Ancient Egypt Part 15

XXVI.

A LAST GLEAM OF SUNSHINE--NECTANEBO I.

A troubled time followed the reign of Nefaa-rut. The Greek mercenary soldiery, on whom the monarchs depended, were fickle in their temperament, and easily took offence, if their inclinations were in any way thwarted. Their displeasure commonly led to the dethronement of the king who had provoked it; and we have thus, at this period of the history, five reigns in twenty-five years. No monarch had time to distinguish himself by a re-organization of the kingdom, or even by undertaking buildings on a large scale--each was forced to live from hand to mouth, meeting as he best might the immediate difficulties of his position, without providing for a future, which he might never live to see. Fear of re-conquest was also perpetual; and the monarchs had therefore constantly to be courting alliances with foreign states, and subjecting themselves thereby to risks which it might have been more prudent to have avoided.

With the accession of Nectanebo I. (Nekht-Horheb), about B.C. 385, an improvement in the state of affairs set in. Nekht-hor-heb was a vigorous prince, who held the mercenaries well under control, and, having raised a considerable Egyptian army, set himself to place Egypt in such a state of defence, that she might confidently rely on her own strength, and be under no need of entangling herself with foreign alliances. He strongly fortified all the seven mouths of the Nile, guarding each by two forts, one on either side of each stream, and establishing a connection between each pair of forts by a bridge. At Pelusium, where the danger of hostile attack was always the greatest, he multiplied his precautions, guarding it on the side of the east by a deep ditch, and carefully obstructing all the approaches to the town, whether by land or sea, by forts and d.y.k.es and embankments, and contrivances for laying the neighbouring territory under water. No doubt these precautions were taken with special reference to an expected attack on the part of Persia, which was preparing, about B.C. 376, to make a great effort to bring Egypt once more into subjection.

The expected attack came in the next year. Having obtained the services of the Athenian general, Iphicrates, and hired Greek mercenaries to the number of twenty thousand, Artaxerxes Mnemon, in B.C. 375, sent a huge armament against Egypt, consisting of 220,000 men, 500 ships of war, and a countless number of other vessels carrying stores and provisions.

Pharnabazus commanded the Persian soldiery, Iphicrates the mercenaries.

Having rendezvoused at Acre in the spring of the year, they set out early in the summer, and proceeded in a leisurely manner through Philistia and the desert, the fleet accompanying them along the coast.

This route brought them to Pelusium, which they found so strongly fortified that they despaired of being able to force the defences and felt it necessary to make a complete change in their plan of attack.

Putting to sea with a portion of the fleet, and with troops to the number of three thousand, and sailing northward till they could no longer be seen from the sh.o.r.e, they then, probably at nightfall, changed their course, and steering south-west, made for the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, which was only guarded by the twin forts with their connecting bridge. Here they landed without opposition, and proceeded to reconnoitre the forts. The garrison gave them battle outside the walls, but was defeated with great loss; and the forts themselves were taken.

The remainder of the force conveyed by the ships, was then landed without difficulty; and the invaders, having the complete mastery of one of the Nile mouths, had it in their power to direct their attack to any point that might seem to them at once most important and most vulnerable.

Under these circ.u.mstances the Athenian general, Iphicrates, strongly recommended a dash at Memphis. The main strength of the Egyptian army had been concentrated at Pelusium. Strong detachments held the other mouths of the Nile. Memphis, he felt sure, must be denuded of troops, and could probably be carried by a _coup de main_; but the advice of the rapid Greek was little to the taste of the slow-moving and cautious Persian. Pharnabazus declined to sanction any rash enterprise--he would proceed according to the rules of art. He had the advantage of numbers--why was he to throw it away? No, a thousand times no. He would wait till his army was once more collected together, and would then march on Memphis, without exposing himself or his troops to any danger.

