his kingdom in safety. He had lost nearly 73,000 men, killed or taken
prisoners, in addition to his chariots, and nearly the whole train of
horses, asses, servants, and artisans attached to his army; he left his
tent still standing, and those who were first to enter it laid hands
on his furniture and effects, his royal ornaments, his bed and portable
throne, with its cushions and bearing-poles, none of which had he found
time to take with him. Tiglath-pileser burnt them all on the spot as a
thank-offering, to the gods who had so signally favoured him; the bed
alone he retained, in order that he might dedicate it as a trophy to the
goddess Ishtar of Nineveh.
He had covered himself with glory, and might well be proud of his
achievement, yet the victory was in no way a decisive one. The damage
inflicted on the allies, considerable though it was, had cost him dear:
the forces left to him were not sufficient to enable him to finish the
campaign, and extort oaths of allegiance from the Syrian princes before
they had recovered from the first shock of defeat. He returned to
Nineveh, and spent the whole winter in reorganising his troops; while
his enemies, on the other hand, made preparations to repel the attack
energetically. Sharduris could not yet venture outside his mountain
strongholds, but the hope of being reinforced by him, as soon as he
had got together another army, encouraged the Syrian kings to remain
faithful to him in spite of his reverses.*
* The part played by Sharduris in the events of the years
which followed, passing mention of which was made by
Winckler (_Gesch. Bab. und Ass_,, pp. 224, 225), have been
fully dealt with by Belck and Lehmann (Chaldische
_Forschungen, in Veriiand. der Berliner anthropol.
Gesellschaft_, 1895, pp. 325-336).
Matîlu of Agusi, unable to carry the day against the Assyrians in
the open field, distributed his men among his towns, and resisted all
attacks with extraordinary persistence, confident that Sharduris would
at length come to help him, and with this hope he held out for three
years in his town of Arpad. This protracted resistance need no longer
astonish us, now that we know, from observations made on the spot, the
marvellous skill displayed in the fortification of these Asiatic towns.
The ruins of Arpad have yet to be explored, but those of Samalla have
been excavated, and show us the methods adopted for the defence of a
royal residence about the middle of the century with which we are now
concerned. The practice of building citadels on a square or rectangular
plan, which prevailed so largely under the Egyptian rule, had gradually
gone out of fashion as the knowledge of engineering advanced, and the
use of mines and military engines had been more fully developed among
the nations of Western Asia. It was found that the heavily fortified
angles of the enclosing wall merely presented so many weak points, easy
to attack but difficult to defend, no matter how carefully they might
be protected by an accumulation of obstacles. In the case of fortresses
built on a plain, where the plan was not modified by the nature of the
site, the enclosing wall was generally round or oval in shape, and free
from useless angles which might detract from its strength. The walls
were surmounted by battlements, and flanked at short intervals by round
or square towers, the tops of which rose but little, if indeed at all,
above the level of the curtain. In front of this main wall was a second
lower one, also furnished with towers and battlements, which followed
the outline of the first all the way round at an interval of some yards,
thus acting as a sort of continuous screen to it. The gates were little
less than miniature citadels built into each line of ramparts; the gate
of the outer wall was often surrounded by lower outworks, two square
bastions and walls enclosing an outer quadrangle which had to be crossed
before the real gate was reached.
[Illustration: 226a.jpg PLAN OF THE ANCIENT CITY OF ZINJIRLI.]
A reproduction by Faucher-Gudin of the first plan published
by Luschan.
When a breach had been made in this double enclosure, though the town
itself might be taken, the labours of the attacking force were not yet
over. In the very centre of the place, on a sort of artificial mound
or knoll, stood the royal castle, and resistance on the part of its
garrison would make it necessary for the enemy to undertake a second
siege no less deadly and protracted than the first. The keep of Zinjirli
had only a single gate approached by a narrow causeway.
[Illustration: 226b.jpg ONE OF THE GATES OF ZINJIRLI RESTORED]
Reproduction by Faucher-Gudin of the sketch published by
Luschan.
Within, it was divided by walls into five compartments, each of which
was independent of the rest, and had to be attacked separately. Ma-tîlu
knew he could hope for no mercy at the hands of the Assyrians; he
therefore struggled on to the last, and when at length obliged to
surrender, in the year 740 B.C., he paid for his obstinacy by the loss
of his throne, and perhaps also of his life.*
* Our knowledge of these events is imperfect, our only
information being derived from the very scanty details given
in the _Eponym Canon_; up to the present we can do no more
than trace the general course of events.
[Illustration: 227.jpg BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF THE ROYAL CASTLE OF ZINJIRLI
AS RESTORED]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the plan published in Luschan.
The inaction of Sharduris clearly showed that he was no longer in a
position to protect his allies, and that the backbone of his kingdom
was broken; the kings who had put faith in his help now gave him up, and
ambassadors flocked in from all parts, even from those which were not as
yet directly threatened. Kushtashpi of Kummukh, Tark-hulara of Gturgum,
Pisiris of Carchemish, Uriaîk of Kuî, came to Arpad in person to throw
themselves at the conquerors feet, bringing with them offerings of
gold and silver, of lead and iron, of ivory, carved and in the tusk,
of purple, and of dyed or embroidered stuffs, and were confirmed in the
possession of their respective territories; Hiram II. of Tyre, moreover,
and Eezin of Damascus sent their greetings to him.*
* _Annals of Tiglath-pileser III_., where the statement at
the close indicates that Tiglath-pileser received the
tributary kings of Syria in Arpad, after he had captured
that city.
The Patina, who in days gone by had threatened the fortunes of
Assur-nazir-pal, once again endeavoured to pose as the rivals of
Assyria, and Tutammû, sovereign of Unki, the most daring of the minor
states into which the Patina had been split up, declined to take part
in the demonstrations made by his neighbours. Tiglath-pileser marched
on Kinalua, sacked it, built a fortress there, and left a governor and
garrison behind him: Agusi and Unki henceforth sank down to the level of
mere provinces, administered by royal officers in the kings name, and
permanently occupied by Assyrian troops.
Northern Syria was thus again incorporated with the empire, but Urartu,
although deprived of the resources with which Syria had supplied it,
continued to give cause for apprehension; in 739 B.C., however, a large
proportion of the districts of Naîri, to which it still clung, was
wrested from it, and a fortress was built at Ulluba, with a view to
providing a stable base of operations at this point on the northern
frontier. A rebellion, instigated, it may be, by his own agents,
recalled Tiglath-pileser to the Amanus in the year 738. The petty kings
who shared with Assyria the possession of the mountains and plains of
the Afrîn could not succeed in living at peace with one another, and
every now and then their disputes broke out into open warfare. Samalla
was at that time subject to a family of which the first members known to
history, Qaral and Panammu, shared Yaudi equally between them. Barzur,
son of Panammu I., had reigned there since about 765 B.C., and there can
be little doubt that he must have passed through the same vicissitudes
as his neighbours; faithful to Urartu as long as Sharduris kept the
upper hand, and to Assyria as soon as Tiglath-pileser had humiliated
Urartu, he had been killed in a skirmish by some rival. His son, Panammu
IL, came to the throne merely as a nominee of his suzerain, and seems to
have always rendered him faithful service; unfortunately, Yaudi was no
longer subject to the house of Panammu, but obeyed the rule of a certain
Azriyahu, who chafed at the presence of an alien power.*
* Azriyahu of Yaudi was identified with Azariah of Judah by
G. Smith, and this identification was for a long time
accepted without question by most Assyriologists. After a
violent controversy it has finally been shown that the
_Yaudi_ of Tiglath-pileser III.a inscriptions ought to be
identified with the _Yadi_ or _Yaudi_ of the Zinjirli
inscriptions, and consequently that Azriyahu was not king of
Judah, but a king of Northern Syria. This view appears to me
to harmonise so well with what remains of the texts, and
with our knowledge of the events, that I have had no
hesitation in adopting it.
Azriyahu took advantage of the events which kept Tiglath-pileser fully
occupied in the east, to form a coalition in favour of himself among the
states on the banks of the Orontes, including some seventeen provinces,
dependencies of Hamath, and certain turbulent cities of Northern
Phoenicia, such as Byblos, Arka, Zimyra, Usnû, Siannu, Coele-Syria,
and even Hadrach itself. It is not quite clear whether Damascus and the
Hebrews took part in this movement. Jeroboam had died in 740, after a
prosperous reign of forty-one years, and on his death Israel seems
to have fallen under a cloud; six months later, his son Zechariah was
assassinated at Ibleam by Shallum, son of Jabesh, and the prophecy
of Amos, in which he declared that the house of Jeroboam should fall
beneath the sword of Jahveh,* was fulfilled. Shallum himself reigned
only one month: two other competitors had presented themselves
immediately after his crime;** the ablest of these, Menahem, son of
Gadi, had come from Tirzah to Samaria, and, after suppressing his
rivals, laid hands on the crown.*** He must have made himself master
of the kingdom little by little, the success of his usurpation being
entirely due to the ruthless energy invariably and everywhere displayed
by him; as, for instance, when Tappuakh (Tiphsah) refused to open
its gates at his summons, he broke into the town and slaughtered its
inhabitants.****
* Amos vii. 9.
