Chapter II: The Reaction Against Egypt (5)

* The name of this individual was deciphered by Chabas;
Lauth, and after him Krall, were inclined to read it as Ket,
Ketesh, in order to identify it with the Ketes of Diodorus
Siculus. A form of the name Arisai in the Bible may be its
original, or that of Arish which is found in Phoenician,
especially Punic, inscriptions.

This was in truth the revenge of the feudal system upon Pharaoh. The barons, kept in check by Ahmosis and Amenôthes I., restricted by the successors of these sovereigns to the position of simple officers of the king, profited by the general laxity to recover as many as possible of their ancient privileges. For half a century and more, fortune had given them as masters only aged princes, not capable of maintaining continuous vigilance and firmness. The invasions of the peoples of the sea, the rivalry of the claimants to the throne, and the intrigues of ministers had, one after the other, served to break the bonds which fettered them, and in one generation they were able to regain that liberty of action of which they had been deprived for centuries. To this state of things Egypt had been drifting from the earliest times. Unity could be maintained only by a continuous effort, and once this became relaxed, the ties which bound the whole country together were soon broken. There was another danger threatening the country beside that arising from the weakening of the hands of the sovereign, and the turbulence of the barons. For some three centuries the Theban Pharaohs were accustomed to bring into the country after each victorious campaign many thousands of captives. The number of foreigners around them had, therefore, increased in a striking manner. The majority of these strangers either died without issue, or their posterity became assimilated to the indigenous inhabitants. In many places, however, they had accumulated in such proportions that they were able to retain among themselves the remembrance of their origin, their religion, and their customs, and with these the natural desire to leave the country of their exile for their former fatherland. As long as a strict watch was kept over them they remained peaceful subjects, but as soon as this vigilance was relaxed rebellion was likely to break out, especially amongst those who worked in the quarries. Traditions of the Greek period contain certain romantic episodes in the history of these captives. Some Babylonian prisoners brought back by Sesostris, these traditions tell us, unable to endure any longer the fatiguing work to which they were condemned, broke out into open revolt.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a picture in Rosellini.

They made themselves masters of a position almost opposite Memphis, and commanding the river, and held their ground there with such obstinacy that it was found necessary to give up to them the province which they occupied: they built here a town, which they afterwards called Babylon. A similar legend attributes the building of the neighbouring village of Troîû to captives from Troy.*

The scattered barbarian tribes of the Delta, whether Hebrews or the remnant of the ïïyksôs, had endured there a miserable lot ever since the accession of the Ramessides. The rebuilding of the cities which had been destroyed there during the wars with the Hyksôs had restricted the extent of territory on which they could pasture their herds. Ramses II. treated them as slaves of the treasury,** and the Hebrews were not long under his rule before they began to look back with regret on the time of the monarchs who knew Joseph. **

* The name Babylon comes probably from _Banbonu, Barbonu,
Babonu_--a term which, under the form _Hât-Banbonu,_ served
to designate a quarter of Heliopolis, or rather a suburban
village of that city. Troja was, as we have seen, the
ancient city of Troîû, now Tûrah, celebrated for its
quarries of fine limestone. The narratives collected by the
historians whom Diodorus consulted were products of the
Saite period, and intended to explain to Greeks the
existence on Egyptian territory of names recalling those of
Babylon in Chaldæa and of Homeric Troy.

** A very ancient tradition identifies Ramses II. with the
Pharaoh who knew not Joseph (_Exod._ i. 8). Recent
excavations showing that the great works in the east of the
Delta began under this king, or under Seti II. at the
earliest, confirm in a general way the accuracy of the
traditional view: I have, therefore, accepted it in part,
and placed the Exodus after the death of Ramses II. Other
authorities place it further back, and Lieblein in 1863 was
inclined to put it under Amenôthes III.

The Egyptians set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. * A secondary version of the same narrative gives a more detailed account of their condition: They made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. ** The unfortunate slaves awaited only an opportunity to escape from the cruelty of their persecutors.

* _Exod_. i. 11, 12. Excavations made by Naville have
brought to light near Tel el-Maskhutah the ruins of one of
the towns which the Hebrews of the Alexandrine period
identified with the cities constructed by their ancestors in
Egypt: the town excavated by Naville is Pitûmû, and
consequently the Pithom of the Biblical account, and at the
same time also the Succoth of Exod. xii. 37, xiii. 20, the
first station of the Bnê-Israel after leaving Ramses.

