Chapter XIV: Breaking the Ice (4)

But, oh! for a war. The private soldier would have given in it a hundred lives if he had had them for a pair of epaulets that would lift him to the rank required, in order to enable him to demand satisfaction of the villain who, after having seduced his sister, had insulted him so impudently--epaulets that he would have thrown away the next hour, like flattened orange skins; for Lucas was not aspiring; neither fortune nor show attracted him. He clung to his condition, loved the labors of the field; was attached to his town and its customs, and would not have renounced the things that suited his taste, and in which he excelled, for the sake of hoisting himself upon a platform where he must always have been an unwelcome stranger and intruder. The very words were antipathetic to his innate devotion, to his country, his province, the place where he was born, his lares, and his class.--And the effort of the age is to destroy this beautiful instinct of the heart, by continually saying to the poor, “Rise, rise! the summit is your goal: the heights are common to all,” thus infusing a vain arrogance into the wholesome minds of those who are so worthy and respectable in the place they occupy.

CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.

[2] From 10_d._ to 10½_d._ sterling.

[3] We have thought it worth while to give the exact
cost of the simplest dress--such a one as the poorest laborer
is never without--of an Andalusian peasant:
Cloak, 260 reals.
Cloth jacket, 60 ”
Cloth breeches, 60 ”
Set of buttons (silver), 60 ”
Idem for jacket, 36 ”
Woollen sash, 50 ”
Vest, 30 ”
Linen shirt, 20 ”
Linen drawers, 15 ”
Calf-skin shoes, 22 ”
Gaiters, 40 ”
Stockings, 14 ”
Handkerchief, 4 ”
Hat, 3 ”
-------
Total, 606 ”
--without the making, which is done by the men of the household.

What will be said to this by those who are all for utility,
economy, and savings-banks, when the Andalusian rustic might,
without inconvenience, go clad in a frieze sack, a pair of
hempen sandals, and a rush hat?--_Authoress._

[4] _Pordioseros_, those who ask in God’s name--that is to
say, beggars. For this and other delicate and tender
epithets that the Spanish poor apply to the unfortunate, our
stern language has no equivalents.

[5] The actual organization of the family
throughout the kingdom of Aragon, the Basque provinces, and
the mountains of Santander. It is this that makes the mania
for codification that at present exists in Spain so much to
be dreaded.--_Spanish Ed._

[6] Big Lucas.

[7] _Tomar la vereda_--Take another than the high
or legalized way. Said of contrabandists.

[8] An arroba is twenty-five pounds.

[9] A monster they frighten children with.

[10] Small guitars.

[11] The doer of justice.

----------

EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION ACCORDING TO THE MOST RECENT DISCOVERIES. 63

FROM THE CORRESPONDANT.

II.

THE SACERDOTAL CLASS.

Egyptian civilization had its source in the priesthood. There is reason to believe that at first they exercised sovereign authority. “After the reign of the demigods and the Manes,” says Manethon, “came the first dynasty, consisting of eight kings, who reigned for the space of two hundred and fifty-two years. Menes was the first of these kings. He carried war into foreign lands, and made himself renowned.”

Menes, the chief of the military forces, effected a revolution which substituted a civil government for a theocracy. He was the first to assume the title of king, and he founded the hereditary monarchy of Egypt.

The separation of the sovereign power from the priesthood was maintained for a long time, for it is not till the twenty-second dynasty that we meet Pahôr-Amonsé, high-priest of Amon-Ra, whose name is still to be seen in the inscriptions at Thebes on a royal cartouche. Pihmé, another high-priest, also figures in the royal _legendes_ among the historical representations with which the pronaos of the temple of Khons at Thebes is decorated. This sacerdotal revolution doubtless took place at the end of the seven generations of sluggish kings of whom Diodorus speaks. The twenty-second dynasty in fact left no traces in history. It is only known by its downfall. “And this leads us to remark,” says Champollion-Figeac, “that there was perhaps some admirable conception, or profound combination, or happy inspiration in the monarchical establishment of a powerful nation in which the loss of the crown was the inevitable effect of the incapacity or the negligence of the family that had received it by the will of the nation. A Theban family preserved it for thirteen consecutive centuries, and furnished six dynasties of more than fifty kings. The first suffered from foreign invasion, and achieved the arduous labor of sustaining the government, finally restoring all the branches of public administration, and re-establishing the temples and the public works. They rebuilt Thebes, Memphis, and the principal cities, Lake Moeris, and the canals of Lower Egypt. They and their successors bore their victorious arms over distant lands and seas. The arts developed under the wing of victory. Public prosperity seemed to keep pace with these heroic achievements, and the reigning family to become more powerful and more firmly established by such great undertakings. Inaction succeeded to so much zeal. Ten inglorious kings ascended the throne, the last of whom were deposed by the priests. The constitution of the country, favored by the state of affairs, 64 provided for this disorder. A new family was called to reign.”

Modern historians have represented the ancient monarchy of Egypt as subjected to the despotism of the sacerdotal caste. This assertion seems difficult to reconcile with the numerous inscriptions attesting that the principal functions of the priesthood were constantly assumed by the sons of the Pharaohs. An inscription in relief on the façade of the tomb of Koufou Schaf, whom M. Mariette believes to be the oldest son of Cheops, the builder of the great pyramid, depicts that prince wearing a panther’s skin--a distinctive sign of high sacerdotal functions--and among his titles is found that of priest of Apis. According to a papyrus published by Baron Denon, the sons of the two Pharaohs must have filled the office of the high-priest of Ammon.