** The nameless prophet, whose prediction is handed down to
us in Zech. ix.--xi., speaks of three shepherds cut off by
Javeh in one month (xi. 8); two of these were Zechariah and
Shallum; the third is not mentioned in the Book of Kings.
*** 2 Kings xiv. 23-29; xv. 8-15.
**** 2 Kings xv. 16. The Massoretic text gives the name of
the town as Tipsah, but the Septuagint has Taphôt, which led
Thenius to suggest Tappuakh as an emendation of Tipsah:
Stade prefers the emendation Tirzah.
All the defects of organisation, all the sources of weakness, which for
the last half-century had been obscured by the glories of Jeroboam II.,
now came to the surface, and defied all human efforts to avert their
consequences. Then, as Hosea complains, is the iniquity of Ephraim
discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood:
and the thief entereth in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.
And they consider not in their hearts that I (Jahveh) remember all their
wickedness: now have their own doings beset them about; they are before
My face. They make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes
with their lies. They are all adulterers; they are as an oven heated by
the baker.... They... devour their judges; all their kings are fallen;
there is none among them that calleth unto Me. * In Judah, Azariah
(Uzziah) had at first shown some signs of ability; he had completed the
conquest of Idumsea, Edom, and had fortified Elath,** but he suddenly
found himself stricken with leprosy, and was obliged to hand over the
reins of government of Jotham.***
* Sos. vii. 1-4, 7.
** 2 Kings xiv. 22; in 2 Ghron. xxvi. 6-15 he is credited
with the reorganisation of the army and of the Judsean
fortress, in addition to campaigns against the Philistines
and Arabs.
*** 2 Kings xv. 5; cf. 2 Ghron. xxvi. 19-21. Azariah is also
abbreviated into Uzziah. Tappuakh was a town situated on the
borders of Ephraim and Manasseh (Josh. xvi. 8; xvii. 7, 8).
His long life had been passed uneventfully, and without any disturbance,
under the protection of Jeroboam; but the very same defects which had
led to the ruin of Israel were at work also in Judah, and Menahem, in
spite of his enfeebled condition, had nothing to fear in this direction.
[Illustration: 232.jpg TIGLATH-PILESER III. IN HIS STATE CHARIOT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch published by Layard.
The danger which menaced him came rather from the east and the north,
where Damascus, aroused from its state of lethargy by Rezôn [Rezin] II.,
had again begun to strive after the hegemony of Syria.*
* The name of this king, written Rezin in the Bible (2 Kings
xv. 37; xvi. 5, 6, 9), is given as _Razunu_ in the Assyrian
texts; he was therefore Ilezôn II. A passage in the _Annals_
seems to indicate that Rezins father was prince of a city
dependent on Damascus, not king of Damascus itself;
unfortunately the text is too much mutilated to warrant us
in forming any definite conclusion on this point.
All these princes, when they found that the ambition of Tiglath-pileser
threatened to interfere with their own intrigues, were naturally
tempted to combine against him, and were willing to postpone to a more
convenient season the settlement of their own domestic quarrrels. But
Tiglath-pileser did not give them time for this; he routed Azriyahu, and
laid waste Kullani,* the chief centre of revolt, ravaged the valley of
the Orontes, and carried off the inhabitants of several towns, replacing
them with prisoners taken the year before during his campaign in Naîri.
* Kullani is the Calno or Calneh mentioned by Isaiah (x. 9)
and Amos (vi. 2), which lay somewhere between Arpad and
Hamath; the precise spot is not yet known.
After this feat the whole of Syria surrendered. Rezin and Menahem were
among the first to tender their homage, and the latter paid a thousand
talents of silver for the _firman_ which definitely confirmed his tenure
of the throne; the princes of Tyre, Byblos, Hamath, Carchemish, Milid,
Tabal, and several others followed their example--even a certain Zabibi,
queen of an Arab tribe, feeling compelled to send her gifts to the
conqueror.
A sudden rising among the Aramæan tribes on the borders of Elam obliged
Tiglath-pileser to depart before he had time to take full advantage of
his opportunity. The governors of Lullumi and Naîri promptly suppressed
the outbreak, and, collecting the most prominent of the rebels together,
sent them to the king in order that he might distribute them throughout
the cities of Syria: a colony of 600 prisoners from the town of Amlati
was established in the territory of Damaunu, 5400 from Dur were sent to
the fortresses of Unki, Kunalia, Khuzarra, Taî, Tarmanazi, Kulmadara,
Khatatirra, and Sagillu, while another 10,000 or so were scattered along
the Phoenician seaboard and among the adjacent mountains. The revolt
had meanwhile spread to the nations of Media, where it was, perhaps,
fomented by the agents of Urartu; and for the second time within seven
years (737 B.C.) Tiglath-pileser trampled underfoot the countries over
which he had ridden in triumph at the beginning of his career--the
Bît-Kapsi, the Bît-Sangibuti, the Bît-Tazzakki, the Bît-Zulazash,
the Bît-Matti, and Umliash. The people of Upash, among the Bît-Kapsi,
entrenched themselves on the slopes of Mount Abirus; but he carried
their entrenchments by storm. Ushuru of Taddiruta and Burdadda of
Nirutakta were seized with alarm, and hid themselves in their mountain
gorges; but he climbed up in pursuit of them, drove them out of their
hiding-places, seized their possessions, and made them prisoners.
Similar treatment was meted out to all those who proved refractory; some
he despoiled, others he led captive, and bursting upon the remainder
like the downpour of Bammân, permitted none of them to escape. He
raised trophies all along his line of march: in Bau, a dependency of
Bît-Ishtar, he set up a pointed javelin dedicated to Ninip, on which
he had engraved a panegyric of the virtues of his master Assur; near
Shilkhazi, a town founded, in bygone days, by the Babylonians, he
erected a statue of himself, and a pillar consecrated to Marduk in
Til-ashshur. In the following year he again attacked Urartu and occupied
the mountain province of Nâl, which formed one of its outlying defences
(736). The year after he entered on the final struggle with Sharduris,
and led the flower of his forces right under the walls of Dhuspas,* the
enemys capital.
* The name is written Turuspas in the inscriptions of
Tiglath-pileser III.
Dhuspas really consisted of two towns joined together. One of these,
extending over the plain by the banks of the Alaîs and in the direction
of the lake, was surrounded by fertile gardens and villas, in which
the inhabitants spent the summer at their ease. It was protected by
an isolated mass of white and red nummulitic chalk, the steep sides of
which are seamed with fissures and tunnelled with holes and caverns from
top to bottom.
[Illustration: 235.jpg THE ROCK AND CITADEL OF VAN AT THE PRESENT DAY]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Binder.
The plateau in which it terminates, and which rises to a height of 300
feet at its loftiest point, is divided into three main terraces, each
completely isolated from the other two, and forming, should occasion
arise, an independent fortress, Ishpuinis, Menuas, Argistis, and
Sharduris II. had laboured from generation to generation to make this
stronghold impregnable, and they had succeeded in the attempt.
[Illustration: 236.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE MODERN CITADEL OF VAN FROM THE
WESTWARD]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Binder.
There can be little or no doubt, however, that this is merely a variant
of the name usually written as Tuspas, Tuspana, Dhuspana, the Thospia of
classical times; properly speaking, it was the capital of Biainas. The
only access to it was from the western side, by a narrow bridle-path,
which almost overhung the precipice as it gradually mounted to the
summit. This path had been partially levelled, and flanked with walls
and towers which commanded the approach throughout its whole length;
on the platforms at the summit a citadel had been constructed, together
with a palace, temples, and storehouses, in which was accumulated a
sufficient supply of arms and provisions to enable the garrison to tire
out the patience of any ordinary foe; treason or an unusually prolonged
siege could only get the better of such a position. Tiglath-pileser
invested the citadel and ravaged its outskirts without pity, hoping, no
doubt, that he would thus provoke the enemy into capitulating. Day after
day, Sharduris, perched in his lofty eyrie, saw his leafy gardens laid
bare under the hatchet, and his villages and the palaces of his nobles
light up the country round as far as the eye could reach: he did not
flinch, however, and when all had been laid waste, the Assyrians set up
a statue of their king before the principal gate of the fortress, broke
up their camp, and leisurely retired. They put the country to fire and
sword, destroyed its cities, led away every man and beast they could
find into captivity, and then returned to Nineveh laden with plunder.
