Part 6 (1/2)
The correspondence was active and far-reaching. There are letters in it from the kings of Babylonia and a.s.syria, of Mitanni and Cappadocia, as well as from the Egyptian governors in Canaan. Even Bedawin shekhs take part in it, and the letters are sometimes on the most trivial of subjects. It is clear that schools and libraries must have existed throughout the civilised East, where the Babylonian characters could be taught and learned, and where Babylonian literature and official correspondence could be stored up. Among the tablets found at Tel el-Amarna are some fragments of Babylonian literature, one of which has served as a lesson-book, and traces of dictionaries have also been discovered there.
The religious reforms of Khu-n-Aten resulted in the fall of the dynasty and the Egyptian empire. The letters from Canaan, more especially those from the va.s.sal-king of Jerusalem, show that the power of Egypt in Asia was on the wane. The Hitt.i.tes were advancing from the north, Mitanni and Babylonia were intriguing with disaffected Canaanites, and the Canaanitish governors themselves were at war with one another. The Pharaoh is entreated to send help speedily; if his troops do not come at once, it is reputed, they will come too late. But it would seem that the troops could not be spared at home. There, too, civil war was breaking out, and though Khu-n-Aten died before the end came, his sepulchre was profaned, his mummy rent to pieces, and the city he had built destroyed.
The stones of the temple of his G.o.d were sent to Thebes, there to be used in the service of the victorious Amon; and the tombs prepared for his mother and his followers remained empty. In the national reaction against the Asiatised court and religion of Khu-n-Aten, the Canaanitish foreigners who had usurped the highest offices were either put to death or driven into exile, and a new dynasty, the Nineteenth, arose, whose policy was ”Egypt for the Egyptians.”
Ramses I. was regarded as the founder of the Nineteenth dynasty. His reign was short, and he was followed by his son Seti I., who once more led his armies into Asia and subdued the coast-land of Syria. Seti was succeeded by his son Ramses II., who died at a great age after a reign of sixty-seven years (B.C. 1348-1281), and whose mummy, like that of his father, is now in the Cairo Museum. He set himself to restore the Asiatic empire of Thothmes. But the Hitt.i.tes barred his way. They had established themselves at Kadesh on the Orontes, and a long war of twenty-one years ended at last in a treaty of peace in which the two combatants agreed to respect from henceforth the existing boundaries of Egypt and Kadesh. Egypt was left with Palestine on both sides of the Jordan, a possession, however, which it lost soon after Ramses' death.
The treaty was cemented by the marriage of the Hitt.i.te princess with the Pharaoh.
Ramses II. was the great builder of Egypt. Go where we will, we find the remains of the temples he erected or restored, of the cities he founded, and of the statues he set up. His architectural conceptions were colossal; the temple of Abu-Simbel, hewn out of a mountain, and the shattered image of himself at Thebes, are a proof of this. But he attempted too much for the compa.s.s of a single reign, however long. Much of his work is pretentious but poor, and indicative of the feverish haste with which it was executed.
Among the cities he built in the Delta were Ramses and Pithom. Pithom, or Pa-Tum, is now marked by the mounds of Tel el-Maskhuta, on the line of railway between Ismailia and Zagazig; it lay at the eastern extremity of Qoshem or Goshen, in the district of Succoth. Like Ramses, it had been built by Israelitish labour, for the free-born Israelites of Goshen had been turned into royal serfs. None had suffered more from the revolution which overthrew the Asiatised court of the Eighteenth dynasty and brought in a ”new king which knew not Joseph.”
They had been settled in the strip of pasture-land which borders the Freshwater Ca.n.a.l of to-day, and is still a place of resort for the Bedawin from the east. It lay apart from the cultivated lands of the Egyptian peasantry, it adjoined the desert which led to Asia, and it was near the Hyksos capital of Zoan. Meneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II., tells us that from of old it had been given by the Pharaohs to the nomad shepherds of Asia; and after the departure of the Israelitish tribes the same king is informed in a letter from one of his officials that the deserted district had been again handed over to Bedawin from Edom. This was in the eighth year of the king's reign, three years later than that in which the Exodus must have taken place.
For 400 years the Israelites had been ”afflicted” by the Egyptians. But while the Eighteenth dynasty was in power their lot could not have been hard. They still remained the free herdsmen of the Pharaoh, feeding their flocks and cattle on the royal demesne. During the reign of Khu-n-Aten, indeed, their own Semitic kinsmen from Canaan held the chief offices of state, and the Pharaoh was endeavouring to force upon his subjects a form of monotheism which had much in common with that of Israel. The language of the hymns engraved on the walls of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna reads not unfrequently like the verses of a Hebrew Psalm.
The national reaction which found its expression in the rise of the Eighteenth dynasty swept away the power and influence of Asia, and brought back the G.o.ds and religion of Egypt. The Semites who had absorbed the government of the country were expelled or slain; their weaker brethren, the Israelites in Goshen, were enslaved. Egypt became for them a house of bondage, and they had to toil under the lash of the taskmaster at the cities and temples which the Pharaoh built. Ramses held his court at Zoan, like the Hyksos of old days, but it was to keep guard over the Asiatic frontier, not to be in touch with a kindred people in Canaan. Canaan itself was conquered afresh, and the Canaanitish captives--the ”mixed mult.i.tude” of the Bible--a.s.sisted the Israelites in erecting the monuments of their conqueror.