It is true these last-named princes belonged to the twenty-second dynasty, and at that epoch they had not had time to forget the usurpation by the high-priests Pahôr-Amonsé and Pihmé. It is probable that the king in causing this high function to be assumed by his nearest relatives wished to take precautions against the reaction of the sacerdotal class, always so powerful. But the monuments almost always show the priesthood living in strict and intimate alliance with the royal authority. Thus, while the younger sons of the Pharaohs performed the priestly functions, the children of the high-priests attended the royal children, and were employed in the highest offices in the king’s palace. The office of high-priest of Ammon at Thebes, the sacerdotal city, was hereditary, as Herodotus attests in the following passage: “As Hecatæus, the historian, gave his genealogy at Thebes, and made himself to be a descendant of a god, through sixteen generations, the priests of Jupiter (Ammon) treated him as they did me, except that I did not give my genealogy. After conducting me into a vast interior apartment, they counted, as they showed them to me, the large wooden statues of the high-priests, each of whom, while alive, placed his image there. Commencing with that of the last deceased and going back, the priests made me remark that each of the high-priests was the son of his predecessor.... Each one of these statues represented, they said, a piromis, the son of a piromis. They showed me three hundred and forty-five, and invariably a piromis was the son of a piromis.”

It is not necessary to remark to what degree the priests of Ammon took advantage of the credulity of Herodotus. Doubtless, the office of high-priest in Egypt was hereditary as well as the throne, but it was no less subject to the influence of dynastic revolutions. We have just seen, for example, the two sons of the king filling the office of the high-priest of Amon-Ra, king of the gods.

The sacerdotal class was truly the soul of the Egyptian nation. It so completely embodied the genius, character, and traditions of the people that they may be said to have lived by their priests. They formed the most powerful body of men that ever existed in the world before the Catholic clergy.

As we have seen in a preceding chapter, the independence of this corporation was ensured by a large territorial endowment. According to Diodorus, “the largest part of the land belonged to the college of priests.... They transmit their profession to their descendants and 65 are exempt from taxation.”[12]

“Thus secure in the possession of their lands,” says Champollion-Figeac, “the entire sacerdotal class was like a family with a vast heritage transmissible, according to known conditions, from generation to generation. It was this right of inheriting the lands that necessarily rendered their office hereditary, because the nature of their functions determined the part of the land inherited by each member of the family, and on this fundamental principle the whole constitution of the sacerdotal caste of Egypt depended.”

The hereditary transmission of each sacerdotal function, and the part of the landed property attached to this function, could only take effect in favor of one of the children, and probably the oldest, as in the royal family. The other children remained to be supported by the head of the family, or easily found a means of subsistence in the perquisites of the numerous sacred or civil employments. The number of the temples, their rich endowments and rents, spoken of in the Rosetta inscription, explains how so large a number of priests could live at their ease. To this income must be added the subsidies from the royal treasury, and the fees of the numerous salaried functions which embraced every part of the public administration, apart from the military sphere. But in Egypt, as elsewhere, families sometimes became extinct for want of descendants, and thus a new path was opened for capacity without employment.

To form an exact idea of the influence exercised by the priesthood over Egyptian society, it is necessary to enter into some details upon their manners and kind of life, the duties which occupied them, and the extent of their knowledge of all kinds which they made use of to promote the civilization of their country.

Plutarch relates that the Egyptian priests abstained from mutton and pork, and on days of purification they ordered their meat to be served without salt, because, among other reasons, it whetted the appetite, inciting them to eat and drink more. He says: “They have a well apart, where they water their bull Apis, and carefully abstain from drinking the Nile water, not that they regard it as unclean, on account of the crocodiles, as some suppose--on the contrary, there is nothing the Egyptians reverence so much as the Nile--but they think its effect is to render them more corpulent. They are unwilling for Apis to become too fat, or to become so themselves, but wish their souls to be sustained by slight, active, nimble bodies, and that the divine part within may not be oppressed and weighed down by the burden of what is mortal.

“In the city of Heliopolis, or the City of the Sun, those who worship the divinity never carry any wine into the temple, because it is not suitable to drink in the presence of their lord and king. The priests take it in small quantities, but they have several days of purification and sanctification, during which they abstain entirely from wine, and do nothing but study and teach holy things.”

Who would have expected to find among the priests of a pagan nation the rules of abstinence now practised by the Catholic Church?--“that 66 the soul may be sustained by slight, active, nimble bodies, that the divine part within may not be oppressed and weighed down by the burden of what is mortal.” Was it not in these temperate habits, so in accordance with their spiritualistic doctrines, that lay, to a great degree, the secret of the moral influence of the priests, the real aristocracy of the country?

The prestige of the sacerdotal class was partly due to their costume and appearance. “In other places,” says Herodotus, “the priests of the gods wear their hair long; in Egypt they shave.... Every three days the priests shave the whole body, that no vermin may defile them while ministering to the gods. They wear only garments of linen and slippers of the papyrus. They are not allowed to wear other kinds. They wash themselves in fresh water twice a day and twice by night. Their rites are almost innumerable.” On the Egyptian monuments of every age the priests of various ranks are easily recognized by their heads entirely shaven. They could only wear linen garments; woollen were forbidden. Besides the religious motives that induced them to adopt linen tissues, this preference was justified by its advantages. From linen could be made light robes of dazzling whiteness, which would reflect the sun’s rays and engender nothing unclean.

