A General History for Colleges and High Schools

P >> P. V. N. Myers >> A General History for Colleges and High Schools

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35

And further, the Hyksos conquest was an advantage to Egypt itself. The
conquerors possessed political capacity, and gave the country a strong
centralized government. They made Egypt in fact a great monarchy, and laid
the basis of the power and glory of the mighty Pharaohs of the Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Dynasties.

THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY (about 1650-1400 B.C.).--The revolt which drove the
Hyksos from the country was led by Amosis, or Ahmes, a descendant of the
Theban kings. He was the first king of what is known as the Eighteenth
Dynasty, probably the greatest race of kings, it has been said, that ever
reigned upon the earth.

The most eventful period of Egyptian history, covered by what is called
the New Empire, now opens. Architecture and learning seem to have
recovered at a bound from their long depression under the domination of
the Shepherd Kings. To free his empire from the danger of another invasion
from Asia, Amosis determined to subdue the Syrian and Mesopotamian tribes.
This foreign policy, followed out by his successors, shaped many of the
events of their reigns.

Thothmes III., one of the greatest kings of this Eighteenth Dynasty, has
been called "the Alexander of Egyptian history." During his reign the
frontiers of the empire reached their greatest expansion. His authority
extended from the oases of the Libyan desert to the Tigris and the
Euphrates.

[Illustration: PHALANX OF THE KHITA: In the background, town protected by
walls and moats.]

Thothmes was also a magnificent builder. His architectural works in the
valley of the Nile were almost numberless. He built a great part of the
temple of Karnak, at Thebes, the remains of which form the most majestic
ruin in the world. His obelisks stand to-day in Constantinople, in Rome,
in London, and in New York.

The name of Amunoph III. stands next after that of Thothmes III. as one of
the great rulers and builders of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY (about 1400-1280 B.C.).--The Pharaohs of the
Nineteenth Dynasty rival those of the Eighteenth in their fame as
conquerors and builders. It is their deeds and works, in connection with
those of the preceding dynasty, that have given Egypt such a name and
place in history. The two great names of the house are Seti I. and Rameses
II.

One of the most important of Seti's wars was that against the Hittites
(_Khita_, in the inscriptions) and their allies. The Hittites were a
powerful non-Semitic people, whose capital was Carchemish, on the
Euphrates, and whose strength and influence were now so great as to be a
threat to Egypt.

But Seti's deeds as a warrior are eclipsed by his achievements as a
builder. He constructed the main part of what is perhaps the most
impressive edifice ever raised by man,--the world-renowned "Hall of
Columns," in the Temple of Karnak, at Thebes (see illustration, p. 32). He
also cut for himself in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, at the same
place, the most beautiful and elaborate of all the rock-sepulchres of the
Pharaohs (see p. 31). In addition to these and numerous other works, he
began a canal to unite the Red Sea and the Nile,--an undertaking which was
completed by his son and successor, Rameses II.

[Illustration: SETI I. (From a photograph of the mummy.)]

Rameses II., surnamed the Great, was the Sesostris of the Greeks. His is
the most prominent name of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Ancient writers, in
fact, accorded him the first place among all the Egyptian sovereigns, and
made him the hero of innumerable stories. His long reign, embracing sixty-
seven years, was, in truth, well occupied with military expeditions and
the superintendence of great architectural works.

His chief wars were those against the Hittites. Time and again is Rameses
found with his host of war-chariots in their country, but he evidently
fails to break their power; for we find him at last concluding with them a
celebrated treaty, in which the chief of the Hittites is called "The Great
King of the Khita" (Hittites), and is formally recognized as in every
respect the equal of the king of Egypt. Later, Rameses marries a daughter
of the Hittite king. All this means that the Pharaohs had met their peers
in the princes of the Hittites, and that they could no longer hope to
become masters of Western Asia.

It was probably the fear of an invasion by the tribes of Syria that led
Rameses to reduce to a position of grinding servitude the Semitic peoples
that under former dynasties had been permitted to settle in Lower Egypt;
for this Nineteenth Dynasty, to which Rameses II. belongs, was the new
king (dynasty) that arose "which knew not Joseph" (Ex. i. 8), and
oppressed the children of Israel. It was during the reign of his son
Menephtha that the Exodus took place (about 1300 B.C.).

[Illustration: RAMESES II. RETURNING IN TRIUMPH FROM SYRIA, with his
chariot garnished with the heads of his enemies. (From the monuments of
Karnak.)]

THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY (666-527 B.C.).--We pass without comment a long
period of several centuries, marked, indeed, by great vicissitudes in the
fortunes of the Egyptian monarchs, yet characterized throughout by a sure
and rapid decline in the power and splendor of their empire.

During the latter part of this period Egypt was tributary to Assyria. But
about 666 B.C., a native prince, Psammetichus I. (666-612 B.C.), with the
aid of Greek mercenaries from Asia Minor, succeeded in expelling the
Assyrian garrisons. Psammetichus thus became the founder of the Twenty-
sixth Dynasty.

The reign of this monarch marks a new era in Egyptian history. Hitherto
Egypt had secluded herself from the world, behind barriers of jealousy,
race, and pride. But Psammetichus being himself, it seems, of non-Egyptian
origin, and owing his throne chiefly to the swords of Greek soldiers, was
led to reverse the policy of the past, and to throw the valley open to the
commerce and influences of the world. His capital, Sais, on the Canopic
branch of the Nile, forty miles from the Mediterranean, was filled with
Greek citizens; and Greek mercenaries were employed in his armies.

This change of policy, occurring at just the period when the rising states
of Greece and Rome were shaping their institutions, was a most significant
event. Egypt became the University of the Mediterranean nations. From this
time forward Greek philosophers, as in the case of Pythagoras and of
Plato, are represented as becoming pupils of the Egyptian priests; and
without question the learning and philosophy of the ancient Egyptians
exerted a profound influence upon the quick, susceptible mind of the
Hellenic race, that was, in its turn, to become the teacher of the world.

The liberal policy of Psammetichus, while resulting in a great advantage
to foreign nations, brought a heavy misfortune upon his own. Displeased
with the position assigned Greek mercenaries in the army, the native
Egyptian soldiers revolted, and two hundred thousand of the troops
seceding in a body, emigrated to Ethiopia, whence no inducement that
Psammetichus offered could persuade them to return.

The son of Psammetichus, Necho II. (612-596 B.C.), the Pharaoh-Necho of
the Bible, followed the liberal policy marked out by his father. To
facilitate commerce, he attempted to reopen the old canal dug by Seti I.
and his son, which had become unnavigable. After the loss of one hundred
and twenty thousand workmen in the prosecution of the undertaking, Necho
was constrained to abandon it; Herodotus says, on account of an
unfavorable oracle.

Necho then fitted out an exploring expedition for the circumnavigation of
Africa, in hope of finding a possible passage for his fleets from the Red
Sea to the Nile by a water channel already opened by nature, and to which
the priests and oracles could interpose no objections. The expedition, we
have reason to believe, actually accomplished the feat of sailing around
the continent; for Herodotus, in his account of the enterprise, says that
the voyagers upon their return reported that, when they were rounding the
cape, the sun was on their right hand (to the north). This feature of the
report, which led Herodotus to disbelieve it, is to us the very strongest
evidence possible that the voyage was really performed.

THE LAST OF THE PHARAOHS.--Before the close of his reign, Necho had come
into collision with the king of Babylon, and was forced to acknowledge his
supremacy. A little later, Babylon having yielded to the rising power of
Persia, Egypt also passed under Persian authority (see p. 77). The
Egyptians, however, were restive under this foreign yoke, and, after a
little more than a century, succeeded in throwing it off; but the country
was again subjugated by the Persian king Artaxerxes III. (about 340 B.C.),
and from that time until our own day no native prince has ever sat upon
the throne of the Pharaohs. Long before the Persian conquest, the Prophet
Ezekiel, foretelling the debasement of Egypt, had declared, "There shall
be no more a prince of the land of Egypt." [Footnote: Ezek. xxx. 13.]

Upon the extension of the power of the Macedonians over the East (333
B.C.), Egypt willingly exchanged masters; and for three centuries the
valley was the seat of the renowned Graeco-Egyptian Empire of the
Ptolemies, which lasted until the Romans annexed the region to their all-
absorbing empire (30 B.C.).

"The mission of Egypt among the nations was fulfilled; it had lit the
torch of civilization in ages inconceivably remote, and had passed it on
to other peoples of the West."

2. RELIGION, ARTS, AND GENERAL CULTURE.

CLASSES OF SOCIETY.--Egyptian society was divided into three great
classes, or orders,--priests, soldiers, and common people; the last
embracing shepherds, husbandmen, and artisans.

The sacerdotal order consisted of high-priests, prophets, scribes, keepers
of the sacred robes and animals, sacred sculptors, masons, and embalmers.
They enjoyed freedom from taxation, and met the expenses of the temple
services with the income of the sacred lands, which embraced one third of
the soil of the country.

