It appears from several

passages of the history of Carthage, that its generals looked upon it as

an indispensable duty, to begin and end all their enterprises with the

worship of the gods. Hamilcar, father of the great Hannibal, before he

entered Spain in a hostile manner, offered up a sacrifice to the gods; and

his son, treading in his steps, before he left Spain, and marched against

Rome, went as far as Cadiz, in order to pay the vows which he had made to

Hercules, and to offer up new ones, in case that god should be propitious

to him.(508) After the battle of Cannæ, when he acquainted the

Carthaginians with the joyful news, he recommended to them, above all

things, the offering up a solemn thanksgiving to the immortal gods, for

the several victories he had obtained.(509) _Pro his tantis totque

victoriis verum esse grates diis immortalibus agi haberique._

Neither did individuals alone pride themselves upon displaying, on every

occasion, this religious care to honour the deity; but it evidently was

the genius and disposition of the whole nation.

Polybius has transmitted to us a treaty of peace concluded between Philip,

son of Demetrius, king of Macedon, and the Carthaginians, in which the

great respect and veneration of the latter for the deity, and their

inherent persuasion that the gods engage in, and preside over, human

affairs, and particularly over the solemn treaties made in their name and

presence, are strongly displayed.(510) Mention is therein made of five or

six different orders of deities; and this enumeration appears very

extraordinary in a public instrument, such as a treaty of peace concluded

between two nations. I will here present my reader with the very words of

the historian, as it will give some idea of the Carthaginian theology.

“This treaty was concluded in the presence of Jupiter, Juno, and Apollo;

in the presence of the dæmon or genius (δαίμονος) of the Carthaginians, of

Hercules and Iolaus; in the presence of Mars, Triton, and Neptune; in the

presence of all the confederate gods of the Carthaginians; and of the sun,

the moon, and the earth; in the presence of the rivers, meads, and waters;

in the presence of all those gods who possess Carthage:” what should we

now say to an instrument of this kind, in which the tutelar angels and

saints of a kingdom should be introduced?

The Carthaginians had two deities to whom they paid a more particular

worship, and who deserve to have some mention made of them in this place.

The first was the goddess Cœlestis, called likewise Urania, the same with

the moon, who was invoked in great calamities, and particularly in

droughts, in order to obtain rain: that very virgin Cœlestis, says

Tertullian,(511) the promiser of rain, _Ista ipsa Virgo Cœlestis pluviarum

pollicitatrix_. Tertullian, speaking of this goddess and of Æsculapius,

makes the heathens of that age a challenge, which is bold indeed, but at

the same time very glorious to the cause of Christianity; declaring, that

any Christian who may first come, shall oblige these false gods to confess

publicly, that they are but devils; and consenting that this Christian

shall be immediately killed, if he does not extort such a confession from

the mouth of these gods. _Nisi se dæmones confessi fuerint Christiano

mentiri non audentes, ibidem illius Christiani procacissimi sanguinem

fundite._ St. Austin likewise makes frequent mention of this deity. “What

is now,” says he,(512) “become of Cœlestis, whose empire was once so great

in Carthage?” This was doubtless the same deity whom Jeremiah calls the

queen of heaven;(513) and who was held in so much reverence by the Jewish

women, that they addressed their vows, burnt incense, poured out

drink-offerings, and made cakes for her with their own hands, _ut faciant

placentas reginæ cœli_; and from whom they boasted their having received

all manner of blessings, whilst they regularly paid her this worship;

whereas, since they had failed in it, they had been oppressed with

misfortunes of every kind.

The second deity particularly adored by the Carthaginians, and in whose

honour human sacrifices were offered, was Saturn, known in Scripture by

the name of Moloch; and this worship had passed from Tyre to Carthage.