All the ancient authors testify to the effect produced upon the popular mind by the imposing exterior of the Egyptian priests; their gleaming white robes, the habitual gravity of their deportment, their exquisite neatness, and the images of the gods worn on rich collars--all conspired to excite respect and veneration.

The most important duty of the priests, next to the functions of their office, was that of giving advice to the king. “The priests,” says Diodorus, in a passage already cited, “are the chief counsellors of the king. They aid him by their labors, advice, and knowledge.” In alluding to the regulations for the education of the king, and facilitating the accomplishment of their duties, we have shown how their application, so important to the happiness of the people, was confided to the wisdom and patriotism of the chief priests. But did they not render this task impossible by allowing the kings to receive divine honors, exalting their pride by the ceremonies of actual worship, as attested by all the monuments, and officially recognized, as we shall presently see, by the sacerdotal body itself, in the Rosetta inscription?

In subjecting the Egyptians to the humiliation of this worship, and to superstitions still more shameful, did not the priests degrade them, and facilitate the despotism of the king? The more enlightened and powerful the sacerdotal class, the more responsible before history for the destiny of a nation which was the first-born of civilization.

“In Greece,” says Champollion-Figeac, “the service of the temple was the sole occupation of the priests; in Egypt, they were statesmen governing, so to speak, kings and people in the name of the gods, and monopolizing the administration of justice, the culture of the sciences and their diffusion. We, therefore, find members of this caste everywhere, in all ranks of Egyptian society, and we see by the grants to the lowest grades that they were attached by their titles or office to religion and its ministrants. We find in ancient writings the proper qualifications for the different classes of the priesthood. 67 The monuments show that this class, with its infinite ramifications, was of every grade, the lowest of which was not despised. It was everywhere present by means of a vast hierarchy, which had every gradation from the all-powerful chief pontiff down to the humble porter of the temple and palace, and, perhaps, even their servant.[13]

In addition to their religious duties, the learned priests taught in the schools of the temples the arts and sciences, writing, drawing, music, literature, cosmogony, natural and moral philosophy, natural history, and the requirements of religion. The priest had charge of the finances, the assessment and collection of the taxes; priests administered justice, interpreted the laws, and in the king’s name decided all civil and criminal cases. Another sacerdotal division practised medicine and surgery. It is known that the Egyptians were the first to make medicine an art founded on the data of experience and observation.[14]

One of the most numerous and most important of the sacerdotal divisions was the scribes, who transcribed the sacred books, the national annals, the documents of all kinds relating to the civil condition of families, property, justice, the administration, and, finally, the ritual of the dead, more or less extended, which piety deposited in the coffins of deceased relatives. Writing in Egypt dates from extreme antiquity. There are inscriptions still to be seen, perfectly legible, in the sepulchral chambers of the great pyramid, constructed by one of the first kings of the fourth dynasty.

Champollion-Figeac says the three kinds of writing, hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic, were in general use. He adds that “the hieroglyphic alone was used on the public monuments. The humblest workman could make use of it for the most common purposes, as may be seen by the utensils and instruments of the most common kinds, which, it may be observed, contradicts the incorrect assertions respecting the pretended mystery of this writing, which the Egyptian priests, according to them, made use of as a means of oppressing the common people and keeping them in ignorance.”

No learned body ever understood the wants of its country as well as the Egyptian priesthood. And never was a public administration more solicitous of availing themselves of this knowledge for the general benefit. It is true, the annual uniformity of physical phenomena singularly facilitated the study and application of the laws necessary for the well-being of the people. The great and wonderful inundation of the Nile, occurring every year at the same time, covering the land with water for the same length of time, then subsiding to give a new face to the country and a fresh stimulus to the activity of the inhabitants, naturally imprinted on the nation habits of order and foresight which made it easy to govern.

The members of the sacerdotal class, then, were most intimately connected with the individual interests of the nation; they were the necessary intermediaries between the gods and man, and between the king and his subjects. Their concurrence in all public business was not less constant or less necessary. The religious nature of the inhabitants led them to offer invocations to the gods amid all their occupations, in peace and war, in public and private duties, at the ebb of inundating waters, the preparation of the land for the seed, and the harvesting of the fruits of the earth. The gods, manifesting 68 themselves through the priests, directed the most important decisions, and sanctified by the expression of their satisfaction the possession of the harvest, the first-fruits of which were received as offerings.[15]

But that which gives a more just idea of the sublime _rôle_ played by the Egyptian priests is the Rosetta inscription.[16] It is well known that this famous inscription is the reproduction of a decree made in 196 B.C. by the representatives of the sacerdotal body gathered at Memphis for the coronation and enthronement of Ptolemy Epiphanes. On account of its importance, we think ourselves justified in giving it almost entirely: “In the year IX.,[17] the tenth of the month of Mechir, the pontiffs and prophets, those who enter the sanctuary to clothe the gods, the pterophores, the hierogrammatists, and all the other priests, who from all the temples in the country have assembled before the king at Memphis for the solemnity of taking possession of that crown which Ptolemy, still living, the well-beloved of Pthah, the divine Epiphanes, a most gracious prince, has inherited from his father, being assembled in the temple of Memphis, have pronounced this same day the following decree:

“Considering that King Ptolemy, still living, the well-beloved of Pthah, the divine Epiphanes, son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoë, gods philopatores, has conferred all kinds of benefits on the temples as well as those who dwell in them, and in general on all those who are under his dominion: that being a god, the offspring of a god and goddess, like Horus the son of Isis and Osiris, the avenger of Osiris, his father, and, eager to manifest his zeal for the things that pertain to the gods, he has consecrated great revenues to the service of the temple, in money as well as grain, and expended large sums in restoring tranquillity to Egypt, and constructing temples therein:

“That he has neglected no means in his power of performing humane deeds; that in order that in his kingdom the people and all the citizens generally might possess an abundance, he has repealed some of the tributes and taxes established in Egypt, and diminished the weight of the remainder; that he has, besides, remitted all that was due him from the rents of the crown, either from his subjects, the people of Egypt, or those of his other kingdoms, though these rents were of considerable amount; that he has released all those who were imprisoned and condemned for a long time;

“That he has ordered that the revenues of the temples, and the rents paid them annually in grain, as well as in money, together with the portions reserved for the gods from the vineyards, the orchards, and all other places to which they had a right from the time of his father, should continue to be collected in the country;

“That he has dispensed those who belong to the sacerdotal tribes from making an annual journey to Alexandria (the seat of royalty after the 69 accession of the Lagides);

“That he has bestowed many gifts on Apis, Mnevis, and other sacred animals of Egypt;...

“It has, therefore, pleased the priests of all the temples of the land to decree that all the honors due King Ptolemy, still living, the well-beloved of Pthah, the divine Epiphanes, most gracious, as well as those which are due to his father and mother, gods, philopatores, and those which are due to his ancestors, should be considerably augmented; that the statue of King Ptolemy, still living, be erected in every temple and placed in the most conspicuous spot, which shall be called the statue of Ptolemy, the avenger of Egypt. This statue shall be placed near the principal god of the temple, who shall present him with the arms of victory, and all things shall be arranged in the most appropriate manner; that the priests shall perform three times a day religious service before these statues; that they adorn them with sacred ornaments; and that they have care to render them, in the great solemnities, all the honors which, according to usage, should be paid the other gods....

“And in order that it may be known why in Egypt we glorify and honor, as is just, the god Epiphanes, most gracious monarch, the present decree shall be engraved on a stela of hard stone, in sacred characters and in Greek characters, and this stela shall be placed in every temple of the first, second, and third classes existing in all the kingdom.”[18]

When we remember that the rule of the Greek conquerors had already been established in Egypt one hundred and thirty-six years, we judge, from the manner the Egyptian priests expressed themselves, of the persistent strength of this social organization imposed on the successors of Alexander in spite of all their power.

Therefore, says Champollion-Figeac, “the monuments of the times of the Ptolemies may be considered a key to the times of the Pharaohs, and the account of the ceremonies celebrated at the coronation of these Greek kings may very suitably be applied, by changing the names, to the kings of the ancient dynasties.”

III.

THE MILITARY CLASS.

As we have already seen (Book I., chap. ii.), the profession of arms, as well as all other pursuits, was hereditary in Egypt, and those who followed it formed a distinct body still more numerous than that of the priests. They owned a part of the land, but were forbidden to cultivate it or to pursue any industrial labor. The fertile land assigned to every head of a family in the division which, according to Herodotus, was made under the first kings, was tilled by the laborers. It is easy to perceive the evils of this system, which for ever withheld from agriculture a multitude of young and vigorous arms. Herodotus estimates the number of the calasiries and hermotybies (the names of the warriors) at 410,000. We should doubtless modify the information given Herodotus by the priests, who had motives for exaggerating before a stranger the military forces of the country. But it is no less true that the number of able men withheld from agriculture by the Egyptian system must have been considerable. On the other hand, notwithstanding the numerous gymnastic exercises to which they were subjected, these exercises could not have been as 70 efficacious as agricultural pursuits in developing strength.

Wishing to elevate the noble profession of arms, they disparaged manual labor, and gradually left to slaves not only the trades, but even the agricultural pursuits so necessary to the existence and prosperity of a nation. Thanks to the salutary rule of hereditary professions, agriculture and other labor could not be entirely left to slaves, but labor alone attaches man to the soil; and there came a day when the military class was rooted out and transplanted beyond Egypt, which was left defenceless to its enemies. This is an important point in the history of the country which has not been sufficiently remarked.

Psammetichus, the head of the Saïte dynasty, was, it is said, the first king of Egypt who dared shake off the yoke of the laws imposed from time immemorial on royalty.[19] Relying on an army of foreign mercenaries, Arabians, Carians, and Ionian Greeks, he was not afraid of violating the privileges of the military class, and thus a revolution was effected in Egypt which became fatal to the country. “Two hundred and forty thousand Egyptian warriors revolted.... They therefore conferred together, and with one accord abandoned Psammetichus to go among the Ethiopians. Psammetichus, hearing of it, pursued them. When he overtook them, he implored them for a long time not to abandon their gods, their wives, and their children. Then one of them replied that everywhere ... they could find wives and children.”[20]

There are such bold colors in the picture of Herodotus that modesty requires us to efface them, but we may say that he depicts to the life the brutal cynicism into which idleness had caused the military class to fall. Whatever their wrongs on the part of the king, it is difficult to allow they were right in carrying their resentment so far as to abandon their religion, their families, and their country. When, less than a century after, the Persians, led by Cambyses, invaded the land, the unarmed nation could offer no resistance, and Egypt was devastated. It had not recovered from this disaster when it fell into the power of Alexander.

The military system of ancient Egypt possessed, nevertheless, several advantages which should be noticed.