** _Exod,_ i. 13, 14.

The national traditions of the Hebrews inform us that the king, in displeasure at seeing them increase so mightily notwithstanding his repression, commanded the midwives to strangle henceforward their male children at their birth. A woman of the house of Levi, after having concealed her infant for three months, put him in an ark of bulrushes and consigned him to the Nile, at a place where the daughter of Pharaoh was accustomed to bathe. The princess on perceiving the child had compassion on him, adopted him, called him Moses--saved from the waters--and had him instructed in all the knowledge of the Egyptians. Moses had already attained forty years of age, when he one day encountered an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, and slew him in his anger, shortly afterwards fleeing into the land of Midian. Here he found an asylum, and Jethro the priest gave him one of his daughters in marriage. After forty years of exile, God, appearing to him in a burning bush, sent him to deliver His people. The old Pharaoh was dead, but Moses and his brother Aaron betook themselves to the court of the new Pharaoh, and demanded from him permission for the Hebrews to sacrifice in the desert of Arabia. They obtained it, as we know, only after the infliction of the ten plagues, and after the firstborn of the Egyptians had been stricken.* The emigrants started from Ramses; as they were pursued by a body of troops, the Sea parted its waters to give them passage over the dry ground, and closing up afterwards on the Egyptian hosts, overwhelmed them to a man. Thereupon Moses and the children of Israel sang this song unto Jahveh, saying: Jahveh is my strength and song--and He has become my salvation.--This is my God, and I will praise Him,--my fathers God, and I will exalt Him.--The Lord is a man of war,--and Jahveh is His name.--Pharaohs chariots and his hosts hath He cast into the sea, --and his chosen captains are sunk in the sea of weeds.--The deeps cover them--they went down into the depths like a stone.... The enemy said: I will pursue, I will overtake--I will divide the spoil--my lust shall be satiated upon them--I will draw my sword--my hand shall destroy them.--Thou didst blow with Thy wind--the sea covered them--they sank as lead in the mighty waters. **

* _Exod._ ii.-xiii. I have limited myself here to a summary
of the Biblical narrative, without entering into a criticism
of the text, which I leave to others.

** _Exod._ xv. 1-10 (R.V.)

From this narrative we see that the Hebrews, or at least those of them who dwelt in the Delta, made their escape from their oppressors, and took refuge in the solitudes of Arabia. According to the opinion of accredited historians, this Exodus took place in the reign of Mînephtah, and the evidence of the triumphal inscription, lately discovered by Prof. Petrie, seems to confirm this view, in relating that the people of Israîlû were destroyed, and had no longer a seed. The context indicates pretty clearly that these ill-treated Israîlû were then somewhere south of Syria, possibly in the neighbourhood of Ascalon and Glezer. If it is the Biblical Israelites who are here mentioned for the first time on an Egyptian monument, one might suppose that they had just quitted the land of slavery to begin their wanderings through the desert. Although the peoples of the sea and the Libyans did not succeed in reaching their settlements in the land of Goshen, the Israelites must have profited both by the disorder into which the Egyptians were thrown by the invaders, and by the consequent withdrawal to Memphis of the troops previously stationed on the east of the Delta, to break away from their servitude and cross the frontier. If, on the other hand, the Israîlû of Mînephtah are regarded as a tribe still dwelling among the mountains of Canaan, while the greater part of the race had emigrated to the banks of the Nile, there is no need to seek long after Mînephtah for a date suiting the circumstances of the Exodus. The years following the reign of Seti II. offer favourable conditions for such a dangerous enterprise: the break-up of the monarchy, the discords of the barons, the revolts among the captives, and the supremacy of a Semite over the other chiefs, must have minimised the risk. We can readily understand how, in the midst of national disorders, a tribe of foreigners weary of its lot might escape from its settlements and betake itself towards Asia without meeting with strenous opposition from the Pharaoh, who would naturally be too much preoccupied with his own pressing necessities to trouble himself much over the escape of a band of serfs.