Philo quotes a passage from Sanchoniathon, which shows that the kings of

Tyre, in great dangers, used to sacrifice their sons to appease the anger

of the gods; and that one of them, by this action, procured himself divine

honours, and was worshipped as a god, under the name of the planet Saturn;

to this doubtless was owing the fable of Saturn’s devouring his own

children. Private persons, when they were desirous of averting any great

calamity, took the same method; and, in imitation of their princes, were

so very superstitious, that such as had no children, purchased those of

the poor, in order that they might not be deprived of the merit of such a

sacrifice. This custom prevailed long among the Phœnicians and Canaanites,

from whom the Israelites borrowed it, though forbidden expressly by

heaven. At first, these children were inhumanly burnt, either in a fiery

furnace, like those in the valley of Hinnon, so often mentioned in

Scripture, or enclosed in a flaming statue of Saturn. The cries of these

unhappy victims were drowned by the uninterrupted noise of drums and

trumpets.(514) Mothers(515) made it a merit, and a part of their religion,

to view this barbarous spectacle with dry eyes, and without so much as a

groan; and, if a tear or a sigh stole from them, the sacrifice was less

acceptable to the deity, and all the effects of it were entirely lost.

This strength of mind, or rather savage barbarity, was carried to such

excess, that even mothers would endeavour, with embraces and kisses, to

hush the cries of their children;(516) lest, had the victim been offered

with an unbecoming grace, and in the midst of tears, it should be

displeasing to the god: _Blanditiis et osculis comprimebant vagitum, ne

flebilis hostia immolaretur._(517) They afterwards contented themselves

with making their children pass through the fire; as appears from several

passages of Scripture, in which they frequently perished.

The Carthaginians retained the barbarous custom of offering human

sacrifices to their gods,(518) till the ruin of their city:(519) an action

which ought to have been called a sacrilege rather than a sacrifice.

_Sacrilegium veriùs quàm sacrum._ It was suspended only for some years,

from the fear they were under of drawing upon themselves the indignation

and arms of Darius I. king of Persia, who forbade them the offering up of

human sacrifices, and the eating the flesh of dogs: but they soon resumed

this horrid practice, since, in the reign of Xerxes, the successor to

Darius, Gelon the tyrant of Syracuse, having gained a considerable victory

over the Carthaginians in Sicily, among other conditions of peace which he

enjoined them, inserted this article:(520) _viz._ “That no more human

sacrifices should be offered to Saturn.” And, doubtless, the practice of

the Carthaginians, on this very occasion, made Gelon use this precaution.

For during the whole engagement, which lasted from morning till night,

Hamilcar, the son of Hanno their general, was perpetually offering up to

the gods sacrifices of living men, who were thrown in great numbers on a

flaming pile; and seeing his troops routed and put to flight, he himself

rushed into it, in order that he might not survive his own disgrace, and

to extinguish, says St. Ambrose speaking of this action, with his own

blood this sacrilegious fire, when he found that it had not proved of

service to him.(521)(522)

In times of pestilence(523) they used to sacrifice a great number of

children to their gods, unmoved with pity for a tender age, which excites

compassion in the most cruel enemies; thus seeking a remedy for their

evils in guilt itself; and endeavouring to appease the gods by the most

shocking barbarity.

Diodorus relates(524) an instance of this cruelty which strikes the reader

with horror. At the time that Agathocles was just going to besiege

Carthage, its inhabitants, seeing the extremity to which they were

reduced, imputed all their misfortunes to the just anger of Saturn,

because that, instead of offering up children nobly born, who were usually

sacrificed to him, there had been fraudulently substituted in their stead

the children of slaves and foreigners. To atone for this crime, two

hundred children of the best families in Carthage were sacrificed to

Saturn; besides which, upwards of three hundred citizens, from a sense of

their guilt of this pretended crime, voluntarily sacrificed themselves.

Diodorus adds, that there was a brazen statue of Saturn, the hands of

which were turned downward; so that when a child was laid on them, it

dropped immediately into a hollow, where was a fiery furnace.