First: Exemption from military service ensured the tillers of the soil complete stability to their occupation, so that war did not, as among modern nations, hinder the cultivation of the land by enrolling the ablest part of the population and endangering the subsistence of the country.

On the other hand, the possession of landed property guaranteed the patriotism of the soldiers, who, as Diodorus justly remarks, defended their country with all the more ardor that they were at the same time the safeguards of their own property. Finally, the perpetuity of the military service in the same families must have singularly favored 71 the development of the art of war, respect for discipline, and the maintenance of an _esprit de corps_ in the army. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Egyptians, inured to war by their long struggles against these foreign invaders, obtained great victories in Asia, under their kings, Ahmes (Amosis), Thothmes III., and Rameses II., called the great Sesostris by the Greeks. The military pre-eminence of Egypt is attested by the Holy Scriptures in the prophecies of Isaiah respecting her downfall.

It was by war and the public works that the Pharaohs shed so brilliant a glory over Egypt, but we know how dearly this glory cost the nation, whose traditional characteristic was eminently pacific. Nevertheless, it would be unjust to make the king solely responsible for the ruinous wars that ended in the conquest of Egypt. The defect we have referred to in the constitution of the military class must have greatly contributed to this fatal result. The forced inactivity of its families made them a ready instrument for the ambition of the kings, who found a benefit in turning their attention from internal affairs and directing the activity of so powerful a body to distant expeditions.

Under the eighteenth dynasty, and particularly under the reign of Thothmes III., Egypt extended the power of its arms to a great distance. We see this prince, according to a contemporary inscription, “establishing his frontiers where he pleased.” The pictures graven on the walls of two chambers recently discovered in the temple of Deir-el-Bahari, at Thebes, a monument erected by the regent Hatasou, sister of Thothmes III. (the eighteenth dynasty), show the conquered people putting on board the Egyptian fleet the booty taken after battle. Here are giraffes, monkeys, leopards, arms, ingots of copper, rings of gold. There are entire trees, probably of a rare species, the roots of which are enclosed in large boxes filled with earth. The vessels themselves merit our attention. They are large, solidly built, and impelled either by sails or oars. A numerous crew covers the deck. Thanks to the care which the Egyptian artist took to indicate the disposition of the masts, sails, and even the knots of the complicated cordage which bound together the different parts of the vessel, we have a clear idea what a vessel belonging to the Egyptian navy was four thousand years ago.

“In another chamber of the same temple are scenes of as great an interest. The Egyptian regiments are advancing with gymnastic steps and entering Thebes triumphantly. Each soldier has a palm in his left hand; in his right is a spear or battle-axe. Before them sound the trumpets. Officers are bearing the standards, surmounted by the name of the victorious regiment.”[21]

It was from the military class, according to Manethon, that sprang the first dynasty, which commences with Menes, the leader of the armies. From this king to Psammetichus, the founder of the twenty-sixth dynasty--that is, for more than two thousand years--a strict alliance existed between the army and the throne. This makes the following passage from Herodotus worthy of attention: “They (the warriors) enjoy by turns the following advantages: Every year a thousand calasiries and as many hermotybies form the king’s guard. They daily receive, besides their lands, five mines of baked bread, two mines of beef, and four cups of wine. This is what the guards receive.” 72

By this truly monarchical system, to which we venture to call the attention of the sovereigns who wish to retain their crowns, the whole army corps, and all the members of the military class, were successively admitted to the honor of guarding the sacred person of the king, which must have singularly augmented their devotedness and fidelity. This system had the great advantage of dissipating all feelings of envy with which privileged corps are regarded.

The Egyptian monarch doubtless found a solid support in this intimate union with the military class from which it sprang. King Psammetichus, the founder of the Saïte dynasty, was guilty of the capital fault of employing foreign troops, and violating the civil rights of the native soldiers. He thus caused the emigration of the entire national forces which we have already signalized as one of the principal causes of the downfall of Egypt.

From the time of the Persian conquest, the glorious _rôle_ of the great Egyptian army was ended. History only mentions after this the exploits of the navy. Herodotus relates that Egypt furnished two hundred vessels for the fleet assembled by Xerxes for the subjugation of Greece. “The Egyptians,” says he, “had barred helmets, convex bucklers with a wide bordure, spears for naval combats, and great battle-axes. Most of them wore cuirasses and long swords. Such was their equipment.”

This fleet valiantly sustained the national honor, for the same historian adds a little further on: “In this combat (that of Artemisium, which preceded the great naval battle of Salamis) the Egyptians made themselves conspicuous among the troops of Xerxes; they did great things, and took five Greek vessels with their equipages.”

IV.

LEGISLATION--ADMINISTRATIVE AND JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS.

The wisdom of the Egyptian laws was everywhere admired in ancient times. “I would remind the reader, accustomed, perhaps, to regard the early history of Egypt as fabulous or somewhat uncertain, that obscurity rests on some points of its chronology, and the name and succession of some of the kings, but not on its legislation, the wisdom of which was admired by antiquity; and its effect on the power and genius of the Egyptian nation is attested by the monuments still in existence.[22] Holy Scripture itself seems to ratify this eulogium in saying that “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and in his deeds.”[23]

Unfortunately, all the Egyptian laws have not come down to us, and we have to resort to the incomplete testimony of Herodotus and Diodorus. But, as M. de Bonald states, it is easy to recognize the general spirit of this legislation, which constantly contributed to stability by the maintenance of ancient customs, evidently borrowed from patriarchal traditions, and by the widest application of the hereditary principle extending to every grade of society. The details we have given concerning the constitution of the family and about property, the distinction between the sacerdotal, military, agricultural, and working classes, as well as concerning royalty, appear sufficient to give the reader an approximate idea of the 73 civil and political laws of the ancient Egyptian monarchy.