Urartu was still undaunted, and Sharduris remained king as before; but
he was utterly spent, and his power had sustained a blow from which
it never recovered. He had played against Assur with the empire of the
whole Asiatic world as the stake, and the dice had gone against him:
compelled to renounce his great ambitions from henceforth, he sought
merely to preserve his independence. Since then, Armenia has more than
once challenged fortune, but always with the same result; it fared no
better under Tigranes in the Roman epoch, than under Sharduris in the
time of the Assyrians; it has been within an ace of attaining the goal
of its ambitions, then at the last moment its strength has failed, and
it has been forced to retire worsted from the struggle. Its position
prevented it from exercising very wide influence; hidden away in a
corner of Asia at the meeting-point of three or four great mountain
ranges, near the source of four rivers, all flowing in different
directions, it has lacked that physical homogeneity without which no
people, however gifted, can hope to attain supremacy; nature has doomed
it to remain, like Syria, split up into compartments of unequal size
and strength, which give shelter to half a score of independent
principalities, each one of them perpetually jealous of the rest. From
time to time it is invested with a semblance of unity, but for the
most part it drags on an uneventful existence, dismembered into as many
fragments as there happen to be powerful states around it, its only
chance of complete reunion lying in the possibility of one or other of
these attaining sufficient predominance to seize the share of the others
and absorb it.
The subjection of Urartu freed Assyria from the only rival which could
at this moment have disputed its supremacy on the banks of the Euphrates
and the Tigris. The other nations on its northern and eastern frontiers
as yet possessed no stability; they might, in the course of a passing
outburst, cut an army to pieces or annex part of a province, but they
lacked strength to follow up their advantage, and even their most
successful raids were sure, in the long run, to lead to terrible
reprisals, in which their gains were two or three times outweighed by
their losses in men and treasure. For nearly a hundred years Nineveh
found its hands free, and its rulers were able to concentrate all their
energy on two main points of the frontier--to the south-west on Syria
and Egypt, to the south-east on Chaldæa and Elam. Chaldæa gave little
trouble, but the condition of Syria presented elements of danger. The
loyalty of its princes was more apparent than real; they had bowed their
necks after the fall of Unki, but afterwards, as the years rolled on
without any seeming increase in the power of Assyria, they again took
courage and began once more to quarrel among themselves. Menahem had
died, soon after he had paid his tribute (737 B.c.); his son Pekahiah
had been assassinated less than two years later (736)* and his murderer,
Pekah, son of Remaliah, was none too firmly seated on the throne.
Anarchy was triumphant throughout Israel; so much so that Judah seized
the opportunity for throwing off the yoke it had borne for well-nigh
a hundred years. Pekah, conscious of his inability to suppress the
rebellion, called in Rezin to help him. The latter was already on the
way when Jotham was laid with his fathers (736 B.C.), and it was Ahaz,
the son of Jotham, who had to bear the brant of the assault. He was
barely twenty years old, a volatile, presumptuous, and daring youth,
who was not much dismayed by his position.** Jotham had repaired the
fortifications of Jerusalem, which had been left in a lamentable state
ever since the damage done to them in the reign of Amaziah;*** his
successor now set to work to provide the city with the supply of water
indispensable for its defence,**** and, after repairing the ancient
aqueducts, conceived the idea of constructing a fresh one in the spur of
Mount Sion, which extends southwards.
* 2 Kings xv. 22-26. The chronology of the events which took
place between the death of Menahem and the fall of Samaria,
as presented by the biblical documents in the state in which
they have been transmitted to us, is radically inaccurate:
following the example of most recent historians, I have
adhered exclusively to the data furnished by the Assyrian
texts, merely indicating in the notes the reasons which have
led me to adopt certain dates in preference to others.
** 2 Kings xv. 38, xvi. 1, 2. Ahaz is called Iaukhazi, i.e.
Jehoahaz, in the Assyrian texts, and this would seem to have
been the original form of the name.
*** The restoration of the walls of Jerusalem by Jotham is
only mentioned in 2 Chron. xxvii. 3.
**** We may deduce this from the words of Isaiah (vii. 3),
where he represents Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the
upper pool, in the highway of the fullers field. Ahaz had
gone there to inspect the works intended for the defence of
the aqueduct.
As time pressed, the work was begun simultaneously at each end; the
workmen had made a wide detour underground, probably in order to avoid
the caves in which the kings of Judah had been laid to rest ever since
the time of David,* and they were beginning to despair of ever uniting
the two sections of the tunnel, when they suddenly heard one another
through the wall of rock which divided them. A few blows with the
pick-axe opened a passage between them, and an inscription on the wall
adjoining the entrance on the east side, the earliest Hebrew inscription
we possess, set forth the vicissitudes of the work for the benefit of
future generations. It was scarcely completed when Kezin, who had
joined forces with Pekah at Samaria, came up and laid regular siege to
Jerusalem.**
* This is the highly ingenious hypothesis put forward and
defended with much learning by Clermont-Ganneau, in order to
account for the large curve described by the tunnel.
** 2 Kings xvi. 5; cf. 2 Chron. xxviii. 5-8. It was on this
occasion that Isaiah delivered the prophecies which, after
subsequent revision, furnished the bulk of chaps, vi. 1--x. 4.
The allies did not propose to content themselves with exacting tribute
from the young king; they meant to dethrone him, and to set up in
his room a son of Tabeel, whom they had brought with them; they were
nevertheless obliged to retire without effecting a breach in his
defences and leave the final assault till the following campaign. Rezin,
however, had done as much injury as he could to Judah; he had laid waste
both mountain and plain, had taken Elath by storm and restored it to the
Edomites,* and had given a free hand to the Philistines (735).**
* 2 Kings xvi. 6, where the Massoretic text states that the
Syrians retained the town, while the Septuagint maintain
that he restored it to the Edomites.
** Chron. xxviii. 18, where a list is given of the towns
wrested from Judah by the Philistines. The delight felt by
the Philistines at the sight of Judahs abasement seems to
be referred to in the short prophecy of Isaiah (xiv. 29-32),
wrongly ascribed to the year of Ahazs death.
[Illustration: 241.jpg HEBREW INSCRIPTION ON THE SILOAM AQUEDUCT]
A direct reproduction from a plaster cast now in Paris. The
inscription discovered by Schick, in 1880, has since been
mutilated, and only the fragments are preserved in the
museum at Constantinople. Some writers think it was composed
in the time of Hezekiah; for my own part, I agree with Stade
in assigning it to the period of Ahaz.
The whole position seemed so hopeless, that a section of the people
began to propose surrendering to the mercy of the Syrians.*
* This seems to be an obvious inference from the words of
Isaiah (viii. 6): Forasmuch as this people hath refused the
waters of Shiloah that go softly, _and lose courage because
of Rezin and Bemalialis son_. [The R.V. reads _rejoice
in_ Rezin, etc.--Tr.]
Ahaz looked around him in search of some one on whom he might call for
help. All his immediate neighbours were hostile; but behind them, in the
background, were two great powers who might be inclined to listen to his
appeal--Egypt and Assyria. Ever since the expedition of Sheshonq into
Asia, Egypt seemed to have lost all interest in foreign politics.
Osorkon had not inherited the warlike propensities of his father,
and his son, Takelôti I., and his grandson, Osorkon II., followed his
example.*
* The chronology of this period is still very uncertain, and
the stelae of the Serapseum, which enable us to fix the
order of the various reigns, yield no information as to
their length. Sheshonq I. did not reign much longer than
twenty-one years, which is his latest known date, and we may
take the reign of twenty-one years attributed to him by
Manetho as being substantially correct. The latest dates we
possess are as follows: Osorkon I., twelfth year, and
Takelôti I., sixth year or seventh year. Lastly, we have a
twenty-ninth year in the case of Osorkon II., with a
reference in the case of the twenty-eighth year to the fifth
year of a Takelôti whose first cartouche is missing, and who
perhaps died before his father and co-regent. In Manetho,
Osorkon I. is credited with a reign of fifteen years, and
his three next successors with a total of twenty-five years
between them, which is manifestly incorrect, since the
monuments give twenty-nine years, or twenty-three at the
very least, if we take into account the double date in the
case of the first two of these kings. The wisest course
seems to be to allow forty-five years to Osorkon and his two
successors: if Sheshonq, as I believe, died in 924, the
fifty years allotted to the next three Pharaohs would bring
us down to 880, and it is in this year that I am, for the
present, inclined to place the death of Osorkon II.
[Illustration: 242.jpg BRONZE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from. Lanzones statuette.
[Illustration: 243.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OF BUBASTIS DURINGNAVILLEs
EXCAVATIONS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Naville.
These monarchs regarded themselves as traditionary suzerains of the
country of Kharu, i.e. of Israel, Judah, Ammon, and Moab, and their
authority may perhaps have been recognised by the Philistines in the
main, but they seldom stirred from their own territory, and contented
themselves with protecting their frontiers against the customary
depredations of the Libyan and Asiatic nomads.*
* Repressive measures of this kind are evidently referred to
in passages similar to those in which Osorkon II. boasts of
having overthrown beneath his feet the Upper and Lower
Lotanu, and speaks of the exploits of the sons of Queen
Kalamâît against certain tribes whose name, though
mutilated, seems to have been Libyan in character.
