We often hear it said that "civilization travels westward." What we mean
is that hardy pioneers have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled along
the shores of New England and New Netherland--that their children have
crossed the vast prairies--that their great-grandchildren have moved
into California--and that the present generation hopes to turn the vast
Pacific into the most important sea of the ages.
As a matter of fact, "civilization" never remains long in the same spot.
It is always going somewhere but it does not always move westward by any
means. Sometimes its course points towards the east or the south. Often
it zigzags across the map. But it keeps moving. After two or three
hundred years, civilization seems to say, "Well, I have been keeping
company with these particular people long enough," and it packs its
books and its science and its art and its music, and wanders forth in
search of new domains. But no one knows whither it is bound, and that is
what makes life so interesting.
[Illustration: THE SOIL OF THE FERTILE VALLEY.]
In the case of Egypt, the center of civilization moved northward and
southward, along the banks of the Nile. First of all, as I told you,
people from all over Africa and western Asia moved into the valley and
settled down. Thereupon they formed small villages and townships and
accepted the rule of a Commander-in-Chief, who was called Pharaoh, and
who had his capital in Memphis, in the lower part of Egypt.
After a couple of thousand years, the rulers of this ancient house
became too weak to maintain themselves. A new family from the town of
Thebes, 350 miles towards the south in Upper Egypt, tried to make itself
master of the entire valley. In the year 2400 B.C. they succeeded. As
rulers of both Upper and Lower Egypt, they set forth to conquer the rest
of the world. They marched towards the sources of the Nile (which they
never reached) and conquered black Ethiopia. Next they crossed the
desert of Sinai and invaded Syria where they made their name feared by
the Babylonians and Assyrians. The possession of these outlying
districts assured the safety of Egypt and they could set to work to turn
the valley into a happy home, for as many of the people as could find
room there. They built many new dikes and dams and a vast reservoir in
the desert which they filled with water from the Nile to be kept and
used in case of a prolonged drought. They encouraged people to devote
themselves to the study of mathematics and astronomy so that they might
determine the time when the floods of the Nile were to be expected.
Since for this purpose it was necessary to have a handy method by which
time could be measured, they established the year of 365 days, which
they divided into twelve months.
Contrary to the old tradition which made the Egyptians keep away from
all things foreign, they allowed the exchange of Egyptian merchandise
for goods which had been carried to their harbors from elsewhere.
They traded with the Greeks of Crete and with the Arabs of western Asia
and they got spices from the Indies and they imported gold and silk
from China.
But all human institutions are subject to certain definite laws of
progress and decline and a State or a dynasty is no exception. After
four hundred years of prosperity, these mighty kings showed signs of
growing tired. Rather than ride a camel at the head of their army, the
rulers of the great Egyptian Empire stayed within the gates of their
palace and listened to the music of the harp or the flute.
One day there came rumors to the town of Thebes that wild tribes of
horsemen had been pillaging along the frontiers. An army was sent to
drive them away. This army moved into the desert. To the last man it was
killed by the fierce Arabs, who now marched towards the Nile, bringing
their flocks of sheep and their household goods.
Another army was told to stop their progress. The battle was disastrous
for the Egyptians and the valley of the Nile was open to the invaders.
They rode fleet horses and they used bows and arrows. Within a short
time they had made themselves master of the entire country. For five
centuries they ruled the land of Egypt. They removed the old capital to
the Delta of the Nile.
They oppressed the Egyptian peasants.
They treated the men cruelly and they killed the children and they were
rude to the ancient gods. They did not like to live in the cities but
stayed with their flocks in the open fields and therefore they were
called the Hyksos, which means the Shepherd Kings.
At last their rule grew unbearable.
A noble family from the city of Thebes placed itself at the head of a
national revolution against the foreign usurpers. It was a desperate
fight but the Egyptians won. The Hyksos were driven out of the country,
and they went back to the desert whence they had come. The experience
had been a warning to the Egyptian people. Their five hundred years of
foreign slavery had been a terrible experience. Such a thing must never
happen again. The frontier of the fatherland must be made so strong that
no one dare to attack the holy soil.
A new Theban king, called Tethmosis, invaded Asia and never stopped
until he reached the plains of Mesopotamia. He watered his oxen in the
river Euphrates, and Babylon and Nineveh trembled at the mention of his
name. Wherever he went, he built strong fortresses, which were connected
by excellent roads. Tethmosis, having built a barrier against future
invasions, went home and died. But his daughter, Hatshepsut, continued
his good work. She rebuilt the temples which the Hyksos had destroyed
and she founded a strong state in which soldiers and merchants worked
together for a common purpose and which was called the New Empire, and
lasted from 1600 to 1300 B.C.
Military nations, however, never last very long. The larger the empire,
the more men are needed for its defense and the more men there are in
the army, the fewer can stay at home to work the farms and attend to the
demands of trade. Within a few years, the Egyptian state had become
top-heavy and the army, which was meant to be a bulwark against foreign
invasion, dragged the country into ruin from sheer lack of both men
and money.
Without interruption, wild people from Asia were attacking those strong
walls behind which Egypt was hoarding the riches of the entire
civilized world.
At first the Egyptian garrisons could hold their own.
One day, however, in distant Mesopotamia, there arose a new military
empire which was called Assyria. It cared for neither art nor science,
but it could fight. The Assyrians marched against the Egyptians and
defeated them in battle. For more than twenty years they ruled the land
of the Nile. To Egypt this meant the beginning of the end.
A few times, for short periods, the people managed to regain their
independence. But they were an old race, and they were worn out by
centuries of hard work.
The time had come for them to disappear from the stage of history and
surrender their leadership as the most civilized people of the world.
Greek merchants were swarming down upon the cities at the mouth of
the Nile.
A new capital was built at Sais, near the mouth of the Nile, and Egypt
became a purely commercial state, the half-way house for the trade
between western Asia and eastern Europe.
After the Greeks came the Persians, who conquered all of northern
Africa.
Two centuries later, Alexander the Great turned the ancient land of the
Pharaoh? into a Greek province. When he died, one of his generals,
Ptolemy by name, established himself as the independent king of a new
Egyptian state.
The Ptolemy family continued to rule for two hundred years.
In the year 30 B.C., Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemys, killed
herself, rather than become a prisoner of the victorious Roman general,
Octavianus.
That was the end.
Egypt became part of the Roman Empire and her life as an independent
state ceased for all time.