The priests were extremely scrupulous in the care of their persons. They
bathed twice by day and twice by night, and shaved the entire body every
third day. Their inner clothing was linen, woollen garments being thought
unclean; their diet was plain and even abstemious, in order that, as
Plutarch says, "their bodies might sit light as possible about their
souls."

Next to the priesthood in rank and honor stood the military order. Like
the priests, the soldiers formed a landed class. They held one third of
the soil of Egypt. To each soldier was given a tract of about eight acres,
exempt from all taxes. They were carefully trained in their profession,
and there was no more effective soldiery in ancient times than that which
marched beneath the standard of the Pharaohs.

THE CHIEF DEITIES.--Attached to the chief temples of the Egyptians were
colleges for the training of the sacerdotal order. These institutions were
the repositories of the wisdom of the Egyptians. This learning was open
only to the initiated few.

The unity of God was the central doctrine in this private system. They
gave to this Supreme Being the very same name by which he was known to the
Hebrews--_Nuk Pu Nuk_, "I am that I am." [Footnote: "It is evident
what a new light this discovery throws on the sublime passage in Exodus
iii. 14; where Moses, whom we may suppose to have been initiated into this
formula, is sent both to his people and to Pharaoh to proclaim the true
God by this very title, and to declare that the God of the highest
Egyptian theology was also the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. The
case is parallel to that of Paul at Athens."--Smith's _Ancient History
of the East_, p. 196, note.] The sacred manuscripts say, "He is the one
living and true God,... who has made all things, and was not himself
made."

The Egyptian divinities of the popular mythology were frequently grouped
in triads. First in importance among these groups was that formed by
Osiris, Isis (his wife and sister), and Horus, their son. The members of
this triad were worshipped throughout Egypt.

The god Set (called Typhon by the Greek writers), the principle of evil,
was the Satan of Egyptian mythology. While the good and beneficent Osiris
was symbolized by the life-giving Nile, the malignant Typhon was
emblemized by the terrors and barrenness of the desert.

[Illustration: MUMMY OF A SACRED BULL. (From a photograph.)]

ANIMAL-WORSHIP.--The Egyptians regarded certain animals as emblems of the
gods, and hence worshipped them. To kill one of these sacred animals was
adjudged the greatest impiety. Persons so unfortunate as to harm one
through accident were sometimes murdered by the infuriated people. The
destruction of a cat in a burning building was lamented more than the loss
of the property. Upon the death of a dog, every member of the family
shaved his head. The scarabaeus, or beetle, was especially sacred, being
considered an emblem of the sun, or of life.

Not only were various animals held sacred, as being the emblems of certain
deities, but some were thought to be real gods. Thus the soul of Osiris,
it was imagined, animated the body of some bull, which might be known from
certain spots and markings.

Upon the death of the sacred bull, or Apis, as he was called, a great
search, accompanied with loud lamentation, was made throughout the land
for his successor: for, the moment the soul of Osiris departed from the
dying bull, it entered a calf that moment born. The calf was always found
with the proper markings; but, as Wilkinson says, the young animal had
probably been put to "much inconvenience and pain to make the marks and
hair conform to his description."

The body of the deceased Apis was carefully embalmed, and, amid funeral
ceremonies of great expense and magnificence, deposited in the tomb of his
predecessors. In 1851, Mariette discovered this sepulchral chamber of the
sacred bulls. It is a narrow gallery, two thousand feet in length, cut in
the limestone cliffs just opposite the site of ancient Memphis. A large
number of the immense granite coffins, fifteen feet long and eight wide
and high, have been brought to light.

Many explanations have been given to account for the existence of such a
debased form of worship among so cultured a people as were the ancient
Egyptians. Probably the sacred animals in the later worship represent an
earlier stage of the Egyptian religion, just as many superstitious beliefs
and observances among ourselves are simply survivals from earlier and
ruder times.

JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.--Death was a great equalizer among the Egyptians.
King and peasant alike must stand before the judgment-seat of Osiris and
his forty-two assessors.

This judgment of the soul in the other world was prefigured by a peculiar
ordeal to which the body was subjected here. Between each chief city and
the burial-place on the western edge of the valley was a sacred lake,
across which the body was borne in a barge. But, before admittance to the
boat, it must pass the ordeal called "the judgment of the dead." This was
a trial before a tribunal of forty-two judges, assembled upon the shore of
the lake. Any person could bring accusations against the deceased, false
charges being guarded against by the most dreadful penalties. If it
appeared that the life of the deceased had been evil, passage to the boat
was denied; and the body was either carried home in dishonor, or, in case
of the poor who could not afford to care for the mummy, was interred on
the shores of the lake. Many mummies of those refused admission to the
tombs of their fathers have been dug up along these "Stygian banks."