Under their rule, Egypt enjoyed fifty years of profound peace, which was
spent in works of public utility, especially in the Delta, where, thanks
to their efforts, Bubastis came to be one of the most splendid among the
cities of secondary importance.*
* All our knowledge of the history of the temple of Bubastis
dates from Navilles excavations.
Its temple, which had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the
Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into
power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely
remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including,
amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year
of his reign, the festival of his deification. A record of some of the
ceremonies observed has come down to us in the mural paintings. There
we see the king, in a chapel, consecrating a statue of himself in
accordance with the ritual in use since the time of Amenôthes III., and
offering the figure devout and earnest worship; all the divinities of
Egypt have assembled to witness the enthronement of this new member of
their confraternity, and take part in the sacrifices accompanying
his consecration. This gathering of the gods is balanced by a human
festival, attended by Nubians and Kushites, as well as by the courtiers
and populace. The proceedings terminated, apparently, with certain
funeral rites, the object being to make the identification of Osorkon
with Osiris complete.
[Illustration: 244.jpg PICTURE IN THE HALL OF THE HARPS IN THE FIFTH
TOMB]
The Egyptian deities served in a double capacity, as gods of the dead as
well as of the living, and no exception could be made in favour of the
deified Osorkon; while yet living he became an Osiris, and his double
was supposed to animate those prophetic statues in which he appeared as
a mummy no less than those which represented him as still alive.
[Illustration: 245.jpg GATE OF THE FESTIVAL HALL AT BUBASTIS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Naville.
Another temple of small size, also dedicated to Bastîfc or Pasht, which
had been built in the time of Ramses II., was enlarged by Osorkon I.,
and richly endowed with workshops, lands, cattle, slaves, and precious
metals: Tumu-Khopri of Heliopolis, to mention but one of the
deities worshipped there, received offerings of gold in value by
weight.£120,000, and silver ingots worth £12,000.*
* This is the small temple afterwards described by Herodotus
as being dedicated to Hermes.
A country which could afford to indulge in extravagances of this nature
must have been in a flourishing condition, and everything goes to prove
that Egypt prospered under the rule of the early Bubastite kings.
The very same causes, however, which had ruined the Ramessides and
the Tanites were now openly compassing the downfall of the Bubastite
dynasty. The military feudalism from which it had sprung, suppressed for
a time by Sheshonq I., developed almost unchecked under his successors.
They had thought to break it up and turn it to their own advantage, by
transferring the more important religious functions and the principal
fiefs to their own sons or nephews. They governed Memphis through
the high priests of Phtah; a prince of the blood represented them at
Khmunu,* another at Khninsu** (Heracleopolis), and others in various
cities of the Delta, each of them being at the head of several thousand
Mashauasha, or Libyan soldiers on whose fidelity they could entirely
rely.
* E.g. Namrôti, under Piônkhi-Mîamun, whose rights were such
that he adopted the protocol of the Pharaohs.
** Stole 1959 of the Serapæum contains the names of five
successive princes of this city, the first of whom was
Namrôti, son of Osorkon II., and high priest of Thebes; a
member of the same family, named Pefzââbastît, had taken
cartouches under Osorkon III. of the XXIIIrd dynasty.
Thebes alone had managed to exclude these representatives of the ruling
dynasty, and its princes, guided in this particular by the popular
prejudice, persistently refused to admit into their bodyguard any but
the long-tried Mâzaîu. Moreover, Thebes lost no opportunity of proving
itself to be still the most turbulent of the baronies. Its territory
had suffered no diminution since the time of Hrihor, and half of Upper
Egypt, from Elephantine to Siut, acknowledged its sway.1
* It is evident that this was so from the first steps taken
by Piônkhi-Miamuns generals: they meet the army and fleet
of Tafnakhti and the princes of the north right under the
walls of Hormopolis, but say nothing of any feudal princes
of the south. Their silence is explained if we assume that
Thebes, being a dependency of Ethiopia, retained at that
date, i.e. in the time of the XXIInd dynasty, the same or
nearly the same boundaries which it had won for itself under
the XXIst.
Through all the changes of dynasty its political constitution had
remained unaltered; Amon still ruled there supreme as ever, and nothing
was done until he had been formally consulted in accordance with ancient
usage. Anputi, in spite of his being a son of Sheshonq, was compelled
to adopt the title of high priest in order to rule in peace, and had
married some daughter or niece of the last of the Painotmu. After his
death, good care was taken to prevent the pontificate from passing to
one of his children, as this would have re-established a Theban dynasty
which might have soon proved hostile to that of Bubastis. To avoid this,
Osorkon I. made over the office and fief to his own son Sheshonq. The
latter, after a time, thought he was sufficiently powerful to follow the
example of Paînotmu and adopt the royal cartouches; but, with all his
ambition, he too failed to secure the succession to the male line of
his descendants, for Osorkon II. appointed his own son Namrôti, already
prince of Khninsu, to succeed him. The amalgamation of these two posts
invested the person on whom they were conferred with almost regal power;
Khninsu was, indeed, as we know, the natural rampart of Memphis and
Lower Egypt against invasion from the south, and its possessor was in a
position to control the fate of the empire almost as he pleased.
Osorkon must have had weighty reasons for taking a step which placed him
practically at the mercy of his son, and, indeed, events proved that but
little reliance could be placed on the loyalty of the Thebans, and that
energetic measures were imperative to keep them in the path of duty or
lead them back to it. The decadence of the ancient capital had sadly
increased since the downfall of the descendants of Hrihor.
[Illustration: 248.jpg SMALL BRONZE SPHINX OF SIAMUN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original now in the Louvre.
The few public works which they had undertaken, and which Sheshonq I.
encouraged to the best of his ability, had been suspended owing to want
of money, and the craftsmen who had depended on them for support were
suffering from poverty: the makers of small articles of a religious
or funerary character, carvers of wood or stone, joiners, painters of
mummy-cases, and workers in bronze, alone managed to eke out a bare
livelihood, thanks to commissions still given to them by officials
attached to the temples. Theban art, which in its best period had
excelled in planning its works on a gigantic scale, now gladly devoted
itself to the production of mere knick-knacks, in place of the colossal
figures of earlier days.
[Illustration: 249.jpg RUINS OF THE TEMPLE AT KHNINSU AFTER NAVILLEs
EXCAVATIONS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in Naville. The
illustration shows what now remains of the portions of the
temple rebuilt in the time of Ramses II.
We have statuettes some twelve or fifteen inches high, crudely coloured,
wooden stelæ, shapeless _ushâbti_ redeemed from ugliness by a coating
of superb blue enamel, and, above all, those miniature sphinxes
representing queens or kings, which present with two human arms either
a table of offerings or a salver decorated with cartouches. The starving
populace, its interests and vanity alike mortified by the accession of
a northern dynasty, refused to accept the decay of its fortunes with
resignation, and this spirit of discontent was secretly fomented by the
priests or by members of the numerous families which boasted of their
descent from the Eamessides. Although hereditary claims to the throne
and the pontificate had died out or lost their force in the male line,
they were still persistently urged by the women: consecrated from
their birth to the service of Amon, and originally reserved to sing
his praises or share his nuptial couch, those of them who married
transmitted to their children, and more especially to their daughters,
the divine germ which qualified them for the throne. They and their
followers never ceased to look for the day when the national deity
should shake off his apathy, and, becoming the champion of their cause
against the Bubastite or Tanite usurpers, restore their city to the rank
and splendour from which it had fallen. Namrôti married one of these
Theban princesses, and thus contrived to ward off the danger of revolt
during his lifetime; but on his death or disappearance an insurrection
broke out. Sheshonq II. had succeeded Osorkon II., and he, in his turn,
was followed by Takelôti II. Takelôti chose Kala-mâit, daughter of
Namrôti, as his lawful wife, formally recognised her as queen, and set
up numerous statues and votive monuments in her honour. But all in
vain: this concession failed to conciliate the rebellious, and the whole
Thebaid rose against him to a man. In the twelfth year of his reign he
entrusted the task of putting down the revolt to his son Osorkon, at the
same time conferring upon him the office of high priest. It took several
years to repress the rising; defeated in the eleventh year, the rebels
still held the field in the fifteenth year of the king, and it was not
till some time after, between the fifteenth and twenty-second year of
Takelôti II., that they finally laid down their arms.* At the end of
this struggle the kings power was quite exhausted, while that of the
feudal magnates had proportionately increased. Before long, Egypt was
split up into a number of petty states, some of them containing but a
few towns, while others, following the example of Thebes, boldly annexed
several adjacent nomes. A last remnant of respect for the traditional
monarchy kept them from entirely repudiating the authority of Pharaoh.
