Chapter VIII: Life and Manners of the Egyptians (2)

With the Egyptians, as with other nations, poetry probably arose out of the invocations of the gods and hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Religious poetry had a fixed canon in the books of the minstrels. That national songs were also in vogue is shown by the monuments (p. 222). Diodorus told us above that the achievements of Sesostris were celebrated in poetry (p. 144). The description of a deed of arms of Ramses II. which he must have regarded as of considerable importance has been preserved. The battle he fought with the Cheta in the fifth year of his reign (p. 152), he caused to be represented in the rock temple at Abu Simbel and in the Ramesseum, and a description of it is engraved in these temples, as at Luxor and Beth-el-Walli, and in the walls of the great temple at Karnak. It is found in still greater detail in a papyrus of the British Museum.[284] At the end is the observation that the scribe Pentaur composed it in the seventh year of the reign of Ramses II. In this poem we are told that the chief of the Cheta had come with his archers and chariots, three men on each chariot. North-west of Kadesh they lay in ambush. The king, urging on his chariot, pressed into the midst of the miserable Cheta. He found himself surrounded by 2,500 chariots. "My bowmen and my chariots have abandoned me, this is what the king said; none of them is here to fight beside me. What is the will of my father Ammon? Is he a father who denies his son? Or have I followed my own thoughts? Did I not set forth at thy command; has not thy mouth led my armies, and thy counsel guided them? Have I not celebrated many brilliant festivals, and filled thy house with booty? Thirty thousand bulls I have sacrificed with odorous herbs and perfumes of all kinds. I have built thee temples of stone, I bring obelisks from Elephantine, and cause the everlasting stones to be carried down. For thee--the great ships swim upon the sea, to bring thee the tribute of the nations. Has the like been done before? Ruin on him who opposes thee: salvation to him who comprehends thee, Ammon. On thee I call. I am alone before thee in the midst of unknown nations. My bowmen and chariots left me when I called; no one heard me when I cried for help. But I choose Ammon before thousands of bowmen and millions of chariots. The devices of men are nothing; Ammon will deliver from them. These words echoed in Hermonthis. Ra comes to him who calls upon him. He reaches to thee his hand. He flies to thee, Ramses Miamun. I am with thee, I am thy father, the sun, and my hand is with thee. Their hearts shall waver in their breasts and all their limbs shall fail. They shall not shoot their arrows; their lances they shall not be able to hold. The chief of the Cheta sent princes, the prince of Aratus (Aradus) and the prince of Kirkamischa (Karchemish). My charioteer was weak, and a great terror came upon his limbs. He said, Brave king, hold, and let us save the breath of our lives. What can we do, noble lord, Ramses Miamun? Mark what his majesty answered to his charioteer. Courage! Stablish thine heart, my charioteer. Like the divine hawk, I will swoop into their midst, they shall be overthrown and hewn down into the dust. Ammon were no god if he glorified not my face before their countless hosts. The king pressed into the midst of the miserable Cheta, six times he pressed into their midst. My bowmen and charioteers came at the hour of evening from their camp: they found the whole region covered with dead bathed in their blood. His holiness answered his army and the captains who had not fought. Ye did not well to leave me alone in the midst of the enemies. I have fought, I have beaten back thousands of enemies, and I was alone. The horses which drew me were 'Might in Thebes,' and 'Rest in the upper land.' As soon as I am within my royal gates, I command that they have corn every day before the god Ra. When the earth again became light, he began the conflict again; he dashed into the battle like a bull, which hurls himself upon geese, and with him the mighty lion beside his horses. Rage inflamed all his limbs. They were hewn in pieces before his mares. The chief of the miserable Cheta sent to call upon the great name of his majesty. Thou art the sun, the god of both worlds, thou art Sutech the great conqueror, the son of heaven. Baal is in all thy limbs. Terror is upon the land of Cheta; thou hast possessed thyself of their inwards for ever. The slave said, as he spoke to Pharaoh: Since Ammon has granted to thee that Egypt and the nation of the Cheta shall be slaves at thy feet, and Ra has granted thee the dominion over them, thou canst slay thy slaves; they are in thy power; we lie bowed to the earth, ready to obey thy command. O brave king, delight of the warriors, grant us the breath of our lives! The king summoned his generals in order to hear the message and write an answer, and toward midday he took ship. He returned in peace with his army to Egypt. The whole earth has subjected itself to his name, and the princes, lying on the ground, worship his countenance."[285]