Can this, says Plutarch,(525) be called worshipping the gods? Can we be

said to entertain an honourable idea of them, if we suppose that they are

pleased with slaughter, thirsty of human blood, and capable of requiring

or accepting such offerings? Religion, says this judicious author,(526) is

placed between two rocks, that are equally dangerous to man, and injurious

to the deity, I mean impiety and superstition. The one, from an

affectation of free-thinking, believes nothing; and the other, from a

blind weakness, believes all things. Impiety, to rid itself of a terror

which galls it, denies the very existence of the gods: whilst

superstition, to calm its fears, capriciously forges gods, which it makes

not only the friends, but protectors and models, of crimes. Had it not

been better, says he further,(527) for the Carthaginians to have had

originally a Critias, or a Diagoras, who were open and undisguised

atheists, for their lawgivers, than to have established so frantic and

wicked a religion? Could the Typhons and the giants, (the avowed enemies

of the gods,) had they gained a victory over them, have established more

abominable sacrifices?

Such were the sentiments which a heathen entertained of this part of the

Carthaginian worship. One would indeed scarce believe that mankind were

capable of such madness and frenzy. Men do not generally of themselves

entertain ideas so destructive of all that nature considers as most

sacred, as to sacrifice, to murder, their children with their own hands,

and to throw them in cool blood into fiery furnaces! Sentiments so

unnatural and barbarous, and yet adopted by whole nations, and even by the

most civilized, by the Phœnicians, Carthaginians, Gauls, Scythians, and

even the Greeks and Romans, and consecrated by custom during a long series

of ages, can have been inspired by him only who was a murderer from the

beginning; and who delights in nothing but the humiliation, misery, and

perdition of man.

SECT. III. FORM OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CARTHAGE.—The government of Carthage

was founded upon principles of the most consummate wisdom; and it is with

reason that Aristotle(528) ranks this republic in the number of those that

were had in the greatest esteem by the ancients, and which were fit to

serve as a model for others. He grounds his opinion on a reflection, which

does great honour to Carthage, by remarking, that, from its foundation to

his time, (that is, upwards of five hundred years,) no considerable

sedition had disturbed the peace, nor any tyrant oppressed the liberty of

that state. Indeed, mixed governments, such as that of Carthage, where the

power was divided betwixt the nobles and the people, are subject to two

inconveniences; either of degenerating into an abuse of liberty by the

seditions of the populace, as frequently happened in Athens, and in all

the Grecian republics; or into the oppression of the public liberty by the

tyranny of the nobles, as in Athens, Syracuse, Corinth, Thebes, and Rome

itself under Sylla and Cæsar. It is, therefore, giving Carthage the

highest praise, to observe, that it had found out the art, by the wisdom

of its laws, and the harmony of the different parts of its government, to

shun, during so long a series of years, two rocks that are so dangerous,

and on which others so often split.

It were to be wished, that some ancient author had left us an accurate and

regular description of the customs and laws of this famous republic. For

want of such assistance, we can only give our readers a confused and

imperfect idea of them, by collecting the several passages which lie

scattered up and down in authors. Christopher Hendrich has obliged the

learned world in this particular, and his work(529) has been of great

service to me.

The government of Carthage,(530) like that of Sparta and Rome, united

three different authorities, which counterpoised and gave mutual

assistance to one another. These authorities were, that of the two supreme

magistrates, called Suffetes;(531) that of the Senate; and that of the

people. There afterwards was added the tribunal of One Hundred, which had

great credit and influence in the republic.

_The Suffetes._—The power of the Suffetes was only annual, and their

authority in Carthage answered to that of the consuls at Rome.(532) In

authors they are frequently called kings, dictators, consuls, because they

exercised the functions of all three. History does not inform us of the

manner of their election. They were empowered to assemble the senate;(533)

in which they presided, proposed subjects for deliberation, and collected

the votes;(534) and they likewise presided in all debates on matters of

importance. Their authority was not limited to the city, nor confined to

civil affairs: they sometimes had the command of the armies. We find, that

when their employment of Suffetes expired, they were made prætors, which

was a considerable office, since, besides conferring upon them the

privilege of presiding in some causes, it also empowered them to propose

and enact new laws, and call to account the receivers of the public

revenues, as appears from what Livy relates(535) concerning Hannibal on

this head, and which I shall take notice of in the sequel.