They still kept up an outward show of submission to his rule; they paid
him military service when called upon, and appealed to him as umpire in
their disputes, without, however, always accepting his rulings, and when
they actually came to blows among themselves, were content to exercise
their right of private warfare under his direction.** The royal domain
gradually became narrowed down to the Memphite nome and the private
appanages of the reigning house, and soon it no longer yielded the sums
necessary for the due performance of costly religious ceremonies, such
as the enthronement or burial of an Apis. The pomp and luxury usually
displayed on such occasions grew less and less under the successors of
Takelôti II., Sheshonq III., Pimi, and Sheshonq IV.***
* The story of these events is told in several greatly
mutilated inscriptions to be found at Karnak on the outer
surface of the south wall of the Hall of Columns.
** It is evident that this was so, from a romance discovered
by Krall.
*** One need only go to the Louvre and compare the Apis
stelae erected during this period with those engraved in the
time of the XXVIth dynasty, in order to realise the low ebb
to which the later kings of the XXIInd dynasty had fallen:
the fact that the chapel and monuments were built under
their direction shows that they were still masters of
Memphis. We have no authentic date for Sheshonq II., and the
twenty-ninth year is the latest known in the case of
Takelôti II., but we know that Sheshonq III. reigned fifty-
two years, and, after two years of Pimi, we find a reference
to the thirty-seventh year of Sheshonq IV. If we allow a
round century for these last kings we are not likely to be
far out: this would place the close of the Bubastite dynasty
somewhere about 780 B.C.
When the last of these passed away after an inglorious reign of at least
thirty-seven years, the prestige of his race had so completely declined
that the country would have no more of it; the sceptre passed into the
hands of another dynasty, this time of Tanite origin.* It was probably
a younger branch of the Bubastite family allied to the Ramessides
and Theban Pallacides. Petu-bastis, the first of the line, secured
recognition in Thebes,** and throughout the rest of Egypt as well, but
his influence was little greater than that of his predecessors; as in
the past, the real power was in the hands of the high priests.
* The following list gives the names of the Pharaohs of the
XXIIth dynasty in so far as they have been ascertained up
to the present:--
[Illustration: 252.jpg TABLE OF PHARAOHS OF THE XXIITH DYNASTY]
** This fact has recently been placed beyond doubt by
inscriptions found on the quay at Karnak near the water-
marks of the Nile.
One of them, Auîti by name, even went so far, in the fourteenth or
fifteenth year, as to declare himself king, and had his cartouches
inscribed on official documents side by side with those of the Tanite
monarch.* His kingship died with him, just as that of Patnotmu had done
in similar circumstances, and two years later we find his successor,
Harsiisît, a mere high priest without pretensions to royalty.
* No. 26 of Legrains inscriptions tells us the height of
the Nile in the sixteenth year of Petubastît, which was also
the second year of King Auîti. Seeing that Auîtis name
occurs in the place occupied by that of the high priest of
Thebes in other inscriptions of the same king, I consider it
probable that he was reigning in Thebes itself, and that he
was a high priest who had become king in the same way as
Paînotmu under the XXIst dynasty.
[Illustration: 253.jpg KING PETUBASTIS AT PRAYER]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small door now in the Louvre.
Doubtless his was not an isolated case; all the grandees who happened
to be nearly related either to the dethroned or to the reigning houses
acted in like manner, and for the first time for many years Egypt
acknowledged the simultaneous sway of more than one legitimate Pharaoh.
Matters became still worse under Osorkon III.; although he, too,
introduced a daughter of Anion into his harem, this alliance failed to
give him any hold over Thebes, and even the Seven Nomes and the Delta
were split up to such an extent that at one time they included something
like a score of independent principalities, three of which, Hermopolis,
Heracleopolis, and Tentramu, were administered by kings who boasted
cartouches similar to those of Tanis and Bubastis.
About 740 B.C. there appeared in the midst of these turbulent and
extortionate nobles a man who, by sheer force of energy and talent,
easily outstripped all competitors. Tafnakhti was a chief of obscure
origin, whose hereditary rights extended merely over the village of
Nutirît and the outskirts of Sebennytos. One or two victories gained
over his nearest neighbours encouraged him to widen the sphere of his
operations. He first of all laid hands on those nomes of the Delta
which extended to the west of the principal arm of the Nile, the Saite,
Athribite, Libyan, and Memphite nomes; these he administered through
officers under his own immediate control; then, leaving untouched the
eastern provinces, over which Osorkon III. exercised a make-shift,
easygoing rule, he made his way up the river. Maitumu and the Fayum
accepted him as their suzerain, but Khninsu and its king, Pefzââbastît,
faithful to their allegiance,* offered strenuous resistance.
* Pefzââbastît, King of Heracleopolis, seems to be identical
with the Pharaoh Pefzâbastît of the Berlin sarcophagus.
He then crossed over to the right bank, and received the homage of
Heliopolis and Phebtepahê; he put the inhabitants of Uabu to ransom,
established a close blockade of Khninsu, and persuaded Namrôti, King of
Khmunu, to take an oath of allegiance. At length, those petty kings and
princes of the Said and the Delta who still remained unconquered called
upon Ethiopia, the only power capable of holding its ground against him,
for help. The vile Kaushu (Cush) probably rose to be an independent
state about the time when Sheshonq and the Bubastite kings came into
power.
[Illustration: 255.jpg VIEW OF A PART OF THE RUINS OF NAPATA]
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph published in
Cailliaud.
Peopled by Theban settlers, and governed by the civil and religious code
of Thebes, the provinces which lay between the cataract of Hannek and
the confluence of the two Mies soon became a second Thebaid, more barren
and less wealthy than the first, but no less tied to the traditions
of the past. Napata, its capital, lay in the plain at the foot of a
sandstone cliff, which rose perpendicularly to a height of nearly two
hundred feet, its summit, when viewed from the southwest, presenting an
accidental resemblance to a human profile.* This was the _Du-uabu_, or
Sacred Mount, in the heart of which the god was supposed to have his
dwelling; the ruins of several temples can still be seen near the
western extremity of the hill, the finest of them being dedicated to a
local Amon-Râ.
* The natives believe this profile to have been cut by human
hands--an error which has been shared by more than one
modern traveller.
[Illustration: 256.jpg GEBEL-BARKAL, THE SACRED MOUNTAIN OF NAPATA]
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph in Cailliaud.
This Amon was a replica of the Theban Amon on a smaller scale, and was
associated with the same companions as his prototype, Maut, his consort,
and Khonsu, his son. He owed his origin to the same religious concepts,
and was the central figure of a similar myth, the only difference being
that he was represented in composite shape, with a rams head; perhaps
a survival from some earlier indigenous deity, such as Didun, for
instance, who had been previously worshipped in those parts; his priests
lived in accordance with the rules of the Theban hierarchy.
[Illustration: 257.jpg RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF AMON AT NAPATA]
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a lithograph published by
Cailliaud.
We can readily believe that when Hrihor extorted the title of Royal Son
of Kaushu from the weaklings who occupied the throne at the close of
the Ramesside dynasty, he took care to install one of the members of
his family as high priest at Napata, and from henceforward had the whole
country at his bidding. Subsequently, when Paînotmu II. was succeeded by
Auputi at Thebes, it seems that the Ethiopian priests refused to ratify
his election. Whether they conferred the supreme power on one of their
own number, or whether some son of Paînotmu, flying from the Bubastite
kings, arrived at the right moment to provide them with a master, is not
quite clear.
[Illustration: 258.jpg PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF AMON AT NAPATA]
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from the plan drawn up and
published by Cailliaud.
The kings of Ethiopia, priests from the first, never lost their
sacerdotal character. They continued to be men of God, and as such it
was necessary that they should be chosen by the god himself. On the
death of a sovereign, Amon at once became regent in the person of his
prophet, and continued to act until the funeral rites were celebrated.
As soon as these ceremonies were completed, the army and the people
collected at the foot of the Sacred Mount; the delegates of the various
orders of the state were led into the sanctuary, and then, in their
presence, all the males of the royal family--the kings brothers, as
they were called--were paraded before the statue of the god; he on whom
the god laid his hand as he passed was considered to be the chosen one
of Amon, and consecrated king without delay.*
* This is the ritual described in the _Stele of the
Enthronement_. Perhaps it was already in use at Thebes under
the XXIst and XXIInd dynasties, at the election of the high
priest, whether he happened to be a king or not; at any
rate, a story of the Ptolemaic period told by Synesius in
_The Egyptian_ seems to point to this conclusion.