Not only certain turns in this description, but passages in invocations which have come down to us, show that in expressing themselves, the Egyptians, in spite of the predominant vein of reflection, were not without force of imagination, or striking figures, or largeness and vigour of conception. That they are not free from bombast, foolish exaggeration, and incessant repetition, any more, or even so little, as the other nations of the East, is proved more especially by the inscriptions in the temples recording the mighty deeds of the kings. Our knowledge of the manuscripts does not as yet allow us to pass a more definite judgment. Yet it is beyond doubt that even in the centuries immediately preceding the irruption of the Hyksos, under the Sesurtesen and Amenemha, they were in possession of a written literature, that even then the oldest parts of the "Book of the Dead" were not only in existence, but already commentated upon, and that after the restoration of the kingdom, beside the comprehensive books of the priests, and manuscripts on medicine (p. 209), there was at any rate after the fourteenth century B.C., and the reign of Ramses II., a literature of a considerable extent. There is a second papyrus in existence by the author of the description of the battle, of which the title runs, "Beginning of the Rudiments of the Art of Letter-writing by the Scribe Pentaur, composed in the 10th year of Ramses II."[286] The fifth letter of this collection is addressed by Ameneman, the head of the keepers of the archives of the treasure of the king, to Pentaur; it is said that Pentaur has turned his back on the sacred writings, and applied himself to agriculture. The farmer has to fear grubs and rats, sparrows and locusts for his crops; and thieves too. Implements and horses wear out. The scribes come and demand the taxes, and the neighbours are away and busy with the harvest. On the other hand, the work of the scribe is the highest of all, and the scribe has no taxes to pay.[287] On a third papyrus a hymn, addressed by Ramses III. to Ammon, is said to have been found.[288] A fourth has the name-shields of Sethos II. (p. 163). It is a composition by a scribe of the name of Enna, and contains the story of the fate of two brothers.[289] A fifth papyrus, which is also attributed to the time of successors of Ramses II., has preserved a collection of apothegms.[290] In a country which placed such importance on preserving every incident, on enumerating, recording, and registering everything, care must have been taken to record the series of the kings. When the shepherds were driven out, the liberation from foreign dominion would give a strong impulse toward the attempt to keep firmly before the eyes the old days of independent Egypt. At the same time these attempts must have met with serious hindrances. The destruction which came upon numerous records and monuments of those old times, and the want of any definite aera of chronology, made it difficult to obtain a really correct order of succession, or a historical picture of the ancient period. The historical truth of the writings, which, in spite of these difficulties, were undertaken, as is shown by the monuments mentioned above, and the Turin papyrus (p. 25), was still more seriously impaired by the fact that the views of the priests were governed by the conception that the course of certain periods was allotted to the world by the gods, and in these periods the fortunes of Egypt had reached their fulfilment, and would continue to reach it. We have already become acquainted with this Sothis period (p. 29 ff). From the gods came life and the world. So the gods were said to have reigned in person over Egypt, before the kings, their divine successors, ruled over men. Hence the priests of Lower Egypt commenced the reign of the seven great gods with the beginning of a Sothis period. The seven great gods were followed by the twelve gods of the second rank, Thoth, Anubis, Chunsu, &c., in reigns of gradually diminishing length through a certain number of Sothis periods. According to the scheme still preserved, Ptah reigned 9,000 years, and the last of the gods only seventy years, so that on an average each occupies exactly half a Sothis period, or 730 of our years. These nineteen gods were followed by thirty demigods; to each of whom was allotted the twelfth part of a Sothis period for a reign, so that the whole period of the reign of the gods takes up twelve Sothis periods, or 17,520 years. After this, according to some authorities, began the period of human rulers; others allotted four Sothis periods, _i.e._ 5840 years, to another set of demigods. Then followed, beginning like the rest with the beginning of a Sothis period, the rule of human kings. This Sothis period commenced either in the year 5702 B.C., or, according to the arrangement of Lepsius, with the year 4242 B.C. This year, therefore, was the first of the history of Egypt. To Menes the priests attached the long list of names in one continuous series, without in the least regarding whether the dynasties were contemporaneous or successive, whether they ruled in Upper or Lower Egypt, over the whole land, or in certain districts only. If we calculate the rule of the human kings from the first of the dates given, the first Sothis period of men came to an end, according to the canon of Manetho, in 4242 B.C.; the second in 2782 B.C. The third ended in the time of Menephta I., in whose reign as a fact the Egyptian year did again coincide with the natural year.[291]