_The Senate._—The Senate, composed of persons who were venerable on

account of their age, their experience, their birth, their riches, and

especially their merit, formed the council of state; and were, if I may

use that expression, the soul of the public deliberations. Their number is

not exactly known: it must, however, have been very great, since a hundred

were selected from it to form a separate assembly, of which I shall

immediately have occasion to speak. In the senate, all affairs of

consequence were debated, the letters from generals read, the complaints

of provinces heard, ambassadors admitted to audience, and peace or war

determined, as is seen on many occasions.

When the sentiments and votes were unanimous, the senate decided

supremely, and there lay no appeal from it.(536) When there was a

division, and the senate could not be brought to an agreement, the affair

was then laid before the people, on whom the power of deciding thereby

devolved. The reader will easily perceive the great wisdom of this

regulation: and how happily it was adapted to crush factions, to produce

harmony, and to enforce and corroborate good counsels; such an assembly

being extremely jealous of its authority, and not easily prevailed upon to

let it pass into other hands. Of this we have a memorable instance in

Polybius.(537) When after the loss of the battle fought in Africa, at the

end of the second Punic war, the conditions of peace offered by the victor

were read in the senate; Hannibal, observing that one of the senators

opposed them, represented in the strongest terms, that as the safety of

the republic lay at stake, it was of the utmost importance for the

senators to be unanimous in their resolutions, to prevent such a debate

from coming before the people; and he carried his point. This, doubtless,

laid the foundation, in the infancy of the republic, of the senate’s

power, and raised its authority to so great a height. And the same author

observes, in another place,(538) that whilst the senate had the

administration of affairs, the state was governed with great wisdom, and

was successful in all its enterprises.

_The People._—It appears from every thing related hitherto, that even so

low as Aristotle’s time, who gives so beautiful a picture, and bestows so

noble an eulogium on the government of Carthage, the people spontaneously

left the care of public affairs, and the chief administration of them, to

the senate: and this it was which made the republic so powerful. But

things changed afterwards. For the people, grown insolent by their wealth

and conquests, and forgetting that they owed these blessings to the

prudent conduct of the senate, were desirous of having a share in the

government, and arrogated to themselves almost the whole power. From that

period, the public affairs were transacted wholly by cabals and factions:

and this Polybius assigns as one of the chief causes of the ruin of

Carthage.

_The Tribunal of the Hundred._—This was a body composed of a hundred and

four persons; though often, for brevity’s sake, they are called only, the

Hundred. These, according to Aristotle, were the same in Carthage, as the

Ephori in Sparta; whence it appears, that they were instituted to balance

the power of the nobles and senate: but with this difference, that the

Ephori were but five in number, and continued in office but a year;