Having crossed the Red Sea, the Israelites pursued their course to the north-east on the usual road leading into Syria, and then turning towards the south, at length arrived at Sinai. It was a moment when the nations of Asia were stirring. To proceed straight to Canaan by the beaten track would have been to run the risk of encountering their moving hordes, or of jostling against the Egyptian troops, who still garrisoned the strongholds of the She-phelah. The fugitives had, therefore, to shun the great military roads if they were to avoid coming into murderous conflict with the barbarians, or running into the teeth of Pharaohs pursuing army. The desert offered an appropriate asylum to people of nomadic inclinations like themselves; they betook themselves to it as if by instinct, and spent there a wandering life for several generations.*

* This explanation of the wanderings of the Israelites has
been doubted by most historians: it has a cogency, once we
admit the reality of the sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus.

The traditions collected in their sacred books described at length their marches and their halting-places, the great sufferings they endured, and the striking miracles which God performed on their behalf.*

* The itinerary of the Hebrew people through the desert
contains a very small number of names which were not
actually in use. They represent possibly either the stations
at which the caravans of the merchants put up, or the
localities where the Bedawin and their herds were accustomed
to sojourn. The majority of them cannot be identified, but
enough can still be made out to give us a general idea of
the march of the emigrants.

Moses conducted them through all these experiences, continually troubled by their murmurings and seditions, but always ready to help them out of the difficulties into which they were led, on every occasion, by their want of faith. He taught them, under Gods direction, how to correct the bitterness of brackish waters by applying to them the wood of a certain tree.* When they began to look back with regret to the flesh-pots of Egypt and the abundance of food there, another signal miracle was performed for them. At even the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay round about the host; and when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, What is it? for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, It is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.**

* _Exod._ xv. 23-25. The station Marah, the bitter waters,
is identified by modern tradition with Ain Howarah. There is
a similar way of rendering waters potable still in use among
the Bedawin of these regions.

** _Exod._ xvi. 13-15.

And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. * And the children of Israel did eat the manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat the manna until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. ** Further on, at Eephidim, the water failed: Moses struck the rocks at Horeb, and a spring gushed out.*** The Amalekites, in the meantime, began to oppose their passage; and one might naturally doubt the power of a rabble of slaves, unaccustomed to war, to break through such an obstacle. Joshua was made their general, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill: and it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. ****

* _Exod._ xvi. 31. Prom early times the manna of the Hebrews
had been identified with the mann-es-sama, the gift of
heaven, of the Arabs, which exudes in small quantities from
the leaves of the tamarisk after being pricked by insects:
the question, however, is still under discussion whether
another species of vegetable manna may not be meant.

** _Exod._ xvi. 35.

*** _Exod._ xvii. 1-7. There is a general agreement as to
the identification of Rephidim with the Wady Peîrân, the
village of Pharan of the Græco-Roman geographers.

**** Exod. xvii. 8-13.

Three months after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt they encamped at the foot of Sinai, and the Lord called unto Moses out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from among all peoples: for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. The people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever. On the third day, when it was morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud; and all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the nether part of the mountain. And Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. *

* _Exod._ xix. 3-6, 9, 16-19.

Then followed the giving of the supreme law, the conditions of the covenant which the Lord Himself deigned to promulgate directly to His people. It was engraved on two tables of stone, and contained, in ten concise statements, the commandments which the Creator of the Universe imposed upon the people of His choice.

I. I am Jahveh, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, etc.

III. Thou shalt not take the name of Jahveh thy God in vain.

IV. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.

V. Honour thy father and thy mother.

VI. Thou shalt do no murder.

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

X. Thou shalt not covet. *

* We have two forms of the Decalogue--one in _Exod._ xx. 2-
17, and the other in _Deut._ v. 6-18.

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.* God gave His commandments to Moses in instalments as the circumstances required them: on one occasion the rites of sacrifice, the details of the sacerdotal vestments, the mode of consecrating the priests, the composition of the oil and the incense for the altar; later on, the observance of the three annual festivals, and the orders as to absolute rest on the seventh day, as to the distinctions between clean and unclean animals, as to drink, as to the purification of women, and lawful and unlawful marriages.**

* _Exod._ xx. 18, 19.

** This legislation and the history of the circumstances on
which it was promulgated are contained in four of the books
of the Pentateuch, viz. _Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy_. Any one of the numerous text-books published
in Germany will be found to contain an analysis of these
books, and the prevalent opinions as to the date of the
documents which it [the Hexateuch] contains. I confine
myself here and afterwards only to such results as may fitly
be used in a general history.