The Egyptians were devoted more than other nations to the contemplation of the heavens. The constellations announced to them the approach of the inundation, its height, and its decline. Moreover, their religion was to a great extent a worship of light and the sun, and as they plainly perceived the influence of the stars on the country in the rise and fall of the water, the increase and abatement of the heat, &c., it was natural that they should ascribe to the constellations and the movements of the heavenly bodies similar influences on the life and growth, the happiness and misery, of mankind; and this belief must in turn have contributed to the assiduous and accurate observation of the heavens. "If anywhere," says Diodorus, "it is in Egypt that the most accurate observation of the position and movements of the stars have been made. Of each of these they have records extending over an incredible series of years, the courses and positions of the planets also they have accurately observed, and they can accurately predict the eclipses of the sun and the moon."[292] Astronomical pictures are not uncommon on the monuments belonging to the period after the expulsion of the Hyksos. Fragments of a calendar of festivals from the time of Ramses II. are found on a gateway of the Ramesseum. The outer walls of the temple at Medinet Habu give a complete calendar of the festivals from the time of Ramses III. In the tomb of Sethos I. are pictures and names of the five divinities of the planets known to the Egyptians, Mercury, Venus (the star of the Bennu, p. 69), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the same picture is found on the roof of the astronomical hall in the Ramesseum at Thebes, and on two pictures in the tombs of Ramses V. and IX. The painting in the Ramesseum--though the circle of 369 cubits, which, according to Diodorus, was once on the roof of the Ramesseum (p. 175), is wanting, being removed by Cambyses--presents a complete map of the Egyptian sky. The pictures in the tombs of the two kings give the rising of the stars at intervals of a fortnight. In the tomb of Ramses IV. the thirty-six Decan stars are given together with their deities.[293] The importance placed by the Egyptian priests on the knowledge of the sky is shown not only by the monuments, but also by the four books of the astrologer, and the third and fourth books of the temple scribe; and that their astronomical science was by no means slight is sufficiently proved by their early establishment of a solar year of 360, and then of 365 days, and by the observation and establishment of the Sothis periods. This fact is confirmed by the lists of the rising of the stars already mentioned. Yet the astronomical knowledge of the priests of Egypt cannot be placed beside that of the Babylonians. Representations of the zodiac are not found on the monuments till the time of the Ptolemies,[294] and Ptolemy, himself an Egyptian, has preserved for us observations of the Chaldees, but none made by his own countrymen. The greater part of the attention which the priests of Egypt bestowed upon the heavens was given in the interests of astrology rather than astronomy. As the months in the year belonged to certain gods, the first to Thoth, the third (Athyr) to Hathor, the last to Horus, so the days of the month had their deities. The first day belonged to Thoth, the second to Horus, the third to Osiris, &c.; and lastly, every hour of the day was allotted to a special influence. From the importance thus given to the days and hours the astrologers could foretell the fortune of life; they could ascertain what issue awaited any enterprise--whether the day and hour were favourable or not for this or that occupation or undertaking. For this object they possessed tables worked out in extensive detail. For instance, anyone born on the 14th of Athyr, the day when Typhon was said to have slain Osiris, had to expect a violent death; anyone born on the 23rd of Phaophi was doomed to be killed by a crocodile; and anyone born on the 27th of the same month, by a serpent. On the other hand, a child born on the 9th of Phaophi might look forward to a long life. In the tables of the hours we find for a given day--first hour, Orion is lord of the left elbow; second hour, the Twins have influence on the left ear; fifth hour, the Pleiads(?) are sovereign over both chambers of the heart; tenth hour, the feet of the Swine predominate over the left eye, &c.[295]