The city would be sure to fall, and the object of the expedition would be accomplished. In vain did Iphicrates offer to run the whole risk himself--to take no troops with him besides his own mercenaries, and attack the city with them. As the Greek grew more hot and reckless, the Persian became more cool and wary. What might not be behind this foolhardiness? Might it not be possible that the Greek was looking to his own interests, and designing, if he got possession of Memphis, to set himself up as king of Egypt? There was no knowing what his intention might be; and at any rate it was safest to wait the arrival of the troops. So Pharnabazus once more coolly declined his subordinate's offer.

Nectanebo, on his side, having thrown a strong garrison into Memphis, moved his army across the Delta from the Pelusiac to the Mendesian branch of the Nile, and having concentrated it in the neighbourhood of the captured forts, proceeded to operate against the invaders. His troops hara.s.sed the enemy in a number of petty engagements, and in the course of time inflicted on them considerable loss. In this way midsummer was reached--the Etesian winds began to blow, and the Nile to rise. Gradually the abounding stream spread itself over the broad Delta; roads were overflowed, river-courses obliterated; the season for military operations was clearly past. There was no possible course but to return to Asia. Iphicrates and Pharnabazus took their departure amid mutual recriminations, each accusing the other of having caused the expedition to be a complete failure.

The repulse of this huge host was felt by the Egyptians almost as the repulse of the host of Xerxes was felt by the Greeks. Nectanebo was looked upon as a hero and a demiG.o.d; his throne was a.s.sured; it was felt that he had redeemed all the failures of the past, and had restored Egypt to the full possession of all her ancient dignity and glory.

Nectanebo continued to rule over "the Two Lands" for nine years longer in uninterrupted peace, honour, and prosperity. During this time he applied himself, with considerable success, to the revival of Egyptian art and architecture. At Thebes he made additions to the great temple of Karnak, restored the temple of Khonsu, and adorned with reliefs a shrine originally erected by Ramesses XII. At Memphis he was extraordinarily active: he built a small temple in the neighbourhood of the Serapeum, set up inscriptions in the Apis repository in honour of the sacred bulls, erected two small obelisks in black granite, and left his name inscribed more than once in the quarries of Toora. Traces of his activity are also found at Edfu, at Abydos, at Bubastis, at Rosetta in the Delta, and at Tel-el-Maskoutah. The art of his time is said to have all the elegance of that produced under the twenty-sixth (Psamatik) dynasty, but to have been somewhat more florid. The two black obelisks above-mentioned, which are now in the British Museum, show the admirable finish which prevailed at this period. The sarcophagus which Nectanebo prepared for himself, which adorns the same collection, is also of great beauty.

We cannot be surprised to find that Nectanebo was worshipped after his death as a divine being. A priesthood was const.i.tuted in his honour, which handed down his cult to later times, and bore witness to the impression made on the Egyptian mind by his character and his successes.

XXVII.

THE LIGHT GOES OUT IN DARKNESS.

Nectanebo's successors had neither his foresight nor his energy. Te-her, the Tachos or Teos of the Greeks, who followed him on the throne in B.C.

366, went out of his way to provoke the Persians by fomenting the war of the satraps against Artaxerxes Mnemon, and, having obtained the services of Agesilaus and Chabrias, even ventured to invade Phnicia and attempt its reduction. His own hold upon Egypt was, however, far too weak to justify so bold a proceeding. Scarcely had he reached Syria, when revolt broke out behind him. The Regent, to whom he had entrusted the direction of affairs during his absence, proved unfaithful, and incited his son, Nekht-nebf, to become a candidate for the crown, and to take up arms against his father. The young prince was seduced by the offers made him, and Egypt became plunged in a civil war. But for the courage and conduct of Agesilaus, which were conspicuously displayed, Tacho would have yielded to despair and have given up the contest. In two decisive battles the Spartan general completely defeated the army of the rebels, which far outnumbered that of Tacho, and replaced the king on his tottering throne.