As may be readily imagined, the new monarch thus appointed by divine
dictation was completely under the control of the priests, and before
long, if he failed to prove sufficiently tractable, they claimed the
right to dispense with him altogether; they sent him an order to commit
suicide, and he obeyed. The boundaries of this theocratic state varied
at different epochs; originally it was confined to the region between
the First Cataract and the mouth of the Blue Nile. The bulk of the
population consisted of settlers of Egyptian extraction and Egyptianised
natives; but isolated, as they were, from Egypt proper by the rupture of
the political ties which had bound them to the metropolis, they ceased
to receive fresh reinforcements from the northern part of the valley as
they had formerly done, and daily became more closely identified with
the races of various origin which roamed through the deserts of Libya or
Arabia. This constant infiltration of free or slavish Bedâwin blood and
the large number of black women found in the harems of the rich, and
even in the huts of the common people, quickly impaired the purity of
the race, even among the tipper classes of the nation, and the type came
to resemble that of the negro tribes of Equatorial Africa.*
* Taharqa furnishes us with a striking example of this
degeneration of the Egyptian type. His face shows the
characteristic features of the black race, both on the
Egyptian statue as well as on the Assyrian stele of
Sinjirli.
[Illustration: 260a.jpg A NEARLY PURE ETHIOPIAN TYPE]
[Illustration: 260b.jpg mixed negro and Ethiopian TYPE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
The language fared no better in the face of this invasion, and the
written character soon became as corrupt as the language; words foreign
to the Egyptian vocabulary, incorrect expressions, and barbarous errors
in syntax were multiplied without stint. The taste for art decayed,
and technical ability began to deteriorate, the moral and intellectual
standard declined, and the mass of the people showed signs of relapsing
into barbarism: the leaders of the aristocracy and the scribes alone
preserved almost intact their inheritance from an older civilisation.
Egypt still attracted them: they looked upon it as their rightful
possession, torn from them by alien usurpers in defiance of all sense
of right, and they never ceased to hope that some day, when the god saw
fit, they would win back their heritage. Were not their kings of the
posterity of Sibu, the true representatives of the Ramessides and the
solar race, compared with whom the northern Pharaohs, even those whose
mothers ranked as worshippers of Amon, were but mere mushroom kings?
Thebes admitted the validity of their claims: it looked to them for
help, and the revolts by which it had been torn ever since the reign of
Osorkon II. were, perhaps, instigated by the partisans of Ethiopia. In
the time of Petubastis its high priests, Harsiisît and Takelôti, were
still connected with the Tanites; after that it placed itself under
the immediate orders of Ethiopia, and the pontificate disappeared. The
accession of a sovereign who was himself invested by hereditary right
with the functions and title of high priest of Amon henceforth rendered
the existence of such an office superfluous at Thebes: it would almost
have meant an _imperium in imperio_. The administration of religious,
and perhaps also of political, affairs was, therefore, handed over
to the deputy prophet, and this change still further enhanced the
importance of the female worshippers of the god. In the absence of
the king, who had his capital at Napata, they remained the sole
representatives of legitimate authority in the Thebaid: the chief among
them soon came to be regarded as a veritable _Lady of Thebes_, and,
subject to the god, mistress of the city and its territory.
It is not quite clear whether it was Piônkhi Miamun or one of his
immediate predecessors who took possession of the city. The nomes
dependent on Amon followed the example of the capital, and the whole
Theban territory as far as Siut had been occupied by Ethiopian troops,
when in the twenty-first year of the kings reign the princes of the
Delta and Middle Egypt appealed to the court of Napata for help.
[Illustration: 262.jpg MAP OF MIDDLE EGYPT DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF
PIONKHI]
Even had they not begged it to do so, it would have been compelled
before long to intervene, for Tafnakhti was already on his way to
attack it; Piônkki charged Luâmarsakni and Pu-arama, the generals he had
already stationed in the Thebaid, to hold Tafnakhti in check, till he
was able to get together the remainder of his army and descend the Nile
to support them. Their instructions were to spare none of the rebellious
towns, but to capture their men and their beasts, and their ships on
the river; to allow none of the fellaheen to go out into the fields,
nor any labourer to his labour, but to attack Hermopolis and harass it
daily. They followed out these orders, though, it would seem, without
result, until the reinforcements from Nubia came up: their movements
then became more actively offensive, and falling on Tafnakhtis ships,
which were making for Thebes heavily laden with men and stores, they
sunk several of them.
[Illustration: 262.jpg RUINS OF OXYRRHYNCHOS AND THE MODERN TOWN OF
BAHNESA]
Drawn by Boudier, from an engraving in Vivant Denon.
Anxious to profit by this first success, they made straight for
Heracleopolis with a view to relieving it. Tafnakhti, accompanied by the
two kings Namrôti and Auputi, was directing the siege in person; he
had under his command, in addition to contingents from Busiris, Mendès,
Thoth, and Pharbaîthos, all the vassals of Osorkon III., the successor
of Petubastis and titular Pharaoh of the whole country. The Ethiopian
fleet engaged the Egyptian ships at the end of the island of
Heracleopolis, near the mouth of the canal leading from the Nile to the
Bahr-Yusuf.* Tafnakhti was defeated, and the remnants of his squadron
took refuge in Pipuga under cover of his land forces.** At dawn, the
next day, the Ethiopians disembarked and gave battle. The struggle was
long and fierce, but indecisive. Luâmarsakni and Puarama claimed the
victory, but were obliged to effect a retreat on the day following
their so-called success, and when they dropped anchor in the harbour of
Hermopolis, they found that Namrôti had made his way back to the city by
land and forestalled them. Powerless to hold the field without support,
he collected all the men and cattle he could lay hands on, and awaited
the progress of events behind his ramparts. The Ethiopians invested the
town, and wrote to inform Piônkhi of what they had done--not, however,
without some misgiving as to the reception which awaited their
despatches. And sure enough, His Majesty became enraged thereat, even
as a panther: If they have allowed a remnant of the warriors of the
north to remain, if they have let one of them escape to tell of the
fight, if they make him not to die in their slaughter, then by my life,
by the love of Râ, by the praise of Amon for me, I will myself go down
and overthrow that which Tafnakhti hath done,*** I will compel him to
give up war for ever! Therefore, after celebrating the festivals of the
New Year, when I shall have sacrificed to Amon of [Napata], my father,
in his excellent festival wherein he appears in his procession of the
New Year, when he shall have sent me in peace to look upon the [Theban]
Amon in his festivals at Thebes, and when I shall have carried his image
in procession to Luxor, in the festival celebrated in his honour among
the festivals of Thebes, on the night of the feast appointed in the
Thebaid, established by Râ at the creation, when I have led him in the
procession and brought him unto his throne, on the day for introducing
the god, even the second of Athyr, then will I make the enemy taste the
savour of my claws.
* The ancient geographers looked upon the nome of
Heraoleopolis as a large island, its southern boundary
being, probably, the canal of Harabshent: the end of the
island, which the Egyptians called the forepart of
Khninsu, was probably Harabshent and its environs.
** Pi-puga is probably El-Fokâ, on the Nile, to the north of
Harabshent.
*** The king does not mention his adversary by name in the
text; he is content to indicate him by a pronoun in the
third person--that which he hath done... then will I make
him taste, etc.
The generals did their very utmost to appease their masters wrath
before he appeared on the scene. They told off a force to keep watch
over Hermopolis while they themselves marched against the nome of Uabu;
they took Oxyrrhynchos by storm, with the fury of a water-spout, and
informed the king of this achievement; but his heart was not softened
thereby. They crossed over to the right bank; they crushed the people
of the north under the walls of Tatehni,* they forced the walls of the
town with the battering-ram, and killed many of the inhabitants, amongst
others a son of Tafnakhti, whose body they sent to the king; but his
heart was not softened thereby.
They then pushed on as far as Haït Bonua** and sacked it, but still
failed to regain favour. On the 9th of Thoth, Piônkhi came down to
Thebes, and after hasty attendance at the services to Amon, went to
rejoin the vanguard of his army under the walls of Hermopolis.
* The modern Tehneh, on the right bank of the Nile, a little
below Minieh.
** Hâit-Bonu, or Hâbonu, is the Hipponon of the Greco-Roman
geographers.
[Illustration: 266.jpg KING NAMRÔTI LEADING A HORSE TO PIÔNKHI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an impression of the stele in
the Gizeh Museum.
No sooner had his Majesty quitted the cabin of his ship, than the
horses were harnessed and the charioteers in their places; the fear of
his Majesty spread even to the Nomads of Asia, and all hearts trembled
before him. Piônkhi drove back the enemy behind their walls, pitched
his tent to the south-west of the city, threw up earth-works, and
built terraces so as to place his bowmen and sling-ers on a level
with the battlements of its towers. At the end of three days, Namrôti,
finding himself hard pressed on every side, resolved to surrender. He
sent envoys to Piônkhi laden with rich presents, and despatched Queen
Nsitentmahît after them, to beg for mercy from the women who had
accompanied the Ethiopian, his wives, concubines, daughters, or royal
sisters. Their entreaties were graciously received, and Namrôti ventured
to come in person, leading a horse with his right hand and shaking in
his left a sistrum of gold and lapis-lazuli; he knelt down and presented
with his salutations the long train of gifts which had gone before him.
Piônkhi visited the temple of Thoth, and there, amidst the acclamations
of soldiers and priests, offered up the customary sacrifices.