In the achievement won by Egyptian art the priests took a leading part. The buildings of the temples and the tombs of the kings could only be erected after their designs; for in these essentially sacred things, sacred measures and numbers, were concerned, and, like architecture, sculpture and painting were primarily employed in the service of religion. As we might expect from the character of the people, the architecture of the Egyptians aimed at the firm and durable. The structures rise up simple in their lines, like the ridges of rock which are the boundaries of Egypt, broad and massive. The pyramids, with great simplicity of form, were found to display a considerable skill in dealing with and uniting large masses of stone. Following this path, the architecture of Egypt has always preserved a severity and simplicity of outline even when employing richer forms and ornaments. Among the Egyptians sculpture and painting never attained independence; it was their vocation to support architecture, and assist her in preserving in the stream of time the picture of the king, his sacrifices, and his achievements, and this or that incident of his reign. The sculpture of the Egyptians exhibits a vigorous attempt to grasp the forms in a naive, but prosaic and merely intellectual manner; it preserves them free from any fanciful use of symbols, and conceives the human form in fixed proportions and characteristic expression of movement, while it is still more happy in the form and character of the animals. Like architecture, sculpture prefers to work in the hardest and most lasting material. But, as in all other departments of life, so here; the type when once fixed, the canon of proportion when once discovered, the mode of treatment and the law of form is rigorously retained. With complete accuracy of execution in the most difficult material, sculpture constantly repeats the same figures, geometrical rather than natural in form. Yet in spite of this typical character, in sculpture and painting, as in architecture, a considerable development took place. The statues of the times of the pyramids, the Amenemha and Sesurtesen, exhibit, comparatively speaking, very correct forms, lively energy in the expression of action, and a strong treatment of the muscles; but the sculptures of the new kingdom are distinguished by greater variety of forms, a larger wealth of lines, and a delicacy of outline; the drawing of the figures is far more slender, and there is considerable grace in the treatment of massive pillars and capitals. The Tuthmosis and Amenophis, the Sethos, and the earliest Ramses, imposed upon Egyptian art an almost oppressive number of tasks, and in performing them she touched her highest point. But the amount of work must of itself have introduced a more and more conventional treatment within the limits of the typical circle in which sculpture moved; and at last this treatment was content with mere precision of outlines. This is the character of the sculpture of the times of Ramses III. down to the days of Psammetichus, in which, by a truer imitation of nature, and greater grace in the form of the bodies, it once more attained to a beautiful after-growth.

The industry and skill with which the cultivation of the land and of the vine, and the breeding of cattle and sheep, was carried on in Egypt even before the invasion of the Hyksos, has been already seen on the monuments of the time of the Sesurtesen and Amenemha (p. 118). The fields were tilled with ploughs drawn by oxen, or with the hoe. It was not in every case necessary to make furrows. In December and January, when the water had run off, the seed was cast into the moist ground and trodden in, as we see from the monuments, by sheep and goats. Everywhere the overseer is in the field with the labourers and herdmen. By the end of March harvest was ready; wheat and maize were cut with the sickle, and then the grain was trodden out by oxen. Meanwhile the thrasher sang, according to the inscription on a rock tomb at El Kab (above Thebes), "Thrash for yourselves, oxen, thrash for yourselves; thrash bushels for your masters."[296] Diodorus remarks that it was marvellous with what care and skill the herds were tended by their keepers in Egypt, what knowledge of healing plants and of food was to be found in these keepers, how their occupation came to them from their forefathers, with a large stock of experience and manual skill; and how their knowledge increased to an incredible degree the propagation of the animals.[297] On the monuments we find not only great herds of cattle, asses, sheep, and goats, but also whole droves of hens, ducks, and geese. Poultry-sellers and depots of poultry are often found. These sculptures confirm the statements of Diodorus of the careful tending of the animals; they also show us the medicinal treatment of ailing animals. Beside this wealth of cattle, there was an abundance of fish, provided by the Nile. These were caught partly with hooks, and partly with large nets. The upper classes fished for pleasure. Yet most kinds of fish were forbidden food: the priests, as we have seen, were not allowed to taste fish at all.

The monuments also teach us that hunting was not neglected by the Egyptians. Hares, foxes, antelopes, gazelles, hyaenas, buffaloes, and lions were driven into inclosures surrounded by nets, or chased with the bow and arrow and dogs, or with the chariot and hounds. Gazelles and buffaloes were also taken with the lasso; traps were set for the hyaenas; the hippopotamus was attacked with a spear from a boat.[298]

Of the industry of the Egyptians in trade we have already had striking evidence in the monuments of the old kingdom. There we saw all kinds of manufactures in the various stages; we found on them the simple weaver's loom, which produced the robes of byssus, so highly valued in antiquity,--the lasting fabric which may still be examined in the clothing of mummies. The early development of technical skill meets us more especially in the pictures of the preparation of glass on the tombs at Beni Hassan. Glass cups and vessels are frequently found in the tombs, and Strabo observes that the earth required for making glass is among the products of Egypt.[299] The working of the copper mines in the mountains of Sinai goes considerably further back than the date of the tombs at Beni Hassan. They were open as early as the times of Snefru and Chufu.[300] Yet by far the greatest proportion of hands must have been employed upon the buildings of the kings and the tombs of the wealthy. On the monuments we see the masons in all their various occupations; painters and statuaries also are represented there in the different moments of their work; and the tables of proportion which they followed are still preserved.