whereas these were perpetual, and were upwards of a hundred. (M97) It is

believed, that these Centumviri are the same with the hundred judges

mentioned by Justin,(539) who were taken out of the senate, and appointed

to inquire into the conduct of their generals. The exorbitant power of

Mago’s family, which, by its engrossing the chief employments both of the

state and the army, had thereby the sole direction and management of all

affairs, gave occasion to this establishment. It was intended as a curb to

the authority of their generals, which, whilst the armies were in the

field, was almost boundless and absolute; but, by this institution, it

became subject to the laws, by the obligation their generals were under,

of giving an account of their actions before these judges on their return

from the campaign: _Ut hoc metu ita in bello imperia cogitarent, ut domi

judicia legesque respicerent._(540) Of these hundred and four judges, five

had a particular jurisdiction superior to that of the rest; but it is not

known how long their authority lasted. This council of five was like the

council of ten in the Venetian senate. A vacancy in their number could be

filled by none but themselves. They also had the power of choosing those

who composed the council of the hundred. Their authority was very great,

and for that reason none were elected into this office but persons of

uncommon merit; and it was not judged proper to annex any salary or reward

to it; the single motive of the public good, being thought a tie

sufficient to engage honest men to a conscientious and faithful discharge

of their duty. Polybius, in his account of the taking of New Carthage by

Scipio,(541) distinguishes clearly two orders of magistrates established

in Old Carthage; for he says, that among the prisoners taken at New

Carthage, were two magistrates belonging to the body or assembly of old

men, ἐκ τῆς Γερουσίας: so he calls the council of the hundred; and fifteen

of the senate, ἐκ τῆς Συγκλήτου. Livy mentions(542) only the fifteen of

the senators; but, in another place, he names the old men; and tells us,

that they formed the most venerable council of the government, and had

great authority in the senate. _Carthaginenses—Oratores ad pacem petendam

mittunt triginta seniorum principes. Id erat sanctius apud illos

concilium, maximaque ad ipsum senatum regendum vis._(543)

Establishments, though constituted with the greatest wisdom and the

justest harmony of parts, degenerate, however insensibly, into disorder

and the most destructive licentiousness. These judges, who by the lawful

execution of their power were a terror to transgressors, and the great

pillars of justice, abusing their almost unlimited authority, became so

many petty tyrants. (M98) We shall see this verified in the history of the

great Hannibal, who during his prætorship, after his return to Africa,

employed all his influence to reform so horrid an abuse; and made the

authority of these judges, which before was perpetual, only annual, about

two hundred years from the first founding the tribunal of the One Hundred.

_Defects in the Government of Carthage._—Aristotle, among other

reflections made by him on the government of Carthage, remarks two great

defects in it, both which, in his opinion, are repugnant to the views of a

wise lawgiver and the maxims of sound policy.

The first of these defects was, the investing the same person with

different employments, which was considered at Carthage as a proof of

uncommon merit. But Aristotle thinks this practice highly prejudicial to

the public welfare. For, says this author, a man possessed but of one

employment, is much more capable of acquitting himself well in the

execution of it; because affairs are then examined with greater care, and

sooner despatched. We never see, continues our author, either by sea or

land, the same officer commanding two different bodies, or the same pilot

steering two ships. Besides, the welfare of the state requires that places

and preferments should be divided, in order to excite an emulation among

men of merit: whereas the bestowing of them on one man, too often dazzles

him by so distinguishing a preference, and always fills others with

jealousy, discontent, and murmurs.

The second defect taken notice of by Aristotle in the government of

Carthage, was, that in order for a man to attain the first posts, a

certain income was required (besides merit and noble birth.) By which

means, poverty might exclude persons of the most exalted merit, which he

considers as a great evil in a government. For then, says he, as virtue is

wholly disregarded, and money is all-powerful, because all things are

attained by it, the admiration and desire of riches seize and corrupt the

whole community. Add to this, that when magistrates and judges are obliged

to pay large sums for their employments, they seem to have a right to

reimburse themselves.’

There is not, I believe, one instance in all antiquity, to show that

employments, either in the state or the courts of justice, were sold. The

expense, therefore, which Aristotle talks of here to raise men to

preferments in Carthage, must doubtless be understood of the presents that

were given in order to procure the votes of the electors: a practice, as

Polybius observes, very common at Carthage, where no kind of gain was

judged a disgrace.(544) It is, therefore, no wonder, that Aristotle should

condemn a practice whose consequences, it is very plain, may prove fatal

to a government.

But in case he pretended that the chief employments of a state ought to be

equally accessible to the rich and the poor, as he seems to insinuate, his

opinion is refuted by the general practice of the wisest republics; for

these, without any way demeaning or aspersing poverty, have thought that,

on this occasion, the preference ought to be given to riches; because it

is to be presumed that the wealthy have received a better education, have

nobler sentiments, are more out of the reach of corruption, and less

liable to commit base actions; and that even the state of their affairs

makes them more affectionate to the government, more disposed to maintain

peace and order in it, and more interested in suppressing whatever may

tend to sedition and rebellion.