No trace has yet been found of the municipal rights in ancient Egypt, but there is reason to believe that cities as powerful as Thebes, Memphis, Elephantine, Tanis, etc., had institutions suited to the genius of their inhabitants.

Each dynasty took for its capital the city from which it sprang. Thus the two first dynasties established the seat of government at Thinis and Memphis; the fifth at Elephantine; and the sixth at Memphis. Thebes only became the capital from the time of the eleventh dynasty.[24] Owing to this excellent custom, no city, under the ancient monarchy, could preserve its ascendency and attract all the sources of power in the country. Thinis, Memphis, Elephantine, Thebes, Tanis, Saïs, etc., were by turns the capitals of the kingdom, the centres of national activity, and the seats of sovereign power.

As to the financial laws, history has transmitted several the wisdom of which makes us regret the more those that have not come down to us. The object of the first was to proscribe idleness, which the Egyptians rightly regarded as a social evil. “Amasis,” says Herodotus, “is the author of the law which obliges every Egyptian to show annually to the governor of his _nome_ (province) his means of subsistence, and they who did not obey, or did not appear to live on legitimate resources, were punished with death. Solon, the Athenian, having borrowed this law from the Egyptians, imposed it on his fellow-citizens, who still observe it and think it faultless.”

The Egyptians, then, recognized this fundamental law--that man should live by the fruit of his labor, and we see with what rigor they enforced it.[25] In a well-regulated nation, where there is work for every one, no one, indeed, should be allowed to live at the expense of the community. The protection afforded human life in Egypt allows us to suppose that capital punishment was reserved for those who obstinately refused to gain their livelihood by labor or other honest means. We know from Herodotus that woman, as well as man, was subjected to the great law of labor. “The women go to market and traffic, the men remain at home and weave. Everywhere else the woof is brought up, the Egyptians carry it under. The men carry burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders.”[26]

The weaker sex was better protected from the violence of human passions than among other nations. “The laws concerning women were very severe. Those who violated a free woman were mutilated, for this crime was considered inclusive of three great evils, insult, corruption of morals, and confusion of children. For adultery without violence, the man was condemned to receive a thousand stripes, and the woman to have her nose cut off--the lawgiver wishing her to be deprived of the attractions she had availed herself of to allure.”[27]

We see the powerful protection assured to the family by the Egyptian laws in making woman respected and obliging her to respect herself.

Human life was equally protected. “He who saw on the way a man struggling with an assassin, or enduring violent treatment, and did not aid him when in his power, was condemned to death.” “He who had 74 wilfully murdered a free man or a slave was punished with death, for the laws wished to punish not according to the degree of rank, but the intention of the evil-doer. At the same time, their care in the management of the slaves kept them from ever offending a free man.[28]

The law respecting loans was no less remarkable. It was forbidden those who lent by contract to allow the principal to more than double by the accumulation of the interest. Creditors who demanded pay could only seize the goods of the debtor. Bodily restraint was never allowed. For the legislator considered goods as belonging to those who acquired them by labor, by transmission, or by gift, but the individual belonged to the state, which, at any moment, might claim his services in war or in peace. It would, indeed, be absurd if a warrior, at the moment of battle, could be carried off by his creditor, and the safety of all endangered by the cupidity of one. It appears that Solon introduced this law at Athens, giving it the name of _seisactheia_,[29] and remitted all debts contracted under restraint. Most of the Greek legislators are blamed, and not without reason, for forbidding the seizure of arms, ploughs, and other necessary utensils, as pledges of debts, and for permitting, on the other hand, the privation of the liberty of those who made use of these instruments.

It is evident that civilized nations, from the earliest times, sought to oppose and repress the dangerous evil of usury, which inevitably leads to the oppression of the laborer and the degradation of labor. But the Egyptians had an efficacious means of ensuring the payment of debts--in depriving those of sepulture who died without satisfying their creditors. In such a case the body, after being embalmed, was simply deposited in the house of the deceased and left to the children. “It sometimes happens,” says Diodorus, “that, owing to the prevailing respect for the memory of parents, the grandchildren, becoming wealthier, paid the debts of their ancestor, had the decree of condemnation revoked, and gave him a magnificent funeral.” The same author adds, “It is common to give the body of a deceased parent as the guarantee of a debt. The greatest infamy and privation of sepulture awaited those who did not redeem such a pledge.”

“Under the reign of Asychis,” says Herodotus, “the Egyptians made a law allowing a person to borrow by giving in pledge the body of his father. An additional clause allowed the lender to dispose of the sepulchral chamber of the borrower, and, in case of refusal to pay the debt, he who had given such a pledge incurred the following punishment: in case of death, the impossibility of obtaining burial either in the paternal sepulchre or in any other, and the interdiction of burying any one belonging to him.”

This singular custom of pledging a dead body could only exist in Egypt, where it was a religious obligation to preserve the body, and an infamy not to give funeral honors to deceased parents.