Even before the invasion of the Hyksos, as we saw from the tombs at Beni Hassan, the life of the wealthy Egyptian was surrounded by considerable elegance (p. 118). The houses of the rich, built, according to the pictures on the monuments, in a light and graceful style, in contrast to the heavy structure of the temples, had several stories, and were provided with the galleries and terraces still usual in the East. Houses in the country had shady avenues of trees, planted in exact rows, and neat beds of flowers, graceful pavilions, and fountains of water. The common national dress was a linen shirt, and over it a woollen cloak; the labourer and the lowest class had only an apron round the body; but the clothing of the higher classes was choice and delicate. The women, who enjoyed considerable freedom in Egypt, wore various ornaments--necklaces, eardrops, and bracelets; rings of the most various shape adorned almost every finger. Their hair was carefully dressed; they bathed frequently, and made a considerable use of ointments. Life was sociable in ancient Egypt. In the tombs at Beni Hassan we find men carried in a palanquin to a social meeting; and in the tombs at Thebes they are driving in chariots to a similar gathering. Gaily-dressed men and women meet and converse with each other in the hall; slaves, light-coloured and black, in part handsomely-dressed, hand them garlands and cups. The table is spread. Bread, figs, and grapes are set out in baskets, wine in glass bottles; vegetables and poultry are also there. The solid food was eaten with the hand, liquids were taken with spoons. At these banquets the Egyptians do not seem to have been very moderate. Herodotus tells us that a small wooden image of a mummy was carried round at their entertainments, with the exhortation, "Look on this, drink and be merry. When dead, thou wilt be as this is!"[301] This admonition was not without its results. In the pictures on monuments we find not only men, but women, throwing up the surfeit of food and wine; others are carried away home by their servants. Indeed, excess and drunkenness are quoted among the forty-two chief sins of the Egyptians. During the meal dancers were introduced, and bands of musicians, male and female, who played on harps, guitars, and flutes; among which was mingled the sound of the tambourine. A chorus also sang to the harp. The company also played and danced.[302] We have already seen that games of ball and mora were played under the old monarchy. Among the recreations of the new monarchy draughts are found. We often find on the monuments sketches of men and women who exhibit contortions of their bodies and feats of strength. Sham-fights at sea also occur, and wrestling matches are very common.

Proudly as the Egyptians, in the consciousness of their purity and culture, looked down on "the unclean and perverse" nations outside their land, and rarely as they travelled into other countries, Egypt was nevertheless the centre of a considerable trade. China and Japan also for a long time shut themselves up from the outer world, yet their trade was considerable, though permitted only at certain fixed places. The Egyptians also caused the products which they needed to be brought, without themselves going to seek them. Egypt required wood for the building of houses and ships, brass, ivory, slaves, and incense. Even before the year 1500 B.C., Arabian caravans carried the products of the south coast of Arabia to Syria and Egypt.[303] The wandering tribes of Libya, Syria, and Arabia required corn, weapons, utensils, and implements, which they could buy in Egypt. Then at a later period came the trade of the Phenicians with Egypt. They could bring wood from the forests of Lebanon--wine, oil, slaves, amber, and tin, and exchange them for the manufactures of Egypt; for retail goods, glass, drugs, which Egypt produced in great quantities, fish, Egyptian fabrics, linen, and material prepared from the papyrus. The Greeks called fabrics made from this plant, "byblian," from the city Byblus, a proof that they first became acquainted with these Egyptian wares through the Phenicians, and mainly through the ships of Byblus, and received them from this quarter. Horses, also, and chariots were brought as articles of trade from Egypt to Syria about the year 1000 B.C.; at that time a chariot cost in Egypt 600 shekels, and a horse 150.[304] So far as we can gather from the legends of the Greeks, the trading ships could only enter the Canopic mouth of the Nile, and intercourse with foreign merchants could only take place on the little island of Pharos, opposite the city of Thonis. Here the mariners of that day, the Phenicians, and with them, and after them, the Ionians, carried on their trade with the Egyptians. On land the only entrance was by Pelusium; and here as also at Pharos, an entrance-tax had apparently to be paid. From the Homeric poems we may conclude that there was then a trade with Egypt, and not only piratical descents upon the coasts; but when the Ionians, about the middle of the eighth century, began to enter into dangerous competition with the Phenicians, the latter seem to have succeeded in getting the Greeks excluded from Egypt, and obtaining for themselves the monopoly of the sea--a privilege which, however, they did not maintain for more than a century.[305]