The people waited from week to week until Jahveh had completed the revelation of His commands, and in their impatience broke the new law more than once. On one occasion, when Moses delayed to come out of the mount, they believed themselves abandoned by heaven, and obliged Aaron, the high priest, to make for them a golden calf, before which they offered burnt offerings. The sojourn of the people at the foot of Sinai lasted eleven months. At the end of this period they set out once more on their slow marches to the Promised Land, guided during the day by a cloud, and during the night by a pillar of fire, which moved before them. This is a general summary of what we find in the sacred writings.

The Israelites, when they set out from Egypt, were not yet a nation. They were but a confused horde, flying with their herds from their pursuers; with no resources, badly armed, and unfit to sustain the attack of regular troops. After leaving Sinai, they wandered for some time among the solitudes of Arabia Petraea in search of some uninhabited country where they could fix their tents, and at length settled on the borders of Idumaea, in the mountainous region surrounding Kadesh-Barnea.* Kadesh had from ancient times a reputation for sanctity among the Bedawin of the neighbourhood: it rejoiced in the possession of a wonderful well--the Well of Judgment--to which visits were made for the purpose of worship, and for obtaining the judgment of God. The country is a poor one, arid and burnt up, but it contains wells which never fail, and wadys suitable for the culture of wheat and for the rearing of cattle. The tribe which became possessed of a region in which there was a perennial supply of water was fortunate indeed, and a fragment of the psalmody of Israel at the time of their sojourn here still echoes in a measure the transports of joy which the people gave way to at the discovery of a new spring: Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it: the well which the princes digged, which the nobles of the people delved with the sceptre and with their staves. **

* The site of Kadesh-Barnea appears to have been fixed with
certainty at Ain-Qadis by C. Trumbull.

** _Numb._ xxi. 17, 18. The context makes it certain that
this song was sung at Beer, beyond the Arnon, in the land of
Moab. It has long been recognised that it had a special
reference, and that it refers to an incident in the
wanderings of the people through the desert.

The wanderers took possession of this region after some successful brushes with the enemy, and settled there, without being further troubled by their neighbours or by their former masters. The Egyptians, indeed, absorbed in their civil discords, or in wars with foreign nations, soon forgot their escaped slaves, and never troubled themselves for centuries over what had become of the poor wretches, until in the reign of the Ptolemies, when they had learned from the Bible something of the people of God, they began to seek in their own annals for traces of their sojourn in Egypt and of their departure from the country. A new version of the Exodus was the result, in which Hebrew tradition was clumsily blended with the materials of a semi-historical romance, of which Amenôthes III. was the hero. His minister and namesake, Amenôthes, son of Hâpû, left ineffaceable impressions on the minds of the inhabitants of Thebes: he not only erected the colossal figures in the Amenophium, but he constructed the chapel at Deîr el-Medineh, which was afterwards restored in Ptolemaic times, and where he continued to be worshipped as long as the Egyptian religion lasted. Profound knowledge of the mysteries of magic were attributed to him, as in later times to Prince Khâmoîsît, son of Ramses II. On this subject he wrote certain works which maintained their reputation for more than a thousand years after his death,* and all that was known about him marked him out for the important part he came to play in those romantic stories so popular among the Egyptians.

* One of these books, which is mentioned in several
religious texts, is preserved in the _Louvre Papyrus_.

The Pharaoh in whose good graces he lived had a desire, we are informed, to behold the gods, after the example of his ancestor Horus. The son of Hâpû, or Pa-Apis, informed him that he could not succeed in his design until he had expelled from the country all the lepers and unclean persons who contaminated it. Acting on this information, he brought together all those who suffered from physical defects, and confined them, to the number of eighty thousand, in the quarries of Tûrah. There were priests among them, and the gods became wrathful at the treatment to which their servants were exposed; the soothsayer, therefore, fearing the divine anger, predicted that certain people would shortly arise who, forming an alliance with the Unclean, would, together with them, hold sway in Egypt for thirteen years. He then committed suicide, but the king nevertheless had compassion on the outcasts, and granted to them, for their exclusive use, the town of Avaris, which had been deserted since the time of Ahmosis. The outcasts formed themselves into a nation under the rule of a Heliopolitan priest called Osarsyph, or Moses, who gave them laws, mobilised them, and joined his forces with the descendants of the Shepherds at Jerusalem. The Pharaoh Amenôphis, taken by surprise at this revolt, and remembering the words of his minister Amenôthes, took flight into Ethiopia. The shepherds, in league with the Unclean, burned the towns, sacked the temples, and broke in pieces the statues of the gods: they forced the Egyptian priests to slaughter even their sacred animals, to cut them up and cook them for their foes, who ate them derisively in their accustomed feasts. Amenôphis returned from Ethiopia, together with his son Ramses, at the end of thirteen years, defeated the enemy, driving them back into Syria, where the remainder of them became later on the Jewish nation.*