The administration of justice in Egypt excited the admiration of the philosophers and legislators of antiquity. Diodorus, who studied their system, found it superior to that of other countries. To enable the reader to judge for himself, we shall give the essential details concerning it. “The Egyptians,” says he, “have carefully considered 75 the judicial power, persuaded that the acts of a tribunal have a twofold influence upon social life. It is evident that the punishment of the guilty and the protection of the injured are the best means of repressing crime. They knew, if the fear of justice could be done away with by bribes and corruption, it would lead to the ruin of society. They therefore chose judges from the chief inhabitants of the most celebrated cities, Heliopolis, Thebes, and Memphis. Each of these cities furnished ten, who composed the tribunal, which might be compared to the Areopagus of Athens or the Senate of Lacedæmon. These thirty judges chose a president from their number, and the city to which he belonged sent another judge to replace him. These judges were supported at the expense of the king, and their salary was very considerable....”

The plaintiff in person stated his grievances, and the accused defended himself. There were no counsellors, “the Egyptians being of the opinion that they only obscure a cause by their pleadings.... In fact, it is not rare,” adds Diodorus, “to see the most experienced magistrates swayed by the power of a deceitful tongue, aiming at effect, and seeking only to excite compassion.”

This organization seems adapted to secure the equity and impartiality desirable in the administration of justice. The selection of the judges from the principal citizens of the country, and their large salaries, guaranteed their ability and independence. At the same time, the restricted number of judges shows how rare lawsuits were in Egypt. It must have been so in a nation so wisely governed, in which order and peace reigned among all classes and in all families, and where the interests of every one were guaranteed and protected.

The study of the inscriptions shows that the civil offices were filled by citizens belonging to the sacerdotal and military classes.[30] Were these functions hereditary? The stability of the Egyptian institutions allows us to believe the transmission of the public duties must have been generally by inheritance.

A monument in the museum of Leyden shows us a family of the beginning of the twelfth dynasty, which for many successive generations was employed in the distribution of water in the district of Abydos.[31] But more important duties, requiring greater personal capacity or a special commission from public authority, must have been at the nomination of the kings or the governors of the nomes.

“A great number of administrative reports and fragments of registers of the public accounts are found in the papyri still preserved.

“The services employing the greatest number, and the most able men, were those of the public works, the army, and the administration of the revenues of the kingdom. Coined money was unknown,[32] all the taxes were collected in kind. There were three divisions on the land according to the nature of the rents: the canal (maou) paid its tribute in fish, the arable land (ouou) in cereals, and the marshes (pehou) in heads of cattle. A register was carefully kept, with an account of the changes, a statement of all the kinds of land in each district, and the names of the owners.

“... Many contracts of sales and rents of land and houses, drawn up 76 on papyrus, have been found among the family papers of the dead. They show with what guarantees and careful formalities property was protected in ancient Egypt.”[33]

By this sketch, however incomplete, of the laws and institutions of ancient Egypt, we see they were, as Bossuet says,[34] “simple, full of justice, and of a kind to unite the nation. The best thing among all these excellent laws was--that every one was trained to observe them. A new custom was a wonder in Egypt. Everything was done in the same manner, and their exactness in little things made them exact in great ones. Therefore, there never was a people that preserved its laws and customs a longer time.”

V.

A SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.

We shall now give a brief review of the social and political institutions of ancient Egypt.

The priesthood, the guardian of religion and the laws, and the promoter of morality, was rendered perpetual by hereditary transmission in the sacerdotal families.

The army, the guardian of civil and political life, and the maintainer of order, was rendered perpetual by hereditary transmission in the military families.

Labor, the source of national and individual vigor, was rendered perpetual by the hereditary transmission of the agricultural or industrial pursuits in the families of the agriculturists and artisans.

Authority, the organ of the national will, was maintained in its unity and perpetuity, by hereditary transmission in the royal family.

And all these classes, all these families, were guaranteed in their independence by the unchangeableness of their members, and the proprietorship of the soil and the trades.

Such were the foundations of the social constitution of Egypt.

With such fine order, to borrow the language of Bossuet, there was no place for anarchy or oppression. In fact, society was preserved from the abuse of power by the fundamental law of hereditary professions, which, ensuring to each family a fixed employment and an independent existence, prevented the arbitrary changes of men and property, so that opposition was not, as M. de Bonald happily says, in men, but in the institutions.[35]

It was by this combined action of the different social grades, that is, of royalty, the priesthood, the army, and the corporations devoted to manual labor, that Egypt attained such a degree of civilization, which left so great an impress on the ancient world, and the vestiges of which still appear so worthy of attention.

In consequence of this wise and powerful organization, peace and harmony seemed to have a long and unbroken reign in Egypt. The first symptoms of disorder and tyranny only appear under the kings of the fourth dynasty. When the knowledge of the true God was almost effaced from the memory of man, the kings, regarded with religious veneration, set themselves up for gods, and pride, the source of despotism, 77 entered their hearts. After overthrowing, or at least changing, the nature of the national religion, they favored with all their might the introduction of polytheism, which placed them on the altars, and gave a divine authority to their power. “The priests informed me,” says Herodotus, “that, until Rhamsinite, equity prevailed in Egypt, and the prosperity of the country was great. But after him Cheops (Khoufou, the builder of the great pyramid) reigned, and the people suffered all kinds of miseries. First, he closed the temples and forbade the offering of sacrifices; then he forced the Egyptians to labor for him.” This tradition of the impiety of the first designer of the pyramids is found in the extracts from Manethon, but with an important addition: “Suphis, who built the largest pyramid, attributed by Herodotus to Cheops, was at first a despiser of the gods, but he afterward repented and wrote a sacred book, greatly esteemed by the Egyptians.”[36]

This assertion of the national historian is confirmed by the discoveries of modern science. A stone found near the great pyramids contains a valuable inscription respecting the ancient history of Egypt. “It appears from this inscription,” says Mariette, “that Cheops restored a temple already standing (dedicated to Isis), assigning revenues to it in sacred offerings, and replaced the statues of gold, silver, bronze, and wood, which adorned the sanctuary....