Such was ancient Egypt, the land of marvel, whose richly developed civilization lies on the threshold of historical life. Excellently furnished by nature, and placed in a peculiarly favoured land, the Copts have transferred to their own lives and civilization the grave and solemn character of their sky and their country. Their conservative feeling is directed towards fixed and unalterable order; the sons repeat the lives of their fathers, and the nation is divided into various classes and corporations, which carry on the same occupations from generation to generation. The beneficent powers of nature, the mystery of life, the life returning out of death--these are the forces and laws which the Egyptians worshipped as their good gods, whose creation is the fruitful world, who manifest themselves in good creatures, whose unchangeable nature they seemed to recognise as embodied in the instinctive and unalterable life of certain animals. The life of the nation adapts itself also to priestly rules, which operate without alteration, like the laws of nature.

As the heart of this people was set upon the continuance of the race and occupation, on rule and law, so also was it their desire to prolong the existence of the individual. This impulse towards the preservation of self operated so strongly that the Egyptians busied themselves with the future quite as much as with the past. It was this trait in their character which caused the Egyptians to rescue their dead from corruption, and occupied the living with the construction of "eternal dwellings for the dead." This it was which made them a nation of scribes, builders, painters and sculptors. These efforts culminate in the buildings of the kings, who could command the whole powers of the land in preserving their names. The Egyptians were loath to end with death. It was the true vocation of every man worthily to build and "adorn his tomb;" and the essential object of life is--not to lose the everlasting life after death by unclean and unlawful conversation--to win a return to the divine origin of life.

With the simple confidence of childhood, with the patient endurance of a man, and with iron perseverance, the Egyptians attempted to redeem the existence of man from destruction and decay, and rescue his life from oblivion. The power of the Egyptians exhausted itself in this toil after continuance of life. But however eager a man might be to preserve his own individuality, he loses it in the presence of his ruler, who gathers up in his own person the whole political life of the nation, and exhausts it. Like a god, or an incarnate Destiny, the Pharaoh stands in absolute supremacy over the land; "His countenance beams over Egypt as the sun;" before him all distinctions fade away, and all bow down in equal obedience. But even though the perishable was preserved, and made as lasting as the rocks of the land--though in the ceremonial, the ritual, and the rules of life the same unalterable constancy prevailed as in the laws of nature, there was still room beside fixed prescription and the will of the divine ruler for the vigorous pursuit of an industry which was not far behind that of modern Europe, for an enjoyment of life in the Oriental manner, which was not only social, but even luxurious and sensual.

The efforts of the Egyptians to preserve themselves and their actions, and to cause their names to live in the mouths of the generations after them, have not been without a result. What the Greeks and Romans knew of their history were traditions attached to the great monuments. Before our researches the Egyptian nation has literally risen from the tomb; the pyramids tell us the history of the old monarchy, and the temples at Thebes the history of the new. Without these monuments the kings of Manetho would have remained an empty and unintelligible echo. These mountains of stone at the threshold of history, these chronicles of hieroglyphics, this nation of mummies proclaim, beyond contradiction, that nations do succeed in outliving themselves by their works, but also that their life reaches only so far as their development.

FOOTNOTES:

[252] Diod. 1, 90.

[253] Thus, _e.g._ in the Rosetta inscription the order is given that in every temple an image is to be set up to the "god Epiphanes, the avenger of Egypt," to whom the principal deity of the temple presents the arms of victory. Three times in every day the image of Epiphanes is to be worshipped, and on the great festivals the same honours are to be paid to him as to the rest of the gods. In addition, a special festival is solemnized every year to the god Epiphanes, and a special order of priests established for him. This resolution of the collected priests was ordered to be engraved on hard stone and set up in all the temples of the first, second, and third class. The full title of Epiphanes is: "Son of Ptah, Beloved of Ammon and Ra, the Child of the Sun, the Eternal."