Aristotle, in concluding his reflections on the republic of Carthage, is

much pleased with a custom that prevailed there: _viz._ of sending from

time to time colonies into different countries; and in this manner

procuring its citizens commodious settlements. This provided for the

necessities of the poor, who, equally with the rich, are members of the

state: and it disburdened Carthage of multitudes of lazy, indolent people,

who were its disgrace, and often proved dangerous to it: it prevented

commotions and insurrections, by thus removing such persons as commonly

occasion them; and who being ever discontented under their present

circumstances, are always ready for innovations and tumults.

SECT. IV. TRADE OF CARTHAGE, THE FIRST SOURCE OF ITS WEALTH AND

POWER.—Commerce, strictly speaking, was the occupation of Carthage, the

particular object of its industry, and its peculiar and predominant

characteristic. It formed the greatest strength and the chief support of

that commonwealth. In a word, we may affirm that the power, the conquests,

the credit, and glory of the Carthaginians, all flowed from their

commerce. Situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, and stretching out

their arms eastward and westward, the extent of their commerce took in all

the known world, and wafted it to the coast of Spain, of Mauritania, of

Gaul, and beyond the straits and pillars of Hercules. They sailed to all

countries, in order to buy at a cheap rate the superfluities of every

nation; which, by the wants of others, became necessaries; and these they

sold to them at the dearest rates. From Egypt the Carthaginians fetched

fine flax, paper, corn, sails and cables for ships; from the coast of the

Red-Sea, spices, frankincense, perfumes, gold, pearls, and precious

stones; from Tyre and Phoenicia, purple and scarlet, rich stuffs,

tapestry, costly furniture, and divers curious and exquisite works of art:

in a word, they fetched, from various countries, all things that can

supply the necessities, or are capable of contributing to the convenience,

the luxury, and the delights of life. They brought back from the western

parts of the world, in return for the articles carried thither, iron, tin,

lead, and copper: by the sale of these various commodities, they enriched

themselves at the expense of all nations; and put them under a kind of

contribution, which was so much the surer as it was spontaneous.

In thus becoming the factors and agents of all nations, they had made

themselves lords of the sea; the band which held the east, the west, and

south together; and the necessary channel of their communication: so that

Carthage rose to be the common city, and the centre of the trade, of all

those nations which the sea separated from one another.

The most considerable personages of the city were not ashamed of engaging

in trade. They applied themselves to it as industriously as the meanest

citizens; and their great wealth did not make them less in love with the

diligence, patience, and labour, which are necessary to augment it. To

this they owed their empire of the sea, the splendour of their republic;

their being able to dispute for the superiority with Rome itself; and

their exalted pitch of power, which forced the Romans to carry on a bloody

and doubtful war, for upwards of forty years, in order to humble and

subdue this haughty rival. In short, Rome, even when triumphant, thought

Carthage was not to be entirely reduced any other way, than by depriving

that city of the resources which it might still derive from its commerce,

by which it had so long been enabled to resist the whole strength of that

mighty republic.

However, it is no wonder that, as Carthage came in a manner out of the

greatest school of traffic in the world, I mean Tyre, she should have been

crowned with such rapid and uninterrupted success. The very vessels on

which its founders had been conveyed into Africa, were afterwards employed

by them in their trade. They began to make settlements upon the coasts of

Spain, in those ports where they unloaded their goods. The ease with which

they had founded these settlements, and the conveniences they met with,

inspired them with the design of conquering those vast regions; and some

time after, _Nova Carthago_, or New Carthage, gave the Carthaginians an

empire in that country, almost equal to that which they enjoyed in Africa.