[Illustration: 267.jpg RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF THOTH, AT HERMOPOLIS THE
GREAT]
Drawn by Boudier, from an engraving in Vivant Denon. The
portico was destroyed about 1820 by the engineers who
constructed the sugar refinery at Rodah, and now only a few
shapeless fragments of it remain.
He then made his way to the palace and inspected its courts, chambers,
treasury, and storehouses, and reviewed the whole household, including
even Namrôtis own wives and daughters, though he turned not his face
towards any one of them. He next went on to the stud-farms, and was
indignant to find that the horses had suffered from hunger during the
siege. Thoroughbreds were probably somewhat scarce at Napata, and he
had, no doubt, reckoned on obtaining new blood and a complete relay
of chargers from the Egyptian stables; his chances of doing so seemed
likely to vanish if brood mares and stallions had everywhere been
debilitated by the hardships of war. He reserved a part of the booty for
himself, handed over the balance to the priests of Amon at Karnak, and
also, before he left, received tribute from Heracleopolis. Pefzââbastît
brought him horses, the pick of his stables, slaves laden with gold
and silver and precious stones; then burying his face in the dust,
he offered worship to his liberator: Hell had swallowed me up, I was
plunged into darkness, and lo, now a light has been given me. Since I
have found no man to love me in the day of adversity, or to stand by me
in the day of battle, save only thee, O victorious king, who hast torn
away the night from above me, I will be thy servant, I and all my house,
and Khninsu shall pay tribute into thy treasury. For, as to thee, thou
art Harmakhis, chief of the imperishable stars, thou art king, even as
he is king, and even as he doth not destroy himself, neither shalt thou
destroy thyself!
The downfall of Khmunu led all who might still have shown resistance
in Middle Egypt to lay down their arms also. The fortress of
Pisakhmakhpirrî* dominated the gorges of Lahunît, and thus commanded the
entrance to the Fayum; but the son of Tafnakhti agreed to surrender it,
provided he were allowed to march out with the honours of war.
* This fortress, which bears a name compounded with that of
Osorkon I., must have been rebuilt by that monarch on the
site of an earlier fort; the new name remained in use under
the XXIInd and XXIIIth dynasties, after which the old one
reappears. It is Illahun, where Petrie discovered the
remains of a flourishing town of the Bubastite epoch.
Shortly after, Maîtumu threw open its gates, and its example was
followed by Titauî; at Maîtumu there was rioting among the Egyptians in
the streets, one party wishing to hold out, the other to surrender, but
in the end the latter had their way.* Piônkhi discharged his priestly
duties wherever he went, and received the local taxes, always being
careful to reserve a tenth for the treasury of Amon-Râ; the fact that
his army was kept under rigid control, and that he showed great clemency
to the vanquished, helped largely to conciliate those who were not
bound by close ties of interest to the cause of Tafnakhti. On reaching
Memphis, Piônkhi at once had recourse to the persuasive methods which
had hitherto served him so well, and entered into negotiations with the
garrison. Shut not yourselves up in forts, and fight not against the
Upper Country,** for Shu the god of creation, when I enter, he entereth,
and when I go out, he goeth out, and none may repel my attacks. I will
present offerings to Phtah and to the divinities of the White Wall,
I will honour Sokari in his mysterious coffer, I will contemplate
Eîsânbuf,*** then I will return from thence in peace. If ye will trust
in me, Memphis shall be prosperous and healthy, even the children shall
not cry therein. Behold the nomes of the South; not a soul has been
massacred there, saving only the impious who blasphemed God, and these
rebels have been executed.
* Maritumu, or Maîtumu, is the modern Meîdum, associated in
the inscription with the characteristic epithet, Pisokari-
Nibu-Suazu, or temple of Sokari, master of the
transfiguration. Titauî lay exactly on the frontier between
Upper and Lower Egypt--hence its name, which signifies
commanding the two regions; it was in the Memphite nome,
and Brugsch identifies it with the Greek city of Acanthos,
near Dahshur, but this position appears to me to be too
close to Memphis and too far from the boundary of the nome;
I should prefer to place Titauî at Kafr el-Ayat or
thereabouts.
** I.e. against Piônkhi, who was master of the Upper
Country, that is, of Thebes and Ethiopia, and the forces
from the whole of the valley to the south of Memphis who
accompanied him.
*** Lit., He who is on the South of his Wall, a name given
to one of the quarters of Memphis, and afterwards applied to
the god Phtah, who was worshipped in that quarter.
This eloquence, however, was of no avail. A detachment of archers,
sailors, and engineers sent to make a reconnaissance of the harbour was
taken by surprise and routed with loss, and on the following night
Tafnakhti suddenly made his appearance on the spot. He had the 8000 men
who were defending it paraded before him, and made them a speech, in
which he pointed out the great natural strength of the position, the
stoutness of the walls and the abundance of provisions; he then mounted
his horse, and making his way a second time through the enemys
outposts, headed straight for the Delta in order to levy reinforcements
there. The next day, Piônkhi went in person to examine the approaches of
the city in which his ancestors had once been throned. There was a full
Nile, and the river came right up to the walls. He sailed close in along
the whole of the eastern front, and landed on the north, much vexed and
discomfited at finding it so strongly fortified. Even the common
soldiers were astonished, and began to discuss among themselves the
difficulties of the undertaking with a certain feeling of
discouragement. It would be necessary, they declared, to open a regular
siege, to make an inclined plane leading to the city, throw up-
earthworks against its walls, bind ladders, set up masts and erect spars
all around it. Piônkhi burst into a rage when these remarks were
repeated to him: a siege in set form would have been a most serious
enterprise, and would have allowed the allied princes time to get
together fresh troops. He drove his ships full speed against the line of
boats anchored in the harbour, and broke through it at the first onset;
his sailors then scaled the bank and occupied the houses which
overlooked it. Reinforcements concentrated on this point gradually
penetrated into the heart of the city, and after two days fighting the
garrison threw down their arms. The victor at once occupied the temples
to save them from pillage: he then purified Memphis with water and
natron, ascended in triumph to the temple of Phtah, and celebrated there
those rites which the king alone was entitled to perform. The other
fortresses in the neighbourhood surrendered without further hesitation.
King Auputi of Tentramu,* prince Akaneshu,** and prince Petisis tendered
the homage of their subjects in person, and the other sovereigns of the
Delta merely waited for a demonstration in force on the part of the
Ethiopians before following their example.
* Probably the original of the statue discovered by Naville
at Tel-el-Yahudîyeh. Tentramu and Taânu, the cities of
Auputi, are perhaps identical with the biblical Elim (Exod.
xvi. 1) and the Daneon Portus of Pliny on the Red Sea, but
Naville prefers to identify Daneon with the Tonu of the
_Berlin Papyrus No. 1_. I believe that we ought to look for
the kingdom of Auputi in the neighbourhood of Menzaleh, near
Tanis.
** Akaneshu ruled over Sebennytos and in the XVIIth nome.
Naville discovered at Samannud the statue of one of his
descendants, a king of the same name, perhaps his grandson,
who was prince of Sebennytos in the time of Psammetichus I.
Piônkhi crossed the Nile and marched in state to Heliopolis, there to
receive the royal investiture.
He offered up prayers at the various holy places along the route, such
as the sanctuary of Tumu at Khriâhu and the temple of the Ennead who
dwelt in the cavern from which the Northern Nile was supposed to spring;
he then crossed over Mount Ahu, bathed his face in the reputed source
of the river, and at length penetrated into the dwelling-place of Râ.
He ascended the steps leading to the great chapel in order that he might
there see Râ in Hâît-Banbonu even himself. All unattended, he drew the
bolt, threw open the doors, contemplated his father Râ in Hâît-Banbonu,
adjusted Ras boat Mâdît and the Saktit of Shu, then closed the doors
again, affixed a seal of clay, and impressed it with the royal signet.
He had thus submitted his conduct for the approval of the god in whom
all attributes of royalty were vested, and the god had legitimatised his
claims to universal rule: he was henceforth the master, not merely _de
jure_ but _de facto_ as well, and the kings who had hitherto declined to
recognise him were now obliged to bow reverently before his authority.
Osorkon was the first to submit, and did so before the close of
Piônkhis stay at Heliopolis; when the latter pitched his camp near
Kahani* in the Athribite nome, the nobles of the Eastern Delta, both
small and great, came one after another with their followers; among
them Patinifi of Pisapti, Paimau of Busiris, Pabîsa of Khriâhu and of
Pihâpi,** besides a dozen others.
* Kahani is, perhaps, the modern Kaha, some distance to the
north of Qaliub.
** Pisapti stood on the present site of Shaft-el-ïïineh.
Khriâhu, as we know, formed part of the Heliopolitan nome,
and is, very possibly, to be identified with Babylon of
Egypt, the Postât of the Arabs; Pihâpi was a place not far
from the supposed source of the Southern Nile.