[254] Diod. 1, 53; Plut. "De Isid." c. 6, 9; and below, p. 211 ff.

[255] Wilkinson, "Manners and Customs," Suppl. Pl. 76; Champollion, "Lettres," p. 344 ff.

[256] In the inscriptions of the graves and sarcophagi of the Berlin Museum; cf. Ebers, "AEgypten," s. 300.

[257] What Synesius (Op. p. 94) tells us of the election of the kings is so astounding that it can hardly have been part of any plan of the priests; the whole history of Egypt contradicts an elective monarchy of such a kind. These supposed elections were said to have taken place on the Libyan mountains, near Thebes; the priests mentioned the names of the candidates for whom the votes were to be given. The votes of the prophets had the value of one hundred, those of the lower priests of twenty, of the servants of the temple of ten, and of the warrior class of one.

[258] Kalasiris was the name given by the Egyptians to a linen coat, with fringe round the thighs (Herod. 2, 81). The name Hermotybian has been derived from [Greek: hemitybion], a kind of apron.

[259] Herod. 2, 37.

[260] Diod. 1, 73, 74.

[261] Herod. 2, 37, 168.

[262] Genesis xlvii. 22, 26.

[263] Herod. 2, 109 _supra_, p. 143.

[264] Genesis xlvii. 24, 26.

[265] Herod. 2. 168.

[266] Genesis xlvii. 26.

[267] Even the land which the Pharaohs allotted to the temples with a tax of a fifth belonged to them in a certain sense. We have tolerably ancient records on papyrus, on which are given the incomes of the temples, with the names of the tax-payers, and the things given in taxation. When the Ptolemies ruled over Egypt the land which paid to the temples belonged actually to the temples as property, but as property revocable at will, and the kings on their side taxed the temples just as the Islamite princes are accustomed to tax their mosques. In the Rosetta inscription, under date March 27, 196 B.C., the prophets, upper priests, chamberlains, pastophors, and scribes, explain that the king (Ptolemy Epiphanes) had given an order that the incomes of the temples and the land-taxes paid to them yearly, and the portions reserved for the gods in the vineyards and other property, should continue to be paid. At the same time we see from the sequel of this inscription, as well as from other sources, that these incomes were not sufficient to keep the temples in good order, and the king was compelled to make additions. Yet, in any case, the Ptolemies by their state taxes withdrew from the temples a portion of their incomes. From every plot of corn-land ([Greek: aroura]) the temples were to pay to the king an _artabe_ of corn, and from every plot of vineyard an amphora of wine. Besides this, they had to pay a money-tax and a certain amount of byssus cloth.

[268] Clemens ("Strom." p. 757 ff. ed. Pott) expressly says that the prophet was the overseer of the temple; on the other hand, in the inscription of Rosetta, the high priests and prophets stand side by side.

[269] Herod. 2, 37, 143; Diod. 1, 73.

[270] Diod. 1, 80; Herod. 2, 37, 81; Diog. Laert. 8, 27; Porphyr. "De abst." 4, 7.

[271] Diod. 1, 74, 92.

[272] Lepsius, "Briefe." s. 309, 310; Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypte," p. 259.

[273] Herod. 2, 47; Aelian, "De Nat. An." 10, 16. As Herodotus tells us that the swineherds married in their own order only, it follows that the other orders married with each other. The attempt has often been made to explain the so-called divisions of the Egyptians into castes by the immigration of foreign tribes. This conception places in mechanical layers what is really an organic development. In India such an assumption has a certain historical foundation. There, there was a servile class (the Sudra) under three superior classes; the first was composed of the original inhabitants, the others of the Aryan immigrants. This kind of division is wholly wanting in Egypt, and not less so any historical or physiological foundation for the immigrations. Strabo knows three orders only in Egypt; the priests, the soldiers, and the population engaged in work or trades. Diodorus (1, 74) speaks of five orders; _i.e._ in addition to the first two, husbandmen, artizans, and shepherds. Plato ("Timaeus," p. 21) mentions priests, soldiers, artizans, shepherds, and hunters; Herodotus mentions priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds, merchants, interpreters, and mariners. In Plato and Diodorus we miss the merchants, who certainly were not wanting in Egypt, and in Herodotus the husbandmen and artizans. Nothing therefore remains but the natural assumption that the labouring masses were chiefly divided into shepherds, artizans, and husbandmen; and these were again broken into many divisions according to their different vocations, and each of our authorities has brought into prominence those distinctions which especially came under his notice. As Herodotus especially notices cowherds, we must suppose that those herdsmen are probably meant who derived a living from the buffalo herds, which they pastured in the swampy flats of the Delta, on the border of Egypt, and lived in huts of reeds.--Diod. 1, 43.