However, it was not long before the party of the rebels recovered from their defeats. Agesilaus either joined them, or withdrew from the struggle, and removing to Cyrene died there at an advanced age. Tacho, deserted by his followers, quitted Egypt and fled to Sidon, whence he made his way across the desert to the court of the Great King. Ochus, who had by this time succeeded Mnemon, received him favourably, and professed an intention of embracing his cause; but nothing came of this expression of good-will. Tacho lived a considerable time at the court of Ochus, without any steps being taken to restore him to his former position. At last a dysentery carried him off, and legitimated the position of the usurper who had driven him into exile.

The end now drew nigh. Nekht-nebf, whom the Greeks called Nectanebo II., having after a time established himself firmly upon the throne, and got rid of pretenders, resumed the ambitious policy of his predecessor, and entered into an alliance with the people of Sidon and their neighbours, who were in revolt against Persia. He had the excuse that Ochus, some time previously, had sent an expedition against Egypt, which he had repulsed by the a.s.sistance of two Greek generals, Diophantus of Athens and Lamius of Sparta. But this expedition was a thing of the past; it had inflicted no injury on Egypt, and it demanded no revenge. Nekht-nebf was in no way called upon to join the rebel confederacy, which (in B.C.

346) raised the flag of revolt from Persia, and sought to enrol in its ranks as many allies as possible. But he rashly gave in his name, and sent to Sidon as his contingent towards the army that was being raised, four thousand of his Greek mercenaries, under the command of Mentor of Rhodes. With their aid, Tennes, the Sidonian king, completely defeated the troops which Ochus had sent against him, and drove the Persians out of Phnicia.

The success, however, which was thus gained by the rebels only exasperated the Persian king, and made him resolve all the more on a desperate effort. The time had gone by, he felt, for committing wars to satraps, or sending out generals, with a few thousand troops, to put down this or that troublesome chieftain. The conjuncture called for measures of no ordinary character. The Great King must conduct an expedition in person. Every sort of preparation must be made; arms and provisions and stores of all kinds must be acc.u.mulated; the best troops must be collected from all parts of the empire; a sufficient fleet must be manned; and such an armament must go forth under the royal banner as would crush all opposition. Ochus succeeded in gathering together from the nations under his direct rule 300,000 foot, 30,000 horse, 300 triremes, and 500 transports or provision-ships. He then directed his efforts towards obtaining efficient a.s.sistance from the Greeks. Though refused aid by Athens and Sparta, he succeeded in obtaining a thousand Theban heavy-armed under Lacrates, three thousand Argives under Nicostratus, and six thousand aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians from the Greek cities of Asia Minor. The a.s.sistance thus secured was numerically small, amounting to no more than ten thousand men--not a thirtieth part of his native force; but it formed, together with the Greek mercenaries from Egypt--who went over to him afterwards--the force on which he placed his chief reliance, and to which the ultimate success of his expedition was mainly due.

The overwhelming strength of the armament which Ochus had brought with him into Syria alarmed the chiefs of the rebel confederacy. Tennes, especially, the Sidonian monarch, despaired of a successful resistance, and made up his mind that his only chance of safety lay in his appeasing the anger of Ochus by the betrayal of his confederates and followers. He opened his designs to Mentor of Rhodes, the commander of the Greek mercenaries furnished by Egypt, and found him quite ready to come into his plans. The two in conjunction betrayed Sidon into the hands of Persia, by the admission of a detachment within the walls; after which the defence became impracticable. The Sidonians, having experienced the unrelenting temper and sanguinary spirit of the Persian king, who had transfixed with javelins six hundred of their princ.i.p.al citizens, came to the desperate resolution of setting fire to their houses, and so destroying themselves with their town. One is glad to learn that the cowardly traitor, Tennes, who had brought about these terrible calamities, did not derive any profit from them, but was executed by the command of Ochus, as soon as Sidon had fallen.

The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of Egypt.

Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000 Greeks, the mercenaries under Mentor having joined him. Marshalling his army in four divisions, he proceeded to the attack. The first, second, and third divisions contained, each of them, a contingent of Greeks and a contingent of Asiatics, commanded respectively by a Greek and a Persian leader. The Greeks of the first division, consisting mainly of Botians, were under the orders of Lacrates, a Theban of enormous strength, who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and adopted the traditional costume of that hero, a lion's skin and a club. His Persian colleague was Rhosaces, satrap of Ionia and Lydia, who claimed descent from one of "the Seven" that put down the conspiracy of the Magi. In the second division, where the Argive mercenaries served, the Greek leader was Nicostratus, the Persian Aristazanes, a court usher, and one of the most trusted friends of the king. Mentor and the eunuch Bagoas, Ochus's chief minister in his later years, were at the head of the third division, Mentor commanding his own mercenaries, and Bagoas the Greeks whom Ochus had levied in his own dominions, together with a large body of Asiatics.

The king himself was sole commander of the fourth division, as well as commander-in-chief of the entire host. Nekht-nebf, on his side, was only able to oppose to this vast array an army less than one-third of the size. He had enrolled as many as sixty thousand of the Egyptian warrior cla.s.s, and had the services of twenty thousand Greek mercenaries, and of about the same number of Libyan troops.

Pelusium, as usual, was the first point of attack. Nekht-nebf had taken advantage of the long delay of Ochus in Syria to see that the defences of Egypt were in good order; he had made preparations for resistance at all the seven mouths of the Nile, and had guarded Pelusium with especial care. Ochus, as he had expected, advanced along the coast route which led to this place. Part of his army traversed the narrow spit of land which separated the Lake Serbonis from the Mediterranean, and in doing so met with a disaster. A strong wind setting in from the north, as the troops were pa.s.sing, brought the waters of the Mediterranean over the low strip of sand which is ordinarily dry, and confounding sea and sh.o.r.e and lake together, caused the destruction of a large detachment; but the main army, which had probably kept Lake Serbonis on the right, reached its destination intact. A skirmish followed between the Theban troops of the first division under Lacrates and the garrison of Pelusium under Philophron; but this first engagement was without definite result.

The two armies lay now for a while on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which was well protected by forts, fortified towns, and a network of ca.n.a.ls on either side of it. There was every reason to expect that Nekht-nebf, by warily guarding his frontier, and making full use of his resources, might baffle for a considerable time, if not wholly frustrate, the Persian attack. But his combined self-conceit and timidity ruined his cause. Taking the direction of affairs wholly upon himself and asking no advice from his Greek captains, he failed to show any of the qualities of a great commander, and was speedily involved in difficulties with which he was quite incapable of dealing. Having had his first line of defence partially forced by a bold movement on the part of the Argives under Nicostratus, instead of trying to redeem the misfortune by a counter-movement, or a concentration of troops, he hastily abandoned to his generals the task of continuing the resistance on this outer line, and retiring to Memphis, concentrated all his efforts on making preparations to resist a siege.

Meantime, the Persians were advancing. Lacrates the Theban set himself to reduce Pelusium, and, having drained dry one of the ditches, brought his military engines up to the walls of the place. In vain, however, did he batter down a portion of the wall--the garrison had erected another wall behind it; in vain did he advance his towers--they had movable towers ready prepared to resist him. No progress had been made by the besiegers, when on a sudden the resistance of the besieged slackened.

Intelligence had reached them of Nekht-nebf's hasty retreat. If the king gave up hope, why should they pour out their blood to no purpose?

Accordingly they made overtures to Lacrates for a surrender upon terms, and it was agreed that they should be allowed to evacuate the place and return to Greece, with all the goods and chattels that they could carry with them. Bagoas demurred to the terms; but Ochus confirmed them, and Pelusium pa.s.sed into the possession of the Persians without further fighting.

About the same time Mentor had proceeded southwards and laid siege to Bubastis. Having invested the town, he caused intelligence to reach the besieged that Ochus had determined to spare all who should surrender their cities to him without resistance, and to treat with the utmost severity all who should fight strenuously in their defence. By these means he introduced dissension within the walls of the towns, since the native Egyptians and their Greek allies naturally distrusted and suspected each other. At Bubastis the Egyptians were the first to move.