SECT. V. THE MINES OF SPAIN, THE SECOND SOURCE OF THE RICHES AND POWER OF

CARTHAGE.—Diodorus justly remarks,(545) that the gold and silver mines

found by the Carthaginians in Spain, were an inexhaustible fund of wealth,

that enabled them to sustain such long wars against the Romans. The

natives had long been ignorant of these treasures that lay concealed in

the bowels of the earth, at least of their use and value. The Phœnicians

took advantage of this ignorance; and, by bartering some wares of little

value for this precious metal, they amassed infinite wealth. When the

Carthaginians had made themselves masters of the country, they dug much

deeper into the earth than the old inhabitants of Spain had done, who

probably were content with what they could collect on the surface; and the

Romans, when they had dispossessed the Carthaginians of Spain, profited by

their example, and drew an immense revenue from these mines of gold and

silver.

The labour employed to come at these mines, and to dig the gold and silver

out of them, was incredible.(546) For the veins of these metals rarely

appeared on the surface; they were to be sought for and traced through

frightful depths, where very often floods of water stopped the miners, and

seemed to defeat all future pursuits. But avarice is no less patient in

undergoing fatigues, than ingenious in finding expedients. By pumps, which

Archimedes had invented when in Egypt, the Romans afterwards threw up the

water out of these pits, and quite drained them. Numberless multitudes of

slaves perished in these mines, which were dug to enrich their masters;

who treated them with the utmost barbarity, forced them by heavy stripes

to labour, and gave them no respite either day or night.

Polybius, as quoted by Strabo,(547) says, that, in his time, upwards of

forty thousand men were employed in the mines near _Nova Carthago_; and

furnished the Romans every day with twenty-five thousand drachmas, or

eight hundred fifty-nine pounds seven shillings and sixpence.(548)

We must not be surprised to see the Carthaginians, soon after the greatest

defeats, sending fresh and numerous armies again into the field; fitting

out mighty fleets, and supporting, at a great expense, for many years,

wars carried on by them in far-distant countries. But it must appear

surprising to us that the Romans should be capable of doing the same; they

whose revenues were very inconsiderable before those great conquests which

subjected to them the most powerful nations; and who had no resources,

either from trade, to which they were absolute strangers, or from gold or

silver mines, which were very rarely found in Italy, in case there were

any; and the expenses of which must, for that very reason, have swallowed

up all the profit. The Romans, in the frugal and simple life they led, in

their zeal for the public welfare, and their love for their country,

possessed funds which were not less ready or secure than those of

Carthage, but at the same time were far more honourable to their nation.

SECT. VI. WAR.—Carthage must be considered as a trading, and, at the same

time, a warlike republic. Its genius and the nature of its government led

it to traffic; and it became warlike, first, from the necessity the

Carthaginians were under of defending themselves against the neighbouring

nations, and afterwards from a desire of extending their commerce and

empire. This double idea gives us, in my opinion, the true plan and

character of the Carthaginian republic. We have already spoken of its

commerce.

The military power of the Carthaginians consisted in their alliances with

kings; in tributary nations, from which they drew both men and money; in

some troops raised from among their own citizens; and in mercenary

soldiers purchased of neighbouring states, without being themselves

obliged to levy or exercise them, because they were already well

disciplined and inured to the fatigues of war; they making choice, in

every country, of such troops as had the greatest merit and reputation.

They drew from Numidia a light, bold, impetuous, and indefatigable

cavalry, which formed the principal strength of their armies; from the

Balearic isles, the most expert slingers in the world; from Spain, a

steady and invincible infantry; from the coasts of Genoa and Gaul, troops

of acknowledged valour; and from Greece itself, soldiers fit for all the

various operations of war, for the field or the garrisons, for besieging

or defending cities.

In this manner the Carthaginians sent out at once powerful armies,

composed of soldiers which were the flower of all the armies in the

universe, without depopulating either their fields or cities by new

levies; without suspending their manufactures, or disturbing the peaceful

artificer; without interrupting their commerce, or weakening their navy.

By venal blood they possessed themselves of provinces and kingdoms; and

made other nations the instruments of their grandeur and glory, with no

other expense of their own than their money; and even this furnished from

the traffic they carried on with foreign nations.