“We see by this,” adds the learned archæologist, “that, even at that extremely remote period, Egyptian civilization shone forth with the greatest brilliancy.”[37]

We also see that the royal despotism could not long prevail against the powerful social organization of which we have given a sketch, for, in re-establishing the worship of Isis, Cheops doubtless restored at the same time the national institutions, the violation of which has left so marked a trace in the historic traditions of Egypt.

To show our impartiality, we ought to state that many modern historians have judged Egyptian royalty much more severely than we. Among them, M. François Lenormant may be particularly mentioned.

“From the time of the oldest dynasties,” says he, “we see existing this boundless respect for royalty, which became a genuine worship, and made Pharaoh the visible god of his subjects. The Egyptian monarchs were more than sovereign pontiffs, they were real divinities.... They identified themselves with the great divinity Horus because, as an inscription says: ‘The king is the image of Ra (the sun-god) among the living.’

“It is easily understood what a prestige was given to the sovereign power in Egypt by such an explanation of royalty. This power, already so great among the Asiatic nations adjoining that country, assumed the character of genuine idolatry. The Egyptians were, with respect to their king, only trembling slaves, obliged by religion even to blindly execute his orders. The highest and most powerful functionaries were only the humble servants of Pharaoh.... For this _régime_ to last so many ages with no notable modification, the Egyptians must have been profoundly convinced that the government they were under emanated from the divine will.[38]

Egyptian society stood on so firm a basis that it could be oppressed, 78 but not overthrown, by the despotism of its kings. Property was so well secured by the general law of inheritance, the sacerdotal and military aristocracy was so firmly established in its independence, that the first excess of power only affected the laboring classes. Unable to dispose of the property of their subjects, the kings appropriated, as J. J. Rousseau justly remarks, “rather men’s arms than their purse.” It was thus they effected the gigantic work of erecting the pyramids by the enforced labors of a whole nation. Property was spared, but humanity was oppressed.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[12] Diodorus. History thus confirms the Scriptures:
“From that time unto this day, in the whole land of Egypt,
the fifth part is paid to the king, and it is become as a
law, except the land of the priests, which was free from
this covenant” (Gen. xlvii. 26). This privilege was not
always preserved. The Rosetta inscription informs us that
the sacred lands paid annually into the royal treasury an
_artabe_ for each _aroure_ of land, and an amphora
of wine for every aroure of vineyard.

[13] _Egypte ancienne_, p. 111.

[14] Chemistry comes from Chemi--which means
Egypt.--TR.

[15] We have borrowed from Champollion most of this
account of the services rendered by the priesthood to the
Egyptian nation. It is true, it only gives the favorable
side of that class, but, in speaking of the religion of the
country, we shall endeavor to complete the picture and
present it in its true light.

[16] The Rosetta Stone was among the valuable antiquities
collected by the French expedition into Egypt, and given up
to the English at the surrender at Alexandria. It was of
black basalt, about three feet by two. The inscription on it
was in three kinds of writing: the hieroglyphic, the demotic
or enchorial, and the Greek. The upper and lower portions of
the stone were broken and injured, but the demotic
inscription was perfect. The Greek inscription was a key to
the others, from which a complete hieroglyphic alphabet was
composed.--TR.

[17] Of the reign of Ptolemy.--TR.

[18] From Champollion-Figeac’s translation.

[19] “The priests represented Psammetichus as the first
Egyptian king to violate the sacerdotal rule limiting
the king’s ration of wine.”--Strabo, _Geogr._ xvii.

[20] _Herodotus_, ii. Diodorus confirms this account, but
its authenticity has been disputed by declaring that “the
garrison of Elephantine, comprising only some hundreds or
thousands of warriors, was the only one that could escape
into Ethiopia.” It was doubtless easier for this garrison to
cross the frontier which it was appointed to guard; but,
supposing the Egyptian soldiers, dissatisfied with the
violation of their privileges, had concerted among
themselves, as Herodotus declares, we do not see how King
Psammetichus could have hindered the departure of so
formidable an army. Besides, Herodotus adds that he saw in
Ethiopia a people known under the name of _Automoles_
(deserters), descendants of these Egyptian warriors. This
testimony is the more credible because Herodotus made the
journey not more than 150 or 160 years after the death of
Psammetichus.

[21] Mariette.

[22] De Bonald, _Théorie du Pouvoir_, i. 170.

[23] Acts of the Apostles, vii. 22.

[24] Mariette: _Aperçu de l’Histoire d’Egypte_, pp. 10 and 19.

[25] St. Paul says: “_Qui non laborat non manducet_.”

[26] _Herodotus_, lib. ii.

[27] _Diodorus_, lib. i.

[28] _Diodorus_, lib. i.

[29] From σείω, _I shake off_, and ἄχθος, _burden_. See
Plutarch, _Life of Solon_, xiv.

[30] Ampère, _Des Castes, etc., dans l’ancienne
Egypte_.

[31] Letter from M. de Rougé à M. Leemans, _Revue
Archéol._, vol. xii.

[32] We have seen by the law respecting loans, attributed
to King Bocchoris, that coined money was known to the
Egyptians at least eight centuries B.C.

[33] F. Lenormant, _Manuel d’Hist. ancienne_.