Nevertheless, the people multiplied. The memory of the Hyksos invasion had not pa.s.sed away, and the Pharaoh and his subjects alike feared the possibility of other invaders from Asia being joined by their disaffected kinsfolk in Egypt itself. That their fears were justified is shown by what happened less than a century later. When the Nineteenth dynasty fell in the midst of civil war, a Canaanite, Arisu by name, seized the throne and made himself master of Egypt. Ramses determined to prevent such a catastrophe by destroying as many as possible of the male children of the Hebrews. The men were worn down in body and mind by constant labour, the children were not allowed to live.
Egyptian testimony confirms the statement of Scripture that this policy was actually carried out. A hymn of victory addressed to Meneptah alludes to ”the Israelites” to whom ”no seed” had been left. But the policy was ineffectual. The opportunity came at last when the serfs could fly from their enforced labour and escape into the wilderness.
It was in the fifth year of Meneptah (B.C. 1276). Egypt was threatened by formidable enemies. The Libyans advanced against it by land, the nations of the Greek seas attacked it by water. Achaeans came from the north, Lycians from Asia Minor, Sardinians and Sicilians from the islands of the west. The Delta was overrun by swarms of barbarians, who pitched their tents in front of Belbeis at the western end of the land of Goshen. Plague after plague descended upon the Egyptians, and the freedom of his serfs was wrung from the Pharaoh. They fled by night, carrying with them the spoil they had taken from their masters, only to find that the gate of the great line of fortification which protected the eastern frontier of Egypt was closed against them. Meneptah had repented of his act, and a squadron of six hundred chariots was sent in pursuit of the fugitives.
But a violent wind drove back the sea from the shallows at the southern extremity of the forts, and enabled the Israelites to cross them. While their pursuers were following in their footsteps, the dropping of the wind caused the waters to return upon them, and chariots, horses, and men were alike overwhelmed. The Israelites were saved as it were by miracle, and the Pharaoh lost his bondsmen.
But Egypt also succeeded in repelling the storm of invasion which had fallen upon it. The Libyans and their northern allies were annihilated in a decisive battle, their king, Murai, fled from the field, and a countless amount of booty and prisoners fell into the hands of the victorious Egyptians. Canaan, however, was lost, with the exception of Gaza, which defended the road from Egypt, and was still garrisoned by Egyptian troops. But Gaza, the Calais of Egypt, was not destined to remain long in their power. Already the coast-road was made dangerous by the attacks of Philistine pirates from Crete; and it was not long before the pirates took permanent possession of the southern corner of Palestine, and established themselves in its five chief towns. The Egyptian domination in Asia had pa.s.sed away for ever.
After Meneptah's death the Nineteenth dynasty soon came to an inglorious end. Civil war distracted the country, and for a time it obeyed the rule of a foreign chief. Then came the rise of the Twentieth dynasty, and a third Ramses restored the prestige and prosperity of his kingdom. But once more the foreign invader was upon its soil. The nations of the north had again poured southward, partly by land, partly by sea, greedy for the wealth that was stored in the cultured lands of the Oriental world, and eager to find new settlements for an expanding population.
Greek traditions spoke of the movement as a consequence of the Trojan war, and delighted to dwell on the voyages of its heroes into unknown seas, of the piratical descents to which it led, and of the colonies which were planted by it. The Philistine occupation of southern Palestine was one of its results.
As in the time of Meneptah, the Libyans took part with the northern tribes in the a.s.sault upon Egypt, and Sardinians and Sicilians followed behind them. But the main bulk of the invaders came from the Greek seas.
The Danaans take the place of the Achaeans, and the Philistines are among their allies. The invaders had swept through western Asia, plundering and destroying as they marched, and bringing in their train contingents from the countries through which they pa.s.sed. Hitt.i.tes, Mitannians, and Amorites all followed with them, and the motley host of men and s.h.i.+ps finally reached the Egyptian frontier. Here, however, they were met by the Pharaoh. The battle raged by sea and land, and ended in a triumph of the Egyptians. The invaders were utterly overthrown, their s.h.i.+ps burned, their kings and leaders made captive. Egypt was once more saved from destruction, and Ramses III. was free to develop its resources and repair the damage that had been done.
First came a campaign in Canaan and Syria, the object of which was not to acquire territory, but to teach the Asiatic that there was once more an army in Egypt. The Egyptian forces seem to have gone as far as Hamath; at all events, they occupied southern Palestine, capturing Gaza, Hebron, and Jerusalem, and made their way across the Jordan into Moab.
Another campaign carried the Egyptian troops into Edom, where they burned the ”tents” of the Bedawin, and for the first and last time in history planted the Egyptian standard on the slopes of Mount Seir.