The siege had only just begun when they sent an envoy to Mentor's colleague, Bagoas, to offer to surrender the town to him. But this proceeding did not suit the Greeks, who caught the messenger, extracted from him his message, and then attacked the Egyptian portion of the garrison and slew great numbers of them. The Egyptians, however, though beaten, persisted, established communication with Bagoas, and fixed a day on which they would receive his forces into the town. Mentor, who wished to secure to himself the credit of the surrender, hereupon exhorted his Greek friends to be on the watch, and, when the time came, to resist the movement. This they did with such success that they not only frustrated the attempt, but captured Bagoas himself, who had ventured within the walls. Bagoas had to implore the interference of his colleague on his behalf, and was obliged to promise that henceforth he would attempt nothing without Mentor's knowledge and consent. Mentor gained his ends, had the credit of being the person to whom the town surrendered itself, and at the same time established his ascendancy over Bagoas. It is clear that had the Egyptians possessed an active and able commander, advantage might have been taken of the jealousies which divided the Persian generals from their Greek colleagues, to bring the expedition into difficulties.

Unfortunately, the Egyptian monarch, alike pusillanimous and incapable, was so far from making any offensive effort, that he was not prepared even to defend his capital against the invaders. When he found that Pelusium and Bubastis had both fallen, and that the way lay open for the Persians to march upon Memphis and invest it, he left the city with all the wealth on which he could lay his hands, and fled away into Ethiopia.

Ochus did not pursue him. He was content to have regained a valuable province, which for above fifty years had been lost to the Persian crown, without even having had to fight a single pitched battle, or to engage in one difficult siege. According to the Greek writers, he showed his contempt of the Egyptian religion after his conquest by stabbing an Apis-Bull, and violating the sanct.i.ty of a number of the most holy shrines; but the story of the Apis-Bull is probably a fiction, and it was to obtain the plunder of the temples, not to insult the Egyptian G.o.ds, that he violated the shrines. There is no trace of his having treated the conquered people with cruelty, or even with severity.

Prudence induced him to destroy the walls and other fortifications of the chief Egyptian towns; and cupidity led him to carry off into Persia all the treasures that Nekht-nebf had left behind. Even the sacred books, of which he is said to have robbed the temples, may have been taken on account of their value. We do not hear of his having dragged off any prisoners, or inflicted any punishment on the country for its rebellion. Even the tribute is not said to have been increased.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that, when once Persia took resolutely in hand the subjugation of the revolted province, a few months sufficed for its accomplishment. The resources of Persia were out of all comparison with those of Egypt; alike in respect of men and of money, there was an extreme disparity. What had protected Egypt so long was the multiplicity of Persia's enemies, the large number of wars that were continually being waged and the want of a bold, energetic, and warlike monarch. As soon as the full power of the vast empire of the Achaemenidae was directed against the little country which had detached itself, and pretended to a separate existence, the result was certain.

Egypt could no more maintain a struggle against Persia in full force than a lynx could contend with a lion. But while all this is indubitably true, the end of Egypt might have been more dignified and more honourable than it was. Nekht-nebf, the last king, was a poor specimen of the Pharaonic type of monarch. He had none of the qualities of a great king. He did not even know how to fall with dignity. Had he gathered together all the troops that he could anyhow muster, and met Ochus in the open field, and fallen fighting for his crown, or had he even defended Memphis to the last, and only yielded himself when he could resist no longer, a certain halo of glory would have surrounded him. As it was, Egypt sank ingloriously at the last--her art, her literature, her national spirit decayed and almost extinct--paying, by her early disappearance from among the nations of the earth, the penalty of her extraordinarily precocious greatness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE FAYOUM SHOWING THE BIRKET-EL-KEROUN AND THE ARTIFICIAL LAKE 'MRIS'.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. PATERNOSTER SQUARE. E.C.]