[274] The number of provinces in Egypt under the old kingdom appears to have been twenty-seven, according to the myth of the hewing of the body of Osiris into twenty-seven pieces, and the distribution of them to all the priests of the land for burial, which Diodorus has preserved. From this may be derived the number of twenty-seven courts in the labyrinth given by Strabo, p. 811, and twenty-five in Pliny, pp. 113, 114; as a fact the building had only twelve courts. Yet Strabo mentions thirty-six provinces (p. 787). Later coins give forty-six provinces, and Ptolemy forty-seven. Forty-four nomes, twenty-two for Upper Egypt and as many for Lower Egypt, can be established, together with their names.--Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypte," p. 9.

[275] Diod. 1, 73, 75, 94; Herod. 2, 136; Plut. "De Isid." 10; Chabas, "Mel." 3, 10.

[276] Diod. 1, 77 ff.

[277] Herod. 2, 37, 38, 39, 65; Genesis xliii. 32.

[278] Herod. 2, 77, 85; Diod. 1, 84, 91.

[279] Lepsius, "Aelteste Texte," s. 10; Brugsch, "Grammaire demotique."

[280] Clem. Alex. "Strom." p. 758, ed. Pott; cf. Diod. 1, 49.

[281] Ebers, "Augsburger Allg. Zt." 1873. On a papyrus of a medicinal character of the period from the twentieth to the twenty-second dynasty, see Birch, "Zeitschrift fuer aegyptische Sprache," 1871, s. 61.

[282] Herod. 2, 84, 3, 1.

[283] Lepsius, "Goetterkreis," s. 30; Bunsen, "AEgypten," 5, 1, 189 ff.

[284] Papyrus, Sallier III.

[285] De Rouge, "Recueil de Travaux," 1, 3 ff.; Chabas, "Revue Archeol." 1875.

[286] On the papyrus Sallier I.; "Revue Archeol." 1860, 2, 241.

[287] Goodwin-Chabas, _loc. cit._ 1861, 4, 118 ff.

[288] _Loc. cit._ 1860, 1, 357.

[289] De Rouge, _loc. cit._ 1852. On another very marvellous narrative on a papyrus in the demotic character, see Brugsch, _loc. cit._ 1867, 16, 161 ff. This papyrus Brugsch, on paleographical grounds, places in the third or second centuries B.C.

[290] Lauth, "Sitzungsberichte der Akademie, zu Muenchen," 1872, 347 ff, and his "Abhandlung ueber den papyrus Sallier II. und Anastasi III.;" _ibid._ p. 29 ff.; cf. Chabas, "Voyage d'un Egyptien," and Goodwin, "Saneha."

[291] Boeckh, "Manetho und die Hundsternperiode;" Lepsius, "Chronologie," s. 470 ff. and _supra_, p. 40.

[292] Diod. 1. 81.

[293] Brugsch, "Zeitschrift d. d. M. S." 10, 662 ff.

[294] The Egyptians then compared certain constellations in their spheres with the signs of the zodiac. The Crab they denoted by the scarabaeus, the Lion by the knife, the Scales became the "sun-mountain," the Scorpion became the snake. The Kid was with them "the life," the Ram "the slain" &c.--Brugsch, _loc. cit._

[295] Champollion, "Lettres," p. 239; Lepsius, "Chronologie," s. 109, 110; cf. _supra_, p. 58.

[296] Champollion, "Lettres," p. 196.

[297] Diod. 1, 74.

[298] Wilkinson, "Manners and Customs," 3, 4.

[299] Strabo, p. 758; cf. p. 147.

[300] _Supra_, p. 94; Ebers, "Durch Gosen," s. 135 ff.

[301] Herod. 2, 78.

[302] Wilkinson, "Manners and Customs," 2, 132.

[303] Cf. _infra_, Book II. cap. 3.

[304] 1 Kings x. 28, 29; 2 Chronicles i. 16, 17; ix. 28.

[305] "Od." 14, 288; 4, 225, 355; 17, 448; Movers, "Phoenizier," 2, 70.