Ramses now turned to the internal administration of his country, and the copper-mines of Sinai, like the gold-mines of the eastern desert, were worked with fresh vigour. The spoil won from the northern invaders made the Pharaoh the richest monarch of the age. Temples were built, and endowed with lavish generosity, and the priesthood must have grieved when he died at last after a reign of thirty-three years.
He was followed by a line of feeble princes. The high-priests of Amon at Thebes usurped their power, and finally dispossessed the last of them of the throne. A new dynasty arose in the Delta. In the south the government was practically in the hands of the Theban high-priests. With a divided kingdom the strength of Egypt pa.s.sed away.
It was restored by a foreigner, s.h.i.+shak I., the captain of the Libyan mercenaries. The Pharaoh whose daughter was married by Solomon must have been the last king of the old dynasty. Perhaps he sought to strengthen himself against his enemies in Egypt by an alliance with his powerful neighbour. At all events, the King of Israel allowed his army to march through Palestine as far as Gezer. The Egyptians flattered themselves that they had thereby a.s.serted their old claim to sovereignty over Palestine, but the substantial gainer was the Israelitish monarch. He won the last independent Canaanite city without effort or expenditure, and was allowed to marry into the Solar race.
s.h.i.+shak had no need of Israelitish alliances. On the contrary, Solomon was connected by marriage with the dethroned dynasty, and the power of Israel, if unchecked, was a menace to his own kingdom. But while Solomon lived he was afraid to move. He kept at his court, however, an Israelitish rebel, who might prove useful when the time came. Hardly was Solomon dead when Jeroboam returned to his native country, and the kingdom of David was sundered in twain. s.h.i.+shak seized the opportunity of striking a blow at what remained of it. With contemptuous impartiality he overran the territories of both Judah and the revolted tribes, but it was Judah which suffered the most. The unfinished fortifications of Jerusalem were stormed, the treasures acc.u.mulated by Solomon carried to the Nile, and the King of Judah compelled to acknowledge himself the va.s.sal of s.h.i.+shak. Judah never recovered from the blow: had it not been for the Egyptian invasion, and the consequent loss of its h.o.a.rded wealth, it might have been able to suppress the rebellion of Jeroboam, and to reduce all the tribes of Israel once more under one sceptre. The names of the captured cities of Palestine are still to be read on the walls of the temple of Karnak.
s.h.i.+shak's successors of the Twenty-second dynasty did not inherit his military vigour and skill. The central authority grew gradually weaker, and Egypt again fell back into the condition from which he had rescued it. The tribes of the Sudan could no longer be hindered from attacking the enfeebled land, and Ethiopian princes made their way to Memphis, carrying back with them to their capital of Napata the spoil and tribute of a defeated and disunited people. At last the Ethiopian raids changed into permanent conquest, and a negro dynasty--the Twenty-fifth--sat on the throne of Menes.
But the kings who belonged to it, Shabaka and Taharka, were vigorous, and for a short while there was peace in the valley of the Nile.
a.s.syria, however, had already arisen in its strength, and was claiming the empire over western Asia which had belonged to Babylon in the dawn of history. The states of Palestine endeavoured in vain to play off a.s.syria against Egypt. Again and again the Egyptian armies were defeated on the borders of Canaan, and Taharka was saved from invasion only by the disaster which befell Sennacherib during his siege of Jerusalem. But the respite was only momentary. Asia at last submitted to the dominion of Nineveh, the King of Judah became an a.s.syrian va.s.sal, and Esar-haddon, the successor of Sennacherib, was now ready to march against the land of the Nile. In B.C. 674 he entered the Delta and scattered the forces of the Ethiopians. But two more campaigns were needed before the country was thoroughly subdued. At last, in June B.C.
670, he drove the Egyptian forces before him in fifteen days from the frontier to Memphis, twice defeating them with heavy loss and wounding Taharka himself. Three days later Memphis opened its gates, and Taharka fled to Egypt, leaving Egypt in the hands of the a.s.syrian. It was divided among twenty satraps, most of whom were Egyptians by birth.
Two years, however, were hardly past when it revolted, and while on the march to subdue it Esar-haddon fell ill, and died on the 10th of Marchesvan or October. But the revolt was quickly suppressed by his successor a.s.sur-bani-pal, and the twenty satrapies restored. It was not long, however, before the satraps quarrelled with one another, intrigued with Taharka, and rebelled against their suzerain. Headed by Necho of Sais, they invited the Ethiopians to return; but the plot was discovered, and Necho and his fellow-conspirators sent in chains to Nineveh. Sais, Mendes, and other cities of northern Egypt were sacked, and Taharka, who had advanced as far as Thebes and even Memphis, fled to Ethiopia and there died. Meanwhile Necho had been pardoned and loaded with honours by the a.s.syrian king; his son, who took an a.s.syrian name, was made satrap of Athribis, near the modern Benha, and the satraps of the Delta henceforward remained faithful to their a.s.syrian master. But another Ethiopian prince, Tuant-Amon, made a last attempt to recover the dominion of his fathers. Thebes received him with acclamation, and Memphis was taken without difficulty. There the satrap of Goshen came to pay him homage on behalf of his brother-governors in the north.