Chapter II: Tiglath-Pileser III. and the Organisation of the Assyrian (3)

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.

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.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from. Lanzones statuette.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:--

** 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.