* A list of the Pharaohs after Aï, as far as it is possible
to make them out, is here given:

This is but a romance, in which a very little history is mingled with a great deal of fable: the scribes as well as the people were acquainted with the fact that Egypt had been in danger of dissolution at the time when the Hebrews left the banks of the Nile, but they were ignorant of the details, of the precise date and of the name of the reigning Pharaoh. A certain similarity in sound suggested to them the idea of assimilating the prince whom the Chroniclers called Menepthes or Amenepthes with Amen-ôthes, i.e. Amenophis III.; and they gave to the Pharaoh of the XIXth dynasty the minister who had served under a king of the XVIIIth: they metamorphosed at the same time the Hebrews into lepers allied with the Shepherds. From this strange combination there resulted a narrative which at once fell in with the tastes of the lovers of the marvellous, and was a sufficient substitute for the truth which had long since been forgotten. As in the case of the Egyptians of the Greek period, we can see only through a fog what took place after the deaths of Mînephtah and Seti II. We know only for certain that the chiefs of the nomes were in perpetual strife with each other, and that a foreign power was dominant in the country as in the time of Apôphis. The days of the empire would have Harmhabî himself belonged to the XVIIIth dynasty, for he modelled the form of his cartouches on those of the Ahmesside Pharaohs: the XIXth dynasty began only, in all probability, with Ramses I., but the course of the history has compelled me to separate Harmhabî from his predecessors. Not knowing the length of the reigns, we cannot determine the total duration of the dynasty: we shall not, however, be far wrong in assigning to it a length of 130 years or thereabouts, i.e. from 1350 to somewhere near 1220 B.C. been numbered if a deliverer had not promptly made his appearance. The direct line of Ramses II. was extinct, but his innumerable sons by innumerable concubines had left a posterity out of which some at least might have the requisite ability and zeal, if not to save the empire, at least to lengthen its duration, and once more give to Thebes days of glorious prosperity. Egypt had set out some five centuries before this for the conquest of the world, and fortune had at first smiled upon her enterprise. Thûtmosis I., Thûtmosis III., and the several Pharaohs bearing the name of Amenôthes had marched with their armies from the upper waters of the Nile to the banks of the Euphrates, and no power had been able to withstand them. New nations, however, soon rose up to oppose her, and the Hittites in Asia and the Libyans of the Sudan together curbed her ambition. Neither the triumphs of Ramses II. nor the victory of Mînephtah had been able to restore her prestige, or the lands of which her rivals had robbed her beyond her ancient frontier. Now her own territory itself was threatened, and her own well-being was in question; she was compelled to consider, not how to rule other tribes, great or small, but how to keep her own possessions intact and independent: in short, her very existence was at stake.

CHAPTER III--THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE

_RAMSES III.--THE THEBAN CITY UNDER THE RAMESSIDES--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS._

_Nalthtâsît and Ramses III.: the decline of the military spirit in Egypt--The reorganisation of the army and fleet by Ramses--The second Libyan invasion--The Asiatic peoples, the Pulasati, the Zakleala, and the Tyrseni: their incursions into Syria and their defeat--The campaign of the year XL and the fall of the Libyan kingdom--Cruising on the Red Sea--The buildings at Medinet-Habû--The conspiracy of Pentaûîrît--The mummy of Ramses III._

_The sons and immediate successors of Ramses III.--Thebes and the Egyptian population: the transformation of the people and of the great lords: the feudal system from being military becomes religious--The wealth of precious metals, jewellery, furniture, costume--Literary education, and the influence of the Semitic language on the Egyptian: romantic stories, the historical novel, fables, caricatures and satires, collections of maxims and moral dialogues, love-poems._