[Illustration: JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD: above, an ape-assessor scourges an
evil soul, that has been changed into an unclean animal.]

But this ordeal of the body was only a faint symbol of the dread tribunal
of Osiris before which the soul must appear in the lower world. In one
scale of a balance was placed the heart of the deceased; in the other
scale, an image of Justice, or Truth. The soul stands by watching the
result, and, as the beam inclines, is either welcomed to the companionship
of the good Osiris, or consigned to oblivion in the jaws of a frightful
hippopotamus-headed monster, "the devourer of evil souls." This
annihilation, however, is only the fate of those inveterately wicked.
Those respecting whom hopes of reformation may be entertained are
condemned to return to earth and do penance in long cycles of lives in the
bodies of various animals. This is what is known as the transmigration of
souls. The kind of animals the soul should animate, and the length of its
transmigrations, were determined by the nature of its sins.

TOMBS.--The Egyptians bestowed little care upon the temporary residences
of the living, but the "eternal homes" of the dead were fitted up with the
most lavish expenditure of labor. These were chambers, sometimes built of
brick or stone, but more usually cut in the limestone cliffs that form the
western rim of the Nile valley; for that, as the land of the sunset, was
conceived to be the realm of darkness and of death. The cliffs opposite
the ancient Egyptian capitals are honeycombed with sepulchral cells.

[Illustration: BRICK-MAKING IN ANCIENT EGYPT, (From Thebes.)]

In the hills back of Thebes is the so-called Valley of the Tombs of the
Kings, the "Westminster Abbey of Egypt." Here are twenty-five magnificent
sepulchres. These consist of extensive rock-cut passages and chambers
richly sculptured and painted.

The subjects of the decorations of many of the tombs, particularly of the
oldest, are drawn from the life and manners of the times. Thus the artist
has converted for us the Egyptian necropolis into a city of the living,
where the Egypt of four thousand years ago seems to pass before our eyes.

THE PYRAMIDS.--The Egyptian pyramids, the tombs of the earlier Pharaohs,
are the most venerable monuments that have been preserved to us from the
early world. They were almost all erected before the Twelfth Dynasty.
Although thus standing away back in the earliest twilight of the historic
morning, nevertheless they mark, not the beginning, but the perfection of
Egyptian art. They speak of long periods of growth in art and science
lying beyond the era they represent. It is this vast and mysterious
background that astonishes us even more than these giant forms cast up
against it.

[Illustration: THE GREAT HALL OF COLUMNS AT KARNAK.]

Being sepulchral monuments, the pyramids are confined to the western side
of the Nile valley (see p. 31). There are over thirty still standing, with
traces of about forty more.

The Pyramid of Cheops, the largest of the Gizeh group, near Cairo, rises
from a base covering thirteen acres, to a height of four hundred and fifty
feet. According to Herodotus, Cheops employed one hundred thousand men for
twenty years in its erection.

PALACES AND TEMPLES.---The earlier Memphian kings built great unadorned
pyramids, but the later Theban monarchs constructed splendid palaces and
temples. Two of the most prominent masses of buildings on the site of
Thebes are called, the one the Temple of Karnak, and the other the Temple
of Luxor, from the names of two native villages built near or within the
ruined enclosures. The former was more than five hundred years in
building. As an adjunct of the temple at Karnak was a Hall of Columns,
which consisted of a phalanx of one hundred and sixty-four gigantic
pillars. Some of these columns measure over seventy feet in height, with
capitals sixty-five feet in circumference.

[Illustration: STATUES OF MEMNON AT THEBES.]

In Nubia, beyond the First Cataract, is the renowned rock-hewn temple of
Ipsambul, the front of which is adorned with four gigantic portrait-
statues of Rameses II., seventy feet in height. This temple has been
pronounced the greatest and grandest achievement of Egyptian art.

SCULPTURE: SPHINXES AND COLOSSI.--A strange immobility, due to the
influence of religion, attached itself, at an early period, to Egyptian
art. The artist, in the portrayal of the figures of the gods, was not
allowed to change a single line in the conventional form. Hence the
impossibility of improvement in sacred sculpture. Wilkinson says that
Menes would have recognized the statue of Osiris in the Temple of Amasis.
Plato complained that the pictures and statues in the temples in his day
were no better than those made "ten thousand years" before.