He extended his favour to all alike, merely stipulating that they should
give him the best of their horses, and undertake to keep careful watch
over the prosperity of their stud farms. But Tafnakhti still held out,
and seemed determined to defy him to the end; he had set fire to his
palace and taken refuge in the islands on the river, and had provided
a hiding-place for himself at Masudît among the marshes on the coast
in case of final defeat. A victory gained over him by the Ethiopian
generals suddenly induced him to sue for peace. He offered to disband
his men and pay tribute, provided he was guaranteed undisturbed
possession of Sais and of the western districts of the Delta; he
refused, however, to sue for pardon in person, and asked that an envoy
should be sent to receive his oath of allegiance in the temple of Nit.
Though deserted by his brother princes and allies, he still retained
sufficient power to be a thorn in his conquerors side; his ultimate
overthrow was certain, but it would have entailed many a bloody
struggle, while a defeat might easily have shaken the fidelity of the
other feudatory kings, and endangered the stability of the new dynasty.
Piônkhi, therefore, accepted the terms offered him without modification,
and asked for no guarantee beyond the oath taken in the presence of
the gods. News was brought him about this time that Cynopolis and
Aphroditopolis had at last thrown open their gates, and accordingly he
summoned his vassals for the last time to his camp near Athribis. With
the exception of Tafnakhti, they all obeyed the call, including two
minor kings of Upper and two of Lower Egypt, together with barons of
lesser rank; but of these, Namrôti alone was admitted to the royal
apartments, because he alone was circumcised and ate no fish; after
this the camp was broken up, and the Ethiopians set out on their return
journey southwards. Piônkhi may well have been proud of the result of
this campaign, both for himself and for his country. The empire of the
Pharaohs, which had for the last hundred and fifty years been divided,
was now re-established from the confluence of the Niles to the shores
of the Mediterranean, but it was no longer Egypt that benefited by the
change. It was now, after many years of slavery, the turn of Ethiopia
to rule, and the seat of power was transferred from Thebes or Memphis to
Napata. As a matter of fact, the fundamental constitution of the kingdom
underwent no great modification; it had merely one king the more to rule
over it--not a stranger, as we are often tempted to conclude, when we
come to measure these old-world revolutions by our modern standards
of patriotism, but a native of the south, who took the place of those
natives of the north who had succeeded one another on the throne since
the days of Smendes. In fact, this newly crowned son of Râ lived a very
long way off; he had no troops of his own further north than Siut,
and he had imposed his suzerainty on the rival claimants and reigning
princes without thereby introducing any change in the constitution
of the state. In tendering their submission to him, the heads of the
different nomes had not the slightest intention of parting with their
liberty; they still retained it, even though nominally dependent, and
continued, as in the past, to abuse it without scruple. Namrôti was king
at Khmunu, Pefzââbastît at Khninsu, Auputi at Tentramu, and Osorkon
III. at Bubastis; the prestige investing the Tanite race persisted so
effectively that the annalists give to the last-named precedence over
the usurpers of the Ethiopian dynasty; the Tanites continued to be the
incarnate representatives of legitimate power, and when Osorkon III.
died, in 732, it was his son Psamutis who was regarded as the Lord of
Egypt. Tafnakhti had, in his defeat, gained formal recognition of his
royalty. He was no longer a mere successful adventurer, a hero of the
hour, whose victories were his only title-deeds, whose rights rested
solely on the argument of main force. Piônkhi, in granting him amnesty,
had conferred official investiture on him and on his descendants.
Henceforth his rule at Sais was every whit as legitimate as that of
Osorkon at Bubastis, and he was not slow in furnishing material proof of
this, for he granted himself cartouches, the uraeus, and all the other
insignia of royalty. These changes must have been quickly noised abroad
throughout Asia. Commercial intercourse between Syria and Egypt was
maintained as actively as ever, and the merchant caravans and fleets
exported with regularity the news of events as well as the natural
products of the soil or of industry. The tidings of an Ethiopian
conquest and of the re-establishment of an undivided empire in the
valley of the Nile, coming as they did at the very moment when the first
effects of the Assyrian revival began to be so keenly felt, could not
fail to attract the attention and arouse the hopes of Syrian statesmen.
The Philistines, who had never entirely released themselves from the
ties which bound them to the Pharaohs of the Delta, felt no repugnance
at asking for a renewal of their former protection.
[Illustration: 276.jpg KING TAFNAKHTI PRESENTS A FIELD TO TUMU AND TO
BASTIT]
Drawn by Boudier, from Mallets photograph of the stele in
the Museum at Athens.
As for the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Damascus,
they began to consider whether they had not here, in Africa, among the
members of a race favourably disposed towards them by the memories of
the past and by its ambition, hereditary allies against Nineveh. The
fact that Egypt was torn by domestic dissensions and divided into a
score of rival principalities in no way diminished their traditional
admiration for its wealth or their confidence in its power; Assyria
itself was merely an agglomeration of turbulent provinces, vassal
cities, and minor kingdoms, artificially grouped round the ancient
domain of Assur, and yet the convulsions by which it was periodically
shaken had not prevented it from developing into the most formidable
engine of war that had ever threatened the peace of Asia. The African
hosts, whether led by ordinary generals or by a king of secondary
rank, formed none the less a compact army well fitted by numbers and
organisation to hold its own against any forces which Tiglath-pileser
might put into the field; and even should the supreme Pharaoh be
unwilling to throw the full weight of his authority into the balance,
yet an alliance with one of the lesser kings, such as the lord of Sais
or of Bubastis, would be of inestimable assistance to any one fortunate
enough to secure it. It is true that, in so far as the ultimate issue
was concerned, there was little to be gained by thus pitting the two
great powers together and persuading one to fight against the other;
the victor must, in the long run, remain master alike of those who had
appealed for help and of those who had fought against him, and if Egypt
emerged triumphant, there would be nothing for it but to accept her
supremacy. In either event, there could be no question of independence;
it was a choice between the hegemony of Egypt or that of Assyria.
From the moment that Tiglath-pileser had made his appearance on the
northern horizon, the nations of Southern Syria had instinctively looked
to Pharaoh for aid. There seems to have been an Egyptian faction in
Samaria, even during the disorders which broke out after the death of
Jeroboam II., and perhaps it was a hope of overcoming it easily which
led Menahem of his own accord to invoke the still remote suzerainty
of Nineveh, after the fall of Unki in 738;* later on, when Pekah had
assassinated Pekahiah and entered into alliance with Eezin, he adopted
the view of those who saw no hope of safety save from the banks of the
Nile, his only reason for doing so being, apparently, because the
kings of the fallen dynasty had received support from the valley of
the Tigris. Hosea continually reproached his countrymen with this
vacillating policy, and pointed out the folly of it: Ephraim is like
a silly dove without understanding; they call unto Egypt, they go unto
Assyria; when they shall go I will spread My net upon them, said the
Eternal.**
* The existence of an Egyptian faction at this period has
been admitted by Kittel. Winckler has traced to the Arabian
or Idumæan Muzri everything previously referred to Egypt.
His arguments seem to me to be, in many cases, convincing,
as I shall point out where necessary, but I think he carries
his theory too far when he systematically excludes Egypt and
puts Muzri in its place. Egypt, even in its decadent state,
was a far more important power than the Arabian Muzri, and
it seems unreasonable to credit it with such a limited share
in the politics of the time. I cannot believe that any other
power is intended in most of those passages in the Hebrew
writings and Assyrian inscriptions in which the words
Mizraîm and Muzri occur.
** Hos. vii. 11, 12.
They were to be given up to Assyria and dispersed, and while some were
to go into Assur and eat unclean food, Ephraim was to return into Egypt;
for, lo, they are gone away from destruction, yet Egypt shall gather
them up, Memphis shall bury them. * Nevertheless, they persisted in
negotiating with Egypt, and though there was as yet no formal alliance
between Samaria and Sais or Tanis, their relations were so close that no
enemy of Israel could look for protection from Psamuti or his vassals.
Ahaz had, therefore, nothing to hope from this quarter, and was
compelled by the force of circumstances to throw himself into the arms
of Assyria, if he decided to call in outside aid at all. His prophets,
like those of Pekah, strenuously forbade him to do so, and among them
was one who was beginning to exert a marvellous influence over all
classes of society--Isaiah, the son of Amoz. He had begun his career
in the year that Uzziah died,** and had continued to prophesy without
interruption during the brief reign of Jotham.***
* Hos. ix. 3-6.
** Isa. vi. 1.
*** The fragments which can be assigned to this period now
occur as follows: chap. ii. 2-5 (verses 2-4 are also found
in _Micah_ iv. 1-3, and were, perhaps, borrowed from some
third prophet), ii. 6-22, iii., iv., v. 1-24 (the Parable of
the Vineyard), and lastly, chap, vi., in so far as the
substance is concerned; it seems to have been put into its
present form long after the events.