If the Carthaginians, in the course of a war, sustained some losses, these

were but as so many foreign accidents, which only grazed, as it were, over

the body of the state, but did not make a deep wound in the bowels or

heart of the republic. These losses were speedily repaired, by sums

arising out of a flourishing commerce, as from a perpetual sinew of war,

by which the government was continually reinforced with new supplies for

the purchase of mercenary forces, who were ready at the first summons. And

from the vast extent of the coasts which the Carthaginians possessed, it

was easy for them to levy, in a very little time, a sufficient number of

sailors and rowers for the working of their fleets, and to procure able

pilots and experienced captains to conduct them.

But as these parts were fortuitously brought together, they did not adhere

by any natural, intimate, or necessary tie. No common and reciprocal

interest united them in such a manner, as to form a solid and unalterable

body. Not one individual in these mercenary armies, was sincerely

interested in the success of measures, or in the prosperity of the state.

They did not act with the same zeal, nor expose themselves to dangers with

equal resolution, for a republic which they considered as foreign, and

which consequently was indifferent to them, as they would have done for

their native country, whose happiness constitutes that of the several

members who compose it.

In great reverses of fortune, the kings in alliance with the

Carthaginians(549) might easily be detached from their interest, either by

that jealousy which the grandeur of a more powerful neighbour naturally

excites; or by the hopes of reaping greater advantages from a new friend;

or by the fear of being involved in the misfortunes of an old ally.

The tributary nations, impatient under the weight and disgrace of a yoke

which had been forced upon their necks, generally flattered themselves

with the hopes of finding one less galling in changing their masters; or,

in case servitude was unavoidable, the choice was indifferent to them, as

will appear from many instances in the course of this history.

The mercenary forces, accustomed to measure their fidelity by the

largeness or continuance of their pay, were ever ready, on the least

discontent, or the slightest expectation of a more considerable stipend,

to desert to the enemy with whom they had just before fought, and to turn

their arms against those who had invited them to their assistance.

Thus the grandeur of the Carthaginians being sustained only by these

foreign supports, was shaken to the very foundation when they were once

taken away. And if to this there happened to be added an interruption of

their commerce, (which was their sole resource,) arising from the loss of

a naval engagement, they imagined themselves to be on the brink of ruin,

and abandoned themselves to despondency and despair, as was evidently seen

at the end of the first Punic war.

Aristotle, in the treatise where he shows the advantages and defects of

the government of Carthage, finds no fault with its keeping up none but

foreign forces; it is therefore probable, that the Carthaginians did not

fall into this practice till a long time after. But the rebellions which

harassed Carthage in its later years, out to have taught its citizens,

that no miseries are comparable to those of a government which is

supported only by foreigners; since neither zeal, security, nor obedience,

can be expected from them.

But this was not the case with the republic of Rome. As the Romans had

neither trade nor money, they were not able to hire forces to push on

their conquests with the same rapidity as the Carthaginians: but then, as

they procured every thing from within themselves; and as all the parts of

the state were intimately united; they had surer resources in great

misfortunes than the Carthaginians. And for this reason they never once

thought of suing for peace after the battle of Cannæ, as the Carthaginians

had done in a less imminent danger.

The Carthaginians had, besides, a body of troops (which was not very

numerous) levied from among their own citizens; and this was a kind of

school, in which the flower of their nobility, and those whose talents and

ambition prompted them to aspire to the first dignities, learned the

rudiments of the art of war. From among these were selected all the

general officers, who were put at the head of the different bodies of

their forces, and had the chief command in the armies. This nation was too

jealous and suspicious to employ foreign generals. But they were not so

distrustful of their own citizens as Rome and Athens; for the

Carthaginians, at the same time that they invested them with great power,

did not guard against the abuse they might make of it in order to oppress

their country. The command of armies was neither annual, nor limited to

any time, as in the two republics above-mentioned. Many generals held

their commissions for a great number of years, either till the war or

their lives ended; though they were still accountable to the commonwealth

for their conduct; and liable to be recalled, whenever a real fault, a

misfortune, or the superior interest of a cabal, furnished an opportunity

for it.