The heroic, or colossal size of many of the Egyptian statues excites our
admiration. The two colossi at Thebes, known as the "Statues of Memnon,"
are forty-seven feet high, and are hewn each from a single block of
granite. The appearance of these time-worn, gigantic figures, upon the
solitary plain, is singularly impressive. "There they sit together, yet
apart, in the midst of the plain, serene and vigilant, still keeping their
untired watch over the lapse of ages and the eclipse of Egypt."

One of these statues acquired a wide reputation among the Greeks and
Romans, under the name of the "Vocal Memnon." When the rays of the rising
sun fell upon the colossus, it emitted low musical tones, which the
Egyptians believed to be the greeting of the statue to the mother-sun.
[Footnote: It is probable that the musical notes were produced by the
action of the sun upon the surface of the rock while wet with dew. The
phenomenon was observed only while the upper part of the colossus, which
was broken off by an earthquake, remained upon the ground. When the statue
was restored, the music ceased.]

The Egyptian sphinxes were figures having a human head and the body of a
lion, symbolizing intelligence and power. The most famous of the sphinxes
of Egypt is the colossal figure at the base of the Great Pyramid, at
Gizeh, sculptured, some think, by Menes, and others, by one of the kings
of the Fourth Dynasty. The immense statue, cut out of the native rock,
save the fore-legs, which are built of masonry, is ninety feet long and
seventy feet high. "This huge, mutilated figure has an astonishing effect;
it seems like an eternal spectre. The stone phantom seems attentive; one
would say that it hears and sees. Its great ear appears to collect the
sounds of the past; its eyes, directed to the east, gaze, as it were, into
the future; its aspect has a depth, a truth of expression, irresistibly
fascinating to the spectator. In this figure--half statue, half mountain--
we see a wonderful majesty, a grand serenity, and even a sort of sweetness
of expression."

GLASS MANUFACTURE.--The manufacture of glass, a discovery usually
attributed to the Phoenicians, [Footnote: The Phoenicians, being the
carriers of antiquity, often received credit among the peoples with whom
they traded, for various inventions and discoveries of which they were
simply the disseminators.] was carried on in Egypt more than four thousand
years ago. The paintings of the monuments represent glass-blowers moulding
all manner of articles. Glass bottles, and various other objects of the
same material, are found in great numbers in the tombs. Some of these
objects show that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with processes of
coloring glass that secured results which we have not yet been able to
equal. The Egyptian artists imitated, with marvellous success, the
variegated hues of insects and stones. The manufacture of precious gems,
so like the natural stone as to defy detection, was a lucrative
profession.

THE PAPYRUS PAPER.--The chief writing material used by the ancient
Egyptians was the noted papyrus paper, manufactured from a reed which grew
in the marshes and along the water-channels of the Nile. From the Greek
names of this Egyptian plant, _byblos_ and _papyrus_, come our words
"Bible" and "paper." The plant has now entirely disappeared from Egypt,
and is found only on the Anapus, in the island of Sicily, and on a
small stream near Jaffa, in Palestine. Long before the plant became
extinct in Egypt an ancient prophecy had declared, "The paper reeds by the
brooks ... shall wither, be driven away, and be no more." (Isa. xix. 7.)
The costly nature of the papyrus paper led to the use of many substitutes
for writing purposes--as leather, broken pottery, tiles, stones, and
wooden tablets.

FORMS OF WRITING.--The Egyptians employed three forms of writing: the
_hieroglyphical_, consisting of rude pictures of material objects,
usually employed in monumental inscriptions; the _hieratic_, an
abbreviated or rather simplified form of the hieroglyphical, adapted to
writing, and forming the greater part of the papyrus manuscripts; and the
_demotic_, or _encorial_, a still simpler form than the hieratic. The last
did not come into use till about the seventh century B.C., and was then
used for all ordinary documents, both of a civil and commercial nature. It
could be written eight or ten times as fast as the hieroglyphical form.

KEY TO EGYPTIAN WRITING.--The key to the Egyptian writing was discovered
by means of the Rosetta Stone. This valuable relic, a heavy block of black
basalt, is now in the British Museum. It holds an inscription, written in
hieroglyphic, in demotic, and in Greek characters. Champollion, a French
scholar, by comparing the characters composing the words Ptolemy,
Alexander, and other names in the parallel inscriptions, discovered the
value of several of the symbols; and thus were opened the vast libraries
of Egyptian learning.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35